An Phoblacht, July 2015

Stormont Budget Bill buys time

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COLLUSION T V exposés unravel Westminster's web

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COLLUSION

RTÉ’s probe into ‘three decades of reported collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the British security forces’

Death squads from Downing Street

BY PEADAR WHELAN & JOHN HEDGES BROADCAST on Monday 15 June, Collusion (by the “RTÉ Investigations Unit”) prompted some to comment ‘30 years too late’ or ‘What took you so long?’

The fact that RTÉ rigorously enforced state censorship and tamely took the Government line on collusion being largely republican propaganda also loomed large in many minds.

Having former RUC officer John Weir tell on screen how he personally and the ‘security forces’ worked hand in glove with the notorious sectarian death squad known as the Glenanne Gang (made up of serving police officers and soldiers with Ulster Volunteer Force paramilitaries) was novel, but Collusion raised more questions that it answered, left more gaps in the narrative than it filled.

Anne Cadwallader’s excellent exposé, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, forensically pieced together the activities of the Glenanne Gang, showing that

RUC officer John Weir told how he personally and the ‘security forces’ worked hand in glove with the notorious sectarian death squad known as the Glenanne Gang they were operating with impunity and with British state aid.

Pulling the strings of the Glenanne Gang were British Intelligence operatives such as SAS captain Robert Nairac and Fred Holroyd of the British Army’s Special Military Intelligence Unit, based in Mahon Road Barracks in Portadown.

Acclaimed British journalist Paul Foot in his investigative book Who Framed Colin Wallace? (about the psychological warfare specialist at Lisburn British Army HQ convicted of manslaughter in 1981) also delves into the murky world of Britain’s ‘dirty war’.

Both books take us to the heart of collusion in a way RTÉ’s programme

5 Former British Premier Edward Heath

5 Colonel Gordon Kerr

5 RUC officer John Weir

Collusion – Front Page Portraits

failed to. RTÉ, the state’s official broadcaster, was playing catch-up. This is an indictment of the failure of successive Dublin governments (and the Dublin media) down the decades to confront the British administrations at Stormont, Whitehall and Westminster about its employment of loyalist deaths squads.

Retired Irish Government diplomat Seán Donlon said that when former taoisigh Jack Lynch and Liam Cosgrave raised collusion with British Premier Edward Heath, he simply denied it.

According to Donlon, “That was it.”

The British state was let off the hook.

This was despite the fact that the top British general in the North, Harry Tuzo, ignored open displays of weapons by the UDA. British Army foot patrols were seen being accompanied by uniformed and masked UDA thugs brandishing

batons and pickaxe handles. It spoke volumes about their relationship. This was a UDA which carried out vicious, sectarian massacres since 1971 but was perfectly legal until August 1992.

As Whitehall wrestled with the problem of its worldwide image as TV crews and photographers recorded the British Army’s gung-ho interventions during the Falls Curfew, internment, the Ballymurphy and Westrock Massacres, Bloody Sunday in Derry and the New Lodge killings in 1973, the loyalist paramilitaries of the UVF and UDA became the arm’s length cutting edge of British military and security strategy.

Sinn Féin Vice-President Máire Drumm was assassinated in her hospital bed in 1976.

As the H Block/Armagh protests dominated political life in Ireland, activists Miriam Daly, John Turnley,

• Elizabeth ‘Betty’ McDonald, killed when a no-warning unionist bomb detonated outside the Step Inn pub, Keady, Co Armagh, 1976

• Eamon Fox, shot dead while working

on a building site in Tiger’s Bay, Belfast, 1994

• Eddie Fullerton, Sinn Féin

councillor, shot in his Co Donegal home, 1991

• Sheena Campbell, a law student

• • • • • • •

The UDA had carried out sectarian massacres since 1971 but was perfectly legal until August 1992

Hugh Orde said that British Army Colonel Gordon Kerr (head of the notorious Force Research Unit that ran agents such as Brian Nelson, the UDA’s intelliFran O’Toole, killed in Miami gence chief targeting Catholic civilians Showband Massacre, near Newry, south as well as republicans) should have Armagh, 1975 faced trial.

Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Rosemary Nelson, civil liberties Police chief who went on to lead three solicitor, killed by unionists who boobyBritish Government inquiries into collutrapped her car, Lurgan, 1999 sion, recommended the arrest and prosecution of 24 RUC Special Branch Roseann Mallon, murdered by the and British Army officers.

UVF, 1994 Systemic is the word coming into Peter McTasney, shot dead at his common usage to describe the extent of home in Bawnmore, north Belfast, 1991 collusion. Another one should be continuity. Continuity because the thread Patrick Finucane, human rights of collusion runs unbroken through lawyer killed by UDA, 1989 successive British administrations, the Sharon McKenna, Catholic taxi Civil Service, the Intelligence services, driver, shot dead, 1993 the judicial and legal apparatus, and the mainstream media which never, Dwayne O’Donnell, killed by the contemporaneously, held any British UVF at Boyle’s Bar, Cappagh, 1991 minister to account for what happened Gary Convie, shot dead while in the North.

Collusion is still a big story now, not working on a building site in Tiger’s Bay, 5 Anti-H-Block/Amragh campaigners were targeted for assassination by death squads a thing of the past.

Belfast, 1994

and dedicated Sinn Fein activist, killed while sitting in the York Hotel, Belfast, 1992

•

Ronnie Bunting and Noel Lyttle were shot dead by UDA hit squads while Bernadette McAliskey and her husband were seriously wounded Civil liberties lawyers Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson were ‘taken out’ because they exposed the legal system for the sham that it was.

As Sinn Féin grew as a political force, leadership figures at both local and national level were gunned down by the death squads.

What was good about Collusion was its line-up of senior figures in policing of that era (RUC Inspector Ray White, RUC Chief Constable Hugh Orde, Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan) and Dave Cox, ex-head of the North’s Historical Enquiries Team, all reaffirming what republicans have been saying for years – that collusion was a central plank of Britain’s war in Ireland.

July / Iúil 2015

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3

STORMONT BUDGET BILL

Support creates space for lasting solution

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE THE decision by Sinn Féin to support the Budget Bill in the Assembly at Stormont will create the space to resolve the current difficulties facing the Executive, Martin McGuinness MLA has said.

The deputy First Minister made the comment as he announced Sinn Féin’s decision to give conditional support to the Budget Bill in the Assembly on Monday 22 June.

The decision to back the budget was taken by the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle when it met at Naas, County Kildare, the previous day, before the Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown.

Announcing Sinn Féin’s position on the budget, Martin McGuinness said voting for the Bill would allow time for a new process of negotiations to resolve the crisis that British Government austerity polices have created for the Executive.

“Sinn Féin will support the current budget Bill to create the space to resolve outstanding issues and ensure the Executive has workable and sustainable finances and the full implementation of the Stormont House Agreement.

“We need to ensure that the Executive has the resources to continue to build a peaceful, inclusive and tolerant society,” he said.

Martin McGuinness (who on the Saturday addressed a quarter of a million people at an anti-austerity rally at Westminster) said the austerity policies of the Tory Government are undermining the ability of the Executive to deliver public services and warned that any further cuts would make the political institutions in the North unsustainable.

“There remains a fundamental challenge for the Executive around welfare protections. But while we explore a way forward on this issue, the other important elements of the Stormont

5 Martin McGuinness said that Sinn Féin support for the Bill would allow time for new negotiations

House Agreement, including the essential legacy mechanisms, should and must proceed.

“This Budget Bill does not involve any reduction in social security support for the most vulnerable in our society. And it does not contain any in-year reductions as a consequence of the £25billion of further cuts announced by the Tories.

“The Executive now has nowhere to go in the context of the further eye-watering cuts planned by the Tories. There is no room to manoeuvre.

There are no more savings to be made.

“Any further cuts to our budget will dramatically impact on frontline services, on our economy and on our society. That is not sustainable and

Martin McGuinness said the austerity policies of the Tory Government at Westminster are undermining the ability of the Executive to deliver public services and warned that any further cuts would make the political institutions in the North unsustainable

it is a scenario that is not acceptable to Sinn Fein,” he said.

The deputy First Minister also said the British Government’s austerity agenda is failing communities in the North and in Britain.

“The newly-elected Tory Government has indicated that this ideologically-driven assault on public services will not only continue but that it will be escalated.

“Unlike the Tory millionaires, I live in a workingclass community in the heart of the Bogside in Derry. The people the Tories are targeting are my friends, my neighbours, my family. They are a proud and decent community of fine,

5 The Tory Government has indicated that its ideologically-driven assault on public services will not only continue but will be escalated

hard-working people – just like our people in working-class unionist communities.

“They are not, as the Tories claim, parasites or spongers.

“It is David Cameron’s Cabinet of millionaires who have no comprehension of life in unionist and nationalist working-class communities and who have been given free rein to live out their Thatcherite fantasies at the expense of ordinary, decent communities throughout these islands.

“Austerity is devastating these communities.

“Austerity is a politically-misguided approach and it does not work. It impedes economic recovery and punishes the working poor, public sector workers, the disabled and the vulnerable.”

The Sinn Féin Chief Negotiator said there is now a need for a united voice coming from Stormont to challenge the British Government.

“The ideologically-driven cuts agenda has created a political and financial crisis for our Executive and Assembly. But this crisis is not between the parties in the Assembly. This is a crisis imposed on the Assembly – and the Assemblies in Wales and Scotland – by the Tory Government in Westminster.

“No one here stood on a pro-austerity platform.

The Tories who did stand on a pro-austerity platform received a derisory vote in May. They are a fringe party in the North of Ireland – and in Scotland and in Wales. But they are a fringe party that is imposing its failed ideology on societies that voted against this approach. That is fundamentally undemocratic.

“So let’s come at this positively. Let’s try to find solutions.

“We must, as a united Assembly and a united Executive, engage with the two governments as a matter of urgency in defence of our political process, in defence of our core public services and in defence of the most marginalised and vulnerable in our society.”

4 July / Iúil 2015

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anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 10 & 11

Wolfe Tone Commemoration

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht

Budget Bill buys time THE DECISION by Sinn Féin to support the Budget Bill before the Stormont Assembly buys everyone time to find a lasting solution to the relentless austerity agenda imposed by Tory millionaires in the British Cabinet who have no mandate in the North of Ireland.

Sinn Féin stood in the recent Westminster elections against Tory austerity and for social justice and equality. Its approach was mandated by over 176,000 voters, almost 25% of the popular vote. In contrast, the Tories received only 9,000 votes in the North – just over 1% of the vote.

The Conservative Party doesn’t have a single Assembly or local council seat in the Six Counties. They have no democratic mandate for their austerity policies here. (They have none in Scotland or Wales either.)

Report and photos

14

Contact

Interview

NEWS editor@anphoblacht.com NOTICES notices@anphoblacht.com PHOTOS photos@anphoblacht.com

Kieran Rose on the struggle for LGBT rights

18 & 19

O'Donovan Rossa

Unrepentant Fenian bomber

21 Lá na Cinniúna Teacht don Ghréig

22

Uncomfortable Conversations Reverend Brian Kennaway, Presbyterian minister and member of the Orange Order

26 & 27

Surf and Turf

The transformation of Ireland's traditional cuisine

SUBSCRIBE ONLINE To get your An Phoblacht delivered direct to your mobile device or computer for just €10 per 12 issues and access to the historic The Irish Volunteer newspaper posted online weekly and An Phoblacht’s/IRIS the republican magazine archives

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

The seemingly endless financial crises caused by the diktats of wealthy English Tories from the Palace of Westminster cannot continue.

Relentless pursuit of austerity by the Tory Party is undermining the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and rendering the current situation unsustainable.

Sinn Féin will not do Tory austerity.

This is a time when the Executive parties need to stand together to defend public services, particularly in health, education and welfare protection.

Conditional support for this Budget Bill has bought some time. Both the British and Irish governments must now come to the table with ideas to resolve the issues and deliver a workable and sustainable budget.

AN PHOBLACHT is published monthly by Sinn Féin. The views in An Phoblacht are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sinn Féin. We welcome articles, opinions and photographs from new contributors but contact the Editor first.

An Phoblacht, Kevin Barry House, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone: (+353 1) 872 6 100. Email: editor@anphoblacht.com

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SINN FÉIN BEGINS OUTLINING ITS VISION FOR GOVERNMENT

A Fair Recovery is Possible A FAIR RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE is the first in a series of policy platforms launched by Sinn Féin in July outlining its vision for Government and addressing key issues which it says are priorities for the party.

A Fair Recovery is Possible explains Sinn Féin's key commitments and priorities in the areas of workers' rights and fair pay, public services, abolition of water charges and tax system reforms, addressing the housing crisis and the all-Ireland economy.

Speaking to An Phoblacht ahead of the launch of the document, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD said: “In the coming months we will set out our manifesto on a range of detailed, costed policies. This document aims to set out some of our priorities. It is designed to start a debate about the future, about what type of country and society we want to live in, about equality, and the type of recovery we want.”

Proposals include raising the minimum wage by €1 an hour, banning zero-hours contracts,

abolishing the property and water charges and reforming USC to ease the burden on low-income and middle-income households.

Investment includes €1billion to deliver 6,600 more homes than what the current Government is promising and kick-starting the recruitment of additional frontline workers in the health service, as well as the provision of affordable childcare.

Continuing cross-Border co-operation and developing the all-Ireland economy is a priority and the party says it will continue its campaign for an all-Ireland referendum on Irish unity.

Gerry Adams says the next election will be “a choice between the failed, unequal policies of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour, or the republican vision and policies of Sinn Féin”, adding that returning

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD

the same old parties will simply continue a two-tier recovery that “will benefit themselves and their friends at the top”.

“Sinn Féin will be taking the

debate to every community across the state as we move towards the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising and delivering on the ideals of the Proclamation,” Gerry Adams said.

July / Iúil 2015

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5

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh Cothrom na Féinne uaidh na Saoistí Sóisialta Tuaithe

mNa déan dearam ar do shluasaid TÁ AN Scéim Sóisialta Tuaithe ag feidhmiú sna ceantair tuaithe ó bhí 2004 ann. Tá 2,600 duine páirteach sna scéimeanna ar fud na tíre. Oibríonn siad faoi scáth 130 saoiste agus go minic oibríonn siad i gcomhair leis na scéimeanna fostaíochta pobail & scéimeanna ‘TÚS’ áitiúla ar oibreacha chomh maith. Ach, tá aighneas idir iad féin agus an Roinn Coimirce Sóisialaí mar gheall ar théamaí, coinníollacha oibre agus todhchaí na scéimeanna féin.

Ba é Éamon Ó Cuív a chum agus a cheap an Scéim Soisialta Tuaithe i 2004. Is léír nach ndearna sé aon ‘future-proofing’ air. An aidhm atá leis ná chun “ioncaim a sholáthar d’fheirmeoirí agus d’iascairí a bhíonn ag fáil íocaíochtaí leasa shóisialaigh go fadtéarmach agus chun seirbhísí áirithe a rachaidh chun sochair na bpobal tuaithe a chur ar fáil”. Is foríonadh tacaíochta ioncaim atá sa Scéim Sóisialta Tuaithe agus íoctar €20 sa bhreis ar an ráta íocaíochtaí leasa shoisialai le rannpháirtithe.

Tá an scéim aistrithe ón Roinn Gnóthaí Pobail & Tuaithe mar a bhí, chuig an Roinn Coimirce Sóisialaí ag an rialtas seo agus is minic iad ag obair leis na scéimeanna eile sa bpobal ar oibreacha ar nós cothabháil hallaí pobail, caohmnú reiligeacha, glanadh bóithre agus eile.

Measann na saoisti ar na Scéimeanna Sóisialta Tuaithe nach bhfuil siad ag fáil aitheantas dá réir as an obair a dhéanann siad agus tá siad in adharca leis na h-údaráis dhá bharr.

