An Phoblacht, July 2017

anphoblacht LET'S TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE Sraith Nua Iml 40 Uimhir 7

July / Iúil 2017

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Gerry Adams's Waterfront invite to 'thoughtful leaders of unionism'

THE MAGNIFICENT 7 Westminster successes for Sinn Féin Dublin elects Sinn Féin Ardmhéara

THE RIGHT TO REMEMBER

Republicans at Messines WW1 commemorations

2 July / Iúil 2017

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Gerry Adams’s Waterfront address invites Orange Order to talks, appeals to ‘thoughtful leaders of unionism’

‘NEW APPROACH’ NEEDED TO CONVINCE UNIONISTS ABOUT A UNITED IRELAND GERRY ADAMS has told a key conference hosted

by Sinn Féin in Belfast that Sinn Féin is for a new Ireland “with symbols and emblems to reflect an inclusive Ireland, and that includes the safeguarding of British citizenship and recognition of the unionist identity”.

The Sinn Féin leader was speaking on the theme of “Let’s Talk About the Future”.

The former MP for West Belfast said that others, “specifically our unionist neighbours”, have a different view of the kind of future they want – a future connected to Britain rather than a reunited Ireland – and economic arguments alone will not be enough to sway unionists.

Republicans “are neither naïve or insensitive to the opposition of unionists to the concept – never mind the reality – of Irish unity”, Gerry Adams said. Therefore, he continued: “We need a new approach, one which unlocks unionist opposition to a new Ireland by remind-

‘My appeal is for all of us – together – in respect and tolerance, enter into a dialogue about the future’ Gerry Adams TD ing them of their historic place here and of the positive contribution they have made to society on this island.

“Instead of concentrating on the negative aspects of our four centuries of shared history, I suggest that we embrace the areas of agreement and of co-operation, of good neighbourliness and the common good.”

He said that the reality is that, in the 400 years of their presence on this island, Protestants – “and especially Northern Protestants” – have been woven into the narrative that constitutes the history of Ireland.

“While that narrative has been at times a troubled one, it has also been dynamic.

“We have a shared history – we will also have a shared future.”

He said that one of the big issues arising from the discussion about a united Ireland is how do we create the circumstances in which a new

5 Gerry Adams chats with Rose Dugdale, one of numerous republicans who travelled to Belfast

Ireland can embrace every citizen on the basis of equality while respecting their political allegiance and their differing sense of identity?

The Sinn Féin leader continued: “Our task must be to ensure that it is a shared future which looks after every citizen, and in which everyone accepts the right of the other to be Irish or British – to be unionist or nationalist or republican.”

The Good Friday Agreement is binding on this, he said. It guarantees the right to British citizenship in a united Ireland.

“So, constitutional change can be achieved without sacrificing identity or citizenship.”

The Louth TD said that Sinn Féin is actively “encouraging” the Irish Government to establish a Dáil Committee on Irish Unity to develop

5 Newly-elected West Belfast MP Paul Maskey, Emma Rogan from Loughinisland (who replaced Chris Hazzard as South Down MLA after his success in winning 'The Battle of South Down' and taking the MP's seat for Sinn Féin), Senator Rose Conway-Walsh and Pearse Doherty join Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD after he delivered his keynote address

proposals on what a united Ireland might look like.

The Irish Government, Irish political parties, Irish society North and South, should consciously address “the genuine fears and concerns of unionists in a meaningful way”, he said.

We must also look at what unionists mean by their sense of Britishness and be willing to explore and to be open to new concepts, he said.

That includes the need to address the future role of the Orange Order, “its place in an agreed Ireland”, Gerry Adams said.

“Of course, that is a challenge also for the Orange and I invite their leaders once again to meet with Sinn Féin.

“It is unacceptable for the Orange to refuse to meet at leadership level with our leadership. I have met with Orangemen, as have other republicans.

These have been useful and necessary engagements. They need to be built upon.”

He said that unionist leaders, including genuinely moderate people, find it difficult to take public – as opposed to private – reconciliation initiatives or to publicly reciprocate to goodwill from republicans.

“Martin McGuinness’s resignation letter and his concern about this should give thoughtful leaders of unionism some encouragement if they genuinely want to build a future based on mutual respect.

“Perhaps they should tell us if reconciliation means the same thing to them as it does to the rest of us.”

He urged people to join the debate and organise their own forums to express their hopes, fears and aspirations, to explore ideas and views, for and against.

Others, including new voices in the unionist community, “will have opposing or similar views to us – let us hear them”.

He noted that those who defined themselves as “British” in the Census were, for the first time in almost 100 years, a minority in the Northern state.

“The days of leaving the debate on a united Ireland for another time are over. It can’t be done.

The debate has already begun.

“Intransigence, narrow-mindedness, the old ways will no longer work.

“So, do we stay stuck in the past or do we move forward together?

“My appeal at the end of a very successful conference is for all of us – together – in respect and tolerance, enter into a dialogue about the future.”

5 The morning panel included Mary Lou McDonald TD, Ben Lowry (Deputy Editor of the unionist daily News Letter), Kevin Meagher (writer and previously advisor to former Secretary of State Shaun Woodward) with commentator Eamonn Mallie who chaired the session

July / Iúil 2017

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‘A blank cheque for a Tory Brexit that threatens the Good Friday Agreement’ – Gerry Adams

Theresa May finds ‘money tree’ to buy DUP support for Conservatives BRITISH TORY Prime Minister Theresa May has sealed a deal with DUP leader Arlene Foster for the unionists to prop up the Tory minority government in power at Westminster in return for an investment package in the North of Ireland of £1billion (around €1.14billion) over the next two years plus other measures.

“The devil is in the detail,” Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD said as he described the deal on Monday 26 June as “a blank cheque for a Tory Brexit that threatens the Good Friday Agreement”.

The long-term price of the deal is DUP support for “continued Tory austerity and cuts to public services” with Arlene Foster’s commitment to support the Tory Government on all motions of confidence, on the Queen’s Speech, the Budget, finance bills, money bills, 5 Partners – British Prime Minister Theresa May (Conservative & Unionist Party) and Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist Party) supply and appropriation legislation and will adhere fully to the Good Friday and only limited time to do this,” the “Sinn Féin will continue to prioriestimates, and all legislation pertaining Agreement and its successors, they Sinn Féin leader said as the deadline tise the establishment of a credible, to British national security and Brexit. need to deliver on this for the political loomed as An Phoblacht went to press. sustainable Executive which deals with Gerry Adams said at Stormont during institutions to be restored.

Gerry Adams continued: all the challenges facing our society, negotiations to restore the Executive “There is work to be done by the DUP that any money which comes into the North to offset the damage already done by Tory austerity is welcome.

He pointed out, however, that the Tory Government has slashed more than £1billion from the North’s block grant over the last seven years.

“The allocation of additional funds could help to ease the enormous pressure on our public services. The devil is in the detail,” he said.

“If, as they claim in today’s agreement, both the Tories and the DUP

ppet – and so was

‘What a fool I was. I was only a pu

t political game that

Ulster, and so was Ireland – in tha

was to get the Conservative Party

into power’

d by Gerry Adams

Sir Edward Carson in 1921, quote

IN PICTURES

including the failure to implement previous agreements.

“Sinn Féin will vigorously pursue the rights of citizens currently being denied by the DUP and the British Government.

“We are committed to equality. Sinn Féin will resolutely oppose any attempt to give preferential treatment to British forces, either in terms of legacy or the provision of public services,” he said in a reference to speculation about the Armed Forces Covenant which stands in contravention of the equality provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

The Sinn Féin leader added: “If, as they claim in today’s agreement, both the Tories and the DUP will fully adhere fully to the Good Friday Agreement and its successors, they need to deliver on this for the political institutions to be restored.

“So, there is work to be done by the DUP and only limited time to do this.

“As they return to Ireland to meet with Sinn Féin and the other parties, the DUP should be minded of the words of Edward Carson speaking in 1921 on the Tory intrigues that had led him on a course that would partition Ireland,” Gerry Adams said.

And the Sinn Féin leader quoted the words of the unionist icon as food for thought for the DUP: “What a fool I was. I was only a puppet – and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland – in that political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power.”

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin leader in the North, delivers the opening address at the 'Agreed Future' conference in Belfast

5 Matt Carthy, MEP for the Midlands North West constituency and Chair of the party’s United Ireland department

5 Mary Lou McDonald TD takes to the podium to address a packed hall of up to 500 people who attended Sinn Féin’s 'An Agreed Future?' conference in the Waterfront Hall

4 July / Iúil 2017

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anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 9

Uafás na Palaistíne ar Scáileán 10 & 11

Prison struggle was about the Republic declared in Easter Week 1916 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD, Director of Elections for H-Blocks Hunger Striker Kieran Doherty TD in 1981 14 & 15

Tamil exiles visit Belfast and Derry 16 & 17

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht

The talks at Stormont WHILST the DUP’s deal to prop up Theresa May’s Tory Government has been concluded, talks involving Sinn Féin, the DUP and the other main parties to try and restore the Executive and Assembly at Stormont continue as we go to press.

The negotiations at Stormont have been painstaking and long, stretching out late into the nights as well as including days of intensive engagements between and within the parties as well as with the Irish and British governments, the co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement.

Sinn Féin is engaged and working for an agreement.

Republicans want to see the institutions back up and running and a sustainable, credible Executive in place which can deliver first-class public services on the basis of equality, respect and integrity.

As Martin McGuinness noted when he resigned in January, the DUP, despite being nominally engaged in a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin, never really fully embraced the ideals which underpin the Good Friday Agreement.

They played fast and loose with the joint nature of the joint Office of First and deputy First Minister, he said.

The DUP acted with disrespect and at times outright bigotry towards the Irish language, blocking an Irish Language Act and withdrawing funding.

They also showed no regard for the identity, traditions

Contact

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

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

Bodenstown: Advancing towards Irish unity in the United Irish tradition 24 & 25

and symbols of the nationalist and republican people.

No serious attempt was made to reciprocate the initiatives around reconciliation that Martin McGuinness and other figures in Sinn Féin have taken.

Successive British governments have also failed in their responsibilities to the Good Friday and other agreements.

Meanwhile, the Irish Government has failed to hold London to account even though it is an equal partner in the Good Friday Agreement.

They have totally failed to meet their obligations on addressing the legacy of the past, the introduction of a Bill of Rights, legislation to protect the rights of the Irishlanguage community and many other issues.

These, combined with their relentless adherence to a punishing austerity agenda and their determination to drag the North out of the EU against the wishes of the people has deepened the growing crisis of confidence in politics and the political institutions.

We need to get back to the principles of the Good Friday Agreement: equality, partnership and respect. Without these, we do not have genuine power-sharing institutions.

It remains to be seen if the DUP and the British Government are prepared to fully embrace the ideals of the Good Friday Agreement and be proactive in taking what steps are necessary to make power-sharing work for every citizen.

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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MICHAEL GAUGHAN COMMEMORATION BALLINA, COUNTY MAYO

MIDLANDS HONOUR PADDY KELLY AND MICK HALL

THE Paddy Kelly Sinn Féin Cumann in County Offaly commemorated the 20th anniversary of Volunteer Paddy Kelly on Saturday 10 June in Killenard, County Laois, in a ceremony addressed by Mick O’Brien and chaired by Carol Nolan TD.

The slow death of the Amazon’s Guarani-Kaiowá 26 & 27

Erin’s Hope – 150th anniversary of US gun-running ship 30

Not on the Nine O’Clock News – Seán Mac Brádaigh 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 newspaperand An Phoblacht’s/IRIS the republican magazine archives

THE SUN SHONE on the crowd that gathered at the Republican Plot in Leigue Cemetery on Sunday 4 June to remember Mayo hunger striker Michael Gaughan, who died in Parkhurst Prison on 3 June 1974.

Michael Regan (Chairperson of the local Gaughan, Lynn & Stagg Sinn

Féin Cumann) welcomed everyone and Declan Cuffe read the Proclamation before Senator Rose Conway Walsh gave a very moving speech about Michael Gaughan, his life and his legacy.

• See also Pages 10 & 11 on remembering our hunger strike heroes

L a te r th a t e ve n i n g , th e cumann was relaunched with the incorporation of the name of the late Mick Hall, the much-respected Sinn Féin Organiser for Laois, Offaly and Kildare and a former political prisoner in Portlaoise.

July / Iúil 2017

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THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN IN WESTMINSTER

THE seven-strong Sinn Féin MP team hit the ground running after landing in London on Tuesday 13 June – just five days after a watershed Westminster election.

The newly-elected team of MPs were there for a two-day programme of engagement with political parties, civic leaders, and members of the Irish Diaspora. Reflecting Sinn Féin’s commitment to an all-Ireland approach, the MPs were accompanied by party colleague Pearse Doherty TD. The team met with representatives from all the major political parties in Westminster to express concerns around any potential deal to be struck between the Tories and the DUP. Michelle Gildernew MP warned: “This new arrangement is very unsettling and people are concerned and wary of what it may mean and what

The Sinn Féin team met with representatives from all the major political parties in Westminster to express concerns around any potential deal between the Tories and the DUP

in the London Irish Centre in Camden.

The high turnout and the level of enthusiasm in the room demonstrated that Sinn Féin’s election victory resonated with the diaspora community in Britain.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Paul Maskey MP pledged that the MP team would be seeking further engagement and greater interaction with the Irish community in Britain and appealed for their assistance in doing this.

The following day, six of the MPs left for the Oireachtas in Dublin to attend the the Joint Committee on

5 The newly-elected MPs held an intensive series of meetings with political parties, civic leaders and the Irish Diaspora

5 There was huge international media interest in the arrival of the Sinn Féin MPs

The Globe & Mail, China’s Xinhua News Agency and Japan’s Kyodo News (amongst others).

The Sinn Féin MPs carried out extensive interviews with reporters from a range of media platforms, including RTÉ, BBC, UTV, Sky, Channel 4, TalkRadio, Russia Today, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mirror, Morning Star, and the New Statesman.

Across all of these interviews there was a marked interest in the Tory Prime Minister’s new DUP bedfellows. As Barry McElduff MP reflected, now that the media spotlight is firmly on the DUP, “maybe the people in England, Scotland, and Wales will begin to learn about the true nature of the DUP – their homophobia, their sexism, their sectarianism, and their anti-Irish regressive politics”.

With just two days’ notice, more than a hundred people came out to meet the seven new MPs for a series of engaging Q&As at a public meeting

the Six Counties to the 26 Counties and out in force demonstrating their sudden promises will be given or promises the disruptive effect this would have interest in Irish politics. extracted from British Prime Minister on communities in the North.

The press conference was also Theresa May. The visit received considerable media attended by correspondents from “We’ve already heard some of the coverage and attention. At a press around the world including Germany’s things that have been asked for. Issues conference hosted by the Foreign Press Die Zeit, France’s Le Monde, Italy’s La that have been put to bed a long time Association, British media outlets were Repubblica, Spain’s El Mundo, Canada’s ago are now raising their head again.

So there is a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear out of what is being discussed.”

As part of their visit, the MPs met with James Brokenshire, the British Secretary of State.

Brokenshire was told in no uncertain terms that his government had failed to meet its obligation as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement. He was warned that Sinn Féin would not tolerate any backroom deals with the DUP that might undermine past agreements. He was also challenged on the ideologically-driven cuts and austerity inflicted on the North of Ireland by successive Conservative governments.

The following day, the MPs met with the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Frances O’Grady, to discuss the impact of Brexit on Ireland.

The MPs outlined how the possible re-emergence of physical checkpoints along the Border corridor would have a dire effect on workers. They also discussed the risk of a ‘capital flight’ from 5 Meeting the media and other MPs during tea on the terrace at the Westminster Parliament

‘Maybe the people in England, Scotland, and Wales will begin to learn about the true nature of the DUP – their homophobia, their sexism, their sectarianism, and their anti-Irish regressive politics’ BARRY McELDUFF MP the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in Leinster House, joining colleagues from across the 32 Counties.

Elisha McCallion MP remained behind in London to be joined by Gerry Adams TD, Mary Lou McDonald TD and Michelle O’Neill MLA as they met British Prime Minister Theresa May in 10 Downing Street.