Deir an Dr Chris McInerney ó Ollscoil Luimnigh, a bhfuil staidéar faoi leith déanta aige ar na scéimeanna seo “gur uirlís riachtanach forbartha tuaithe” atá sa scéim a “dhearbahíonn don duine

Ní bhfuair na saoistí ar na scéimeanna, deir siad, aon ardú pá le deich mbliana ó thosaigh na scéimeanna, níl aon chóras ardaithe pá ann dóibh. Bíonn siad ag streachailt de bharr ganntann áiseanna, ábhar agus maoiniú do na scéimeanna, in ainneoin go bhfuil na dualgais atá orthu ag meadú an t-am ar fad.

Tá siad míshásta nach bhfuil ionadaíocht

Measann na saoisti ar na Scéimeanna Sóisialta Tuaithe nach bhfuil siad ag fáil aitheantas dá réir as an obair a dhéanann siad agus tá siad in adharca leis na h-údaráis dhá bharr luach a gcuid saothar sa bpobal ina mhaireann siad”. Deir sé freisin, go dtugann na scéimeanna luach an-mhaith airgid don rialtas. As gach €1 a chaitheann siad faigheann siad luach €2.43 mar thoradh air, gan trácht ar na buntáistí pobail eile a eascraíonn as – ar nós teagmháil sóisialta, ardú ar chaipitil sóisialta go h-áitiúil, rochtain níos fearr ar oiliúint, comhairle agus eolais.

IN PICTURES

5 Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness MLA with victims of collusion and state violence at Stormont

mar is ceart acu sna comhraití atá ar bun ag an ‘Irish Leader Development Network’ atá i mbun comhráití leis an Roinn Coimirce Sóisialaí maidir le todhchaí na scéimeanna.

Tá siad amhrasach má thugtar an iomarca cead a gcinn do na comhlachtaí forbartha pobail atá ag feidhmiú na scéimeanna ar son na roinne, go mbeidh siad gann ar acmhainní

agus áiseanna dá bharr.

Tá doiléireacht ann maidir le feidhm “filleadh ar fhostaíocht” na scéimeanna. Ar lámh amhain tá an roinn ag iarraidh orthu daoine a chuir de na scáimeanna agus iad a fháil ar ais ag obair, ach ar an lámh eile níl siad sásta aitheantas cuí a thabhairt do na saoisti leis an obair sin a dhéanamh – I gcomhréir le saoistí ar na scéimeanna fostaíochta pobail mar shampla.

Tá ceisteanna eile acu a bhaineann le cearta pinsin, iomarcaíochta agus eile chomh maith.

Tá na saoistí ag ardú na ceisteanna seo leis an roinn cuí ó 2005 ar aghaidh. Ó 2009 tá SIPTU ag troid a gcás ar a son freisin, ach fós féin, níl siad tada níos soiléire faoi cá seasann siad, nó cén chaoi an bhfuil an rialtas chun cothrom na féinne a thabhairt dóibh.

Is cinnte nár leag Éamon Ó Cuív bonn ceart faoin scéim seo ó thús, in ainneoin go bhfuil obair an-fhiúntach dhá dhéanamh ar scéimeanna éagsúla. Ach, cinnte níl an rialtas seo tada níos fearr ó thaobh aghaidh a thabhairt ar an éagcothromaíocht atá sa chóras.

Tá Sinn Féin ag iarraidh ar an Aire Coimirce Sóisialaí seo a dhéanamh anois agus ról lárnach a thabhairt d’ionadaithe na saoistí sa phroiséas a bhaineann leis.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 World Refugee Day on Dublin's Grafton Street: Activists highlight that the number of refugees and people displaced by conflict has surpassed that reached during the Second World War

6 July / Iúil 2015

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Chaotic scenes in European Parliament as vote on controversial free trade deal postponed amid protests by Sinn Féin and GUE/NGL MEPs

EU panic as public rejects TTIP “The thousands of citizens protesting, emailing and petitioning their politicians has certainly made an impact and I would encourage them all to keep up this pressure to help deliver a strong ‘No’ to a deal which will benefit the corporations at the expense of the citizens.”

An online consultation carried out by the European Commission received over 150,000 responses of which 97% were opposed to TTIP. Over 2million people from every part of Europe have signed a European Citizens’ Initiative campaign opposing the deal.

Following the vote, Ireland South Sinn Féin MEP Liadh Ní Riada accused Fine Gael’s Seán Kelly MEP of betraying the farming community. She described the unwavering support for TTIP by him and his Fine Gael colleagues as

BY MARK MOLONEY A KEY EU VOTE on the highly controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Parntership (TTIP) free trade deal – being negotiated between the European Commission and the United States – was postponed amid dramatic scenes in the European Parliament in June.

The debate on TTIP was also suspended in what Sinn Féin MEP for the North, Martina Anderson, described as “a stunt” amid reports of large-scale objections to TTIP inside some of the larger centrist political groupings.

While the decison to postpone a vote on the report and amendments was a top story on news channels across Europe, it barely featured in the Irish mainstream media.

5 Demonstrators protest against TTIP at European Union House in Dublin

Dublin Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan said the EU was ‘rattled’ by the widespread opposition across Europe to the deal Critics of the controversial trade deal say it will seriously damage workers’ rights; force down environmental, food safety and animal rights standards; hit the viability of small farms; and damage democracy.

The deal includes an Investor States Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism which would allow large mulitnational companies to sue governments in private courts should the Government do anything (like raising the minimum wage!) which companies feel would damage their profits.

Reacting to the postponement, Midlands North West Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy said it shows that public

pressure on the EU is working: “The report on TTIP, as currently presented by the Trade Committee, is wholly insufficient to address the concerns of citizens across the EU. From an Irish point of view, it does not include the necessary provisions to protect our agriculture sector or other vulnerable sections of our economy.”

Fine Gael Dublin MEP Brian Hayes complained that campaigners are derailing the trade deal “for political reasons” and claimed the failure of the trade deal would be “suicidal”. Speaking to EuroParl Radio, Hayes said he was “disappointed we can’t get this through” and claimed it was being exploited by “anti-globalisation and hard-Left” activists.

5 Protests during the Strasbourg plenary session of the European Parliament in June

But Matt Carthy hit out at Hayes and his fellow Fine Gael MEPs, as well as the Irish Government, for failing to look into the legislation themselves and instead simply taking the word of the EU Commission.

Dublin Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan said the EU was “rattled” by the consistent and widespread opposition across Europe to the deal:

Ireland South Sinn Féin MEP Liadh Ní Riada accused Fine Gael’s Seán Kelly MEP of betraying the farming community “an extraordinary selling-out of the Irish people on an international scale”.

Kelly had even called for an ISDS secret court to be located in Ireland.

Liadh Ní Riada described the ISDS as a “shady, behind-closed-doors forum for corporations to sue governments” and said Fine Gael’s desire to have such an entity located in Ireland as “scandalous”.

“It shouldn’t be located anywhere as its existence would be an affront to democracy,” she said.

As An Phoblacht goes to print it is still unclear if the report and amendments on TTIP will be debated at the EU plenary session underway in Brussels at the end of June or a later date.

July / Iúil 2015

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Tory assault on North’s economy has implications for everyone

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE

‘The current difficulties were not caused by the Executive – they have been caused by the extreme austerity policies of the British Government’

NEWLY-APPOINTED Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy has said there is a growing realisation across all sectors of society in the North of the devastating impact the Tory cuts agenda will have unless it is stopped.

Conor Murphy returned to Stormont as an MLA on Monday 8 June, replacing Mickey Brady who was elected as an MP for Newry & Armagh in the May Westminster elections.

Conor signed the Assembly register with Speaker Mitchel McLaughlin alongside Newry & Armagh colleagues Megan Fearon and Cathal Boylan.

Before returning to the Assembly, Conor had previously served as the MP for the area for ten years from 2005 to 2015.

He is no stranger to Stormont, having first been elected to the Assembly in 1998 and re-elected

The Newry & Armagh MLA has been involved in building a broadbased alliance against the Tory cuts agenda at successive elections before stepping down in 2012 as part of Sinn Féin’s commitment to end double-jobbing.

During his previous time at Stormont he served on the Executive as Minister for Regional Development, successfully blocking the introduction of water charges during his tenure.

Recently, he has played a central role in Sinn Féin’s negotiating team, heading up the talks which led to the Stormont House Agreement alongside Martin McGuinness.

He has become one of Sinn Féin’s key spokespersons on the campaign against the British Government’s austerity agenda.

Speaking to An Phoblacht, Conor Murphy said more and more people are becoming aware of the impact Tory policies could have on the North if allowed to go unchallenged.

“There is a growing realisation across all sectors – business, trade unions and wider civic society – that the the policies of the British Government are not just about attacking the most vulnerable in society. This is a full-frontal attack on economic

5 Thousands march to defend public services

Conor Murphy MLA

recovery and will impact on everyone on society.

“The extent of the cuts is slowly becoming clear.

They have already raided £1.5billion from the Block Grant and now British Chancellor [Finance Minister] George Osborne has announced his intention for a further £25billion in cuts from 2015-18. That means an estimated £800,000 will be taken from the North’s economy over the next three years.

“Taken together, that amounts to an overall loss of £2.3billion to the Northern economy at the hands of a Cabinet of Tory millionaires in London who have no mandate from the people of the North.

“This goes far beyond the Tories’ assault on the most vulnerable in society and has implications for everyone as the Stormont Executive’s ability to deliver public services is consistently undermined,” he said.

The Newry & Armagh MLA has also been involved in building a broad-based alliance against the Tory cuts agenda.

“There is a need for a wide range of groups from across society – including trade unions, churches, political parties and others – to stand together to oppose this austerity agenda which seeks to slash public services and punish the most vulnerable in society.

“As well as harnessing the support of those groups in the North and across Ireland, an opportunity also exists now to build on the opportunities

5 British Chancellor George Osborne

presented by the growth in support for those opposed to austerity throughout these islands.

“I was in London the day after I returned to Stormont for a series of engagements with a number of groups to discuss the need for a broad-based opposition to the austerity agenda coming from London.

“As part of those engagements I, alongside Pat Doherty MP and Paul Maskey MP, met with Angus Robertson, the leader of the Scottish National Party group at Westminster.”

Conor Murphy also said the devolved political institutions have a role to play in opposing the cuts agenda of the British Tories.

“As well as building opposition against the cuts among political parties and wider civic society, the debate must be broadened out further.

“A call has been made for a negotiation between the Executive parties, the Scottish Assembly and Welsh Assembly and the British Government and we need to make that happen. We need to be using the political institutions as part of the opposition to the cuts agenda,” he explained.

Conor Murphy said the focus of the campaign against the cuts should remain on the British Government.

“It must be remembered that the current difficulties were not caused by the Executive; they have been caused by the extreme austerity policies of the British Government and we need to see a change in that approach.”

8 July / Iúil 2015

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Dáil Bills so vague they could be used to stifle legitimate criticism of Government or politicians across social media

Labour’s new

online censorship proposals

BY MARK MOLONEY TWO DÁIL BILLS proposed by the Labour Party purportedly aimed at curbing online ‘trolls’ (including provision for offenders to be locked-up for ‘offensive’ messages) are so vague that they could be used to stifle legitimate criticism of the Government or politicians across social media platforms.

Galway Senator Lorraine Higgins says that her Harmful and Malicious Electronic Communications Bill 2015 “aims to protect against and mitigate harm caused to individuals by all or any digital communications, and to provide such individuals with a means of redress for any such offending behaviours directed at them”.

Meanwhile, Labour former Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte has published a separate Public Electronic Communications Network (Improper Use) Bill.

Higgins’s Bill describes a “malicious communication” as “an electronic communication where it intentionally or recklessly causes alarm, distress

Digital Rights Ireland notes that online bullying is already covered by two pieces of legislation or harm to the other” and says a person found guilty of such an offence could face a fine of €5,000 or imprisonment for up to 12 months.

cursory glance at the Twitter feed of Gerry Adams shows this. However, most politicians adhere to the rule of ‘Don’t feed the trolls’ and simply ignore them or block them if they persistently clutter their timeline.

In situations of threats or constant harassment, current legislation is already in place to deal with such issues. New laws are simply not necessary.

To show how ridiculous but far-reaching these proposals are, under her own party’s Bills, Lorraine Higgins could retrospectively find herself in trouble.

During the 2014 European elections she took aim at Independent candidate Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, issuing tweets depicting a poorly photo-shopped version of him as Dustin the Turkey with the strapline “Don’t send another turkey to Europe”. This surely qualifies as an attempt to “intentionally cause distress” to her opponent.

Digital Rights Ireland, an organisation dedicated to defending civil rights in a digital age, has responded to these recent online censorship Bills and warns of the repercussions they could have for free speech: “In a judgment handed down in March, the Indian Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a law very similar to some proposals for the Irish Internet. It found that the law, by criminalising “grossly offensive”, “menacing” and “annoyance” messages, had a chilling effect on freedom of expression and lent itself to abuse by

5 Technology-neutral legislation already exists to deal with online bullying, threats and abuse

politicians and others to silence criticism,” the organisation said.

Digital Rights Ireland notes that online bullying is already covered by two pieces of legislation: the Prohibition to Incitement of Hatred Act and the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act and say that the main shortfall is not the laws

Pat Rabbitte’s Bill plans to make it an offence for anybody who sends a message ‘known to be false’

Pat Rabbitte’s Bill plans to make it an offence for anybody who sends a message “known to be false” or “persistently” sends messages for the “purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another".

The vagueness of these proposals should sound alarm bells to social media users and anti-censorship campaigners, according to leading digital rights organisations. Lorraine Higgins says she was prompted to produce this legislation after she was targeted by online trolls during last year’s European elections. Unfortunately, abuse of politicians and celebrities online is widespread. A

themselves but the failure to enforce them – with gardaí often not taking reports of online abuse seriously or being unsure of how to proceed: “Two offences exist which are already technology-neutral and can apply to online communication. Better enforcement of these laws will safeguard freedom of expression and privacy online while allowing ample scope for prosecution against those bullying and harassing others online.”

Sinn Féin Communications spokesperson Michael Colreavy told An Phoblacht: “As legislators, it is not our job to suffocate social

Labour TD Pat Rabbitte and Senator Lorraine Higgins

media but instead work with the industry in an attempt to make social media as user-friendly as possible.”

Noting that bullying was a common problem before the digital age, he says greater supports are needed, particularly in schools, to provide clear guidelines and protocols on how to deal with reports of cyber bullying.

“We’ve seen from the Right2Water movement, as well as movements in other countries, how social media can be used in a positive way by ordinary people to effect social change. It is essential that the public can access and use social media as a means of expression and organisation.”

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

9

Media billions undermining press freedom I WONDER if Denis O’Brien does reminiscence.

Twenty years ago, Denis was planning a strategy to secure Ireland’s second mobile phone licence, a success that massively enriched him when it was sold to BT in 2000, earning him €317million.

I wonder what Denis thinks about how Irish media market regulation has consistently failed since 1995 while at the same time billions of euro has changed hands as companies, infrastructure and licences have been bought, sold, auctioned – he himself often the buyer more than seller.

It is interesting that I don’t need to know what Denis thinks of the revelations of his alleged unique banking relationship with the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. Denis got a 1,800word article in The Irish Times, a paper that days before would not publish a 924-word Dáil statement by Independent TD Catherine Murphy.

During those heady days in 1995 leading up to the granting of the licence for his ESAT consortium, O’Brien was a regular subscriber and supporter of Fine Gael events. He met with Enda Kenny and Richard Bruton on 17 May 1995. He supported 14 party functions, ‘golf classics’ and fund-raising lunches from March to 1995 to June 1996, shelling out over €22,000 in donations to Fine Gael.