This visit occurred during a very difficult week for London following the Grenfell Tower fire. The Sinn Féin MPs and the Sinn Féin London Office extended their condolences to the victims of the disaster and commended the first responders for their heroism.

6 July / Iúil 2017

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We live in interesting times

BY PEADAR WHELAN

“MAY YOU LIVE in interesting times” is reputed to be an ancient Chinese curse that has been adapted in modern times by figures such as Robert F. Kennedy.

Like it or not, we certainly live in interesting times after the disastrous election call by British Prime Minister and Tory leader Theresa May. Desperate to stay in power after the shock resurgence of the Labour Party under the much-vilified Jeremy Corbyn, Theresa May’s Tories are wooing the DUP’s 10 MPs and negotiating behind closed doors for the DUP’s support in a “confidence and supply” agreement for her minority government.

Even before the DUP had arrived in Downing Street to begin their bartering with the Tories, the Orange Order in Portadown issued a statement pressing the DUP (including “fellow Bro David Simpson and all the other unionist representatives” who are members of the loyal orders) to push for the controversial Orange Order parade to be allowed down the nationalist Garvaghy Road after being banned in 1998.

Then there are the legacy issues, including immunity in the guise of a statute of limitations for members of the British crown forces responsible for killing people in the North and a redefinition of a ‘victim’ to exclude certain categories of people killed in the conflict.

For republicans, the task of bringing

Northern nationalists ‘have turned their backs on Westminster and see solutions being found on an all-Ireland basis’, Gerry Adams said creative energy to the political struggle is a challenge the Sinn Féin leadership will relish and, perhaps more than at any other time in our history, we have the political potential to end partition.

Gerry Adams, reflecting on Sinn Féin’s

5 Sinn Féin's 'Magnificent Seven' MPs – Mickey Brady, Paul Maskey, Elisha McCallion, Francie Molloy, Michelle Gildernew, Barry McElduff and Chris Hazzard at Westminster

phenomenal results from the election confirmed that Northern nationalists “have turned their backs on Westminster and see solutions being found on an all-Ireland basis”.

That the SDLP lost its three

Westminster seats (with the “SDLP citadel” of Foyle and South Down going to Sinn Féin’s Elisha McCallion and Chris Hazzard) reinforces opinion within nationalism that the only long-term answer to issues such as Brexit, Tory

Shine wearing off ‘New Iron Lady’ Theresa May

BY PEADAR WHELAN “IT’S A GOOD DAY for the DUP nationally.”

These were the first words uttered by DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds when he strode into the Titanic Exhibition Centre where the count for Belfast’s four parliamentary constituencies was taking place on Friday 9 June. Polling had closed just a few hours earlier.

It was just after midnight and already the first results were confirming what the exit polls were predicting – that there would likely be a hung parliament at Westminster.

As the early indications from across the North were showing that both the DUP and Sinn Féin had polled well, it was obvious that Dodds was, at this early stage, flexing DUP muscles: his party was going to be in a position to hold Theresa May and the Tories to ransom.

The bombast and arrogance that oozed from every pore of Dodds’s skin was evident by the bucket full when, an hour or so later, Arlene Foster – with her large jewelled-crown broach shining from her black jacket – descended upon the count centre á la Margaret Thatcher in her heyday.

It was all in sharp contrast to the assembly election in March when a chastened Foster locked herself away

from scrutiny in the Omagh count centre as her party took a hammering at the polls.

From a Democratic Unionist Party point of view, the shoe was now on the other foot and they were lining up to do some serious kicking.

The acceptance speeches of their successful candidates reinforced the notion that the DUP’s brand of politics is about insult, arrogance and domination.

Now as the dust is beginning to settle on the results of the election the focus is

scenes but publicly and unashamedly too.

That May got it so catastrophically wrong and is now beholden to a DUP that is home to right-wing religious zealots, homophobes, misogynists and Islamophobes (as well as her mishandling of the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy) has seen Tory faith in the Iron Lady swept away.

Former Tory Finance Minister George Osborne, now editor of London’s only evening newspaper, described her as “a dead woman walking”.

The horrified reaction to the

The British Prime Minister was hailed a hero when she called a snap election turning on to the horse trading between the DUP and a beleaguered Tory leader Theresa May. The British Prime Minister was hailed a hero when she called a snap election as the Tory fan press (particularly the Daily Mail and Daily Express) gushed about “The New Iron Lady”.

The Tories were riding high, Labour looked out on its feet despite the acclaim on the streets for its leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Blairite right of the party worked to undermine his leadership at every opportunity, not just behind the

“#DUPdeal” is summed up by the front page of the English edition of the Daily Mirror on Saturday 10 June. The frontpage headline was “Coalition of Crackpots”. To illustrate the point, there was a photo of Theresa May alongside insets of Nigel Dodds and Gregory Campbell in loyal order regalia and Peter Robinson wearing his unionist paramilitary Ulster Resistance red beret from the 1980s.

England has gotten a wake-up call about the sort of ‘British values’ unionists have been inflicting on nationalists in Ireland with London facilitating if not

actively encouraging this bigotry with ‘the Orange Card’ for centuries.

The DUP’s links to loyalist death squads and the party’s willingness to have the active support of the UDA in south Belfast to get Emma Little-Pengelly elected in the middle of a UDA feud has echoed in England when it normally would be ignored. The Fleet Street and BBC chimera of the ‘good unionists’ is becoming a bit tattered.

So it might not be all plain sailing in the new DUP/Tory pact.

Already the forthright Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davison, who is openly gay (and soon to marry her Irish partner), expressed her unhappiness at the DUP’s homophobia. Sammy Wilson has publicly referred to gay men as “poofs” and the DUP has consistently blocked attempts to enact marriage equality laws in the North.

A spokesperson for the influential Tory Party 1922 Committee believes the DUP could block major legislation set out in the Tory manifesto.

Conservative Chief Whip Gavin Williamson told the media on Saturday evening, 10 June, that a “confidence and supply” deal – where the DUP would back a Tory government on confidence and budget votes to provide “certainty and stability” – was agreed.

How much stability there is left in Theresa May’s rickety regime is, of course, seriously in doubt.

austerity and the DUP’s Old Testament undercurrents in its social attitudes and policies lies in a reunited Ireland.

That penny began to drop with the SDLP just before the election – but by then it was too late.

July / Iúil 2017

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7

5 Breaking news from Derry! Elisha McCallion taking the SDLP seat cheers exPOWs Sinéad Moore, Mary Doyle, Shauneen Baker and Síle Darragh

5 Sinn Féin tallyman Jim McCann likes a lot of them numbers

5 Another vote for Máirtín!

5 Hugs all round as the successful Paul Maskey MP is cheered by brother Alex as wife Patricia (left) and daughter Aoife applaud

5 Gerry Adams tells the media (for the umpteenth time) that Sinn Féin MPs will not be taking seats in the Westminster Parliament

5 Martin O'Toole crunches the numbers

5 Downpatrick – All-Ireland team celebrates Chris Hazzard's breakthrough win

5 West Belfast stands behind Paul Maskey

SDLP flounders in Sinn Féin tide ON the morning after the election count, the radio weather forecast warned of heavy, dark clouds over the Mountains of Mourne.

The image of a scowling one-time leader and now ex-MP Margaret Ritchie came to mind as the Mournes are the signature geographical and tourist attraction of the South Down constituency where the SDLP’s electoral writ ran for almost four decades.

Now it is represented by Sinn Féin’s Chris Hazzard. With Elisha McCallion’s victory over former leader Mark Durkan MP in Foyle – the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the SDLP – it is clear that the tide of history is washing over a party that was more about style than substance.

Dolores Kelly, SDLP MLA for Upper Bann, confided: “If we lose Foyle, we may pack it in.” She was at some level

‘If we lose Foyle, we may pack it in’ SDLP MLA

recognising that the party has reached the point of irrelevancy.

With another ex-leader and sitting MP, Alasdair McDonnell, falling to the DUP challenge in South Belfast, the SDLP has no Westminster seats.

All three SDLP MPs lost their seats – two of them to Sinn Féin, which went from four to seven MPs. What is striking about this is that party leader Colum Eastwood attacked Sinn Féin over and over again over its

5 Tories in Belfast: As rare as hen's teeth!

refusal to take seats in Westminster. It was a theme of his manifesto launch when he talked about “progress made

by MPs who turn up for work, not just wine receptions and lobbying lunches”.

Irish News columnist Tom Kelly (former Vice-Chair of the SDLP and Seamus Mallon adviser as well as SDLP Communications Director) recycled Eastwood’s soundbites, saying: “Sinn Féin has boycotted Westminster except, it would appear, for the Expenses Office.”

Kelly championed Mark Durkan’s “outstanding” contributions on the “floor of the House” against Tory Brexit Minister David Davis as an example of SDLP effectiveness – but we still got Brexit 5 A deflated SDLP ex-leader Alasdair McDonnell looks glum after losing his seat and the electorate delivered its verdict new minority government with the The Irish Government has to stand on abstentionism by voting Sinn Féin. DUP pulling her strings, the structures up and be counted as co-guarantors of The immediate challenge is to ensure of the Good Friday Agreement are not the international agreement with Britain, that, as Theresa May struggles with a pulled down with her. as does the European Union.

8 July / Iúil 2017

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AN PHOBLACHT FORMER EDITOR ELECTED

5 1995: An Phoblacht Editor Mícheál Mac Donncha after another edition has been put to bed

5 2002: Larry O'Toole and Mícheál Mac Donncha during the Dáil general election results at the RDS, Dublin, as Aengus Ó Snodaigh is about to be elected

Dublin City gets second Sinn Féin Ardmhéara

DUBLIN CITY is to have the second Sinn Féin Ardmhéara in its history – An Phoblacht former editor and regular columnist Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha.

Mícheál was elected by Dublin City councillors on Monday 26 June for the 2017/2018 term and follows Críona Ní Dhálaigh (another An Phoblacht former staff member!) who was Ardmhéara from June 2015 to June 2016.

Speaking after his election, Councillor Mac Donncha said his top priority will be addressing the housing crisis.

He also prioritised saving the Moore Street 1916 Battlefield Site and its preservation and development as cultural quarter. He said: “As Ardmhéara my main priority will be to work with this council, with all our communities, with those in housing need, and with central government to address this crisis.

“My first act as Ardmhéara will be to request a direct meeting with new Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy. I will also be requesting that he fulfils his predecessor’s commitment to report back to a full meeting of Dublin City

Council on his Government department’s programme to address the dire shortage of housing.”

Mícheál said he knows he speaks for the members of Dublin City Council and the vast majority of the capital’s citizens when he says that there absolutely has to be a step-change in Government housing policy.

“Dublin City Council must be given the resources and the support – financial, legal, logistical – to build homes, to purchase homes, to refurbish and extend homes to meet the housing needs of the people.

“I commend the efforts of City

Council officials and staff who are doing their best within the confines of central Government policy and allocated resources but much, much more is needed.

“Some of us on Dublin City Council have facilitated means of supplying housing which would certainly not be our first choice if we were in Government. We have shown flexibility because we know the priority is to get the flow of new housing started, to supply homes as soon as possible.

But this is not a blank cheque. We will continue to point out that the priority approach should be the construction

by the council of council housing on council land.”

He concluded: “I take this opportunity to call on Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy and his Cabinet colleagues to release the funding needed for Dublin City Council and the other Dublin local authorities to develop council housing in sufficient quantity.

“And the Housing Minister must end the stifling bureaucracy in the Department of Housing that is causing seemingly endless delay. To meet an arbitrary deadline – one that will not now be met anyway – we have seen

‘The housing crisis is a cause of huge hardship across our society. It is also adversely affecting our economy.

How can Dublin be expected to develop economically if working people cannot have access to even the most modest of homes in this City?’

Ardmhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath Mícheál Mac Donncha

5 2005: Mícheál was the author and editor of 'Sinn Féin: A Century of Struggle'

huge energy put into the provision of yet another emergency measure – hub accommodation in this city.

We need to see the same energy and urgency put into developing permanent homes for people.

“Ultimately, it is a question of political will and commitment. Political will and commitment are not lacking on this City Council and I urge the Housing Minister and the Government to step up to the mark also. The minister needs to listen most closely not to departmental mandarins but to those in need of housing, to their public representatives, and to people working at the front line of housing provision.

“The housing crisis is a cause of huge hardship across our society. It is also adversely affecting our economy.

How can Dublin be expected to develop economically if working people cannot have access to even the most modest of homes in this city?

“The housing crisis can be solved.

The solutions are there. I intend to use the coming year to help ensure that those solutions are put into effect.”

5 2016: Mícheál Mac Donncha, Máire Devine, Gerry Adams, Pearse Doherty, Kathryn Reilly and Aengus Ó Snodaigh during the Dáil general election

July / Iúil 2017

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9

Establishment struggles to explain away another Sinn Féin surge

Fianna Fáil abstentionism ensures Tory Taoiseach SDLP never tired of telling voters on TV, radio and election literature through the letterbox that Sinn Féin is abstentionist.

It may not suit the narrative of the chattering classes but the people of the North know exactly what they are getting when they vote for a Sinn Féin candidate in a Westminster election.

They are getting a candidate who will not take their seat in a foreign

BY MARK MOLONEY EVEN BEFORE the dust had settled on the Westminster general election – after Sinn Féin received its highest-ever vote and won a record seven seats in the Westminster election – the great and the good from all over Ireland and Britain wasted little time in telling voters why they’d got it wrong.

Most mainstream media ignore the North 99% of the time and regard the North as a foreign country (except when it comes to sporting triumphs).

The electoral wipe-out of the SDLP, however, left commentators in the South scratching their heads and searching for excuses: ‘How could those ungrateful Northies disregard the wisdom of the darlings of the Dublin 4 media?’

Cue journalists and commentators on their high horses spelling out to us dullards that elections in the North are simply “sectarian headcounts”.

RTÉ presenter Miriam O’Callaghan was clearly dismayed that the party of SDLP icon John Hume (the person she had personally nominated for the “Ireland's Greatest” award) had been wiped out. She lamented the fact that there would be no Irish nationalist voice in the House of Commons for the first time in over 50 years. (Has anyone really heard or taken notice of the SDLP voice in Westminster?)

Perhaps what these commentators should have been doing was asking why the nationalist people of the North had overwhelmingly voted for an abstentionist republican party instead of the SDLP. What does it say about the quality of representation that citizens felt they were getting from the SDLP (or indeed the focus given to Irish affairs) in Westminster that they would choose instead to vote for an abstentionist candidate? And the media and the

5 Mícheál Martin and his frontbench – Fianna Fáil stand idly by to elect a Fine Gael Taoiseach (again)

It may not suit the narrative of the chattering classes but the people of the North know exactly what they are getting when they vote for a Sinn Féin candidate in a Westminster election parliament; they are getting a candidate who will not swear allegiance to a foreign monarch; and they are sending a very clear message that they do not believe Britain has any right to interfere in Irish affairs.

5 RTÉ's Miriam O’Callaghan– dismayed

5 Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar thanks his supporters, including Fianna Fáil TDs

As the Conservative Party scrambled to cobble together their coalition of chaos with the DUP, the parties in the South decided it was time to enter the fray and lecture the people of the North from their perches in Malahide and Cork as to why they made a bad choice.

First out of the traps was Fianna Fáil, the self-styled “Republican Party” that now wants Irish republicans to swear allegiance to a foreign monarch.

Without any irony, their “Foreign Affairs” spokesperson, Darragh O’Brien, claimed that his party is still “assessing” when to contest elections north of the Border – a non-story if ever there was one as they’ve been “assessing” this for 10 years now.

Pressed on whether or not Fianna Fáil MPs would swear allegiance to the British monarch, O’Brien refused to answer.

Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin went one further, saying Sinn Féin's position was “totally illogical” and “crazy”, claiming “Sinn Féin [have an opportunity] to influence moderate opinion and they are refusing to take part”.

With this in mind, Deputy Martin was careful not to use the word “abstention” in his Dáil speech on the nomination of new Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar just a week later. After all, half-decent

journalists might be quick to point out the hypocrisy of Deputy Martin lecturing Sinn Féin on the awfulness of abstentionism while at the same time facilitating the election of a Tory Taoiseach in the Dáil by abstaining from the vote.

For the record, Sinn Féin received 238,915 votes at the 2017 Westminster

Fianna Fáil are still ‘assessing’ when to contest elections north of the Border – they’ve been thinking about it for 10 years

election, an increase of nearly 63,000 votes since 2015; Fine Gael’s and Fianna Fáil’s votes in the North stay steady – at zero.

To paraphrase Gerry Adams, perhaps it is now time for the parties in the South to finally end their abstentionism when it comes to the Six Counties. If they organise and contest elections there, maybe then their opinion will have some merit. Until they do, they are hurlers on the ditch.

10 July / Iúil 2017

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National Hunger Strike Commemoration, Ballina, County Mayo, Sunday 13 August

PRISON STRUGGLE WAS ABOUT THE REPUBLIC DECLARED IN EASTER WEEK 1916 CAOIMHGHÍN Ó CAOLÁIN, the Director of Elections for H-Blocks Hunger Striker Kieran Doherty who was elected a TD for Cavan/ Monagahn in 1981, and who went on himself to become a Sinn Féin TD for Cavan/Monaghan, gave the main address at the launch of the Hunger Strike Exhibition in Westport Town Hall, County Mayo, on 4 June.

Caoimhghín was speaking ahead of this year’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration on Sunday 13 August in Ballina, the home town in Mayo of Michael Gaughan.

COUNTY MAYO has a very special place in the story of our hunger strike dead. Three of the 22 who died on hunger strike from 1917 to 1981 were native sons of this proud county.

Seán McNeela of Ballycroy, who died on hunger strike in Dublin’s Mountjoy Jail on 19 April 1940, is buried in Cleggan Cemetery; Michael Gaughan of Ballina died on hunger strike in Parkhurst Prison in England on 3 June 1974 after 68 days; and Frank Stagg of Hollymount, who died on hunger strike in Wakefield Prison in England on 12 February 1976, is also buried in Leigue Cemetery, Ballina, along with Michael.

It is appropriate to also mention Tony D’arcy of Headford, County Galway, who died on hunger strike with Seán ‘Jack’ McNeela on 19 April 1940 in Mountjoy Jail.

Their names are forever linked, just as their comradeship and resolve was mutually shared.

The centenary of the death of the first of the 22 to die occurs later this year, on 25 September.

Thomas Ashe of Kinnard, County Kerry, died while

1981 was a year of unprecedented activity, mobilisation and emotional stress – it was, for my generation of republican activists, our 1916

for duty and, following the delivery of a passionate speech in Ballinalee in County Longford, he was again arrested and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He embarked on hunger strike, having been deprived of his ‘bed, bedding and boots’ and died only five days into his fast from the effects of the brutality employed by his jailers who sought to forcibly feed him.

I hope that we will all have the opportunity to remember Thomas Ashe in this centenary year of his death and to commemorate his courage and sacrifice at his graveside.

And so it is to Mayo this year, on Sunday 13 August, that republicans from all over Ireland and overseas will gather at the National Hunger Strike Commemoration.

This year’s national gathering will be particularly special with the focus on Mayo and the West and the proud and ancient province of Connacht.

The town of Ballina, proud hometown of Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg, will host this year’s event. Today’s exhibition is the first of 13 associated events across the western counties in the lead-up to the national mobilisation on 13 August.

being forcibly fed and is buried in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Like McNeela and D’arcy, Gaughan and Stagg – and each of those who died through all the years of conflict – Thomas Ashe was a dedicated political activist and Irish-language and culture enthusiast. In command of a detachment of Volunteers covering the Fingal area of north County Dublin on Easter Monday 1916, he brought his men forward to Ashbourne in County Meath and on the Friday engaged the enemy, inflicting significant casualties.

After the rebels’ general surrender he was sentenced to death. This sentence was commuted to penal servitude which he served in a number of English prisons. Released, he reported back 5 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin in 1981

I am particularly pleased to note that the organisers of the National Hunger Strike Commemoration are placing equal attention on the story of all the 22 who have died on hunger strike in their shared decision across the decades not to allow their captors criminalise the struggle of the Irish people for the exercising of their right to national self-determination.

The need to educate, the need to inform new generations of the truth of our past, is an integral part of our activism, of our workload. The experiences, the suffering – borne so often by the few but common to all generations – must be told and retold.

Through knowledge and understanding will come new energy and the necessary strength and resolve to finally pay tribute, and in the most fitting way possible, to all those who have given so much – the restoration of the unity of our country and all its people in a sovereign, independent, all-island Republic.

The hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981 are, of course, in the foremost of our memory today.

I was a member of the National H-Block and Armagh Committee of those years.

During that time, I was appointed Director of Elections for a young man from Andersonstown in west Belfast whom I had never met and who had probably never set foot in either County Cavan or County Monaghan in his lifetime.

Hunger strike and prisoner candidates stood in constituencies across the 26 Counties in the Dáil general election of 11 June 1981. Kieran Doherty, then on hunger strike, was elected in Cavan/Monaghan with 9,121 first-preference votes, second from the top of the poll. Paddy Agnew, a protesting prisoner on the ‘Blanket Protest’ against wearing prison uniform, was elected a TD in his native County Louth constituency.

Their election followed the very important

There are portraits of Teachtaí Dála Terence MacSwiney, Kieran Doherty and Bobby Sands on the Sinn Féin corridors of Leinster House

July / Iúil 2017

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11

5 The Hunger Strike Exhibition in Westport and (right) Mayo Sinn Féin Chair Tara Bleeks Kennedy, Senator Rose Conway Walsh, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD, Joe McHale and Councillor Therése Ruane

and course-of-history changing election of Bobby Sands in the Fermanagh & South Tyrone by-election earlier that year.

For Irish republican prisoners across Ireland and in Britain, and those held in the United States and in prisons on the European continent, 1981 was a most difficult and testing year. Their resolve unbroken, the prisoners in Long Kesh ended the 1981 hunger strike on 3 October after 217 days. Ten men had died on that hunger strike.

Others who participated had significant health issues that would stay with them through the remainder of their lives.

For anti-H-Block activists throughout Ireland and across the globe, and not only within the Irish Diaspora, 1981 was a year of unprecedented activity, mobilisation and emotional stress. It was, for my generation of republican activists, our 1916.

Bobby, Francis, Raymond, Patsy, Joe, Martin,

Across the decades, Ireland’s hunger strikers would not to allow their captors to criminalise the struggle of the Irish people for the exercising of their right to national self-determination Kevin, Kieran, Thomas and Mickey all died for each other. They also died that one day you and I and our children and our children’s children would live as free men and women in an Ireland populated by a sovereign people with no borders and no strife. For an Ireland where all, irrespective of any other identity held on to, would proudly proclaim themselves as Irishmen and Irishwomen.

Their commitment to the struggle, their dedication to each other and their tenacity, come what may, was a triumph of endurance against all the odds. Bobby Sands summed it up when he wrote: “What’s lost in here is lost for the Republic.”

The prison struggle was a much wider canvas than the five demands of the prisoners. It was all about – as their presence in that H-Blocks hell-hole was all about – the Republic declared in Easter Week 1916.

That struggle continues today. It is at the core of all we do, all we undertake.

Three of the 22 who died on hunger strike were Teachtaí Dála of the people:TERENCE MacSWINEY died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in London on 25 October 1920 and was also Lord Mayor of his native city of Cork;

BOBBY SANDS MP, who died in Long Kesh on 5 May 1981; and KIERAN DOHERTY TD, who died in Long Kesh on 2 August 1981.

There are portraits of the three on the corridor of Leinster House where Senator Rose Conway Walsh and I have our offices. They are an ever-present

reminder of the courage of those men and the thousands more men and women who in every generation have given honourable and stoic service to the cause of Irish freedom, justice and peace.

Today, we serve that same struggle, applying our minds, employing what talents we have, in

seeking to bring forward the day of our national deliverance.

In the Manifesto to the Citizens of Dublin issued

by Pádraig Mac Piarais on Tuesday 25 April 1916, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the republican forces and President of the Provisional Government, he said: “We have lived to see an Irish Republic proclaimed. May we live to establish it firmly and may our children and our children’s children enjoy the happiness and prosperity which freedom will bring.”

Pearse, contrary to the ramblings of some who dominate our airwaves and the pages of the press, wanted to live. He wanted to apply his undoubted skills to the major challenge of translating the hope and promise of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic into the daily reality of the lives of the Irish people.

The need to educate, to inform new generations of the truth of our past, is an integral part of our activism Just as Pearse wanted to live and to continue his contribution, Bobby Sands and his comrades wanted to live and to continue their contribution, to invest their energies and talents in building that same Republic.

None of the 22 had a death wish. Though they died, their spirit has lived on.

I take this opportunity to make a closing appeal to the men and women of the West but especially to the young men and women of Mayo, of Galway and of Roscommon, of Sligo and of Leitrim . . .

Know the story of the men and women of the West who would not bow to England’s claim to any part in Ireland’s affairs or to any part of Ireland.

From Liam Mellows, through the years of resistance marked by the deaths of Seán McNeela, Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg – and the further tragic loss of Volunteers Kevin Coen and Joseph MacManus of Sligo – the West has played its part. Be proud, be very proud and know that you too have a part to play.

Today you are not asked to risk life, limb or liberty but to invest your energies and talents in building the Republic, in fulfilling the dream of Pearse and of Connolly, of Gaughan and of Stagg, of Sands and of Doherty. Be with us. Be in Ballina on 13 August.

Mobilise and proudly play your part.

In not just the words but the spirit too of Thomas Davis – The West’s Awake, The West’s Awake.

12 July / Iúil 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Scannán nua déanta ag bunaitheoir Riverdance le muintir na Palaistíne

Uafás na Palaistíne ar Scáileán Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh TÁ CLÁR faisnéise nua faoin bPalaistín léirithe ag na deartháireacha John agus Gerry McColgan i gcomhair leis an eagraíocht charthanachta Trócaire, a thugann sracfhéachaint uafásach, daonna, ar an cos ar bolg agus cruatan a fhulaingíonn muintir na Palaistíne ar an mbruach Thiar, I Hebron agus i nGaza.

Is díol suntais é, gur éirigh leis an mbeirt scannánaíocht ar bith a dhéanamh ansin i bhfianaise chomh géar is atá slándáil Iosrael ag dul isteach is amach. Is údar iontais níos mó é, gur éirigh leo an t-ábhar a thabhairt amach as agus scannán, lom scanrúil a chur i dtoll a chéile a spreagfaidh díospóireacht agus le cúnamh Dé gníomhartha praiticiúla, chun na sáraithe cearta daonna tromchúiseacha atá ag tarlú a thabhairt chun solais.

Dar ndóigh, tá aithne ar fud an domhain ar John McColgan mar dhuine de bhunaitheoirí ‘Riverdance’ agus chaith a dheartháir Gerry roinnt mhaith blianta in RTÉ agus ó shin ag léiriú cláir faisnéise agus scannáin a bhfuil cáil idirnáisiúnta bainte amach acu.

Ina scannán, ‘This is Palestine’, leantar John McColgan, atá ceaptha ag Trócaire mar Ambasadóir d’obair na h-eagraíochta, tríd an Bhruach

Tá drogall ar na meáin an scéal seo a chlúdach ar chúis amháin nó ar chúis eile agus táthar ar brath orainne tacú leis na h-iarrachtaí seo Thiar, Hebron agus Gaza, áit ar chas sé le daoine atá faoi chois agus an dream atá dhá choinneáil sa ngéibheann sin. Scannán chumhachtach, caoga nóiméad atá ann, a seoladh le déanaí i mBaile Átha Cliath agus fite fuaite tríd tá agallaimh le daoine a chaill a dtithe, a dhaoine muinteartha agus a gcuid tailte, de bharr forlámhas na coimhlínte reatha. Cuirtear Palaistínigh agus Iosraelaigh, atá ag obair as lámha a chéile ar son cearta daonna agus síochána a bhaint amach, faoi agallamh sa chlár chomh maith.

Tá sé leath chéad bliain i mbliana ó chuaigh arm Iosrael isteach sa Bhruach Thiar ar dtús agus deich mbliana ó cuireadh imshuí Gaza ar bun. An cuspóir a bhí ag muintir McColgan agus ag Trócaire ná aird mhuintir na hÉireann agus an pobal idirnáisiúnta a tharraingt ar an uafás seo arís agus muid ar fad a spreagadh

lenár gcion féin a dhéanamh féachaint leis an scéal a leigheas.

Is scannán deá-dhéanta é seo, ach níl sé éasca breathnú air. Léiríonn na pictiúr an scrios iomlán atá déanta ar bhailte, tithe, agus teaghlaigh. Bhrisfeadh sé do chroí a bheith ag éisteacht le cuid

de na scéalta pearsanta ó thuismitheoirí a chaill a gcuid gasúir in ionsaithe, gnáth dhaoine atá dhá dhíbirt as tailte a muintire théis na céadta bliain agus oibrithe fóirithinte atá ag snámh in aghaidh easa ag iarraidh an saol a dhéanamh beagán níos sábháilte agus níos compordaí do

na daoine truamhéalach seo.

Is gné amháin atá sa scannán seo d’fheachtas níos leithne atá ar bun ar Trócaire faoi láthair, leis an ábhar seo a choinneáil i mbéal an phobail.

Bhí taispeántas acu gar d’ionad siopadóireachta Faiche Stiabhna le déanaí chomh maith, a bhí mar mhacasamhail d’ábhar a bheadh caite amach ag saighdiúir as tigh Palaistíneach i ndiaidh do chlann a bheith díbeartha.

Tá achainí ar-líne don Aire Gnóthaí Eachtracha bunaithe chomh maith ag www.trocaire. org. Táthar ag iarraidh ar an Rialtas seasamh níos láidre a thógáil agus ceannródaíocht idirnáisiúnta a thabhairt maidir le h-aitheantas a thabhairt do Stát Phalaistíneach, mar atá luaite sa chlár Rialtais. Táthar ag iarraidh go gcuirfear deireadh le h-imshuí Gaza agus leis an díshealbhú atá ar bun ag Iosrael. Éilíonn an t-achainí chomh maith nach mbeadh infheistiú dhá dhéanamh ag comhlachtaí Éireannacha in aon gnó a bhainfeadh le díshealbhaithe mídhleathacha Iosraelacha agus go mbeadh cosc san AE ar thrádáil den chineál sin freisin.

Is féidir leatsa do chuid féin a dhéanamh. Is féidir leat tacú leis an bhfeachtas. D’fhéadfá an t-achainí a shíniú agus a scaipeadh ar do lucht aitheantais. Cén fáth nach dtéann tú i dteagmháil le Trócaire chun taispeántas don scannán a shocrú i do cheantar féin agus imeasc do chomhghleacaithe?

Tá drogall ar na meáin an scéal seo a chlúdach ar chúis amháin nó ar chúis eile agus táthar ar brath orainne tacú leis na h-iarrachtaí seo ar aon bhealach praiticiúil gur féidir linn. An mbeidh tú mar iománaí ar an gclaí, nó amuigh i lár na páirce? Is fútsa atá sé.

July / Iúil 2017

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13

O N S I L I Á F A N N FIA L E A G E N I F O T E V I ALTERNAT the only real solution – municipal social housing programmes on a really big scale – showing that he intends more of the same at the heel of the hunt.

Martin is even more to the right of Fine Gael in adherence to the EU project, now intent on deeper superstate integration under the drives of France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel.

And back home, while Varadkar postured about the national question, his lofty condemnation of Sinn Féin as the most dangerous enemy of the

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ BACK IN 2011, when current Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin stood for the leadership of his party, he proclaimed that he wanted to return to the radical roots of Fianna Fáil.

This early radicalism, of course, has been overshadowed by the subsequent wideboy profit-making strategy and the repeated compromises with imperialism, both economically and politically, leading to the erosion of Irish sovereignty consequent on joining what became the European Union.

But that radicalism was real and important in its day, even if Fianna Fáil was always extremely cautious, unwilling to face down reaction directly and willing to compromise at all times.