(You can read about these meetings and events in the Moriarty Tribunal Report. I recommend starting at page 141 in Part 2 of Volume 2. Try www. moriarty-tribunal.ie.)

This is not to suggest that there was any wrongdoing by either the Fine Gael party or Denis O’Brien, but it is an insight into how the relationships between corporate and political Ireland function.

Now, in 2015, there is some distance between O’Brien and the heady days of 1995 and the acquaintances he made then. During that time, the Tony O’Reilly media empire has collapsed, replaced and enlarged by O’Brien’s interests in Independent News & Media, Communicorp and Siteserv. At the same time, UTV’s presence in the Irish media market across the island has grown into radio and TV holdings from Limerick to Dublin to Belfast.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has interests in not just Sunday and daily papers but a BSkyB satellite service that in the 26 Counties has 46% of the total TV multi-channel market. News Corp’s

BY ROBBIE SMYTH

5 Denis O’Brien's media empire in Ireland includes many newspapers, television and radio stations

nearest competitor, UPC, with a 26% share, is owned by Liberty Global. This multinational is currently undertaking due diligence on buying TV3. O’Brien’s

Hutchinson Whampoa, an investment company based in Hong Kong. The Irish side of 02 was sold for €850million.

Media and communication empires

on these mergers. Secondly, media freedom has been eroded by the trends in media ownership over the last 20 years. The departure of Sam

The ‘plural media’ we are left with of Communicorp, INM, RTÉ, 'The Irish Times' and others (who from January were loudly trumpeting the rights of 'Charlie Hebdo') are the ones who presided over the suppression of media freedom last month when they decided to censor the words of a TD INM is kicking the tyres too.

Finally, this year, O’Brien’s ESAT, swallowed up by BT, sold to 02, is now part of the Three Network owned by

are rising and falling in Ireland, with two clear consequences. Firstly, the Irish Government and its regulatory agencies have done almost nothing

5 O'Brien met with Fine Gael's Richard Bruton and Enda Kenny on 17 May 1995

Smyth from INM and the revelations by former Sunday Independent editor Anne Harris that she was prevented from reporting on Denis O’Brien, the

5 Catherine Murphy TD

paper’s largest shareholder, were signs of this happening.

We have taken ads for some fatty foods and sugary drinks off the TV, allowed product placements in TV dramas and light entertainment and begun wrestling with the appropriateness of alcohol sponsoring of sports.

There are more ads on TV and radio yet the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland proposes a severely restricted idea of broadcaster objectivity, eroding the right to fair comment.

In June 2015, the Fine Gael/Labour Government finally published media mergers guidelines. The rules only work on new deals and define a 20% shareholding as being a “significant interest” in terms of ownership. The government will decide whether new mergers will impact on ‘media plurality’.

They don’t deal with past mergers or what market share a media business has. You can see the guidelines at: www.dcenr.gov.ie/Broadcasting/ Guidelines+on+Media+Mergers.

The ‘plural media’ we are left with of Communicorp, INM, RTÉ, The Irish Times and others (who from January were loudly trumpeting the rights of Charlie Hebdo) are the ones who presided over the suppression of media freedom last month when they decided to censor the words of a TD. This was the latest episode in a death by a thousand omissions, deletions, shabby reporting, advertising-driven news and spurious celebrity reporting.

Despite the promise of new guidelines, in another 20 years our already small pool of media moguls will be smaller again.

IRISH MEDIA FACTS 2015

46%

BskyB share of multichannel TV market

26%

UPC share of multichannel TV market

1.8million

Communicorp’s weekly average audience

34%

RTÉ’s average weekly 26-County audience share

24%

50%

Communicorp’s average INM share of daily and weekly 26-County Sunday newspaper audience share market circulation

54%

Communicorp’s share of the Dublin radio audience

10 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION addressed by Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD

Republicans stand with Tone and the people

BY JOHN HEDGES “ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO YESTERDAY, on 20 June 1915, many of the women and men who went on to participate in the 1916 Rising were standing here where we now stand,” Mary Lou McDonald reminded the crowds gathered at Bodenstown in County Kildare for this year’s Sinn Féin Wolfe Tone Commemoration.

In that year, the guard of honour was made up of equal numbers of Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army members. A few weeks later they gathered in large numbers to bury the veteran Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa.

“This year,” Mary Lou said, “on the 1st of August, we in Sinn Féin will re-enact this historic occasion on the streets of Dublin, the first of our national events marking the centenary of the Easter Rising.”

The Sinn Féin deputy leader and TD for Dublin Central went on to describe Wolfe Tone as a political man of his time.

“His political struggles would in many ways foreshadow those of later generations,” she said.

“As with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, Tone’s peaceful demands were met with state violence. Sectarianism too was used by the British Government to divide the Irish people.

“The British Government sought to crush the United Irishmen in the 1790s because they challenged the sectarian regime based on landlordism and colonialism, and because they sought Irish independence. London was determined to defend privilege within Ireland and to prevent Ireland from taking its place among the nations.”

She said that Sinn Féin is determined to achieve a united Ireland in the spirit of Tone. Wolfe Tone summed it up well, she said, when he declared: ‘To say in one word: Ireland shall be independent.

“We shall be a nation, not a province; citizens, not slaves.”

5 Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald TD gives the main speech at the the Bodenstown commemoration

5 Mary Lou McDonald TD stands with Clerys locked-out workers at the store on O'Connell Street

‘We know which side we are on’

Coalition ‘bluster and bluff’ The Dublin TD said that, as a Dáil general election looms, Fine Gael and Labour “will trumpet what they claim as achievements” over the past four years.

But “behind their almighty bluster and bluff”, she said, stands the real record of Fine Gael and Labour while in government.

“Having cut families and communities to the bone, having crippled public services and having dispatched an entire generation to the emigrant trail, they now tell us that there is an economic recovery.

“Tell that to the children living in emergency accommodation, in hotel rooms and B&Bs! “Tell it to the families who face into the second half of 2015 without a home because of exorbitant rent rises or because sales of their rental homes have left them without a roof over their heads!

“Tell it to the 100-year-old women lying on hospital trollies in A&E! “Tell it to the unemployed and the working

poor, workers struggling on low wages just trying to get by!”

For these people and more, the much-proclaimed ‘green shoots of recovery’ are not to be seen, she said.

“Real recovery is felt in better public services and in better job opportunities, wages and conditions for workers. What we are seeing is a rise in low-wage employment, zero-hour contracts and total lack of employment stability for working people,” she said, pointing to the struggles of the workers at Dunnes Stores and Clerys as just two examples.

5 Martin McGuinness MLA spoke at the massive anti-austerity rally in London

To sustained applause, she pointed out that, the day before the Wolfe Tone Commemoration, Sinn Féin MLA and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness addressed a quarter of a million people at an anti-austerity rally in London.

“We stand with communities in Athens, London, Edinburgh and Cardiff and against the Tories in Britain, Dublin and Brussels.

“We know which side we are on.

“We are on the republican side, standing with the people. We will continue to fight Tory cuts – whether they come from Dublin or London.

“And we will fight for a fair recovery – for investment in services and decent jobs, for fair taxation, for secure homes and protections for people at vulnerable times in their lives.”

In the recent Westminster elections, Mary Lou said, Sinn Féin’s 18 candidates received a strong mandate to stand up against Tory cuts.

“We will honour our mandate.

“We will stand up and be counted – for a proper budget for the North and against Tory cuts, North and South.”

She ended: “Sinn Fein will actively work for Irish unity and bring about the Republic dreamt of by Wolf Tone. As we approach the centenary year of the 1916 Rising, we ask ever Irish woman and man – Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter – to help fulfill the dreams of those who signed the Proclamation and the vision of Wolfe Tone.

“To stand with us and each other to make Ireland – united and equal - a nation we can all be proud of once again.”

July / IĂşil 2015 

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Rose Dugdale and Mickey Brady MP present the South Derry Martyrs and the O'Neill/Allsopp flute bands with their prizes

5 The march departs from Sallins towards Bodenstown graveyard

5 Megan Fearon MLA chairs the commemoration

5 'Theobald Wolfe Tone' (actor Jim Roche) addresses republicans

5 Hundreds of republicans take part in the annual parade

5 Republican activists from across Ireland took part in the commemoration

11

12 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

43% RISE

IN RACIST HATE CRIMES IN 8 MONTHS

DUP wanted ethnic minorities chief prosecuted – for ‘hate crime’

BY PEADAR WHELAN PATRICK YU, Chief Executive of the North’s Council for Ethnic Minorities (NICEM), was threatened with being taken to court by the DUP – for a “hate crime”.

He had suggested that a ‘Holy Cross situation’ could occur if pupils from an ethnic background had to move from their school off the Lisburn Road to one in the loyalist Village area.

During 2001/2002, there was a UDA-backed siege by unionist mobs of Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne.

Catholic schoolchildren had to run a daily gauntlet of hate, including sectarian and sexual abuse as well as fireworks and even a pipe-bomb.

Due to falling pupils numbers, schools in the Donegall Road/Village area may be merged with Fane Street Primary 5 Patrick Yu says initial fears are legitimate due to the upsurge in racist attacks School, near the city’s Lisburn Road.

“It’s absolutely scandalous that groups from the Sandy Row, Donegall Almost two thirds of Fane Street pupils are immigrants from 22 countries, and people are making claims of racism Road and Village areas on Tuesday 9 as an excuse to oppose constructing June, Patrick Yu commented “it was a third are Muslim. a very poor choice” to cite the Holy In a submission to the Education a new school.”

Parents of children attending the Cross dispute in his earlier expression Authority, NICEM has warned there is “a high security risk of racist attacks schools in the Donegall Road and of concern. That said, his initial fears against ethnic minority and Muslim Village areas are protesting against that pupils may suffer abuse or indeed families if they are forced to move” the merger, with one woman saying: physical attack is a legitimate fear given “There’s ten different languages being the number of racist incidents in the from Fane Street.

Reacting to Patrick Yu’s comments, spoken at that school [Fane Street]. My south Belfast area.

The PSNI recently released figures Jimmy Spratt MLA said on Thursday child is in a school where the majority in which they have recorded a 43% 4 June that he would be reporting the of them speak English.”

Another maintained: increase in racist hate crimes in Belfast comments to the PSNI. “Parents won’t send their kids to mix in the space of eight months.

Backing the DUP MLA is Belfast City with new families because they believe The PSNI’s ‘Operation Reiner’ was set Councillor Bob Stoker of UKIP. up in May 2014 to tackle the growing In another strange scene from this it will hold their education back.” problem of racist attacks across the ‘You couldn’t make it up’ farce, Stoker, North. who defected from the Ulster Unionist HATE CRIMES RISE In the period to the end of January Party to join the anti-immigrant UKIP, After NICEM met with community 2015, 383 racially-motivated offences spluttered:

5 The UDA-backed siege of Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne forced Catholic schoolchildren to run a daily gauntlet of hate

were recorded across Belfast compared to 268 offences in the previous year.

A third of offences recorded last year took place in east Belfast, with the finger of blame being pointed largely at the unionist UVF. Also in south Belfast, the number of racist attacks rose from 105 to 125, a 19% increase which would indicate that the fears raised by NICEM are not without foundation.

Ironically, the furore over Yu’s remarks came in the days after the Polish Ambassador to Britain visited the North to discuss the increase in attacks on Polish nationals in the North.

While in Belfast, Ambassador Witold Sobkow met the North’s First and Deputy First Ministers, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, who said afterwards “we share the Ambassador’s concern about race hate crime and all forms of intimidation”.

They also confirmed that proposals for a racial equality strategy will be put to the Executive soon.

5 DUP's Jimmy Spratt MLA

PORTADOWN Meanwhile, in the loyalist Corcrain estate in Portadown, County Armagh, the houses of Portuguese nationals were daubed with threatening graffiti.

The front of one house had “Get Out or be put out! Scum!” painted on it while another was defaced with “Brits Only” and “No foreigners!”

Speaking to An Phoblacht, Councillor Catherine Seeley said: “The loyalists behind this must be isolated and those in political unionism in the town need to show leadership and confront the racists.”

5 UKIP Councillor Bob Stoker

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

13

5 The Union of Students in Ireland hold a silent protest against Fine Gael's policy to make Irish an optional subject for the Leaving Certificate

Irish faces extinction as a community language – unless positive action is taken now

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ THE VERY EXISTENCE of the Irish language as a spoken community language is under real threat, according to a survey published recently by Údarás na Gaeltachta.

The survey, by Conchúr Ó Giollagáin and Martin Charlton, indicates that, within ten years, Irish is unlikely to be the majority spoken language anywhere in Ireland.

The Gaeltacht, as we know it, will be dead.

This stark report shows that urgent action is needed now to sustain and enhance the use of Irish as a vernacular language. It is, however, worth noting that, in publishing the report, Údaras na Gaeltachta refused to publish the authors’ recommendations as to what should be done.

Sinn Féin MEP Liadh Ní Riada, herself a native Irish speaker from west Cork, said that the report is a damning indictment of “successive govern-

This survey indicates that, within ten years, Irish is unlikely to be the majority spoken language anywhere in Ireland ments who have abjectly failed to deliver on a core objective of the revolutionaries of 1916”.

Of course, predictions of the Gaeltacht’s imminent demise have been with us for some time, but the figures cited in the report allow for no misunderstanding. At present, out of 155 electoral districts in the Gaeltacht, only 21 have populations two thirds of whom speak Irish daily.

Increasingly, younger people use Irish only with their parents or grandparents and speak English among themselves.

There is therefore an urgent responsibility for all political parties who proclaim the importance

parties but that is a mark of how bad the rest of them are as much as anything else.

There is a challenge now to all political parties to move on from polite words of encouragement to a serious elaboration of the rights that need to be upheld and the responsibility of state institutions to use the language.

The language is declining in the Gaeltacht because the people who live there can see that

Increasingly, younger people use Irish only with their parents or grandparents and speak English among themselves 5 Within ten years the Gaeltacht, as we know it, could be no more

of the language to deliver a programme now to arrest this decline or accept that the language will die as a community vernacular.

All Dáil political parties have committed Irish-speakers in their ranks but it appears that the Irish revival is rarely more than lip-service.

The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, for example, is a committed Irish speaker who sent his own children to Gaelscoileanna but his government has done absolutely nothing to advance the Twenty Year Strategy for the Irish Language to which it is formally committed.

Indeed, the former Language Commissioner, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, was forced to resign in protest against the state’s indifference to the problems

facing the language, or the need to uphold the rights of those who speak it.

No wonder this government has been unable to give any support at all to the demand for a Language Act in the North, as agreed at St Andrew’s. It can hardly demand action from the British when it does nothing itself.

To be fair to Fianna Fáil, is was Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen who pushed through the Twenty Year Strategy (written by Éamon Ó Cuív) but that party has had little to say about this report, and the only party to make a serious issue of it has been Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin, however, can’t rest on its laurels.

The party may be streets ahead of all other Dáil

the state in real life does not value the language.

How many “Gaeltacht” schools use English as their medium of instruction? How many social affairs officers in Gaeltacht areas can speak Irish with their clients?

What support does the Department of Education give to Irish-language education?

If we want Irish to survive, active policies must be put in place to realise this, and local community initiatives are needed to restore a pride in speaking Irish, especially among the younger generation.

Irish speakers – whatever their political affiliation – must face the challenge and get out to make their concerns about the language heard and felt by all political parties.

14 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

KIERAN ROSE Co-Chair of Gay & Lesbian Equality Network on the huge ‘Yes’ vote and how things used to be

Looking forward with pride after the Marriage Equality Referendum

BY JOHN HEDGES KIERAN ROSE sat down with An Phoblacht in Sinn Féin’s Head Office in Parnell Square in Dublin a couple of weeks after the Marriage Equality Referendum. He hadn’t been there since the 1980s but he paid tribute to Sinn Féin and republicans for being “critical” in their support of and advocacy for the LGBT community and marriage equality. Sinn Féin “hasn’t played politics” with the issue of equal rights for the gay community, he said.