It was in the 1930s that the southern state began an industrialisation programme, with state industries playing the leading role. These companies developed the commanding heights of the economy and the small private sector fed into this.

Municipal housing and social welfare programmes were developed for the first time and this strengthened Fianna Fáil’s hold on the

Fianna Fáil has slavishly followed Fine Gael’s lead on full implementation of austerity working class, a hold which it only lost in the debacle of 2011.

So Martin’s declaration in the leadership race suggested a move away from the corrupting association with business, particularly in the construction industry, and a return to an earlier style of politics.

But that is decidedly not what happened.

Not only is Fianna Fáil’s Martin-appointed spokesperson on finance, Michael McGrath, very much in tune with neoliberal orthodoxy, but the party has slavishly followed Fine Gael’s lead on full implementation of austerity.

This reached such a pitch that Martin has shown himself willing to hang his own lieutenants out to dry when it suited him.

Fianna Fáil adopted (belatedly) a position of opposition to water charges. Spokesperson Barry Cowen was given approval for his strategy in confronting Fine Gael on this, only to find Martin pulling the plug on him and surrendering to the Fine Gael position at the end.

While much of this can be attributed to Martin’s blind subservience to every EU diktat (and water charges were dreamed up by the EU), he is terrified of losing support in the middle class.

Fianna Fáil Head Office has made sure that

potential candidates from working-class communities are frozen out.

The most notable example of this is David McGuinness in Dublin West. After the 2011 debacle there was no one in Dublin West to stand for the party except for the working-class boy from Mulhuddart.

But even though McGuinness showed in two by-elections that Fianna Fáil could potentially win a seat here, he was ditched and surgeon’s son

Jack Chambers from leafy Castleknock stepped in.

The lesson of all of this is that switching from a rampantly right-wing Fine Gael under new Thatcherite leader Leo Varadkar to Mícheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil would be no change at all.

Martin is as determined as Varadkar to make sure that the middle class are kept happy at the expense, inevitably, of the working class.

While Martin condemns Government housing policy, he has deliberately refrained from pushing

Fianna Fáil founder Éamon de Valera stood on an abstentionist programme in the North as late as 1933 state (which means the most dangerous enemy to the present system of corruption and austerity) pales into insignificance beside the vitriolic anti-republican obsession of Martin.

There can, of course, be only one way to advance Irish national interests re the North and that is for leading parties in the South to co-operate with Sinn Féin, now the unequivocal voice of Northern nationalism.

But don’t hold your breath. Martini would prefer full-blown Orange rule to working with Sinn Féin.

Hence the latest nonsense about Westminster abstentionism, even though Fianna Fáil founder Éamon de Valera stood on an abstentionist programme in the North as late as 1933 – a fact which Martin and his SF-baiting colleagues like to ignore.

No, the fact is that we need to get rid of both of them, along with that dishonest Labour Party which is still champing at the bit to prop one of them up.

That’s not because of their name or history. It’s because of the political programmes to which they are currently attached.

14 July / Iúil 2017

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When is genocide not genocide?

IN THE AFTERMATH of the war in Sri Lanka and the defeat of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas in 2009, the Sri Lankan Government has set out to systematically destroy any hope the Tamils have of establishing their own independent state. Not only that, but the Sinhalese-dominated regime has thrown a blanket of censorship, disinformation and fabrication over the military onslaught that saw as many as 70,000 Tamils – civilians as well as fighters – slaughtered.

In an attempt to break though this ‘official’ presentation of the conflict and its causes and to present their narrative, upwards of 35 Tamil exiles travelled to Belfast and Derry on 18 May – “Mullivaikkal Day” (Tamil Genocide Day) – to take part in a series of events with Irish activists.

As in the North, where the British and unionist narrative of the conflict is focused on blaming republicans, the Sri Lankan regime (with the connivance of Britain and the United States in particular) is presenting the Tamils as the transgressor.

During the day in Derry and Belfast it became clear that the struggle for Irish freedom and the Tamil struggle has similarities and parallels stemming from the dark hand of British colonial policy.

These parallels could also be seen in how the 5 New mural on Belfast's International Wall highlighting the Tamil conflict issue of remembrance and legacy are politically The strategies that were developed in Ireland to of a series of events organised in solidarity with potent issues in the here and now. repress our freedom struggle were used in Africa, the Tamil people by a group including Sinn Féin, in Asia and in India, from where they extended Relatives for Justice, ex-prisoners group Coiste SOLIDARITY AT to Sri Lanka. na nIarchimí, the National Graves Association THE INTERNATIONAL WALL “The solidarity that we Irish activists extend to and representatives of families killed by British At the unveiling of a mural on Belfast’s world-fa- the Tamil people in the painting of this mural sits state forces, including the Ballymurphy Massamous International Wall on 18 May, Sinn Féin alongside the solidarity and support we show cre families. members and campaigners with human rights to the people of Palestine, South Africa, Cuba, Prior to the mural unveiling, a discussion held projects, including Relatives for Justice, joined Kurdistan and the Basque Country. in Conway Mill heard moving testimony from Dr Tamil exiles to mark Mullivaikkal Day. “And in that spirit of solidarity we support Tamilvani, who was in Sri Lanka as the military Sinn Féin activist and An Phoblacht columnist your struggle for self-determination and a Tamil closed in on the Tamil Tigers in the closing days Peadar Whelan said: homeland, Tamil Eelam.” of the war in May 2009 and the areas designated “The links between the Irish struggle and the as “No Fire Zones”. struggle for a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka have NEW TAMIL MURAL These locations were designated as safe areas their roots in British colonialism and imperialism.

The unveiling of the new Tamil mural was one by the Sri Lanka Government and Tamil civilians

were corralled into them reputedly for their own protection yet they became the very killing fields in which it is believed 70,000 men, women and children were massacred.

In an emotionally-charged and moving testimony she described how she witnessed “genocide” as the military directed massive firepower into the “No Fire Zones” hitting hospitals, food distribution centres and International Red Cross ships sent to evacuate the wounded.

Despite being furnished with the co-ordinates for hospitals by United Nations observers the heavy artillery bombardment rained down on these medical centres and UN positions. No one was spared.

Parallels with Palestine FR RAVI EMMANUEL, who travelled to Ireland from Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka to attend the commemoration events marking Mullivaikkal Day, is a quiet man whose demeanour reminded people of Fr Alec Reid.

Fr Ravi, a Catholic priest, is very clear about the objective of the Sinhalese majority government which, he says, “wants to destroy any possibility of a separate Tamil homeland with self-rule and to erase any notion of a distinct Tamil identity”.

In describing an experience of military repression, land confiscation, economic and financial impoverishment underpinned by cultural annihilation, it is clear, according to Fr Ravi, that there are parallels between the experiences of the Tamils and the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories.

Fr Ravi said the Sri Lanka Government project is to create a ‘one nation and one state’ solution where the Sinhalese majority will swamp and eventually erase the Tamil nation.

“They are moving Sinhalese families into towns and villages that have Tamil populations as part of a policy to change the demography of the north and east, the Tamil homelands. So they are

creating state-sponsored settlements designed to break the continuity of Tamil Eelam.

“They are forcing Tamil women to marry Sri Lankan soldiers and Government ministers are

The Sri Lanka Government project is to create a ‘one nation’ solution where the Sinhalese majority will swamp and eventually erase the Tamil nation opening calling for soldiers to take Tamil brides.

“These unequal relationships are being forced on women who have been impoverished since the end of the war because they have lost their homes and their lands have been confiscated by

5 Fr Ravi outlines the oppression continuing in the Tamil homelands

the military, where in some instances they have built hotels or cleared the land for golf courses.

“In other examples the soldiers are using modern methods of cultivation to produce

crops which they can sell at better prices than the Tamils. It is against this background that Tamil women are agreeing to what are, in reality, forced marriages”.

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15

BRITAIN’S DIRTY WAR AGAINST THE TAMILS BRITAIN was – and is – a key player in the protégé of the infamous Brigadier Frank Kitson.

Britain banned the Liberation Tigers of Tamil war in Sri Lanka.

5 Aftermath of the war in Sri Lanka and the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009

Even with the clear evidence that the Sri Lankan armed forces deliberately shelled these safe zones, targeting civilians and medical facilities, summarily executed prisoners and raped women captives, the international community refuses to acknowledge this as genocide, as defined by the United Nations, and thus hold the Sri Lankan Government to account.

“We cannot use the ‘G’ word to describe this slaughter, these massacres,” said Tamilvani as

she broke down and asked “for forgiveness from those I left behind”.

However, in an example of the positive effect the day’s events had on the Tamil activists and on Tamilvani in particular, she vowed, during the question and answer session after the showing of Callum Macrae’s documentary, No Fire Zone, that she “would write and tell the story of what happened and the story of those who were killed so the world will know”.

5 Mike Ritchie and Andreé Murphy of Relatives for Justice, Fr Ravi, Sinn Féin Deputy Mayor of Belfast Mary Ellen Campbell, Tamilvani and Jude Lal Fernando of the Tamil delegation, playwright and activist Laurence McKeown, and Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice

Equally, the cultural and religious onslaught against the Tamils is ongoing, with Buddhist shrines being given precedence over Tamil shrines.

“In Nainathaweevu, the military built a 67-foot-tall Buddhist statue to dominate the Hindu shrine and provocative Buddhist festivals take place under the wing of the military.

“In a lot of places they are replacing the Tamil names with Sinhalese names as they continue to destroy the Tamil national identity.”

The consequences of the military defeat saw the defeat of the Tamil Tigers and the deaths of a possible 70,000 civilians.

An estimated 22,000 people are listed as ‘disappeared’ in the aftermath of the war.

In his ground-breaking publication, Britain’s Dirty War Against the Tamil People, 1979-2009, Phil Miller traces the links between the Sinhalese majority’s policies to deny the Tamils citizenship of post-Britain Ceylon (it changed its name to Sri Lanka in 1972). Miller points out how “the different facets of the Sinhala supremacist ideology and the building of the unitary state structure were crafted by the British to further their strategic aims in the Indian Ocean”.

In an introductory timeline, Miller reveals the direct intervention of the British in the war.

In 1979, Jack Morton, a former director of MI5, went to the island and made “practical recommendations for the total reorganisation of the intelligence apparatus”.

Then, in 1983, senior Sri Lankan police officers came to Belfast to “see at first-hand the roles of the police and army in counter-terrorist operations”. They also attended an MI5 conference on “terrorism” in London and “discussed Tamil separatists”.

Further to this, beginning in 1984, British mercenaries, including former SAS members, began operating with “no objection” from the British Government. These ex-SAS troopers were employed by KMS Ltd, a private military corporation set up by ex-SAS officers in the 1970s and which trained the notorious Sri Lankan “Special Task Force”.

British counter-insurgency expert Major General Richard Clutterbuck also ‘advised’ the Sri Lanka Government.

In the early to mid-1990s, the top tier of the Sri Lanka Army was trained in Britain and the British military attaché in Colombo – with “firsthand experience in Ireland and Oman” – was a

Eelam (Tamil Tigers) in 2001 and advised Sri Lanka on its “defence review”. Another British Army officer-turned-mercenary, Tim Spicer, advises the Sri Lankans on security. Like Kitson, Spicer saw active service in Ireland and was honoured by the British monarch.

In 1983, senior Sri Lankan police officers came to Belfast to ‘see at first-hand the roles of the police and army in counter-terrorist operations’ Britain is also making “substantial arms sales” to the regime.

Throughout the final six months of the war, the British Government was, Miller said, “deepening its ties with the Sri Lankan police” and sent “a delegation of senior Northern Irish police commanders to Colombo as critical friends”.

This was happening as bombs were falling on hospitals in the No Fire Zones.

The world awaits the full story of the genocide against the Tamil people.

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16 July / Iúil 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

BODENSTOWN 2017 Speech by National Chairperson Declan Kearney MLA

ADVANCING TOWARDS IRISH UNITY – IN THE UNITED IRISH TRADITION THIS TIME 220 years ago, Ireland was in the DUP but, make no mistake – Sinn Féin’s electoral midst of dramatic political and revolutionary mandate is a vindication of our pledge that there will be no return to the status quo. change.

The United Irishmen were the engine of that change.

Wolfe Tone famously summarised the United Irish republican programme: “To break the connection with England . . . and to assert the independence of my country, these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland . . . and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter – these were my means.”

As modern-day Irish republicans in the tradition of Tone, we are dedicated to the establishment of a national Republic built upon equality, fraternity, unity and reconciliation between all citizens in Ireland.

Our primary aim is for an agreed, multicultural, united Ireland which celebrates diversity and equality and shuns bigotry and discrimination.

Sinn Féin stands against all forms of sectarianism, racism, homophobia, sexism and intolerance in society.

Today’s Ireland is one of huge social change and political realignment.

No citizen or section of society will be put to the back of the bus again.

In 1967, our parents and grandparents and others in this gathering set out to demand civil rights in the North. They were beaten and shot off the streets.

Fifty years later, an equality revolution is happening in the Six Counties and it is being led by young people.

Agus tá siad tiomanta agus diongbhailte. Tá siad dearg le fearg agus tá muid go léir dearg le fearg.

SUPPORT FOR POLITICAL UNIONISM BELOW 50%

CIVIL RIGHTS AND AN EQUALITY REVOLUTION

For the first time since partition, electoral support for political unionism has fallen below 50%.

These are the new realities. And this is the new context for the current round of political talks.

Let us be clear – the political crisis in the North can be resolved; the political institutions can be re-established.

However, that means the DUP and the British Government need to get the message which they have ignored since Martin McGuinness’s resignation on 9 January.

So I will spell it out:• The equality and rights agenda is not negotiable; • Agreements previously made on equality, rights, parity of esteem and legacy must be implemented; • The Good Friday Agreement cannot be unpicked; • The political institutions must not be misused to advance institutionalised bigotry.

Continued refusal by the DUP and the British Government to accept these fundamental positions will create only one outcome: a future of permanent political instability.

Irish unity has become central to the political discourse.

The election of 27 Sinn Féin MLAs and 7 MPs with 239,000 votes is an historic high in electoral support for our party in the North and for progressive politics.

There is a building momentum for Irish unity and in support of anti-unionist and progressive politics.

There is also a new, popular expectation of real and substantial political change.

Sinn Féin respects the mandate secured by the

As with Brexit, any deal with Tories will be bad for the economy, public services and for citizens.

This Tory Government cares as little for working-class unionists as it does for workingclass republicans.

Working-class unionists did not vote for Tories.

The DUP leadership knows that. They know the North is of no consequence in Westminster.

Even Edward Carson recognised this nearly 100 years ago. He said:

BREXIT AND PARTITION Partition continues to be the central fault line at the heart of Irish politics and society.

The imposition of the Brexit decision upon the people of the Six Counties has now magnified that fault line.

Brexit is a by-product of partition and continued British jurisdiction in the north of our country. It has become a catalyst for a realignment of politics in Ireland, in relations between this island and Britain, and it is redefining politics in the British state and Europe itself.

DUP/TORY DEAL

“What a fool I was . . . in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power.”

The central fact is the political process in the North remains overshadowed by financial scandals. That is why Sinn Féin stood the DUP leader down from her position last January.

The focus on her future role in an Executive is completely misdirected and premature.

That discussion will only arise when there is an acceptable implementation plan to restore public confidence in the political process and ensures that the institutions will work on the basis of proper power-sharing, equality, respect and integrity.

This is a serious situation which demands a serious focus by all parties.

It is not a game and it is certainly not a dance.

If the DUP really wants to go into the Executive, that party needs to decide whether it is now prepared to embrace a rights-based approach to government in the North.

If the DUP imagines it can wind back the clock – with a Tory side deal or not – and re-establish the institutions without adherence to equality and rights, then the DUP is indeed living in a

fool’s paradise.

As for the two governments, instead of talking up the prospect of a successful outcome to these talks, they and the DUP should reread Martin McGuinness’s resignation letter of 9 January.

It sets out exactly what is required to restore public confidence and to create the conditions for proper government in the North.

GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT – DUBLIN’S HUGE RESPONSIBILITY The new Irish Government now carries a huge responsibility. The failure of the last Irish Government to fulfill its obligations as a co-guarantor for the Good Friday Agreement is a national scandal.

This dereliction of political leadership must end.

The new Taoiseach and his administration should now publicly disassociate itself from the pro-unionist, partisan position of the British Government.

This Irish Government should bring forward a comprehensive plan for Irish reunification, including:• A joint Oireachtas committee on preparing for Irish unity;

July / Iúil 2017

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5 Declan Kearney, Gerry Adams, Maurice Quinlivan and Máire Devine join the crowd

5 The Colour Party and the 'Wexford Pikemen' provide the guard of honour

• A government White Paper on national reunification; • Specific proposals for a unity referendum on the island.

Our political strategy is a road map for governmental power.

So that means Sinn Féin being in government – North and South.

This is our road map to achieving national democracy and a united Ireland.

But being in government is not a vanity contest.

This party is not interested in acting as a prop for the status quo, North or South.

Political institutions are not ends in themselves – they should be made to work as the means to make positive change. And, of course, we must avoid being defined by the nature of the political institutions.

POPULAR, PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT This month 40 years ago, here at Tone’s grave, our comrade Jimmy Drumm correctly observed that the achievement of national and social liberation relied upon the development of a popular, progressive movement for change throughout Ireland.

Today we live in an Ireland of endemic financial scandal, political corruption, gombeen elites, discrimination and sectarianism.

The strategic position articulated by Jimmy Drumm in 1977 is now more relevant than ever.

The austerity programmes imposed by Fine Gael and the British Tories have entrenched social inequality North and South.

None of our children should have to live in fear from poverty or austerity, inequality or discrimination, or from intolerance or sectarianism.

Social inequality is the antithesis of values enshrined in the 1916 Proclamation and the Democratic Programme of 1919.

Every Irish citizen is entitled to a home, an education, comprehensive health care free at the point of delivery, and equal pay for equal work.

Instead, social inequality, political corruption and financial scandal have become bywords for public policy under Fine Gael.

The new Taoiseach seems determined to take his government further to the Right. If that is his intention, then he should call a general election now and let the people cast its verdict on that political programme.

In those circumstances Sinn Féin will go forward with our progressive political agenda.

We know where we stand, and it’s not with the gombeen men, the crooks, or fat cats.

To paraphrase Tone, Sinn Féin stands with: “That numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property.”

IRISH UNITY AND UNIONISTS Irish unity has never been more achievable.

17

MOMENTUM FOR CHANGE

5 Chairing the ceremonies, Dublin West Councillor Natalie Treacy

But that goal is only inevitable when republicans successfully persuade sufficient numbers of our people that an agreed, united Ireland will serve their interests.

The refusal of significant sections of political unionism to embrace a shared future, and divisions caused by deep-seated sectarianism, create enormous challenges for republicans.

Yet, despite that, we must continue to show generosity of spirit and reassurance to our unionist neighbours in the North.

As agents of change it is up to us to reach into the wider unionist constituency.

As republicans in the United Irish tradition, we have to demonstrate how their rights, traditions and identity will be accommodated in a new constitutional framework of an agreed Ireland.

It is for us to convince them that it is far better for Irish unionists to exert their influence over

a progressive Ireland instead of being reduced to stage props for a right-wing British Tory Government.

HISTORY MAKERS Our generation of republicans are history makers.

Martin McGuinness atá anois ar shlí na fírinne, and whom we greatly miss here today, as well as others in our leadership, have brought us to this point.

Now it is for the rest of us to finish that work.

We must become the nation builders. We must continue the transformation of Irish society.

Meeting these responsibilities requires a step-change in our party. We need to be always strategically focused, cohesive, flexible and creative.

Let us be clear: building popular support and political strength is not a plan for opposition.

Sinn Féin participation in the Dáil, Assembly, all-Ireland institutions and European Parliament must be at the heart of a broader momentum for political and social change in Ireland.

If change is to be people-centred then change must be driven by the people.

A popular democratic movement for transformation needs to be developed across Ireland – a progressive coalition of political, civic, community, cultural and labour activists united in support of economic democracy, sustainable public services, equality, rights and the welfare of citizens.

These are the means of modern republicans today.

Ireland is in transition. Our party is in transition.

The process of leadership succession has already commenced.

We have begun to implement a ten-year plan to regenerate our party with more youth and women, and enhanced skills and capacity.

Mar sin, más cearta, cothromas agus Poblacht atá uaibh – ná habraigí é – eagraigí, tógaigí, agus déanaigí é. Bígí línne.

If you want equality and rights, if you want fairness in Irish society, if you really want a Republic, then don’t just vote Sinn Féin.

Join Sinn Féin and get your family and friends to do the same.

Let us go forward, re-energised and confident, to mobilise and organise, and to achieve national independence and Irish unity.

This text has been edited slightly for reasons of space.

18 July / Iúil 2017

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JOHNNY McGIBBON, a Sinn Féin activist, recently spent some time in Flanders as part of a delegation organised by ‘The Fellowship of Messines’

to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Messines in the First World War. He reflects some of his thoughts while visiting the

cemeteries and former battlefields as well as attending a joint event hosted by the Irish and British governments in the ‘Island of Ireland Peace Park’.

A right to remember ROW BY ROW, stone by stone, grave by grave.

Well-groomed and orderly. Calm. Peaceful. A state of serene irony.

Look around Tyne Cot Cemetery and glance up at the surrounding countryside. With 100 years of hindsight, I can’t help but compare the tranquility of a sunny Flanders afternoon with the horror that surely was the Western Front in 1917.

Looking around, there are almost 12,000 headstones, of which more than 8,000 are unknown and unnamed, “Known Unto God”. To the back stands a memorial of some 34,887 names of military personnel whose remains were never found or identified. In fact, this is an overspill from those 54,896 commemorated every night at 8pm with The Last Post at the Menin Gate, Ypres.

The cemetery is speckled, tidily, with small poppyadorned crosses, flowers and some small Canadian flags – a long way from home; further still for those New Zealanders and Australians who perished at Passchendaele.

Sitting in the ‘Island of Ireland Peace Park’ a day previously, I’m a long way from home. Britain’s Prince William,

Handing me a shamrockshaped pin adorned with a red poppy, a thick Dublin accent in a British Legion uniform asked: ‘Are you boys from the Shankill Road?’

Enda Kenny and the Princess of Belgium are preceded by a joint colour party from the Royal Irish Regiment and the Irish Defence Forces. All very unfamiliar to a Lurgan man (except the RIR).

It’s all about being ‘uncomfortable’ . . . and I was.

Did I ever think I would be sitting at a joint Irish-British governmental commemorative ceremony in Belgium?

You know the answer to that.

But ‘uncomfortable’ is okay.

The Irish nationalist narrative of the First World War has traditionally been a quiet one; a “national amnesia” Martin McGuinness once said. Of course we know there were volunteers who joined the British Army fighting for

5 Messines: The stark horror of the Western Front

Home Rule; we know that the Ulster Volunteer Force volunteers enlisted in an effort to stop it. We know, also, that the nationalist argument was won at home; and, in 1918, Sinn Féin won an overwhelming electoral endorsement for national independence.

Nonetheless, tens of thousands of Irishmen died in “The War to End All Wars”. Many more tens of thousands never returned to live in Ireland. Of those who did return, undoubtedly many were ostracised, mistrusted in a revolutionary era when the Irish people took on the very empire that commanded both the 16th Irish Division and the 36th Ulster Division at the Messines Ridge.

Many returned to Ireland and joined the Royal Irish Constabulary’s Auxiliaries or the Black and Tans.

Others came home and soon joined the Irish Republican Army, Tom Barry being a famous example.

And so the complex nature of Ireland versus ‘West Britain’ absorbed me as I wondered why “An Irish Soldier of the Great War” ended up in ‘New Irish Farm’. For what died these sons of Róisín?

5 For what died this son of Róisín?

It wasn’t “The War to End All Wars”.

It was the war of the machine gun. It was the war of chemical weapons. It was the war that planted the seeds of further conflict.

For what died these sons of Róisín?

At Langemark Cemetery, flat stone markers surround a mass grave of some 25,000 German soldiers. And for what died they?

I don’t need to wear it but I respect the right of others to do so. Respect does not need a single narrative

5 Tyne Cot Cemetery and Menin Gate

Following the ceremony in the Peace Park, I stood discussing the event with a loyalist who was also on the trip. A small group of people approached. Handing me a shamrock-shaped pin adorned with a red poppy, a thick Dublin accent in a British Legion uniform asked: “Are you boys from the Shankill Road?” I took the pin.

“Níl ach, go raibh maith agat.”

I don’t need to wear it but I respect the right of others to do so. Respect does not need a single narrative.

There must be a right to remember – be it Messines or Loughgall.

July / Iúil 2017

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PALESTINE Calls for action by Irish Government and EU

50 years of Israeli occupation TO MARK the 50th anniversary in June of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, the GUE/NGL Group of MEPs in the European Parliament reiterated its solidarity “with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality” and called for the EU to take immediate action in three particular areas:• Suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement in harmony with its Article 2, until Israel respects human rights; • Implement a ban on the import of products originating in Israeli settlements; • Prosecute in European courts all Israeli settlers with dual EU citizenship who are suspected of violence against Palestinians.

The GUE/NGL Group – which includes Sinn Féin MEPs Lynn Boylan, Liadh Ní Riada, Matt

‘For half a century, Israel has continued to deny Palestinians their freedom and basic human rights in complete disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions’ GUE/NGL MEPs

Carthy and Martina Anderson (Martina is also a member of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine) – said in a statement: “For half a century, Israel has continued to deny Palestinians their freedom and basic human rights in complete disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions.

“Instead of ending the occupation – as demanded by the international community – Israel has taken concrete steps to make the occupation permanent by moving approximately 650,000 settlers into 125 settlements and 100 ‘outposts’ in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) while retaining almost exclusive control over land and natural resources.

“In addition, Israel has illegally annexed East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, built an illegal wall inside the West Bank and kept, for over a decade, the Gaza Strip under blockade.

“Two sets of law apply to Israeli settlers (civil

law) and Palestinians (military law) residing in the same territory. Many respected commentators and lawyers have described this situation, where Palestinians are even prohibited from using certain roads reserved only for settlers, as apartheid. Just as the world came together to force an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa, the international community must unite to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinians with similar means.”

GUE/NGL said that the persistence of the occupation, and the impunity afforded to Israel by European countries, have fuelled global instability.

“It is now more urgent than ever that the EU takes action to force Israel to comply with international law and human rights based on an agreed and just two-state solution.”

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD addressed an Ireland Palestine Solidarity

Mary Lou McDonald repeated Sinn Féin’s demand that the Irish Government act upon the Oireachtas motion tabled

by Sinn Féin three years ago to recognise the State of Palestine Campaign rally at the Israeli Embassy to mark the occupation’s anniversary.

She repeated the party’s demand that the Irish Government act upon the Oireachtas motion tabled by Sinn Féin three years ago to recognise the State of Palestine.

“We are here outside the Israeli Embassy to say with one voice that we demand justice, peace, nationhood and basic rights for the Palestinian people in their homeland,” the Sinn Féin deputy leader said.

“We are 50 years on from the annexation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and we have had 50 years of injustice. It has to end.

“Ireland is a country that knows a lot about colonisation and dispossession because we suffered it here too. So I think that Ireland should lead in the demand for justice for Palestine.

“Leo Varadkar’s incoming government must move to formally recognise Palestinian statehood without further delay.”

20 July / Iúil 2017

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5 Old Fenians meet on their way to the poll in East Clare

5 Victory procession in Clare with Constance Markievicz (in light coat) marching behind the pipers

‘A NEW IRELAND HAD ARISEN’ THOMAS ASHE

RECENT efforts by political opponents to denigrate Sinn Féin's principle of abstention from the Westminster parliament have been both politically and historically ignorant. Parties such as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael – which claim succession from pre-Treaty Sinn Féin – totally ignore the very basis of that movement.

One hundred years ago, abstentionism was a live issue as never before. The Irish Parliamentary Party

in Westminster had become a recruiting agency for the British Empire in the First World War in return for the postponed promise of Home Rule, what Roger Casement called “a promissory note payable after death”.

One of the few Irish parliamentarians who went to war himself (as distinct from just sending others to their deaths) was Willie Redmond, brother of John Redmond. Willie Redmond was killed at Messines early in June 1917, creating a parliamentary vacancy in East Clare which he represented in Westminster. Just before his death, the District Council in Ennis had called on John Redmond and his party “to resign their seats in Parliament as they no longer represent the views and wishes of the

5 Thomas Ashe between guards in Kilmainham Gaol , Dublin, after the 1916 Rising

Irish people either at home or abroad”.

As he emerged from London’s Pentonville Prison under the general amnesty of June 1917, Éamon de Valera

One hundred years ago, abstentionism was a live issue as never before was handed a telegram saying he had been chosen to contest the East Clare by-election. When the celebrations for the release of the prisoners were

over, many headed for Clare, where Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBan members were soon campaigning in uniform.

They were met with physical attacks

by Redmondites and constant harassment by the Royal Irish Constabulary, with young people imprisoned for such ‘crimes’ as carrying a Sinn Féin banner and “whistling derisively at the police”!

De Valera was little known in Clare and the election was a straight fight between the demand for an Irish Republic and the Home Rulers.

Polling day was 10 July and the next day the result was declared – 5,010 for

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Remembering the Past

Sinn Féin and de Valera against 2,035, for Lynch of the Irish Party. Thomas Ashe campaigned in the election and commented: “We had heard whispers in prison that a new Ireland had arisen but we never dreamt anything like the reality we have seen.”

Sinn Féin won the East Clare by-election 100 years ago this month, in July 1917.

WILLIAM PARTRIDGE

THE most prominent leader of the Dublin workers after Jim Larkin and James Connolly during the Great Lockout of 1913 was William Patrick Partridge.

A staunch trade unionist and a skilful orator, Partridge served as a Dublin City councillor and was a leader of the Irish Citizen Army.

Born in Sligo in 1874, Partridge was the son of an English train driver and an Irish mother. He was reared in County Mayo. At the age of 22 he moved to Dublin, where he took up employment at the 5 William Partridge and (right) in his Irish Citizen Army uniform Inchicore Railway Works and his trade union activism began. He at the Inchicore Works, he was joined the Amalgamated Society dismissed from his job. of Engineers and was prominent Partridge had become an in strikes in 1887 and 1902. organiser of the Irish Transport These were the early years of & General Workers’ Union which Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic had been founded in 1909. He League) and Partridge was worked with Jim Larkin in setting treasurer of the Inchicore branch. up branches of the union outside He campaigned for improved Dublin. In January 1913, he was housing, education and civic re-elected to Dublin City Council amenities for the working people as a Labour Party councillor. of Inchicore and he was elected When the Great Lockout of to Dublin City Council, where he 1913 came, Partridge was one served as a Sinn Féin councillor. of the main leaders of the strugHis employer, the Great South- gle. He toured Britain seeking ern & Western Railway, forced him support for the Dublin workers to resign his council seat in 1906 and addressed the British Trade but he continued as an active Union Congress. trade unionist. In 1912, when Partridge took a leading role he highlighted discrimination in in the Irish Citizen Army from its the appointment of supervisors foundation in November 1913.

He was close to Connolly in the preparations for the 1916 Rising.

Partridge fought in the College of Surgeons during Easter Week. Already ill before the Rising, after the surrender he was imprisoned in Dartmoor and Lewes prisons in England where his health deteriorated.

He was released on health grounds in April 1917.

He went to stay with his family in Ballaghadereen, County Roscommon, where he died three months after his release.

Constance Markievicz delivered his funeral oration in Ballaghadereen in which she described Partridge as “the purest-souled and noblest patriot Ireland ever had”. She then fired a salute over the grave with her own pistol.

William Partridge died on 26 July 1917, 100 years ago this month.

• Further reading: Hugh Geraghty, William Patrick Partridge, Curlew Books (2003).

July / Iúil 2017

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21

Bhuel is féidir rud amháin a rá i bhfábhar Varadkar!

TÁ SÉ DEACAIR, aon rud maith a rá faoin Taoiseach nua, Leo Varadkar. Tá dearcadh glan Thatcherach aige, agus níl aon chómhbhádh léirithe aige dona daoine is mó buailte sa tír seo ar chor ar bith.

Bheadh sé deacair i gcomortas idir é féin agus Mícheál Martin, ceannaire Fhianna Fáil, maidir le nimh in aghaidh Phoblachtánaigh, ach tríd is tríd ní mór duinn gach iarracht a dhéanamh fail réidh leis chómh luath agus is féidir.

Ach tá scéal amháin ann go dtagann Varadkar amach sa gcéad áit ann, agus sé sin an Ghaeilge.

Roinnt blianta ó shoin, nuair ba bhrionglóid uafáis an smaoineamh go mbeadh sé ina Thaoiseach, dúíirt Varadkar go poiblí gur chóir go mbeadh Gaeilge agus Bearla ag Taoiseach na hÉireann, agus thug sé faoin teanga a fhoghlaim.

Agus is cosuil go bhufil dul chun cinn mór déanta aige agus leibhéal a ceathair de reir na stáitsheirbhíse bainte amach aige.

Ar ndóigh, d’eirigh le Joe McHugh an rud céanna a dhéanamh. Bhí lucht labhartha na Gaeilge ar buile nuair a ceapadh McHugh mar aire sóisearach na Gaeltachta agus gan an teanga a thoil aige. Arís, thug sé go dáiríre agus tá se in ann comhrá nádúrtha a dhéanamh as Gaeilge le duine ar bith anois.

Ach sé an rud is fearr faoin scéal seo ná gur aithin na daoine seo an tabhacht náisiúnta – thar tábhacht phearsanta – a bhaineann le cumas sa teanga a bheith ag daoine móra sa bpolaitíocht.

IN PICTURES

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

Rud eile a dhein Varadkar nuair a bhí sé ina Aire Iompair, i 2913 ná gur chinn sé comharthaí bhóthair nua a chur amach a mbeadh cothromas méid is stíl ag an dá theanga ann – mar atá ag an nGáidhilg i gCríocha Garbha na hAlban, ag an bhFraincis is an Ísiltíris i réigiún an Bhruiséil agus mar atá le teangacha éagsúla ar fud an domhain.

Chuir na stáitsheirbhísigh – ar fuath leó an teanga is cosúil – i gcoinne an mholadh seo go fíochmhar.

Chothódh se mí-shábháilteacht, dúirt siad, cé gur ait nach gcothaíonn a leithéid mí-shábháilteacht in aon tír eile.

Mura léor sin dúradh ina choinne go gcuirfeadfh sé turasóirí ar strae (cé nach gcuireann in aon tír eile) nó go mbeadh sé ró-chostasach, cé gur ionann an costas ar chomhartha mar atá faoi láthair agus comhartha mar bheadh faoi mholadh Varadkar.

Ach ansin cuireadh Varadkar i roinn stáit eile, agus dhiúltaigh a chómharba sa Roinn Iompair, Pascal Donohoe, dul ar aghaidh, diúltú a dhearbhaigh an té atá i bhfeighil an dualgais sin anois, Shane Ross.

Ach tá an scéal ar ais ar an gclár oibre is cosúil. Dúirt Varadkar le Tuairisc.Ie gur mhaith leis go ndéanfai an t-athrú seo agus go bpléifidh sé an scéal le Ross.

Sea, mar adúirt comhfhreagraí amháin ar Thuairisc go raibh sé buartha nach mbeidh an dara rogha aige ach vótáil dhó!

Ni fhéadfainn dul chómh fada sin mé féin, ach má dhéanann sé é beidh moladh mór amháin ar a laghad tuillte aige.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Brussels: Sinn Féin elected reps stand with the Peace & Neutrality Alliance (PANA) and Shannonwatch at an anti-NATO demonstration and against the US military use of Shannon Airport in Ireland

5 Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin's 20th anniversary in the Dáil is marked with a presentation – most appropriately – under a mural to Kieran Doherty TD in the Sinn Féin Meeting Room

5 Westminster election: John Finucane and his mother, Geraldine, on their way to cast their votes

22 July / Iúil 2017

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Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip

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

GUE/NGL urges end to ‘criminal blockade’ on Cuba THE GUE/NGL Group has called for the urgent removal of “the criminal blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States which, for almost six decades, continues to violate the rights of the entire Cuban population and has caused immense suffering and scarcity”.

Speaking after President Trump’s announcement in June ramping up sanctions

Corporate tax transparency reform nobbled by conservatives

against Cuba, GUE/NGL also demanded that the US administration “immediately devolve the illegally-occupied Cuban national territory in Guantanamo Bay to the Cuban people”.

The statement from GUE/NGL ended: “GUE/NGL warmly reaffirms its solidarity with the Cuban revolution and with the struggle of the Cuban people in defence of their integrity and sovereignty.”

EU-Brazil trade talks raise concerns MATT CARTHY has criticised the European Commission for its controversial and deeply unpopular trade agenda and the Mercosur negotiations with South American countries, including Brazil.

Speaking from Strasbourg Matt Carthy, a member of the European Parliament’s Committee

on Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said: “At a time when we are still learning of the full extent of bribery, corruption and consumer deceit over meat and poultry imports from Brazil, the European Commission continues to push ahead with free trade talks with the Mercosur trading bloc.”

A LOOPHOLE that helps multinationals avoid public scrutiny of their tax affairs has been inserted by conservative groups into a European Parliament report, Ireland Midlands North West MEP Matt Carthy has complained.

The report aimed to ensure that major multinationals operating in the EU have to publicly report on their earnings, staff and

Roaming charge abolition gets wary welcome

THE end of roaming charges across the EU has been welcomed by Liadh Ní Riada – but she warned Border communities and overseas travellers that other hidden charges may still remain.

“There remain fears that hidden charges are still on the table following a side deal between mobile operators and the European Commission as a result of an extensive lobby by the industry,” she said, adding that data allowances from individual companies still vary widely from package to package.

“Going over these limits can still leave consumers open to substantial charges so I urge people to check what their allowance is before using data while roaming.”

THE Border Communities Against Brexit campaign group has been awarded the 2017 European Parliament Citizen’s Prize after being nominated by six Irish MEPs – Matt Carthy, Martina Anderson, Liadh Ní Riada, Lynn Boylan, Nessa Childers and Marian Harkin.

Since 2008, the European Parliament awards the European Citizen’s Prize every year “to projects and initiatives that facilitate cross-border co-operation or promote mutual understanding within the EU”.

Liadh gets Sign Language Translation in budget

Multinationals in EU would have to publicly report earnings tax payments on a country-by-country basis.

It had been praised by anti-tax-avoidance groups and development agencies.

Matt Carthy, a member of the Economic & Monetary Affairs Committee and GUE/NGL co-ordinator on the Panama Papers Inquiry Committee, said opponents in the ALDE and EPP groups “introduced a massive loophole that you could drive a truck through and which may make the entire proposal ineffective”.

Border Communities Against Brexit win EP Citizen’s Prize

5 MEPs Liadh Ní Riada, Martina Anderson and Matt Carthy with (second from left) Cypriot MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis (Chair, Delegation for Relations with Palestine) marking 50 years of Israeli occupation

LIADH NÍ RIADA has welcomed the inclusion of her amendment on Sign Language Translation in the EU 2018 budget.

The Ireland South MEP submitted the amendment through her role on the Culture & Education Committee.

The passing of the amendment means all plenary debates in Europe will now have International Sign Language interpretation.

EU move wants artists to get fair show on YouTube

A NEW European Copyright Directive being drawn up has the potential to deliver fairer compensation for artists whose work is on User Uploaded Content (UUC) services such as Youtube, Ireland South MEP Liadh Ní Riada has said.

Liadh (pictured), a daughter of the iconic composer and musician Seán Ó Riada and a TV producer, said: “Directives like this will help ensure that the large providers like YouTube (who made an astonishing €15billion in profits in the first part of 2016) play an active, reciprocal part in that industry rather than just profiting off the backs of artists.

“This is not about penalising the end-users.

This is about huge, profitable, multinational corporations playing their part in sustaining the industry they themselves rely on.”

July / Iúil 2017

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Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

Liadh Ní Riada

Lynn Boylan

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www.guengl.eu

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

EU and Ireland must do more for refugees ‘Frackopoly’ THE international community must take action to tackle the growing refugee crisis, Ireland North Martina Anderson said on World Refugee Day, 20 June.

“Every minute, 24 people are displaced by war, persecution and terror. The United Nations Agency for Refugees estimates that there are over 22million refugees worldwide. There are a further 40million people internally displaced in their own countries.

launched in Ireland

Every minute, 24 people are displaced by war “This record of shame is not just statistics – they are people.

“We cannot stand idly by and just let this humanitarian crisis unfold before our eyes.

The Irish people share a common history with those escaping conflict and hunger.”

Fewer guns and bailouts, more human rights and solidarity GUE/NGL MEPs called for “Another Europe” during a European Parliament debate on the refoundation of a Europe based on values anchored in effective democratic institutions and promoting a prosperous economy in a fair and cohesive society.

Martina Anderson told the plenary on 14 June:

“Brexit was a wake-up call. The EU must reform to survive. We need a social EU based on democracy, human rights and progressive national sovereignty.

‘EU must reform to survive’

“Instead we hear much talk of a multispeed Europe, deeper integration, austerity and an EU army. I believe that is a mistake – more integration is the last thing we need.

“With EU funds skewed towards military research, people want more participation, more solidarity and more democracy, not guns and corporate bail-outs.”

LYNN BOYLAN MEP and GUE/NGL hosted the launching in Ireland of Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment, “a bracing critique of the practice, finance schemes and politics of fracking”.

Written by public interest advocate Wenonah Hauter, it is described by TruthDig as a “thorough, up-to-the-minute account of grassroots mobilising to oppose fracking, new oil and gas pipelines, and liquid natural gas export terminals”.

With fracking, millions of gallons of water, dangerous chemicals, and sand are injected under high pressure

‘A bracing critique of fracking’ deep into the earth, fracturing hard rock to release oil and gas.

Wenonah Hauter argues that the rush to fracking is dangerous to the environment and treacherous to human health, concerns shared by communities in Ireland fearful of the impact of fracking.

Yemen EP vote ‘doesn’t go far enough’

5 MEP Martina Anderson in the European Parliament on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

JUNE’S European Parliament vote expressing “grave concern at the alarming deterioration in the humanitarian situation in Yemen” and which called on all sides and their regional and international backers to comply with international humanitarian law doesn’t go far enough, Lynn Boylan MEP said, welcome as it is.

In February, the European Parliament called on the EU to impose an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia, saying Britain, France and other EU governments should no longer sell weapons to a country accused of targeting civilians in Yemen.

Lynn Boylan said the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen has been largely ignored in the West while several EU countries continue to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia despite it being complicit in human rights violations in Yemen.

An arms embargo on Saudi Arabia must become a priority for all EU member states, she said.

24 July / Iúil vv2017

www.anphoblacht.com

licise his people’s Marco Vernon came to Ireland from Brazil 17 years ago to pub rned this year plight then was murdered by a rancher’s hirelings – his son retu

The slow death of the Amazon’s Guarani-Kaiowá

BY ERIC SCANLON SINCE EUROPEANS first began colonising the Americas in the late 1400s, indigenous communities have faced the brunt of their unquenchable demand for land, minerals and cheap, expendable labour.

Many people may conjure up images of the Amazon and isolated regions holding out against modern colonisation when they think of indigenous communities in Latin America but that doesn’t show the full picture.

In Brazil, for example, there are no fewer than 220 ethnic different groups who speak as many as 180 languages spread throughout the country but 98.6% of legally demarcated indigenous lands are in the Amazon region.

While this fulfils an important role by protecting the

The Guarani-Kaiowá lived in this area for more than 2,000 years until the Portuguese and Spanish colonists subjected and enslaved them way of life of these peoples and the biodiversity of this incredible terrain, 52% of the indigenous population in Brazil live outside this same region. These communities have limited or no access to their ancestral land and this has led to painful and bloody territorial disputes.

While many indigenous communities in the Amazon region are struggling to remain on their ancestral land, in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, the Guarani-Kaiowá are striving to regain theirs.

The story of the struggle of the Guarani-Kaiowá people in Mato Grosso do Sul was recently brought to Ireland

by Ladio Vernon, chief of the Takuara community and leader of the Aty Guaçu, the General Assembly of the Guarani-Kaiowá.

Ladio is also a history professor who graduated from the Federal University of the Great Dourados but he lives as a peasant in his community.

I first heard Ladio speak at an event in Dublin organised by the Latin American Solidarity Centre earlier this year as part of LASC's annual Latin American Week, which this year focused on the dangers to environmental human rights defenders in the region. I also met with him in Leinster House alongside Sinn Féin Senator Fintan Warfield.

Ladio came to Europe to draw international attention to the difficulties faced by the Guarani-Kaiowá and to denounce the slow genocide of his people.

Mato Grosso do Sul is a state in the south-west of Brazil that borders Paraguay and Bolivia. The total land area is 357,125 square kilometres (137,891 square miles), making it roughly the same size as Germany.

The Guarani-Kaiowá lived in this area for more than 2,000 years until the Portuguese and Spanish colonists subjected and enslaved them.

After independence, the Brazilian Government forced them to exist in small, demarcated areas so as to exploit their vast and fertile lands.

Their sacred beliefs, traditional customs and their language have been suppressed and their rights trampled on.

From the 1950s onwards, the Government has ruthlessly intensified the cultivation of sugarcane and soybean in the region and handed over huge tracts of land to unscrupulous landowners and agro-industrial farms.

Farmers and ranchers were given titles of ownership to these properties without any agreement from the indigenous people.

The Guarani-Kaiowá were brutally forced from their traditional lands and onto smaller and smaller plots of land.

The cultivation of sugarcane and GM soybean crops require the intensive use of pesticides that has contaminated the rivers and the soil of their ancestral land. This

is acutely painful to the Guarani-Kaiowá and other indigenous communities in Brazil who have been important guardians of nature.

It has forced Ladio’s community to survive without the necessary conditions to plant their crops, hunt,

They were brutally forced from their traditional lands and onto smaller and smaller plots of land fish, or access medicinal herbs with which they treat 5 Juliana Sassi, Thaís themselves, preventing them from living in accordance Mantovani, Ladio Vernon and Jordi Ferré in Sinn Féin's with their customs.

The 1988 Brazilian Constitution granted the GuaraLeinster House Meeting Room ni-Kaiowá and other indigenous communities some

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5 Ladio Vernon with translator and activists Jordi Ferré, Juliana Sassi and Thaís Mantovani with (left of picture) Independent TD Maureen O'Sullivan and Sinn Féin Senator Fintan Warfield

of their historical territory but successive governments have failed to honour their obligations and implement the demarcation process.

Ladio explained how a lot of the Guarani-Kaiowá, including his own community, are forced to live in small encampments built on the side of the road and beside the fences which have been erected to stop them reoccupying their land. They have no ability

5 Jordi Ferré, Paul Maskey MP, Ladio Vernon and Tom Holland of the Sinn Féin International Department in west Belfast

to farm or provide for their families. The conditions have led to malnourishment and disease.

Recent research carried out by two NGOs (FIAN Brazil and CIMI) has revealed that the rate of chronic malnutrition within Guarani-Kaiowá communities amounts to 42%. This compares with a National Survey on Health and Nutrition of Indigenous Population which found that average chronic malnutrition rates among indigenous children nationally is 26% and 5.9% for non-indigenous children.

Two hundred years ago, the Guarani-Kaiowá occupied an area that represents 25% of the present State of Mato Grosso do Sul, what they call “Tekoha” – their sacred territory.

Today, the Guarani-Kaiowá are only demanding 2.5% of this territory.

Yet if they attempt to scale the fences and return to their land, incredible violence awaits them, including beatings, kidnappings, torture, rape and murder.