PHOTO BY DEREK SPEIRS

PHOTO BY DEREK SPEIRS

The overwhelming vote in the 26 Counties on 22 May when 1.2million people said ‘Yes’ to make the state the first in the world to endorse marriage equality was “a dam-burst of dreams” for someone who has been campaigning for civil rights since the 1970s.

He has always put his hopes in the progressive traditions that have been the undercurrents in Ireland.

When he first came out as gay, Kieran was moved by the tremendous support he got from his family (“My mother was a strong Catholic but she had no time for priests or bishops telling her as a woman what to do”), work colleagues in Cork County Council and the trade union movement in Cork.

“Even at the height of the repression, when the Right was really in the ascendant on social issues, I’ve always said that there are hugely positive traditions in Ireland based on the struggle against colonialism, for civil and democratic rights, and . . .” pausing to emphasise the point, “religious rights such as Catholic emancipation.

“We could appeal to Irish people based on all those positive traditions without being naive about the hugely negative, oppressive traditions here.”

Kieran was always appreciative of how big a step the issue of marriage equality was for straight people.

“What people have said – of all ages, all classes, rural and urban, working-class areas as well as better-off neighbourhoods – is ‘You’re totally equal’.”

It wasn’t always that way, though.

Kieran was born and grew up in Cork before going to Dublin to do a degree in planning. Returning to Cork in the late 1970s, he got involved in the lesbian and gay movement as well as becoming a trade union activist in the Local Government

5 Lesbians & Gays Against H-Block/Armagh

5 Kieran Rose at Dublin Castle during the count in the Marriage Equality Referendum

5 Sinn Féin was prominent in the protest at Fairview Park after the murder of Declan Flynn

& Public Services Union (now IMPACT) and the local trades council.

“When I went back down to Cork, in the 1970s, we were completely marginalised. We had no places to meet, not even a gay bar. It was a very oppressive environment and especially in a relatively small place like Cork.”

He helped to set up the Cork Gay Collective, which held the first-ever national gay conference in Cork. The conditions of the political prisoners in the Six Counties was raised by activists in ‘Lesbians & Gays Against H-Block/Armagh’.

Moving to Dublin, he was instrumental in setting up the Gay & Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) in 1988, of which he is now Co-Chairperson.

Six years before GLEN was established, in January 1982, Charles Self, a 33-year-old set designer with RTÉ, was murdered at his south Dublin home. The Garda investigation seemed to be more focused on harassing gay men (interviewing more than 1,500 of them and visiting some at their workplaces) rather than catching his killer. People active in Lesbians and Gays Against H-Block suffered extra pressures from the Garda Special Branch.

5 Kieran Rose, Chris Robson, Phil Moore and Suzy Byrne celebrate the decriminalisation of homosexuality outside Leinster House

Police tactics prompted pickets of Garda stations such as Pearse Street that were supported by Sinn Féin. “That was one of the defining moments when the gay community stood up, drew a line and said to the Guards no further,” Kieran said. “That was

‘There are hugely positive traditions in Ireland based on the struggle against colonialism, for civil and democratic rights’ a fantastic moment and a brilliant thing to picket the Garda stations.”

The following year, in April 1983, Declan Flynn, a 31-year-old Aer Rianta worker, was beaten to death in Dublin’s Fairview Park by a gang of teenagers who told police they had been out “queer bashing”.

The four received suspended jail sentences of up to five years, prompting the gay community to organise probably the first significant mass protest by them and their supporters from trade unions and civil rights groups marching through the north inner city. A Sinn Féin banner from the

Drumcondra-based Ernie O’Malley Cumann was prominent in Fairview Park.

Homosexuality was still illegal and that wasn’t going to change for another ten years, until 24 June 1993.

Now, in 2015, Ireland (well, part of it) has led the world by saying ‘Yes’ to marriage equality.

“At times the North was ahead of us [in the 26 Counties] in terms of decriminalisation,” Kieran said, “but now it’s nice to be able to show solidarity with the North for marriage equality.”

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

15

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Denise Mitchell, Councillor Sarah Holland, Louise O'Reilly, Councillor Shane O'Brien, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, Mary Lou McDonald TD, Councillor Cathleen Carney Boud and Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha at the launch of the campaign at Leinster House against cuts targeting lone parents

DON’T SINGLE OUT LONE PARENTS

BY MARK MOLONEY

A CAMPAIGN has been launched by Sinn Féin to oppose cuts aimed at the Lone Parent Allowance due to come into effect on 2 July. This cut is the eighth time since coming into Government that Fine Gael and Labour have targeted lone parents with cuts.

5 Tánaiste Joan Burton

“Almost 12,000 lone parents, most of whom are in fact working, will suffer a financial loss of up to €86 per week if Tánaiste Joan Burton proceeds with this cut,” Sinn Féin Social Protection spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD said.

“Cuts to the Lone Parent Allowance will drive some families into poverty.”

Describing the cuts as “mean-spirited and unfair”, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD told An Phoblacht at the launch of the postcard campaign outside Leinster House: “In 2012, Joan Burton, as Social Protection Minister, made a commitment that this cut would

Sinn Féin postcard campaign calls on Tánaiste to row back on attacks on one-parent families

not go ahead unless there was a bankable guarantee of affordable childcare and after-school care available, like they have in most Scandinavian countries.”

He reminded reporters that Joan Burton stated categorically that “if this is not forthcoming, the measure will not proceed”.

“That isn’t available, Aengus Ó Snodaigh reiterated An Phoblacht.

“So we’ve launched this postcard campaign to call on people across the state to write to the Tánaiste reminding her of her previous commitments and also to call on her to row back on these cuts.”

Aengus Ó Snodaigh also said there has been a recent disturbing increase in homelessness among one-parent families with figures from the Tenancy Protection Service showing that more than 60% of households seeking urgent assistance are lone-parent households: “Most of the lone parents who are going to be affected by this are working lone parents.

These families are the most socially deprived according to the Central Statstics Office and other studies. Tánaiste Joan Burton needs to live up to the commitments she made in Government.”

Most of the lone parents who are going to be affected by the July cut are working lone parents

Housing – Fine Gael/Labour Government plans fail reality test

BY RUAIRÍ DOYLE THE Urban Regeneration and Housing Bill 2015 sounds good but, like much of this Government’s legislation, it fails ‘the Ronseal test’.

The Government says its proposals will help address the acute housing crisis facing the state, particularly Dublin, but this Bill falls far short of the mark and will eventually amount to little more than a box-ticking exercise – something Fine Gael and Labour have relied upon time and again to prop up their so-called recovery.

Two initiatives take top billing:» A Vacant Site Levy; » The dismantling of the Part V programme.

The Vacant Site Levy is something

that Sinn Féin has called for for some time now and this Government has shown that it never misses an opportunity to mess up a good opportunity.

The 3% levy is not going to provide the sufficient incentive to build on

This Government has shown that it never misses an opportunity to mess up a good opportunity vacant land and many developers will simply pay the levy as an additional cost of doing business.

A greater incentive to build is crucial if we are to build a supply of housing,

5 Box-ticking won't solve the housing crisis facing the state

help stabilise rents and stem the flow into homelessness that is crippling our support networks. This is where the removal of the Affordable Housing Scheme and its replacement with Part V cuts even deeper. Part V puts social and affordable housing squarely on the back burner and even that is being diluted by this Government.

By cutting the social housing share to local authorities and making it more appealing for councils to lease than build, the Government is just perpetuating the crisis facing us.

Fine Gael and Labour have demonstrated their disdain for social housing once by introducing a Bill that will sound like a solution to a problem of their making while maintaining the old relationships with developers by guaranteeing a recoupment of costs through public funds.

16 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

H-Blocks TD PADDY AGNEW looks back on the epic 1980/1981 Hunger Strikes in Long Kesh

AND A

A UNITED IRELAND NEW IRELAND IS POSSIBLE THIS YEAR marks the 34th anniversary of the National Hunger Strike Commemoration which will be held in Dundalk, County Louth, on 23 August.

Paddy Agnew is a republican former POW and Blanket Man from Dundalk who was selected to stand for the constituency of Louth in the historic 26-County general election of 1981.

Not only was he elected but he topped the poll, a feat that wasn’t to be repeated until 2011, when Gerry Adams gave up his seat in West Belfast to stand for the Dáil.

We caught up with Paddy who still lives in Dundalk and he talked to us about what life was like for him, his memories of the prison protests and the people of Louth.

What were your first memories of your republican activism?

I think republicanism is something that was always just in me. My grandfather Paddy was interned during the Tan War so that was always part of my family history.

What really brought it home, though, was when refugees started arriving in Dundalk from

What really brought it home was when refugees started arriving in Dundalk from Belfast during the 1969-70 pogroms Belfast during the 1969-70 pogroms. They were ordinary families just like mine. They were put up in the Clan na Gael Hall beside me and lived in caravans behind our house and it made me ask questions: Why were these people here; what had happened that they had to leave their homes and move their families to another town?

I would have been around 15 years of age and found myself with my family helping these dispossessed people and talking to them. These were ordinary mothers, fathers and children who were lying on donated beds in the big hall in the Clans until they were rehoused. I was influenced by the stories they told.

I became associated with Fianna Éireann

BY FIONA JOHNSTON [republican youth movement] shortly after that and then, on 30 January 1972, news came from Derry of the British paratroopers opening up and killing 14 people and wounding many others on Bloody Sunday. That event lit a spark within me and it seemed like a natural progression to move on to other organisations, to become active in the resistance. Bloody Sunday left me emotional and angry. There was no difference between the people in Derry and the people in Dundalk. We were all the same and the attack in Derry was like an attack on all of us. We were all the same and still are.

I remember if there were any protests, they were always organised by Peter ‘The Crib’ Duffy.

Peter was a councillor in the Quay at the time.

If you wanted anything done, you always went to Peter. Pearse McGeough’s (current Louth County Councillor) father was great at giving speeches. I remember going to the Square in Dundalk to hear him speak. Tommy Carr was another one. These men were what kept the flame of republicanism burning in Louth and I felt they were doing something rather than just talking about it.

After your capture, what was the impact of going on the blanket and ‘no wash’ protest?

I had spent time in Portlaoise and Mountjoy and then I was arrested on a boat in Carlingford Lough. I was on remand for about 20 months before being sentenced so I used to see the Blanket Men scruffy and bearded and I knew that was the road I was on. It never occurred to me that I would do anything else but go ‘on the blanket’ once I was sentenced.

It wasn’t an option to wear a prison uniform because I wasn’t a criminal so why would I surrender to being treated as one?

I discussed my decision to go on the blanket with my family. That was hard. The decision itself was a no-brainer but having to break the news to

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Paddy Agnew pictured before his arrest

Protesters carry banners of Anti-H-Block TDs and Hunger Strikers Paddy Agnew and Kieran Doherty

Paddy's family and supporters celebrate his election victory at the count centre

my mother was the hard part. When she and my sister came to visit me I knew they were upset but they understood. They always supported me and I will always be thankful for that.

The conditions deteriorated as there was an increase in the beatings and they tried to stop us going to the toilets and the shower. They were trying to control us and break us so from the initial passive protest we were forced onto

It wasn’t an option to wear a prison uniform because I wasn’t a criminal so why would I surrender to being treated as one? the ‘no wash’ due to the intransigence of the prison regime and the system. The conditions in the H-Blocks became horrific.

When Bobby Sands died we were all gutted.

I think we all thought some sort of resolution would be found. We weren’t asking for much, just five basic demands but, as Frankie Hughes and Ray McCreesh died, we became more determined and battle-hardened and then another death and another and another. We just got on with it as best we could.

In the 1981 general election you stood for the constituency of Louth. Did you need much convincing to put your name forward?

Not at all. There was a shortlist of names sent to the leadership outside and my name was

on it for Louth. I was proud to stand for the prisoners and the fact I was doing it in my own home county made it more poignant. At the time I wasn’t aware of the historical significance of contesting this election, just that we were asking people to vote for the prisoners and support them.

How did you feel when you had topped the poll?

Pat McGeown had a wee secreted radio and heard it on the news. He then used the ‘jungle drums’ to spread the word, basically shouting over from the other wing that I had won the seat and I had topped the poll, and word was passed on like that until everyone knew what had happened.

I was delighted that the people of Louth supported the prisoners on hunger strike. It added a new dimension to the prison struggle and we felt hopeful. When ‘Big Doc’ [Kieran Doherty] got elected in Cavan/Monaghan it added to the impetus of our prison struggle. We hoped for an early resolution but on the other hand we were afraid to hope – after all, they had let Bobby Sands die and he was an MP. We knew our getting elected was giving people, especially our families, hope and we carried that heavy responsibility. Of course, nothing came of the election in terms of saving the men’s lives but it rallied people all over the country and that was important too.

This is the first time the annual Hunger Strike Commemoration will be held in Louth. How do you feel about that?

This time of year always brings back memories for me as I know it does for others. There were good memories as well as darker ones but I will be very proud to stand in Dundalk on 23 August and say that I was part of that.

The annual commemoration always reflects the history of that time but this year the young people of Louth can see for themselves that this county played their part in that phase of the struggle and we should be proud of that.

Pat McGeown

Kieran Doherty

It is an opportunity to promote the republican objective and to remember those who died. I am proud to have played my part in that historical era and I’m glad I came through it but I’m also sad for those who didn’t. I am aware that when we were growing up we looked to 1916 for inspiration but now the younger generation is looking to 1981.

Unfortunately, as the years go by, the reconciliations with old comrades at these events are getting fewer and it’s hard to believe it was 34 years ago but I am looking forward to seeing old comrades.

just being fought on a different front. When I was released in 1986, I carried on the struggle by joining the local Gerard Halpenny Sinn Féin Cumann. I am still fighting and always will. This is just a new phase.

Sinn Féin now has a major foothold in the South, including holding your old seat. Do you see the party increasing in the years ahead and does it live up to the aspirations you had in 1981 when you stood for election?

I think when I stood in 1981, it was literally to save lives. It was to find a resolution to the prison crisis and to get the five demands. Things have progressed since then. Gerry Adams now holds the seat I had and I’m proud to say that.

Since Gerry Adams became president of Sinn Féin, it has become the political organisation it was always meant to be. I believe the party will increase in the years ahead because we are now focused on building the Ireland that the leaders of 1916 dared to dream about – an Ireland for the people.

There has always been a significant support for republicanism in Louth and people are fed up with swapping parties in government for the same policies time and again. They are ready for a change and Sinn Féin is that vehicle.

Sinn Féin has always stood for change and resistance. They are now a major player in the political process both North and South and the state will strongly resist the Sinn Féin mandate but people need to have the courage of their convictions to build a new Ireland for the people of Ireland and they have a right to demand that change. A united Ireland and a new Ireland is possible and the work that we started in 1981 has progressed and it’s still the same struggle,

Is there anything you would like to add?

I am so proud to be from Louth and the people here have never let us down. They didn’t let the

They tried to stop us going to the toilets and the shower. We were forced onto the ‘no wash’ protest due to the intransigence of the prison regime and the system prisoners down in 1981 and they didn’t let us down when Gerry Adams topped the poll in 2011.

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage young people to get involved in making a better Ireland. The beauty about getting involved in resistance now is that you can join Sinn Féin and fight for a united Ireland and you never have to end up in prison or endure what we went through in 1981. You can serve your country and still have your life and freedom.

If you ask me to sum up my time in prison I would say: “I have been in better places but not with better people.”