Ladio came to Ireland and Europe at great risk to his own safety and he has received death threats for doing so. These are not idle threats. Ladio’s father,

They were brutally forced from their traditional lands and onto smaller and smaller plots of land Marco Vernon, came to Ireland in the year 2000 to denounce the abuses that his community faced in their attempts to regain their land ­– he was subsequently murdered by the employees of a cattle rancher who had stolen land from the Guarani-Kaiowá.

As Ladio was following in his father’s footsteps it was an emotional and difficult visit to Ireland but he is a natural leader and he was determined to come here to denounce the genocide of his people.

The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

It states that there must be an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. There must also be a physical element, and this includes the killing of members of the group, causing the group physical or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

It is therefore clear why Ladio and the Guarani-Kaiowá are claiming that they are the victims of

an ongoing genocide. It is a slow genocide but the ultimate aim is to wipe out these proud and strong people because the expulsion from their lands means their gradual death as a people and culture.

Ladio told me that the Great Council of the Guarani-Kaiowá Assembly has stated: “The lack of demarcation is a reason and a motivation for our genocide. The ineptitude of state guarantees means more deaths and difficulties for the survival for our people.”

As long as lands that have been demarcated and officially recognised as indigenous lands remain in the hands of non-indigenous people, it is apparent that there will continue to be conflict.

The Guarani-Kaiowá and others just want what is legally entitled to them.

In response, the landlords and agri-businesses have attempted to crush any resistance to their rule.

Land conflicts between desperate indigenous peoples trying to reclaim their lands before they are lost and polluted forever have already caused the deaths of 891 indigenous people in Brazil between 2013 and 2017, of which 426 were in Mato Grosso do Sul. These assassinations of indigenous activists happen with total impunity.

Faced with the threat of their total annihilation, the Guarani-Kaiowá are calling on the international community to stopped this genocide.

Unfortunately, the situation in Brazil is getting worse.

In January 2017, the unelected right-wing government led by Michel Temer (which took power in what many have denounced as a coup) issued a decree that alters the demarcation of indigenous lands. This decree allows the Justice Department to freeze the delimitation process to review the validity of the already-demarcated lands.

Additionally, elements of the Brazilian Congress are proposing a constitutional amendment to make the demarcation of indigenous lands the responsibility of Parliament. This would be a disaster for indigenous communities because, of the 594 members of Congress, 207 directly represent the large agricultural industry.

If this amendment is approved, today’s indigenous areas, as limited as they are, could be drastically reduced.

This will cause further deforestation, and the criminalisation and murder of indigenous people.

The Guarani-Kaiowá have simple and just demands.

They want to live in their ancestral territory, to live according to their culture, customs and language, cultivating their crops and hunting, while respecting and preserving nature. Yet they are being killed with impunity for standing up for their rights and slowly dying in makeshift camps on the side of the road while the wealthy elite gets even richer by exploiting and destroying their ancestral land.

Ladio’s hope is that the international community will not impassively allow the annihilation of his people if they know what is happening.

It is up to Irish republicans and other progressive voices to raise their voices with those of the Guarani-Kaiowá.

26 July / Iúil 2017

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150th ANNIVERSARY OF FENIAN GUN-RUNNING SHIP FROM THE UNITED STATES

Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD

ERIN’S HOPE

A MEETING of Fenians, all former Union Army officers and American Civil War veterans, was held in New York on 18 February 1867 under Lieutenant Colonel James Kelly to draw up plans for a military expedition to Ireland in support of a rising expected in the near future.

off Donegal Bay for a signal from shore but the only signals they got were from the coast guard enquiring as to their intentions.

Local fishermen and pilots also visited them and all the while the men on board had to hide below decks.

On 23 May, Captain Kavanagh and two Fenians, Colonel Doherty and Lieutenant O’Shea, were sent ashore at Steedagh, near Sligo, to try and make contact with local Fenians. Captain Kavanagh hoped to land the rest of the detachment, take Sligo, muster support and stimulate a general uprising.

Congressman James E. Kerrigan was in charge of the preparations for this expedition. Even though word filtered through in March that the Rising had not been successful, plans continued.

It was obviously hoped that the thousands of Irish Republican Brotherhood members who mobilised on 6 March and those who never mobilised would still be waiting in readiness for renewed leadership to strike the blow against the British and to declare the Republic.

An 81-foot, two-masted, square-rigged, 200-ton brigantine, the Jacknell (spelt "Jacmel" in some reports), built in 1861 in Medford, Massachusetts, was bought by in 1866 by Charles F. Blake from the US marshals who had confiscated it in Panama due to non-payment of seamen’s wages and fines.

In March 1867 it was berthed in New York when a huge haul of armaments from the recently-ended US Civil War was transferred aboard in crates labelled as pianos, sewing machines and wine in casks.

The arsenal included 5,000 rifles, five million rounds of ammunition, three 6lb artillery pieces, and 1,000 sabres.

When the Jacknell with its crew of five set sail from New York on a course for Cuba to avoid arousing suspicion, it had carpenters on board.

They were working away feverishly, making alterations to the vessel for the long voyage that lay ahead. The carpenters were landed ashore as soon as possible when the living quarters were completed.

They headed to Boston in a circuitous route to avoid raising suspicions of the US Customs, which could have scuppered the mission in trying protect the declared neutrality of the United States. It was at Sandy Hook that Captain John Kavanagh, the rest of the cargo and some 40 Fenians (mainly veterans of the Civil War) came aboard under the cover of darkness.

Captain Kavanagh had been appointed commander of the Jacknell in April 1867 by the IRB’s Chief of Naval Affairs, Captain John Powell, in a letter setting out his mission. The objective was to be the first ship under an Irish flag to set sail for Ireland with republican soldiers and armaments since Wolfe Tone’s landing from French warships in Donegal in 1798.

A NEW FLAG IS HOISTED The Jacknell sailed away on its designated course, changing direction only the next day when clear of the reach of US Customs patrols.

TENSIONS The delay in disembarking caused tensions which spilled over and three men were injured.

Two sailors were shot (James Nolan and John Smith) and a Fenian, Daniel Buckley, was injured.

A local ship’s pilot came on board and had to be detained to protect the purpose of the mission.

The two disembarked Fenian officers returned with Richard O’Sullivan Burke, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who explained the grave situation in Ireland. Due to the failed rising, movement was severely curtailed and communications totally hampered.

Burke suggested they sail towards County Cork, where it was hoped that they could meet up with other Fenian officers such as William Lomasney (Captain Mackay) who were engaged in an ongoing guerrilla warfare campaign across southern Munster, attacking coast guard stations, procuring weapons and other activities.

Before setting sail on 24 May, the two wounded sailors were put ashore under the control of Patrick Nugent so they could receive treatment. Richard O’Sullivan Burke also went ashore along with the two Fenian officers, Doherty and O’Shea. At this stage the British Royal Navy fleet and the coast guard been warned of the activities of a suspicious ship and were en route to intercept them when Captain Kavanagh decided he couldn’t await his officers’ return and set sail again.

From 27-30 May, despite the dangers, the Erin’s Hope cruised along the Cork coast in a forlorn quest for the signal. Even a near-boarding from the coast guard didn’t deter Captain Kavanagh and his detachment from continuing with their mission. On 31 May, the weather began to blow and the ship had to head eastward, being chased for a while by a British ship.

The next morning, 1 June, saw the Erin’s Hope arrive at Helvic, off Rinn an gCuanach on the Waterford coast.

It wasn’t till just over a week later, on Easter Sunday, 21 April, in mid-Atlantic that the ship’s exact course was revealed to all aboard. The ship was renamed Erin’s Hope to huge applause. A new flag, a sunburst, was hoisted and they set

sail for the Donegal coast, which was believed not to be as well-patrolled by British naval vessels as other parts of the Irish coast.

Later than anticipated, on 10 May they sighted land. For several days, the Erin’s Hope waited

‘SQUARE-TOED FOREIGNERS’ Despite a fog, they managed to communicate with local fishermen and Páid Mór Ó Faoláín agreed to land 32 of the Fenians later under the cover of darkness for £2. Thinking that the fog

July / Iúil 2017

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5 Captain of Erin’s Hope: John Kavanagh

5 1671: A Fenian assassination squad at Hardwicke Street, in Dublin's north inner city, shot Thomas Talbot, a police informant against the Fenians 5 William Lomasney (Captain Mackay)

quickly on condition that they leave Ireland and not return. Within six or seven months, only eight prisoners remained incarcerated.

‘AS LONG AS I HAVE BREATH . . .’

5 Some of the Erin’s Hope members: Augustine Costello, Michael Walsh, John Hanley, Bryan Courtney and Nugent (first name not known)

5 Richard O’Sullivan Burke

would give them cover, a landing was attempted early at Cé Bhaile na nGall (Ballinagoul Pier).

An alert coast guard and the local Royal Irish Constabulary arrested 26 of the “square-toed foreigners” almost immediately despite them having split into groups of threes or fours in the vicinity. Some succeeded in evading capture, including one who was hidden by relatives locally and eventually made his way back to America under an assumed name.

It was another few days of cat and mouse off the Irish and the English coasts for the Erin’s Hope before the crew and the remainder of the expeditionary force on 6 June set sail for the United States again with their munitions cargo nearly fully intact.

Back in Ireland, the captured men were being cheered as they were being transferred in seven carriages under armed escort by RIC police constables and 16 soldiers from the British Army’s 17th Regiment from Dún Gharbháin (Dungarvan) to the more secure Waterford Gaol.

More crowds added to a carnival atmosphere in Waterford City, where Resident Magistrate H. E. Redmond and another 30 constables armed with breech-loading rifles were forced to increase the security detail.

‘OBNOXIOUS’ BRITISH AGENTS 5 Fenian Daniel Buckley

On 10 June, two British agents, J. J. Corydon and Talbot, who had infiltrated the Fenian Movement (and described by the Waterford

News as “obnoxious characters”) were brought from Dublin to the jail to identify the captives.

Three nights later, when another unit of IRB Volunteers captured in Cork were being brought to Waterford, their armed guard came under attack with such ferocity that even when British reinforcements arrived it didn’t quell the crowd.

The rioters were described as being made up of “salters and labourers with a sprinkling of fisherwomen who would prove the most formidable of assailants”. A bayonet charge was ordered and a local man named Walsh was stabbed through the heart; several police and locals were severely injured.

The captured men were then sent to Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, on the train next morning, where they were met by two full troops of cavalry of the 9th Lancers and a large detachment of mounted police.

Most of the Fenians were Irish-born but naturalised US citizens and hadn’t committed any crime on Irish soil under Britain’s jurisdiction (the evidence for an insurrection had managed to sail away) but with habeas corpus suspended due to the rising in March they could indefinitely detain the men or at least until habeas corpus was reinstated.

With both the British and US governments trying to repair relationships that had been strained during the US Civil War, they could have done without the furore of imprisoned US citizens in Irish jails so most of the men were released

It was to be some months before the authorities could cobble together evidence against them, and then it was mainly to come from one of their own. Daniel Buckley, who was involved in the shooting incident on board the Erin’s Hope while off the Donegal coast, betrayed his comrades and spilled the beans on the entire expedition. Some were charged with treason-felony and convicted.

Their cases were to have far-reaching effects beyond Ireland with both the US and Britain changing their laws to address the rights of naturalised citizens.

John Warren was sentenced to 15 years’ penal servitude. Augustine E. Costello, from Killimor, County Galway, was sent to Portland Prison in England to serve his 12-year penal servitude sentence, being released in April 1869.

Warren had been released in May 1868. At a huge welcome home gathering in Ballinasloe, County Galway, he stated: “As long as I have breath, I will conspire and plot to overthrow the British Government.”

Both Costello and Warren left Irish shores for America on 30 April 1869. The Mayor of Cork held a banquet in their honour on the eve of their departure.

The British agent Talbot was assassinated four years after the mission, in 1871. Another informer in the case, William F. Milton, was shot two days after he returned to New York in August 1867 by the son of prominent Young Irelander Michael Doheny.

Of the two sailors injured in Sligo, Nolan recovered quickly but the other, John Smyth (alias John O’Connor), died from gangrene poisoning in December 1867.

The Erin’s Hope arrived back in New York 150 years ago, on 1 August 1867, having sailed over 9,000 miles in 107 days.

28 July / Iúil 2017

www.anphoblacht.com BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

Twists and turns of the Border and the US in the Rising Ireland’s Allies: America and the 1916 Easter Rising Edited by Miriam Nyhan Grey UCD Press, €40

THERE can be no doubt about the tremendous importance of the role played by America in the cause of Irish nationalism.

From the inspirational themes of the American Declaration of Independence as a catalyst, along with the French Revolution, 1798, to the Fenians and Clan na Gael to Noraid (Irish Northern Aid) and modern-day support organisations, America – or at least Irish-America – has proved to be more than a friend.

The Proclamation of 1916 specifically mentions the support of Ireland’s “exiled children in America” as providing some of the impetus for the Rising.

America – or at least Irish-America – has proved to be more than a friend to Irish freedom down the centuries Bombs, Bullets and the Border – Policing Ireland’s Frontier (Irish Security Policy 1969-1978)

By Patrick Mulroe Irish Academic Press €24.99

THIS is not some hastily-produced, cut-and-paste volume rushed out to cash in on worries raised by Britain’s impending abandonment of the EU in Brexit. It is, in fact, an impeccably-researched, highly-nuanced and thoughtful work by an academic who is himself a native of the Border region.

The book was, apparently, conceived as part of a PhD course ten years ago, long before Brexit was anything more than a demented gleam in the eyes of the more rabid members of the feral fringe of the Conservative Party and their cousins in UKIP. The focus is on a limited period between 1969 and 1978 but covers many of the seminal events of the conflict that became referred to as “The Troubles”.

It charts the change from a political ambiguity in 1969 when the Irish Defence Forces established field hospitals to accept refugees fleeing attacks

by unionist mobs backed up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary paramilitary police in Belfast, through the “Arms Trial” crisis for the Dublin Government up to the anti-republican orthodoxy of An Garda Síochána and the courts by the late 1970s.

Author Dr Patrick Mulroe points out that the close and continued co-operation between the Garda and the Defence Forces and the RUC/British Army was, if not exactly covert, at least played down by both sides to accommodate their own demographic. The Irish Government’s dilemma was to maintain its historical profession of a republican ideal whilst at the same time suppressing republicans it portrayed as being an existential threat to the 26-county state.

The timing of this book is serendipitous rather than exploitative and its contents serve to illustrate how the existence of a “hard” border can create political and social environments which are capable of subverting some of the most important elements of normal society.

It is a very interesting and timely publication.

All this being said, the claim by Professor J. J. Lee in the forward of this book that “No America, no New York, no Easter Rising. Simple as that” smacks of hyperbole.

This book is a collection of 24 chapters, each by a different historian on different aspects of Irish American involvement in the Easter Rising.

Whilst each chapter is a standalone piece in its own right, they are all linked by a narrative thread to adjoining chapters.

Without doubt this will become the standard text to turn to when researching this subject. The depth of research and sheer academic muscle that has been ploughed into this volume is evident on every page. There are over 100 pages of highly-detailed notes to supplement the already fact-crammed text. And yet, despite its many undoubted strengths, I have a problem with the book. It’s a purely subjective response and in no way a criticism of its academic merit but, to me, the overall tone seems to be an attempt to hijack the Rising, to turn it into a

form of American export with the actual rebellion being undertaken by some sort of local subsidiary of the American parent company. I’m probably being unfair but that’s how it feels as a visceral response rather than a purely intellectual one.

It should be remembered that the Rising envisaged by Clan na Gael and

John Devoy was predicated upon Casement’s German guns. With their loss, the Rising that actually occurred was a vastly different home-grown affair – as the Proclamation says, “relying in the first on her own strength”.

There was a reason it became known as “The Sinn Féin Rebellion”.

5 Roger Casement and John Devoy in America prior to the Rising

Available from: www.sinnfein.ie/martin-mcguinness-portrait or your local Sinn Féin outlet "We were incredibly moved when we saw Robert's painting of Martin. It was wonderful to receive such a lovely piece from such a renowned artist to honour Martin's life."

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tubes 3 inches in diameter x 20 inches long. Each print is rolled with specially treated protective paper and accompanied with a numbered certificate to confirm its authenticity.