18 July / Iúil 2015

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O’DONOVAN ROSSA

UNREPENTANT FENIAN BOMBER

BY DR SHANE KENNA IN 1856, O’Donovan Rossa began a revolutionary career that would span over 50 years when he became a founding member of the Phoenix Society in west Cork. Those who had joined the society were frightened by the state of Ireland in the aftermath of the Famine and the disastrous failure of the 1848 rebellion.

Parallel to the rise of the Phoenix Society in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) had been established in Dublin by James Stephens and a coterie of supporters. Stephens, who was on an organisation tour of Ireland, met with Rossa in Skibbereen and recruited him into the IRB. Merging the two organisations, Rossa became an enthusiastic conspirator and an active recruiter for the IRB. In October 1858, he had attended moonlight drilling at Skibbereen organised by an Irish-American officer, P. J. Dowling. Here he trained with pikes, guns and rifles in preparation for a future rebellion.

In May 1863, Rossa left for New York City, where he worked alongside John O’Mahony building the Fenian Brotherhood and witnessed first-hand the New York Draft Riots in addition to the spectacle of the Union Soldiers parading and drilling as America erupted into the Civil War. While in America he had received an offer to return home and act as the business manager for The Irish People, a propaganda newspaper.

He returned to Ireland and moved permanently to Dublin to become business manager. He also wrote articles under the pseudonym “Anthony the Jobbler” and produced poetry such as his famous The Soldier of Fortune.

An informer on the staff of The Irish People, Pierce Nagle., had discovered amongst papers in the Irish People offices a letter signed by James Stephens promising that 1865 would be the year of action and that “the flag of Ireland – of the Irish Republic – must this year be raised”. With this information, on the evening of Friday 18 September 1865, Dublin Castle authorised the suppression of The Irish People and arrested its leading figures, including O’Donovan Rossa.

Taken to Richmond Bridewell, where he was held on remand, Rossa was eventually tried in December 1865 for conspiracy before the erstwhile nationalist William Keogh. Declaring his trial to be a ‘legal farce’, he had decided to make his trial, as one contemporary noted, “a

James Stephens

John O’Mahony

defiance of the British Government, a merciless exposure of its utterly unfair methods in conducting political trials and of the rottenness of his judicial system in Ireland”. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Between 1865-71, Rossa was held in several British prisons, including Chatham, Portland and Milbank. His treatment by prison staff, in addition to working alongside common criminals, increasingly irked O’Donovan Rossa, however. While at Milbank, his comrade Edward Duffy had taken ill and despite continued appeals he was not allowed to visit Duffy. Learning of his death from other prisoners through gratings, he was spurred to write his most famous poem, Duffy is Dead.

Lamenting his old friend, it gave a great sense of the pain O’Donovan Rossa was experiencing whilst in prison as he wrote: “Duffy is dead!” a noble soul has slipped the tyrants chains,

5 Damage to Scotland Yard police headquarters in London after it was blasted in a Fenian bomb attack

And whatever wounds they gave him, their lying books will show, How they very kindly treated him, more like a friend than foe!

In February 1868, Rossa was transferred to Chatham Prison, where again he regularly suffered bread and water punishments. Placed working alongside common criminals he refused to work within the prison. Taken before the jail governor for ‘idleness’, he refused to salute him, incurring a punishment of three days on bread and water. By 15 June 1868, he declined to meet the governor and was forcibly taken to the his office, where Rossa refused to sit down and again salute. The following day he determined vengeance and when

Dublin Castle authorised the suppression of 'The Irish People' and arrested its leading figures, including O’Donovan Rossa. He was sentenced to life imprisonment the governor visited his prison cell, on his rounds, Rossa threw the contents of his chamber pot over him shouting: “That . . . is the salute I owe you!”

For this he was sentenced to 34 days with his hands cuffed behind his back, followed by a further 28 days of bread and water punishment.

Having completed his 28 days of bread and water punishment. He was then placed on six months of a ‘penal class’ diet but shortly afterwards he again returned to bread and water punishment for a refusal to pick oakum (used in building wooden ships). Taken to solitary confinement, the prison authorities withdrew his bed and took his clothing,

forcing him to sleep naked on the floor.

Resultant from an inquiry into the treatment of Fenian prisoners by the Earl Devon, O’Donovan Rossa was offered a conditional amnesty in 1871.

The terms of the amnesty were that convicted Fenians could not return to Britain for the duration of their sentence. As he was sentenced to life imprisonment this meant he could not return to Ireland for 20 years. Choosing to accept the conditional amnesty, Rossa was released from prison on 7 January 1871. With John Devoy, Charles Underwood O’Connell, John McClure and Harry S. Mulleda, he sailed for New York aboard the trans-Atlantic steamer Cuba. Becoming known as ‘The Cuba Five’, they arrived in America where differing political factions sought to control them.

Remaining aloof from American politics, the Cuba Five, later joined by further exiles, established an Irish confederation to unite Irish-America.

Despite early success, the confederation became another faction within a bitterly divided Irish-America. Having failed with the confederation, however, they turned their attention to Clan na Gael, a secretive organisation committed to rebellion in Ireland. Through the Clan, Rossa became associated with Patrick Ford, the proprietor of The Irish World newspaper, and wrote a column for Ford. By 1876, the newspaper had advocated a Skirmishing Fund to raise money for bombings in Britain. Taking charge of the fund, Rossa regularly called through Ford’s newspaper for direct action in British cities and successfully raised $5,000 to do so.

Attracting the attention of Clan na Gael, he was forced to share the fund with a board of trustees led by John Devoy. The trustees, however, believed that Rossa should not be in charge of the fund because he was not working within a secretive manner.

Under immense pressure and tension, with relations between the trustees increasingly untenable, combined with the death of two of his children, Rossa took to excessive alcohol abuse, with Devoy receiving reports of Rossa staggering in and out of saloons.

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FIRST PUBLISHED 1915 BY O’DONOVAN ROSSA FUNERAL COMMITTEE

O’Donovan Rossa 1915-2015

O’Donovan Rossa Funeral 5 ‘The Cuba Five’ – John Devoy, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Charles Underwood O'Connell, Henry Mulleda and John McClure

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FUNERAL SOUVENIR PROGRAMME C E N T E NA RY E D I T I O N

This is a Centenary edition, fully reproducing the original brochure published after the funeral in 1915, including articles by Pearse, James Connolly, Thomas Mac Donagh and many others, as well as fine photographs.

AVAILABLE FROM

The Sinn Féin Bookshop 58 Parnell Square Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone

00 353 18148542 Email

sales@sinnfeinbookshop.com Mary Jane O'Donovan Rossa

Devoy had also discovered that Rossa, in a state of drunkenness, had misappropriated funds from the national collection, his wife noting that in his present state he was a danger to the fund.

Sent to a convent in Chatham to recover, when he emerged he broke with Clan na Gael and established a new organisation called the ‘United Irishmen of America’.

Resultant from an inquiry into the treatment of Fenian prisoners, O’Donovan Rossa was offered a conditional amnesty in 1871 that meant he could not return to Ireland for 20 years Meeting at Philadelphia on 28 June 1880, the United Irishmen of America resolved to adopt a dynamite campaign in Britain. The agents of this dynamiting campaign were referred to as ‘The Skirmishers’ and they undertook a series of smallscale bombings in British cities between 1881-83.

The first of these bombings took place at Salford Barracks, Manchester, on the evening of 14 January

1881, killing a seven-year-old boy. A further series of explosions occurred at Liverpool, Glasgow (where the city was plunged into darkness) in addition to two significant bombings in London’s Whitehall in March 1883 (where the Skirmishers destroyed the Offices of the Local Government Board, which they wrongly believed to be the Home Office) and the headquarters of the London Times newspaper.

From New York, Rossa acted as the spokesman for the dynamitards. Commending on the March 1883 bombings, Rossa noted they “were intended to do all the damage possible, and it was done to show England that she had better give Ireland her own Parliament. England is at war with Ireland, and Ireland should be at war with England”.

To establish a semblance of professionalism to the dynamite campaign, Rossa set up a dynamite school at Brooklyn for the training of Irishmen in the handling and use of explosives.

Celebrating the school, Rossa held that “young men have come over from England, Ireland and Scotland for instruction and several of them have returned sufficiently instructed in the manufacture of the most powerful explosives”. One of those who had returned to Britain was Timothy Featherstone, who was the heading of a skirmishing cell in Cork and worked closely with two other graduates named Henry Dalton and John Francis Kearney, who commanded a cell in Glasgow.

The three cells were later discovered by a British agent-provocateur named ‘Red’ Jim McDermott

who, having worked his way into the conspiracy using a letter of introduction he had secured from Rossa, dismantled the conspiracy and destroying O’Donovan Rossa’s organisational network in Britain.

In the autumn of 1883, Clan na Gael adopted a more professional and resourced dynamiting campaign. Representative of this their dynamitards successfully detonated explosives on the London underground railway, Pall Mall, Victoria rail station and destroyed the headquarters of Scotland Yard in addition to detonating a bomb in the chamber of the House of Commons.

While Rossa was not involved with these bombings he regularly claimed responsibility

Commenting on the bombings in England, Rossa noted they were ‘to show England that she had better give Ireland her own parliament. England is at war with Ireland, and Ireland should be at war with England’ and was greatly associated in the public psyche with explosions in Britain. It therefore came as no surprise that he was the subject of an assassination attempt by an Englishwoman named Yseult Dudley who shot him repeatedly at Broadway on 2 February 1885. When asked why she tried to assassinate Rossa, she told the police: “I have shot O’Donovan Rossa. I am an Englishwoman and I shot him because he was O’Donovan Rossa.

You know the rest.”

www.sinnfeinbookshop.com On 19 May 1894, O’Donovan Rossa left New York to return to Ireland for the first time since his trial in 1865. Arriving in Cobh Harbour, he was met by a by a huge crowd that had assembled in anticipation of his arrival. His arrival had been stage-managed by the IRB and amongst the crowd were armed men for his protection in case an attempt was made to arrest him.

Beginning a lecture tour of Ireland, he travelled throughout the country, talking about his experiences in prison and unveiling a monument to the Manchester Martyrs in Birr, County Offaly, on 22 July.

Returning to Ireland in 1905, with his wife, Mary Jane, he had intended to settle in Cork.

However, with Mary Jane’s health declining, he was forced to return to New York. While his wife’s health improved, Rossa increasingly displayed a marked deterioration and was plagued with muscular spasm and degeneration. Diagnosed with chronic neuritis, Rossa was increasingly confined to bed, and with declining years displayed signs of dementia as he increasingly became impaired and considered himself to be back in prison.

Moved to St Vincent’s Hospital, Staten Island, he was confined to a wheelchair, being wheeled around the halls and wards where he spoke nothing but Irish and regressed into his childhood.

Dying on 29 June 1915, his wife, Mary Jane, recalled: “There was no struggle. There was pain. He simply stopped breathing and lay perfectly still with a large, conscious solemn gaze as if he saw grand visions of the future that satisfied his heart and soul.”

DR SHANE KENNA is the author of War

In The Shadows: The Irish-American Fenians Who Bombed Victorian Britain and Conspirators: A Photographic History of Ireland’s Revolutionary Underground – see review page 28

20 July / Iúil 2015

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The Rossa funeral – prelude to the Easter Rising VETERAN FENIAN Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa died in New York on 29 June 1915. His widow wrote to Tom Clarke of the Irish Republican Brotherhood requesting him to make arrangements for Rossa to be given a public funeral in Ireland. It was to be held under the auspices of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Association which was the public face of the clandestine Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Clarke immediately commenced the work and a very large O’Donovan Rossa Funeral Committee was established, with 13 sub-committees to deal with all aspects of the arrangements.

The Funeral Committee membership list reads like a who’s who of Irish republicans, advanced nationalists and progressive labour activists of the day. It included 11 of the leaders of the Rising who were executed ten months later.

BY MÍCHEÁL MAC DONNCHA

A wide cross-section of people came to his lying in state in City Hall, including young Irishmen in British Army uniform, one of whom was seen saluting Rossa

The General Officer Commanding and Chief Marshal of the funeral was Commandant General Thomas MacDonagh of the Irish Volunteers. Commandants Edward Daly and Éamonn Ceannt commanded the overall Irish Volunteers and the Dublin Brigade contingents respectively. James Connolly commanded the Irish Citizen Army, Pádraig Ó Riain

5 The funeral leaving Dublin City Hall

Na Fianna Éireann, and Cumann na mBan was led by Jenny Wyse Power.

Other members included Arthur Griffith, Constance Markievicz, The O’Rahilly and William O’Brien.

Rossa’s body arrived in Dublin on Tuesday 27 July and was brought to the Pro-Cathedral in Marlborough Street, where large crowds came to pay their respects. Requiem Mass was said the next day. A guard of honour of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army then accompanied the body to the rotunda of the City Hall, where the lying in state was held over the following three days.

The coffin was draped in the Tricolour and a guard of honour kept vigil.

Sligo republican Fr Michael O’Flanagan spoke at the opening of the lying in state. He was a radical young

A huge number of contingents took part, including Volunteers from all over Ireland, representatives of councils, trade unions, GAA clubs and more, and the overall attendance was tens of thousands priest famed for his oratory and for standing with the people in land and labour struggles in the West. He risked prosecution under the Defence of the Realm Act when he said: “If we have great powers in the world today who profess they are fighting for the liberty of small nationalities and . . . if these powers are not sincere in their professions . . . we shall do our part to tear the mask of hypocrisy from their faces.”

Thousands of people filed past the coffin in City Hall. In the funeral souvenir brochure, Seán Mac Gadhra describes the wide cross-section of people who came to City Hall, including young Irishmen in British Army uniform, one of whom was seen saluting Rossa.

Thousands of people travelled from all over the country and abroad for the funeral procession on Sunday 1 August.

FOR

JUST €10

Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa

17 special trains arrived but many were prevented from travelling because some railway companies refused to put on special trains and in these places local ceremonies were held.

The funeral procession from City Hall began at 2:45pm and was led by the St James’s Band and armed ranks of the Volunteers’ Dublin Brigade. Beside the hearse marched veterans of the Fenian Movement. A huge number of contingents took part, including Volunteers from all over Ireland, representatives of councils, trade unions, GAA clubs and more, and the overall attendance was tens of thousands.

The grave was in what became the Republican Plot, beside Fenians who had been comrades of Rossa. Fr O’Flanagan recited the prayers and a volley of shots was fired in salute by Volunteer and Citizen Army riflemen.

Pádraig Pearse had been requested

by Tom Clarke to deliver the graveside oration. When Pearse asked how far he could go, Clarke replied: “Make it as hot as hell. Throw discretion to the winds.”

The oration became one of the key texts of Irish republicanism and a call to arms that was answered on Easter Monday 1916 – “Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”

The ceremonies and public funeral of O’Donovan Rossa took place 100 years ago, from 27 July to 1 August 1915.

YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO

www.anphoblacht.com and get exclusive access to a series by Mícheál Mac Donncha chronicling the road to the 1916 Rising as seen through the pages of 'An tÓglach – the Irish Volunteer' from 24 April 1915 to 22 April 1916

July / Iúil 2015

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Lá na Cinniúna ag Teacht don Ghréig

21

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

TÁ LÁ NA cinniúna ag tapú linn don Ghréig.

Tá rialtas de chuid SYRIZA ag seasamh an fhóid ar son mhuintir na Gréige ag diúltú géilleadh don déine, is bagairtí na Tríúrachta ag éirí níos scaollaí de réir mar a théann na laethanta thart.

Is cosúil go mbeidh a fhios againn sula mbeidh an deis agaibh an scéal seo a léamh, ach is don Tríúracht anois glacadh leis nach féidir dúmhál a imirt ar an nGréig nó beidh orthu an tír a bhrú amach ón airgeadra euro.

Cosnóidh an dara rogha sin €160billiún don Ghearmain is don Fhrainc, is ce go mbíonn an da thír sin ag labhairt go dána i gcónaí, beidh costas ollmhór orthu mura n-athraíonn siad cúrsa a g u s m u ra ndéanann siad margadh cóir leis an nGréig.

3 Stephen Collins

Ón gcéad lá ámh bhí laigeachth ag baint le straitéis SYRIZA, sé sin gur chuir siad an-iomad béime ar fhanacht leis an euro. Cionnte, b’shin rogha mhoramh an phobail, agus anois tá gach seans ann go bhfuil éirithe leis an rialtas tacaíocht an phobail a fháil le himeacht ón euro.

Da ndearfaidis an chéad lá go mbma mhian leo fanacht leis an airgeadra ach dá mba ghá go n-imeóidis as, seans go dtuigfeadh an Tríúracht ní ba thúisce nach n-eireódh leis an dúmhál.

Ar ndóigh, déanfaidh lucht na frithbheartaíochta in Éirinn, agus an tIrish Times agus Stephen Collins ar cheann na feadhna, iarracht imeahcht na Gréige ón Euro a leiriú mar theip.

Ach ní teip í, mar má fhanann an Ghréig go stuama ag diultú don deine, beidh bliain nó dhó de dheacrachtaí acu, ach beidh siad in ann filleadh ar mhargaí idirnáisiúnta airgeadais nuair is léir gur iad iasachtaí oifigiúla na Tríúracht amháin atá le loiceadh.

Fiú sa ngearrthréimhse beidh an Ghréig in

ann airgead a fháil ar iasacht ón Rúís agus ón tSín.

Tá contúirt ag baint leis sin ar ndóigh, agus se sin go bhféadfadh sé na forsaí faisisteacht sa nGréig a spreagadh le lamh laidir a úsáid in aghaidh an rialtais, go háirithe má théann an Ghréig ar aghaidh le cómhoibriu leis an Rúis maidir le fuinneamh is an píoblíne gáis.

Támuid beagnach ag an deire ach seasaimis i gcónaí leis an nGréig sa gcaibidil dheireannach seo den scéal!

Marking the places in history of Constance Markievicz

BY SIOBHÁN CLEARY Director and writer of feature film ‘Sisters of the Revolution’

A NEW CAMPAIGN has been launched to commemorate Constance Markievicz as the first woman MP elected to the Westminster Parliament from her prison cell in Holloway and the Dáil’s First Minister for Labour with two international blue plaques in Dublin and London for 2016.

The petition on Change.org (see link at end of article) was first proposed at a special event on the Sisters of the Revolution feature film in Wynn’s Hotel in Dublin with Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou McDonald, a supporter of the campaign initiative which includes Independent TD Clare Daly, leading women’s groups and other figures internationally who are signing the petition.

YOU CAN SIGN THE PETITION AT

Twenty-five years ago, feminists in London campaigned to have a blue plaque for Constance Markievicz but it was refused. Today, 2016 represents a new era to honour and celebrate

Online petition to honour first woman MP elected to the Westminster Parliament and Dáil’s First Minister for Labour the revolutionary life of Constance Markievicz.

The significance of her as a role model and inspirational leader, who was the only woman appointed

by James Connolly as a lieutenant in the Irish Citizen Army, should not be underestimated. She was a courageous, dedicated socialist and democrat whose vision still inspires many of us today.

The campaign recently trended during the Westminster elections, with one of the tweets featuring Constance Markievicz reaching the top 100. A new generation is, for the first time, hearing of a passionate woman leader who was determined to build democracy.

The petition calls for plaques in London in Buckingham Gate (where she was born) and at Leinster House in Dublin.

• Sisters of the Revolution is a feature film on Constance Markievicz and Eva Gore Booth being produced by Rebel Sister Films.

www.change.org/p/dublin-city-council-and-greater-london-council-fund-blue-plaques-to-honour-constance-markievicz-first-woman-mp-first-minister-of-labour

22 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

RECONCILIATION?

We need genuine words of ‘abject and true remorse’ demonstrated in action

BRIAN KENNAWAY

5 Residents take part in a peaceful protest against Orange Order parades through their community

Presbyterian minister and lifelong member of the Orange Order Author of ‘The Orange Order: A Tradition Betrayed’ IN EVERY SOCIETY there is a need for”Uncomfortable Conversations. Sometimes this need is ignored, like the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’. The issues, however, do not go away by being ignored.

Others seek to address the discordant issues by ‘constructive ambiguity’ which, as we know from experience, only leads to further confusion.

If there is one word in our modern society which is open to all sorts of interpretations and misunderstandings it is the word ‘reconciliation’. This is a word which is used in all sorts of situations but, as Humpty Dumpty, said: ”When I use a word . . . it means just what I want it to mean.” We need to unpack this word to give it greater understanding.

My understanding of reconciliation is rooted in the Biblical use of this term, so clearly expressed by the Apostle Paul: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) In order to help our understanding, the cross is sometimes used to illustrate the completeness of reconciliation. The vertical illustrates our reconciliation to God; the horizontal illustrates our reconciliation to our neighbour. It is therefore obvious that the vertical comes first otherwise there is nothing to hang the horizontal on.

The historical Christian understanding is that when we are reconciled to God we are also reconciled to our neighbour. This differs from the popular understanding which is simply “friendship”.

The obvious conclusion of how to achieve reconciliation is a genuine repentance before God. In terms of that relationship to our neighbour, it also involves acknowledging the mistakes of the past and seeking the forgiveness of the offended party.

I do not hear much from republicans in terms of a genuine acknowledgement of the mistakes of the past. I do hear the repeated statements of ‘It should never have

'You cannot achieve reconciliation on a human level by continually poking your opponents in the eye'

'Republicans need to think long and hard about their words and actions if they want to be taken seriously'

5 Changes to flying the Union flag angered unionists

happened’, but that is not an expression of repentance which is likely to lead to reconciliation.

If true reconciliation between communities is to be achieved we need to hear genuine words of “abject and true remorse”, clearly demonstrated in action. Unfortunately, up to the present, we have only heard vague words and seen little evidence.

You cannot achieve reconciliation by constantly bringing up the events of the past and failing to apply the statements made in defence of IRA action to the

actions of others. This was demonstrated recently when Gerry Adams made reference to Jean McConville’s murder as “these things happen in war”. If that is to be universally applied then so is Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday.

You cannot achieve reconciliation on a human level by continually poking your opponents in the eye.

Declan Kearney made a speech at Westminster on 24 October 2012 (www.sinnfein.ie/contents/24818) which began by poking unionists in the eye, in spite of a previous article in An Phoblacht in which he stated: “Republicanism needs to become more intuitive about unionist apprehensions and objections, and sensitised in our response.”

It is not that unionists are immune from such behaviour (the recent ‘Curry my yoghurt’ remarks by Gregory Campbell is a typical example), but my charge is to address republicans on “Uncomfortable Conversations”.

Poking unionists in the eye by organising opposition to Orange parades (as Gerry Adams revealed in his Athboy speech), the placing of high-profile ‘ex-combatants’ within the political system, the employment of Mary McArdle as a Special Advisor at taxpayers’ expense, the naming of a children’s play-park after Raymond McCreesh, and the removal of the national flag from Belfast City Hall all contribute to poking unionists in the eye.

Republicans need to think long and hard about their words and actions if they want to be taken seriously.

Alex Kane put it succinctly: “If Sinn Féin clings to the belief that the IRA’s ‘armed struggle’ was always justified and remains justifiable then, in my opinion, there can never be a process of reconciliation between Sinn Féin and mainstream unionism.”

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

PEADAR KIRBY

Professor Emeritus of International Politics and Public Policy, University of Limerick

23

What is badly missing in Irish politics is an articulated vision of a transformed Ireland – politically, economically, socially and culturally – that is both inspiring and credible

We need a new vision of the future PAINFULLY, fitfully, we are witnessing the early signs of a new politics being born across the periphery of Europe and in the wave of new Left governments in Latin America. SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the Scottish National Party breakthrough in Scotland and now the colourful victory of the marriage equality referendum in Ireland show the eruption of grassroots discontent and aspiration within the political system.

real input from citizens’ assemblies. Bottom-up, not top-down.

The central task of any alternative is to challenge the immense power of capital, both national and foreign, over extensive swathes of the Irish economy, society and, indeed, the Irish state itself.

Returning real power to citizens to fashion the sort of society we want, in meeting our needs, will require a democratic revolution and creative leadership. Indeed (as Austrian economist Christian Felber outlines in his work on ‘the economy of the common good’), we need to redesign our economy through democratic deliberation, returning to a key dimension of early socialist thought.

All our political parties have for decades abdicated responsibility for development policy, handing it over instead to an alliance of the IDA and foreign multinationals. We lack any vision of a citizens’ economy, based on the flourishing of local entrepreneurial talent, organised in a dense sector of workers’ and consumer co-operatives.

The term ‘equality’ peppers our political discourse but what is missing is the detailed work of refashioning our taxation and welfare

However, let us not delude ourselves that this holds the promise of a breakthrough by the Left any time soon.

In his insightful book, Challenging Neoliberalism, on the emergence of the new Left in Latin America, Eduardo Silva traces the process of how different sectors of civil society found common cause in the struggle against neoliberalism and that finally led to the new left conquering state power. It took at least two decades of struggle.

In Ireland, we are very far from that point. Civil society struggles remain fragmented and have yet to identify a common enemy in neoliber-

Thousands take to streets in support of marriage equality and in opposition to water charges

alism. Struggles against austerity too often play to the anti-state and anti-tax instincts deeply ingrained by decades of Fianna Fáil hegemony.

The state, not capital, is too often seen as the enemy to be combatted.

Attempts by political parties to link with these grassroots movements have been too top-down and instrumental. By contrast, SYRIZA and Podemos emerged in their different ways as groups within political society that could give expression to the aspirations of civil society for a new type of politics with an inspiring transformative vision. Until recently, Podemos didn’t even have a political programme; instead, it grew on the basis of the vision and practice of a new type of relationship between citizens and the state.

What is badly missing in Irish politics is an articulated vision of a transformed Ireland – politically, economically, socially and culturally – that is both inspiring and credible. Far too often, slogans substitute for serious analysis and the hard intellectual work of fashioning an alternative. And, as Podemos is doing, the fashioning of that alternative must be a collective effort with

systems so that income and wealth are redistributed effectively, and poverty and equality reduced decisively. At least the Nevin Institute is making a start that hopefully will inform some courageous redistribution policies. And the Irish Left has yet to wake up to the fact that climate change is at long last presenting serious limits to the freedom of capital, as Marx predicted.

The world’s scientists are united in telling us that the days are numbered for our growth economy and consumer society if we are not to make the planet uninhabitable for humans.

But the Left has yet to embrace these realities and the opportunities they open up for moving from a growth economy to an economy of maintenance, from a consumer society to a society of sufficiency, and from a fragmented and stressed individualism to a rich web of community interdependency in vibrant local societies.

We are on the cusp of a new era in human history and the end of industrial society. We in Ireland have many strengths to help us navigate these changes in ways that cherish all equally, especially the most vulnerable, and that severely limit the ability of capital to fashion society in its benefit. The slogans of the past have little to offer; we need a new vision of the future.

» Peadar Kirby is also Chair of the board of Cloughjordan ecovillage.

24 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

www.guengl.eu

Funded by the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) Aontas Clé na hEorpa/Na Glasaigh Chlé Nordacha Crúpa Paliminta – Parlaimimt na h Eorpa

Budget 2016 ‘disappointing’ LIADH NÍ RIADA MEP, a member of the European Parliament’s Budget Committee, has expressed her disappointment on the lack of detail given by the Commission in its adoption of the European draft Budget for 2016.

“Given that there has been so much emphasis on investing in jobs, growth and employment, it seems to me to be very hypocritical of the Commission to commit to growth while at the same time reducing the amount of payment commitments to this sector,” she said following a Committee meeting on 27 May. “Some EU programmes are still suspended while waiting to be paid, and monies allotted to these are being used to pay off unpaid EU bills. In true Commission style, addressing the root of the problem is not a priority.

“If Ireland and Europe are to witness real growth and real recovery, targeted, sustainable and transparent investment needs to take place. Robbing Peter to pay Paul will not cut it.”

5 Martina Anderson MEP addresses a SYRIZA youth conference in Athens and (later) in the Greek Parliament in Athens

Martina Anderson addresses SYRIZA Youth event SYRIZA Youth invited Martina Anderson MEP to address a large public meeting in Athens on 3 June to outline the struggle against austerity in Ireland.

The event took place as European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in the European Parliament held an educational event in Athens that saw dozens of MEPs and activists visit the Greek capital to hear directly from SYRIZA activists and ministers, as well as anti-austerity campaigners.

Martina called for anti-austerity groups across Europe to work together to forge a more equal society. She said: “The current economic crisis across Europe

undermines democracy by insisting that the only solution is austerity.

“Earlier this year, the people of Greece withdrew

‘We have the alternative agenda – we now need the confidence’ Martina Anderson MEP

consent to be governed by the Troika and the discredited political forces of the old regime.

They gave their consent to be governed by SYRIZA on a clear mandate of ending austerity.

Dr Lydia Foy to receive European Citizen’s Prize

Matt Carthy raises home repossessions in European Parliament THE STRIKING INCREASE in home repossessions in Ireland was raised in the European Parliament

by Matt Carthy, MEP for Midlands North West, in Strasbourg on 8 June.

Carthy, who is a member of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs

Matt Carthy told MEPs that four homes a day are now being repossessed by the banks Committee, highlighted the fact that four homes a day are now being repossessed by the banks.

In May, figures from the Courts Service revealed that the rate at which homes are being repossessed has increased by more than 500% since

But the Troika are showing themselves unwilling to accept that choice.

The Irish MEP said that, across Europe, the Left must embrace the collective responsibility to confront the austerity agenda.

“Our commitment to solidarity does not only mean protesting shoulder-to-shoulder with comrades in Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Britain and elsewhere; it also means we must share the lessons of our struggles.

“We have the alternative agenda. We now need the confidence to constantly define and push forward how we will practically implement the necessary changes,” she said.

last year; 586 repossession orders were granted by the Circuit Court in the first three months of 2015, compared with 95 in the same period last year.

“This isn’t happening by accident,” he told MEPs. “It is a result of Irish Government policy that is being pursued with the approval and instigation of the European institutions.

“It is a policy that resulted in 42% of the cost of Europe’s banking crisis being placed on the backs of the Irish people. And now Irish families

are paying the price with their homes.

“It is a policy that saw Irish and European banks bailed out and preferential interest rates offered to those of extreme wealth – while those who played no part in the creation of the crisis have now been forced to become homeless.

“This is not a recovery, not by any objective standards. There should be – there must be – a change in direction at Irish Government and EU level to place the burden of debt on those who championed the causes of crisis.”

LYNN BOYLAN MEP (pictured) has said she is delighted that Dr Lydia Foy has been announced as the recipient of the European Citizen’s Prize 2015 after being nominated by herself and fellow MEPs Liadh Ní Ríada, Martina Anderson and Matt Carthy.

Speaking on 4 June, after the announcement, Lynn Boylan said: “Lydia Foy’s recognition by the European Parliament is fully deserved.

“Lydia first applied for a new birth certificate to reflect her gender in 1993 and was refused. Since then, Lydia has been in and out of court, culminating in the state being found to be in breach of its positive obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Through her tireless campaigning, Lydia Foy has finally succeeded in getting the Irish state to introduce the Gender Recognition Bill this year.”