July / Iúil 2017

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29

I nDíl Chuimhne 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

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations PÁDRAIG PEARSE

men find strength within their hearts, to stand for what is right. Oppression equals slavery and resistance stems from both. Find those who fight to end it, are soldiers of the truth” (from the writings of Martin Hurson on hunger strike). Remembered with pride by the Hurson/Quirke Sinn Féin Cumann, Galway City West, Galway.

HURSON, Martin. In memory of Volunteer Martin Hurson, H-Block Martyrs, who gave his life on hunger strike on 13 July 1981. Remembered with pride by Comhairle Ceantair Gaillimh Thiar.

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, 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 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.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

HURSON, Martin. In memory of Volunteer Martin Hurson, H-Block Martyrs, who died on 13 July 1981, 36th anniversary. “Untold pain and heartaches, restless lonely night. Where

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com

Hammy extend deepest sympathy to the Cuningham family on the recent death of their brother, Charlie. I measc laochra na nGael go raibh sé.

McDONALD. Deepest condolences are extended to the family and friends of our dear comrade Jim who passed away suddenly. From the members of the Clancy & Farrell Sinn Féin Cumann, Ennis, and the Clare Sinn Féin Comhairle Ceantair.

McDONALD. Friends of the International Brigades in Ireland offer our deepest sympathy and condolences

to the family, friends and comrades of our esteemed member Jim McDonald, Ennis, County Clare. Honouring the ideals, principles and memory of the International Brigades was an intrinsic part of Jim’s commitment to a better world for all humanity.

McDONALD. An Phoblacht extends deepest sympathy to the family, friends and comrades of Jim McDonald, formerly of London and most recently of Ennis, County Clare, who passed away suddenly at University Hospital Limerick on 31 May 2017 after battling with

illness. Jim was a dedicated republican and internationalist who stuck by the Republican Movement and An Phoblacht during some of the hardest decades of the struggle in England and continued his dedicated service when he returned to Ireland.

McDONALD. Deepest sympathy to the daughters and family of the late Jim McDonald. From the Nugent family, London.

McDONALD. Condolences to the daughters and family of the late Jim McDonald. From Dinny O’Brien.

McDONALD. The West London Republican Support Group mourns the passing of our dedicated friend and comrade Jim McDonald. Jim passed away at home in Ireland, fighting to the very end with the unwavering commitment to the struggle that he showed throughout his life.

McDONALD. The Wolfe Tone Society and the Connolly Association, along with Kevin, Peter, Shelagh, Paul and Hammy, would like to extend deepest sympathy to the McDonald family on the recent death of their father Jim. I measc laochra na nGael go raibh sé.

Comhbhrón CASSIDY. The Cassidy family deeply regrets the death of their brother Michael Cassidy. From his brothers Kennagh, James, Stephen, Lawrence; his sisters Kathleen, Helen, Fiona, Patricia and Mary.

Also his friends in Mossend, Bellshill, Motherwell; Torquay in England, friends in America; the lads in The Shark's Mouth, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland; and County Tipperary.

CUNNINGHAM. The Connolly Association, Wolfe Tone Society and West London Republican Support Group along with Kevin, Peter, Shelagh, Paul and

FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

Jim McDonald London & Ennis, County Clare JIM McDONALD, who passed away suddenly on 31 May as he battled a long illness, was a committed and ever-active republican in England throughout the turbulent decades of the 1970s and the 1980s, a dedication that was recognised in Jim being named the International Honoree at Le Chéile in 2014.

Jim was witness to some of the seminal moments in Irish republican history in England. These included the deaths on hunger strike of Michael Gaughan in 1974 and Frank Stagg in 1976 as well as the London police shoot-to-kill execution in 1996 of his good friend and comrade, Diarmuid O’Neill, an unarmed IRA Volunteer shot dead while attempting to surrender.

Jim began life in Loughrea, County 5 Jim McDonald with Martin McGuinness in London Galway, in the 1940s.

His mother, Anne McInerney, was a Clare woman from a staunchly repub- 5 Taking a break during An Phoblacht sales at the London Irish Festival: John Keane, lican family. His father, John, was a Volunteer Diarmuid O’Neill and Jim McDonald creamery manager and the family Cathedral in 1920. “still selling An Phoblacht and doing had to move where his work took In England, a small core of republi- as much as we could in support of the him, from Galway to Clare, to Cork cans was almost daily involved in some prisoners and An Cumann Cabhrach.” and Dublin. John later emigrated to sort of activity: selling papers Friday, Back in County Clare, he joined England to get work.

Saturday and Sunday; collecting money the Peadar Clancy & Mairéad Farrell Following in his father’s footsteps, around the Irish pubs; staging pickets Sinn Féin Cumann in Ennis and was Jim took the boat to England in 1961 and attending marches and public a founder member of Friends of the and began a career in engineering meetings; and, very importantly for International Brigades in Ireland. Jim as a fitter.

Jim, helping POWs and their families. became a frequent participant in the In 1972, he joined the Terence Mac “We were active full-time, more or less,” delegations to Spain for the annual Swiney Sinn Féin Cumann in Hammer- Jim recalled for Le Chéile. commemoration of the fallen anti-fassmith, in west London. It was amongst “In the 1980s in Hammersmith we cist heroes at Jarama. the most active and high-profile repub- were selling 480 An Phoblachts a week Jim was buried with his uncle Pappy lican bodies in England. and that carried on right up to the in the beautiful setting of Kilvoydane One of his proudest moments was 1990s.”

Cemetery, Corofin. being in the guard of honour for Condolences are extended to Jim's Sinn Féin in Britain was stood down Michael Gaughan’s cortege in June in the mid-1980s and the Wolfe Tone daughters Sharon and Claire, sons-in1974, the largest Irish republican funeral Society was formed. “It was too far law Ray and Yannis, grandchildren seen in England since 30,000 filed away from us so we set up the West Christianna and Antony, sister Mary, past the coffin of Cork Mayor Terence London Republican Support Group, relatives and friends, and his comrades 5 2014 Le Chéile, Wexford: Honourees Jack ‘Danny’ McElduff, Ann O’Sullivan, Sheila and Denis Hanlon, Joe McKenny and Jim McDonald Mac Swiney in London’s Southwark still in support of Sinn Féin,” Jim said, in Ireland and overseas.

30 July / Iúil 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Not on the Nine O’Clock News

SEÁN Mac BRÁDAIGH RTÉ’s attempts to underplay the historic victories of Sinn Féin in the Westminster elections was blatant even by RTÉ standards.

Clearly not coping well with Sinn Féin’s gains right across the North and the electoral meltdown of its pet Northerners in the SDLP, the close of RTÉ News: Nine O’Clock on the day after the election carried footage of DUP candidates waving Union Jack flags but didn’t carry one single shot of Sinn Féin’s historic victories across the North.

In the aftermath of the elections, however, RTÉ did give lots of airtime to Sinn Féin’s political opponents in the South to criticise the party’s longstanding and fundamental position of abstentionism towards Westminster.

What this demonstrated is that, under Mícheál Martin’s leadership, Fianna Fáil has become a Redmondite party, elevating the swearing of an oath of allegiance to a foreign monarch and sitting in a foreign parliament as a point of political duty for Irish elected representatives.

Fianna Fáil doesn’t even contest elections in the Six Counties and, meanwhile, the Fianna Fáil leader refuses to support Northern MPs having a voice in the Oireachtas.

What does the Fianna Fáil rank and file think of all this?

FAUX FIANNA FÁIL The faux outrage of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael at Sinn Féin keeping to its popular election pledge not to take seats at Westminster reacheda

5 Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes – Put back in his box 5 RTÉ News: Nine O’Clock's Westminster election coverage was flagging

crescendo after their rival’s success and the SDLP’s losses.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were trying to tell people that they were very keen to help Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing Labour against Theresa May’s right-wing Tories but they were fooling nobody.

(Maybe they should take stock of where the same tactic has left the SDLP.) And it seems that Jeremy Corbyn has a better understanding of Irish history than Mícheál Martin and Fianna Fáil (or Fine Gael), telling the BBC’s Andrew Marr: “I understand Irish history and I see no prospect of Sinn Féin taking theirs seats.”

HOWLIN ON THE BANDWAGON Although he didn’t win, Corbyn’s incredibly impressive showing in the British general election against a backdrop of relentless and almost wall-to-wall media demonisation saw RTÉ reach absurd contortions when their news programmes wheeled out TDs from the tiny ‘Irish Labour Party’ to talk about it.

5 Brendan Howlin and other senior Labour figures ridiculed Jeremy Corbyn then claimed his limelight

The spoofers of 26-County Labour have no connection whatsoever with Corbyn, whose association with Sinn Féin goes back decades.

Brendan Howlin and other senior Labour figures had dismissed and ridiculed Corbyn and all he stood for prior to the election result, including Howlin himself in a speech to last year’s MacGill Summer School.

Howlin loftily lectured Corbyn & Co: “There is nothing the Establishment likes more than left-wing parties that confine their energies to campaigning and run scared of governing. Winning elections matters.”

Howlin’s Labour Party has seven seats, down from 33.

Winning elections matters, Brendan.

FINE GAELER FILCHES CORBYN CATCHPHRASE A tsunami of superficial drivel emanated from empty-headed media commentators and dimwit politicians about the age of the new Taoiseach without a mandate, Leo Varadkar, and how this alone is some positive indicator of ‘progressive’ politics in Ireland.

Locked in their own bubble, they clearly haven’t noticed that both Bernie Sanders (75) and Jeremy Corbyn (68) have politically mobilised huge swathes of young people in recent times, while at home our own Gerry Adams (68) leads a party which has a higher proportion of support among younger people than any other.

New depths of delusion and hypocrisy were reached in the Dáil when fawning Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan, with a straight face and no blushing at all, unashamedly

used Jeremy Corbyn’s election slogan to claim that Tory Boy Leo will be a Taoiseach for “the many, not the few”.

EAMONN MALLIE BOXES BRIAN HAYES RTÉ’s Marian Finucane Show (18 June) had yet another discussion on Sinn Féin without bothering to include any representatives from the party.

It was refreshing however to hear MEP Brian Hayes being put firmly back in his box by journalist Eamonn Mallie when the haughty Fine Gaeler attempted to pontificate, from the rarefied atmosphere of a D4 studio, about what Sinn Féin should and shouldn’t do in the North.

In 2012, Sinn Fein sent RTÉ a Freedom of Information request for the listing of guests with a political affiliation from February 2011 to May 2012.

It revealed there were 35 guests connected with Fine Gael, 28 with Independents and others, 19 with Fianna Fáil, 15 with Labour, and just two from Sinn Féin.

M a r i a n Finucane is one of RTE’s highest-earners with a reported salary in 2016 of €295,000.

This for two two-hour shows a week in between holidays, etc.

Handy work if you can get it.

5 As red as Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan gets

July / Iúil 2017

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Sports today – sponsors first or supporters?

CROKE PARK in the sunny, intoxicating days of August and September. The travelling fans arrive to support their teams in an almost ancient tribal ritual.

The GAA All-Ireland hurling and football championships are vital expressions of modern Irish culture and identity.

These competitions are also a profitable business fuelled by TV and radio rights, replica jersey sales, sponsors’ fees and gate receipts.

TV, radio, print and online media today are full of sports content. I am bombarded with updates on the British & Irish Lions tour, the Americas Cup, Formula 1, golf in Europe and the USA, and the much-touted boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.

An obscene amount of money is poured into some sports.

The Financial Times put the annual spend of Formula 1 teams at over $300million, with newcomers like Haas F1 spending $130million annually.

America’s Cup boats cost upwards of £10million apiece, according to reports.

The America’s Cup grew out of a yachting race around the Isle of Wight in England in 1851. The New York Yacht Club winners decided to create a perpetual trophy where challengers would now have to travel to the US to compete for the newly-named America’s Cup. One challenger was Thomas Lipton, founder of Lipton’s Tea. His five failures to capture the America’s Cup in the years between 1899 and 1930 might seem disappointing but for Lipton the media coverage and exposure of his name and tea brand were a perfect platform from which to launch his products into the USA. And so sports sponsorship was born.

In the early 20th century there were three emerging forces in modern sport.

First there was mass working-class interest and participation in sport created in part by the urbanisation of the industrial revolution, the emergence of factory working and large-scale political movements which, for example, the new football and rugby leagues in Britain became a tangible expression of identity.

Alongside this was a

ROBBIE SMYTH professionalisation of sport, where ownership of competitions and sporting clubs would increasingly be held in fewer hands. (Think of the transformation of Glasgow Celtic as a club formed to raise money for poor children to the sports business it is today and where

An obscene amount of money is poured into some sports the largest shareholder is Irish serial investor Dermot Desmond.)

Then came the sponsorship era which has grown in step-changes.

Lansdowne Road is “The Aviva”.

Football teams have sponsors for not just match strips but training kits and so many other things. (Did you know that Cho-A Pharm are the official pharmaceutical partner for Manchester United in Korea and Vietnam?)

Sponsors like their messages displayed prominently and non-controversially.

How many Champions League matches have you watched where Gazprom logos adorned the touchline hoardings?

The Russian gas exploration firm was

privatised in 1993. In 1999, Gazprom purchased NTV, one of Russia’s few independent commercial TV stations.

The station opposed the candidacy of Vladimir Putin and when he was elected President he renationalised Gazprom, appointing the now Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev chairperson. What is the Gazprom logo saying to you now?

There is another side of sports.

Last August, Celtic fans held up Palestinian flags when playing in a Champions League qualifying match against Israeli team Hapoel Be’er Sheva.

The Celtic fans were supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Celtic were fined £8,615 and supporters raised £176,000 in response and which was presented to Palestinian charities.

Funnily enough, this wasn’t an update on my BBC Sports News app.

You have to go to Aljazeera to find mainstream coverage of the campaign by the Palestinian Football Association to “suspend the Israeli Football Association (IFA) unless Israel lifts its restrictions on the movement of Palestinian athletes between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and on imports of sports equipment bound for the Palestinian territories”.

In June, international governing body FIFA delayed responding to the Palestinian FA’s complaint. It will be 2018 before they make a ruling.

UEFA bans “gestures, words, objects or any other means to transmit any message that is not fit for a sports event, particularly messages that are of a political, ideological, religious, offensive or provocative nature”. It doesn’t prevent an endless stream of betting firms, extortionate moneylenders or the interests of anti-democratic leaders having their logos prominently displayed.

So, as the GAA championships move towards the knock-out stages, we should maybe give thanks for a sporting code, built from the local club upwards, without corporate owners, but with some sort of democratic accountability.

Come on the GAA! Come on the Dubs!

5 Palestine soccer should be on a level playing field with other states, not punished by the inaction of soccer bosses

IN PICTURES

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5 Sligo/Leitrim TD Martin Kenny lines out for the launch of the Women's Rugby World Cup to take place in Ireland in August

5 Martina Anderson MEP at the EH Bildu conference in the Basque Country

5 Mary Lou McDonald TD helps launch the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee's National Demonstration for Freedom and Justice in Palestine rally

5 Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and party colleagues attend the 'Taste of Cavan' launch

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IN PICTURES

Sraith Nua Iml 40 Uimhir 7 – July / Iúil 2017

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5 Former Mayor of Sligo Seán MacManus, wife Helen and son Chris joined by Gerry Adams at Seán's Retirement Dinner Dance on 24 June after decades of service, including Peace Process talks at Downing Street

5 Stepping it out in Dublin at Gay Pride 2017

5 The Volunteer Martin 'Doco' Doherty Commemoration leaving Finglas in Dublin City

5 Good Friday Committee at Leinster House – Vice-Chair Declan Breathnach TD, Brendan Smith TD, Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile, Kathleen Funchion TD and Chair, Senator Frank Feighan, Francie Molloy MP and Mickey Brady MP launch a report on Brexit and the Peace Process

5 Local residents rally to demanding action on UVF flags in shared spaces in south Belfast with support from Sinn Féin's Geraldine Holland, Dermot and Ryan Carlin, and (right) the 'bonfire site' and flags at Annadale, off the Ormeau Road, with graffiti mocking Martin McGuinness's death painted on fencing at left of picture