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

25

Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip REPORTS BY EMMA CLANCY AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT European Parliament calls for fracking moratorium THE European Parliament has voted for a moratorium on fracking across all member states, a move welcomed by Martina Anderson MEP, who earlier this year hosted a major international anti-fracking conference in Fermanagh Speaking after voting for the amendment in Strasbourg on 10 June, she said: “Sinn Féin has been to the fore in the campaign against fracking across the island of Ireland.

“The Parliament voted in favour of an amendment urging EU member states not to authorise any new exploration or extraction operations of unconventional fuels within the EU. “Sinn Féin will continue to oppose fracking and to support communities who are opposed to this controversial process.”

Replay Qatar World Cup vote, says Lynn Boylan

AFTER the revelations of serious corrup- awarded the tournament to Qatar in 2010, confiscated by their employer. The Qatari tion in FIFA, the world governing body and more than 4,000 will have died before Government’s kafala system is described of soccer, Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan has a ball is kicked in 2022. by the International Labour Organisation called for a re-run of the vote for the 2022 “Most are young men who die of heart as forced labour.”

World Cup host which is currently Qatar. attacks from working in extreme heat Lynn Boylan, a committed sports fan, Boylan, a member of the European co-signed the European Parliament’s Parliament’s Employment Committee, resolution on 10 June which calls for The body count is already at least described the system migrant workers the selection of the 2018 and 2022 1,993 migrant workers dead since World Cup hosts to be revisited if are forced to work under in Qatar as “modern-day slavery”. corruption in the awarding of the FIFA awarded the tournament to “FIFA has turned a blind eye to tournaments is proven.

Qatar in 2010 the terrible human rights abuses of “The process whereby Qatar was migrant construction workers building selected is now being investigated the very stadiums that the World Cup may that can reach over 50 degrees, without by Swiss authorities, which I welcome. protection. take place in in 2022,” she said.

But in light of the deaths of almost 2,000 “The body count is already at least “The workers cannot leave these workers so far, there is no option but for 1,993 migrant workers dead since FIFA conditions because their passports are FIFA to re-run the vote for World Cup 2022.”

Liadh Ní Riada welcomes Irish mental health activists to Brussels MORE THAN 40 campaigners for improved mental health and suicide prevention services in Ireland visited the European Parliament in Brussels on 3 June at the invitation of Liadh Ní Riada MEP. Participants came from from organisations including Pieta House, Mental Health Ireland, Action Mental Health, SOSAD, 3TS and Mental Health Reform. They were joined by practitioners, advocates and campaigners, academics, individuals involved in promotion and prevention, and those with personal experience of mental illness.

Following the events, Liadh called for “a movement for improved mental health services” in Ireland.

“The sharing of knowledge and experiences by members of the delegation was inspiring and this convinced me that a

Liadh Ní Riada

Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

TAXE hearing in Dublin

5 Liadh Ní Riada MEP listens to Paula Duarte Gaspar, mental health expert with the EU Commissioner for Health advocates and professionals from mental health organisations the opportunity to discuss issues with each other while engaging with the European Commission as a collective.

“The current Irish Government lacks the political will to implement good policy in this area. It is clear that we need to look at developing a national suicide prevention strategy and the adoption of an approach to mental health from a holistic perspective 5 Ray Cullen and with a community-led ethos. movement for the improvement of mental “I believe we have laid some foundahealth services in Ireland is possible,” tions for a joined-up movement for the she said. improvement of mental health services “Today’s engagement was about giving in Ireland.”

MATT CARTHY MEP took part in a hearing in Dublin on 28 May on unfair tax practices. The hearing was established as part of the European Parliament’s special parliamentary committee set up in February in the wake of the LuxLeaks scandal to examine tax rulings across the EU, with a focus on unfair and illegal tax practices.

“It is clear that there is a great need for fairness and transparency in all of our tax affairs,” Matt Carthy said, “and I believe that the Committee can play an important role in holding all EU governments, including Ireland, to account.

“However, I wish to make clear that Irish tax rates are not up for grabs. Sinn Féin will unequivocally defend the right of the Oireachtas to set our tax rates.”

Lynn Boylan

are MEPs and members of the GUE/NGL Group in the European Parliament

26 July / Iúil 2015

sformation n a tr a h g u o r th g e is goin Traditional cuisint to everyone’s taste no

www.anphoblacht.com

f r u T f Sur d n a

g fought in e b r a w e th n o ROBERT ALLENon’s favourite foods over the nati

back by a Dublin publican to a hungry tourist one afternoon after holy hour. “The shop on the corner sells crisps!”

We have come a long way since then, since burger vans on the side of the road and the emerging fast-food culture of chips with everything. Never mind fish on a Friday, what about food on a Sunday?

THE KELLYS OF TYRONE (AND DONEGAL)

ROBERT ALLEN SPARE A THOUGHT this summer as you savour your steak and mash with battered onion rings for young parents with hungry children, and not a mouthwatering burger or delicious nugget or succulent meatball in sight.

It is a relatively common scenario. The parents, after a long day doing nothing, want a drink in a pub that has an all-day bar menu. Their chosen pub looks promising. There is bacon and cabbage, ham and parsley sauce, fish and chips, stuffed roast pork, lamb shank, Irish stew, roast chicken, beef and Guinness stew, lasagne, stir-fry . . . with boiled, chipped or mashed potato and, increasingly ubiquitous these days, the inevitable bowl of chowder with brown soda bread. And that old favourite, sirloin steak, is available in various sizes.

What is missing is a genuine children’s menu.

What is available is generally a scaled-down version of the comfort food that is now part of modern eating. Fried and grilled food dominate the culinary landscape, whether it is an up market pub-restaurant in the centre of town or an all-purpose filling station on the edge of the village. This Americanisation of food looks appealing and is hardly healthy, but given that the world now loves an Irish fry-up for breakfast we cannot complain.

And especially as a slow wind of change is coming, and is being seen in pubs all over the country.

Despite appearances, more pubs are chainowned and like to give tourists the impression that they are family-owned. Locals know better.

In the kitchen these places are hot-houses for the chefs and cooks without a moment to spare in the madness of the school holiday season.

Fast food, no matter the circumstances, is never good food, but it is expedient.

Bar food has been with us now for 25 years.

Before 1990 you would have been thrown out of a city pub for daring to ask for a cup of tea and a sandwich. “This is a pub; we sell Guinness and whiskey,” was the infamous comment whipped

5 'Surf and turf' using fresh local fish and beef

The Kellys of Tyrone were among the first publicans to realise that bar food was the coming new thing.

At their Lobster Pot pub-restaurant in Burtonport, they are once again the future of Irish traditional food – a curious mix of the old favourites, a hint of Americana, fresh local produce and that delicate balance between fast food and slow food, all embodied by a desire to serve good food, fish in particular.

Their signature dish is a giant platter of seafood including shellfish in the shape of crab, lobster and prawn meat decoratively arranged with little gems of delight hidden among the fish. One of these gems is the peppered smoked mackerel from Irish Atlantic, the fish canners up the road in Dungloe.

Before the ban of the fishing of salmon at sea, the Burtonport fleet landed more salmon than any port in Europe. Now a few fishers catch crab and lobster, which go on the menu in the bar now run by Tim Bechtold of Minnesota, who fronts, and Anne Kelly, who cooks, delivering some of the best fish dishes in the country. These include the emerging trend – surf and turf using fresh, local beef and fish.

The Lobster Pot menu is always evolving, and by serving lobster it lives up to its name, but it offers something else – excellent, perfectly cooked seafood and a range of dishes that embrace traditional Irish, genuine Americana and modern European trends – appealing to children as well as adults.

Hidden away in west Donegal, this is a pub that thrives on the tourist trade during the high season and relies on the local trade during dark, cold nights in winter. It is either a feast or a famine for them – full to the brim in summer, empty in winter.

“In the high season, if a family with hungry children comes in we tell them they may have to wait for an hour,” says Tim Bechtold. “Everyone comes in at half-seven and expects to be served quickly.”

It’s a refrain known to all who have served in a gastro pub, a problem that exists the world over and a frequent complaint on the online message boards. “Food was great, took too long to come and was cold.”

MANNINGS EMPORIUM, BALLYLICKEY, WEST CORK 5 Meatballs made with mature beef from the Beara peninsula and traditional seafood chowder

If seafood chowder was the next big thing throughout the 1990s and 2000s, remaining

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

27

5 The jumbo breakfast roll emerged in a food culture that pays little attention of when and where or what is appropriate to eat

popular, surf and turf or sink and swim is the latest version. It has an American influence, large portions and (to the Irish palate) an unusual combination: steak and lobster with assorted fish.

Gastro pubs offering a menu filled with beef dishes and fish dishes have been proliferating in recent years. The emphasis is on freshness and quality. Mannings Emporium in Ballylickey in west Cork always offered a sandwich of cheese and salami, and a glass of wine. Now, with a new generation in charge, they have expanded to offer the passing tourist a taste of Ireland.

Their meatballs, made with beef from mature cattle reared on the Beara Peninsula, are probably the best in Ireland. Mouthwatering and succulent, they are an example of what can be served as food in the fast lane of the tourist highway.

Beef, usually from Angus or Hereford cattle, has never lived up to its expectation because it is killed too early. Chefs with a discerning palate realised a long time ago that the best beef comes from cattle that have been allowed to live a little longer.

But back to the chowder, because it is now starting to lose its charm. “I wonder,” says Anne Addicott, co-author of the forthcoming Around Ireland in 80 Days in Search of Fish and Fortune, “do they buy it ready made?”

This is a pertinent question. She has been on a chowder quest as part of her research for many years and has come to realise that the best chowder is made simply – a strong fish stock, a potato base and chunks of smoked and unsmoked fish added to the hot soup just before serving.

BEST SEAFOOD CHOWDER

5 Lemon sole in a crispy coating

Without question, the best seafood chowder is served in Aherne’s of Youghal in east Cork and in O’Dowd’s of Roundstone in west Galway, with the chowder served in the Fisherman’s Catch at the pier in Clogherhead in Louth a close rival.

Unfortunately, despite the All-Ireland Chowder Championship (which sought to celebrate the quality of this modern traditional dish), the majority of chowder served in gastro pubs and pub-restaurants is made with frozen fillets of smoked fish, farmed salmon and stock not worthy of the name. It is one thing to serve a chowder at a championship play-off and another to serve it to customers who think they are tasting the real thing.

Cheese, chowder and comfort food would make a great name for a food book, but it should not make the basis for a menu when there are so many people with dietary requirements, children who need healthy food and the discerning who

want nothing more than a tasty meal made with fresh, preferably local ingredients.

MEATBALLS AND THE JUMBO BREAKFAST ROLL While pork is still seen as a breakfast product, there has been a general trend to serve stuffed roast pork as a lunchtime dinner, especially in rural pub-restaurants. And this brings us to a question about meatballs, which have never been a traditional Irish dish.

From one end of Europe to the other, meatballs feature as national dishes, made with a combination of beef and pork. Meatballs made exclusively with beef rarely feature, making the Ballylickey meatballs a very special product.

Why do our gastro pubs ignore the fact that children in continental Europe consume huge qualities of meatballs served in an aromatic or sweet tomato sauce? Even the Italians, who are not big meatball eaters, serve them to their young ones.

Several years ago, Perry Share in Sligo commented on the emergence of the “jumbo breakfast roll” (rashers, sausages, black and white pudding, fried egg, cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes).

He described it as a food event “that can be placed at the intersection of numerous vectors that crisscross contemporary Irish society” and cited the modern convenience store and garage forecourt, which provide hot deli products.

“Made within the context of a food culture that apparently pays little store by ‘traditional’ notions of when and where or what it is appropriate to eat,” Perry noted that “we have a fluid approach that tends to equate ‘food’ with ‘fuel’ – so it is doubly appropriate that so much of our food is now purchased at outlets that can offer both (and Lotto too!).”

It appears that we no longer have a traditional food culture, if the menus in our pub-restaurants are symptomatic of a trend, and it would be a shame if the “convenience culture” infiltrated the thinking of publicans who offer food to tourists and travellers.

The country is alive with food products yet the majority of our food is imported (we export fresh fish and import frozen fish!). The people who make up pub-restaurant menus seem not to consider the type of customer yet try to be all things to all people, young and old.

The pub-restaurant should be a window into the world of traditional Irish food products, for natives and tourists alike. But we must not forget, especially during the summer months, that children need to be fed and they deserve better than the choice they are being offered now – and not just to keep the parents sane.

28 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

Our ‘exiled children’ and the Rising America and the 1916 Rising

By Dr Ruán O’Donnell.

Friends of Sinn Féin Inc

MORE of a pamphlet than a book, its 48 pages neatly trace the involvement of Irish-America in the build-up to the 1916 Easter Rising.

Funded by the Friends of Sinn Féin in the USA, the booklet is designed to highlight the American connections in advance of the 1916 centenary.

This is a work of real quality, demonstrating both an academic rigour and an eminently readable style as it takes the reader through the political intrigue, fund-raising and weapons procurement operations that occurred between the USA and Ireland in the years immediately proceeding the 1916 Rising.

The author begins by stating that the 1916 Proclamation was inspired in 5 Members of the 69th Division (part of the American Civil War Union Army known as 'The Fighting Irish') captured at the Battle of Bull Run; a young Tom Clarke, who was involved in the Irish-American bombing cell; Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa at the Manchester Martyrs memorial in Birr, County Offaly

Pictures behind the stories Conspirators: A Photographic History of Ireland’s Revolutionary Underground

By Dr Shane Kenna. Mercier Press

A TRULY fascinating work, although small (it’s only 151 pages), it crams in enough material to fill a volume four or five times its size.

The author has brought together photographs from a wide variety of sources, and it is these photos that make this a work of the very highest calibre. They are accompanied by an informative and pithy text that perfectly contextualise and explain each of the photographs, and serve to bring the whole period to life.

The photographs put flesh on the bones of history and transform the individuals and events into real, living people, not merely a litany of sterile facts.

The photographs selected have been chosen with consummate skill and are a constant joy.

Most people are familiar with the photos of John Devoy as a stern, grey-bearded elder statesman but to see him as a fresh-faced, clean-shaven youth, forces the reader to consider the years of dedicated activity that went

into making the image that we all know.

Similarly, everyone has heard the name of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, but few would know his face. His photograph, actually a ‘mugshot’ from Kilmainham Jail, show a strength of character and

These photographs put flesh on the bones of history

Political intrigue, fundraising and weapons procurement between the USA and Ireland prior to the 1916 Rising part by the United States Declaration of Independence and points out that whilst that document was signed by an Irishman, Charles Carroll, the Proclamation was signed by an American citizen, Tom Clarke.

The huge level of support for the republican cause is explained by the large diaspora resulting from the Famine and following years of poverty, which left a lasting resentment amongst a community which had survived an existential threat.

The importance of Irish-America to the leaders of the Easter Rising is shown by the calibre of individuals who travelled to America in the

build-up to the Rising. James Connolly, Pádraig Pearse, Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Joseph Plunkett, Tom Ashe and Diarmuid Lynch all visited. Roger Casement was also sent and, due to his international acclaim, he was granted access to US President Theodore Roosevelt in August 1914. Roosevelt was so impressed by Casement that he subsequently pleaded unsuccessfully with the British not to execute him.

The importance of this diaspora is probably best illustrated by their specific mention in the Proclamation as “her exiled children in America”, placing them firmly as ongoing members of the Irish family and not as some associated lost element retaining vestigial connections.

This is a small publication but an interesting one, thoughtful and scholarly, whilst being well-written and eminently readable. Absolutely essential reading for anyone with Irish-American connections in the approach to the 1916 centenary.

determination that is almost palpable.

Several other mugshots of less-wellknown Fenian prisoners show them helpless with mirth and visibly laughing into the camera, apparently overcome by the novelty of having their photograph taken. The humanity of the individuals recorded jumps from the images, and requires you to think of them as real people and not simply historical ciphers.

The book charts the progress from the formation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Fenian Brotherhood, covering the Fenian Uprising, the abortive invasion of Canada, the Phoenix Park assassinations, the dynamite campaign (so excellently covered in Dr Kenna’s previous book, War in the Shadows), and culminating in Pearse’s oration at the funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in 1915.

This little volume provides an accessible overview of quite a complicated period of Irish history, and never fails to explain and enlighten at every twist and intrigue.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable and informative work which should be of interest to all, from historical novices to seasoned experts. Everyone should 5 Joseph McGarrity and a crowd of supporters greet Constance Markievicz at Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, in April 1922 own a copy.

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

I nDíl Chuimhne

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 17 July 2015

1 July 1980: Volunteer Terence O’NEILL, 2nd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 2 July 1974: Volunteer Patrick TEER, Long Kesh 3 July 1972: Volunteer Denis QUINN, Tyrone Brigade 6 July 1976: Volunteer Thomas KANE, 1st Battalion, Belfast Brigade 7 July 1990: Volunteer Seán BATESON, Long Kesh 7 July 1988: Volunteer Séamus WOODS, Tyrone Brigade 8 July 1970: Volunteer Tommy CARLIN, Derry Brigade 8 July 1972: Volunteer Julie DOUGAN, Cumann na mBan, Portadown

8 July 1981: Fian John DEMPSEY, Fianna Éireann 8 July 1981: Volunteer Joe McDONNELL, Long Kesh 9 July 1972: Fian John DOUGAL, Fianna Éireann 13 July 1981: Volunteer Martin HURSON, Long Kesh 13 July 1984: Volunteer William PRICE, Tyrone Brigade 14 July 1972: Volunteer Louis SCULLION, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 15 July 1972: Volunteer James REID, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 16 July 1972: Fian Tobias MOLLOY,

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations Pádraig Pearse Fianna Éireann 17 July 1976: Volunteer Patrick CANNON, Dublin Brigade 17 July 1976: Volunteer Peter McELCAR, Donegal Brigade 21 July 1972: Volunteer Joseph DOWNEY, 3rd Battalion, Belfast

Comhbhrón BENNETT. Deepest sympathy to to the Bennett family on the death of Brendan ‘Chicky’. From Cabra Sinn Féin, Dublin.

McKINNEY. Deepest condolences and sympathy is extended to the McKinney family on the death of Joe. From Tony O’Flaherty, Cabra, Dublin.

McKINNEY. Deepest sympathy to the McKinney family on the death of Joe. From Cabra Sinn Féin, Dublin.

McNAMEE, Tommy. The McNally & McGarvey Sinn Féin Cumann, County Tyrone, express our heartfelt sorrow at the passing of our esteemed

founding member, comrade and former Councillor Tommy McNamee, who died on 6 June 2015. Deepest sympathies to his wife, May, to his children and to the entire McNamee family circle. We assure you our prayers are with you at this sad time.

Brigade 21 July 1973: Volunteer Alphonsus CUNNINGHAM, South Down Command 21 July 1973: Volunteer Pauline KANE, Cumann na mBan, Newcastle 25 July 1988: Volunteer Brendan DAVISON, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 27 July 1977: Volunteer Tommy TOLAN, 2nd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 28 July 1972: Volunteer Seamus CASSIDY, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade 31 July 1972: Volunteer Seamus BRADLEY, Derry Brigade.

and was a valued member of his local Harvey/McGlynn/Connolly/ McHugh Sinn Féin Cumann and had worked tirelessly at elections for Sinn Féin from the early 1980s until recently when poor health no longer permitted him to do so. He was a very selfless person, putting the needs of others before his own; Paddy always had the best interests of others at heart.

His friend Pat Doherty MP gave the graveside oration at Paddy’s funeral and spoke of Paddy’s support of Tyrone Gaelic football and an unstinting devotion to his community, friends, and his family.

He also recalled how his recent election success had been tinged with great sadness for him personally on hearing that Paddy had passed away just moments before

GEENEY, Clem. In loving memory of my dear friend and colleague Clem Geeney, whose anniversary occurs on 1 July 2015. The years pass on but memories never fade. Never forgotten and always remembered by Philip ‘Fido’ Ward, Belfast.

McARDLE John. In memory of our friend and comrade John ‘Mungo’ McArdle, whose anniversary occurs at this time. Never forgotten by the Halpenny, Worthington, Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

DUBLIN

Óglach Pat Cannon Commemoration (39th anniversary)

Paddy Devlin Castlederg, Tyrone community and he was pivotal to the formation of the now flourishing Churchtown Community Association in Castlederg.

Testament to the character of Paddy was how he resisted attempts from unionism and others to undermine early attempts to develop a community association in Castlederg in the mid 198Os . Undeterred, Churchtown Community Group was established and now goes from strength to strength because of the work of Paddy and others. Through the years Paddy had worked with many people as Chairperson of Churchtown Community Association and in fulfilling his role Paddy quietly also worked to improve community relations in Castlederg.

Paddy was also deeply political

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

» Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@ anphoblacht.com at least 14 days in advance of publication date. There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón etc. » Imeachtaí There is a charge of €10 for inserts printed in our Imeachtaí/Events column. You can also get a small or large box advert. Contact: sales@anphoblacht.com for details.

FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

IT was with great sadness and regret that the community of Castlederg and beyond learned of the death of lifelong republican and community activist Paddy Devlin.

Surrounded by his family and friends, Paddy (pictured) slipped away to his eternal rest after battling a long illness at his home in Hillview Park, Castlederg, on the evening of Thursday 7 May. Paddy hailed from the townland of Attagh, Gortin, County Tyrone.

Like so many of his countrymen and women, Paddy sought work in England on the building sites and had then returned to his beloved Tyrone to make a home and rear his family of five boys and three girls in the town of Castlederg.

Paddy had a great love for his

29

2:30pm Saturday 18 July. Assemble Hilton Hotel, Northern Cross, Malahide Road. Parade to Balgriffin Cemetery. Dublin Colour Party and the Rising Phoenix Republican Flute Band in attendance Chair Cllr Mícheál Mac Donncha. Main speaker Seán Hughes.

101st Asgard Commemoration

3pm Saturday 25 July. East Pier, Howth Harbour.

Dublin Colour Party and the Rising Phoenix Republican Flute Band in attendance. Chair Cllr Daire Ni Laoi. Main speaker Martin Ferris TD.

he was to be declared re-elected as MP for West Tyrone.

Paddy was laid to rest in St Patrick’s Church graveyard, Castlederg.

By Councillor Ruairí McHugh

Centenary re-enactment of O'Donovan Rossa funeral and 'Fenian Weekend'

Events on 1 August and over the weekend to mark the famous call to arms for the 1916 Rising (see Page 20 for more details).

Groups interested in taking part in this historical event should contact 1916@sinnfein.ie.

Full 2016 programme at www.sinnfein.ie/1916.

Derry ceremony to remember young Pádraig Barton A CROWD of a hundred people gathered in the bright sunshine in Derry’s City Cemetery on Sunday afternoon for a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of a young Derry republican Pádraig Barton.

The event was chaired by Caolán McGinley and the main speaker was Nicole Ní Láimhbheartáin Pádraig was involved in an accident outside Derry City in the early hours of Sunday morning, 6 June 2010 and tragically passed away in Altnagelvin Hospital the following day.

Nicole said: “Pádraig was a well-known, extremely dedicated and likeable Ógra activist who will be fondly and proudly remembered by the many who met him, whether on their travels to the annual Bloody Sunday Weekend, at the Hunger-Strike Republican Youth Weekend in Derry, or the

Pádraig Barton

many national Ógra Shinn Féin events which he attended. He was also a seller of An Phoblacht from the age of 11.

“Pádraig, came from a family steeped in republican politics. His grandfather was republican stalwart Seán Keenan; his uncle, Óglach Colm Keenan, was killed unarmed with his comrade,

Óglach Eugene McGillan; he has had relatives imprisoned for their role in the struggle and his family has endured the harassment and degradation wrought by the British state during the most recent phase of the conflict.

“He lived for many things: his friends and family, his beloved Stoke City FC, and republicanism, which he embraced through his activism in Ógra Shinn Féin.

“Pádraig was also very intelligent and academically astute, having just completed his A-Levels in St Columb’s, Derry, and was set for going to university.

“We are buoyed by his memory. We are extremely proud and honoured to have worked with and known such an inspirational and gifted young man, and we will do all in our utmost to keep his memory alive and to achieve all that he strived for in his short yet full life.”

30 July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

BETWEEN THE POSTS

BY CIARÁN KEARNEY

TEACHING OUR CHILDREN IT IS A TRADITION few of us will have escaped. It starts as early as pre-school.

The night before, everyone is glued to the weather forecast. A reminder of the last days before the summer break.

This is where we start to learn rituals.

We start to learn about performance in public. We start to learn about the value and culture of sport in our society.

It’s ‘School Sports Day’.

I’ve never heard an account or explanation for the origins of school sports days. It’s just taken for granted that we all take part. After all, it’s just a bit of craic, isn’t it? And, sure, it’s healthy to have children outdoors involved in physical activity. Or is it? What if you’re not ‘sporty’? Where does that leave you on sports day? If you’re not a winner, does that mean you’re a loser? And if you’re advising a child to beat a fellow pupil by any means necessary, what are we teaching our children ?

The relationship between children and sport is more complicated than we imagine. Earlier this year, at a workshop on child protection for sports coaches, the workshop leader gave an example. He described how coaches at a sports event had intervened when they noticed someone on the edge of the area taking photographs of where their underage sports were taking place.

Although the person left the scene hurriedly in a car, a follow-up check by police after the event indicated the occupant was on the sex offenders’ register. Of course, schools and sports

IN PICTURES

screaming hysterically at his child: “Be aggressive! Be more aggressive!”

Thankfully, some GAA clubs now display a code of conduct for parents at under-age games. Naomh Pól GAC, on the Shaws Road in the heart of west Belfast, is one of several clubs with banners displayed: “Silent Sideline: coaches and parents. No shouting!!

No instructing!! Just let them play.”

What if you’re not ‘sporty’?

Where does that leave you on sports day? If you’re not a winner, does that mean you’re a loser?

clubs are well-trained in child protection nowadays.

Another form of abuse can come from coaches and even parents who shout from the sideline.

At one athletics event, my children

witnessed an adult aggressively chastising her daughter: “Saskia, what do you think your father will say when he hears you didn’t win a medal?” On another occasion, I witnessed a parent at an under-age girls Gaelic football game

Yet it’s not just what children see and hear which matters. It’s also what they feel and learn which impacts.

Most children will go through school without a medal or prize from sports day. When did we decide that presentations should be reserved for 1st, 2nd and 3rd? Surely podium positions are for elite sport. What gender assumptions underlie our approach to sports day? And why do sports days revolve around individual competitions, pitching one classmate against another ?

When Cumann Luthchleas Gael was founded, athletic events were part of it. However, the five main codes (perhaps with the exception of singles handball) all have a team component

to them. The social dimension to sport is one which could be more to the fore on school sports day. After all, it is a social occasion when parents and pupils from different age groups mingle together. Some schools facilitate this social side well.

Whilst diet is contributing to spiralling levels of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes, so too is our sedentary lifestyle. Latest research indicates that we are already in the middle of a global pandemic of inactivity. Less than half of primary school children in Ireland meet the level of physical activity on a weekly basis to ensure health and well-being. These guidelines recommend that children over 5 years of age should engage in at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.

More worryingly, by 15 years of age, almost nine out of 10 girls and seven out of 10 boys don’t achieve the recommended level of physical activity. After that age, as many sports coaches will confirm, there is a steep drop-off in sporting participation in our population particularly. This area of public policy is dangerously neglected.

A time-bomb of ill-health is already ticking in Irish society today. Government in health, sport and education have a common cause. School sports day presents an opportunity to promote increased participation in physical activity and well-being, as well as sport.

By rethinking the concept, perhaps we could realise potential new wins.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sophie Magennis, head of the UN refugee agency in Ireland, with Dublin's Diverse City team at the Fair Play Cup women's soccer tournament on World Refugee Day 5 A young woman plays camogie in Belfast in front of murals depicting some of the ongoing campaigns for justice

July / Iúil 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

31

TURKEY

Stunning result for pro-Kurdish, left-wing HDP AKP doesn’t have a majority in the Parliament for the first time in 13 years. In the election, the AKP haemorrhaged support in the southeast to the HDP, which won a landslide 78% of votes in Diyarbakir province, compared to just 15% for the AKP, less than half its showing in the 2011 elections.

The Turkish Parliament now also has its first Roma and Yazidi MPs.

BY ERIC SCANLON THE ONLY PARTY that was celebrating after the Turkey’s general election on Sunday 7 June was the party that came fourth!

The People’s Democratic Party, known as the HDP, is a pro-Kurdish, left-wing party that received 13% of the vote and has now entered Turkey’s Parliament with 80 seats. For a political party to enter Turkey’s parliament, it has to pass a threshold of 10% of the total vote, so this was a stunning result for HDP in their first general election.

HDP also had a quota of 10% of candidates from the LGBT community and women made up 50% of candidates.

It also ensured that no other single party won a majority in the election, which has clipped the wings of the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He had been seeking a ‘super majority’ to force through constitutional change. Negotiations began to create a coalition Governmen but, if Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) fail to secure a coalition partner, there could be fresh elections as early as August.

While Erdoğan helped to launch a now stalled peace deal with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), the Kurdish community, which makes up approximately 20% of Turkey’s population, widely holds that he has backtracked on his promises. His backtracking has ensured that

HDP expected to use its position to reinvigorate peace talks between Government and PKK The HDP is expected to use its position to try to reinvigorate peace talks between the Government and the PKK as well as pressing other key Kurdish demands, such as Kurdish-language education and Kurdish-medium state-run schools.

This result means that issues of the the Kurdish people, and other minorities, cannot be sidelined or ignored in Turkish politics anymore. Erdoğan, however, has a habit of creating conflict, so it is a tense time in this NATO nation.

Basque ex-MEP among 20 jailed

BY MARK MOLONEY BASQUE former MEP Karmelo Landa is among 20 political activists who have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 18 months to three years as an 11-year court case targeting Basque social clubs came to an end at the Spanish Supreme Court in June.

The case revolved around the operating of Basque social clubs known as ‘Herriko Tabernas’ (literally ‘People’s Bars’) which the Spanish Government accused of being part of a support network raising funds for the outlawed armed independence group ETA. As well as imprisoning the 20 activists, the Supreme Court ruled that 107 Basque social clubs (most of which have no official political affiliation and are run by local community groups) are to be shut down and seized by the

authorities. Many of the bars raised funds for the dependants of imprisoned Basque political prisoners.

Karmelo Landa was among eight Basque activists convicted of “membership of a terrorist organisation” while

Largest seizure of ‘property of the persecuted’ since fascist dictator General Franco the other 12 activists were convicted of “collaboration with a terrorist organisation”.

Most of those sentenced to prison were former members of Basque political party Batasuna, which was declared illegal by the Spanish Government in

2003 after it was accused of being subordinate to ETA. The banning of political parties, Basque social clubs and prisoner support groups is part of a concerted campaign by the Spanish Government known as “all is ETA” which attempts to criminalise any organisation which advocates for Basque independence or the rights of Basque political prisoners.

Basque political party Sortu hit out at the ruling, describing the Supreme Court’s decision as “an attempt to punish pro-independence political work” and outlaw the ideas of the nationalist Left. The party also denounced the seizure of the social clubs as “the largest seizure of property of the persecuted” since the time of fascist dictator General Franco. It said the move would cost dozens of jobs and remove a vital avenue for activists to engage in legitimate political activity.

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5 A mural commemorating the McGurk's Bar massacre is restored after a paint-bomb attack