An Phoblacht March 2014

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CONCERNED PARENTS AGAINST DRUGS

‘People power’ 30 years on

SAMMY DEVENNY

50-year seal on 1969 killing

by RUC

Midlands North West EU candidate

MATT CARTHY No mouthpiece for austerity

anphoblacht

Sraith Nua Iml 37 Uimhir 3

March / Márta 2014

PRICE €2/£2

JUSTICE MINISTER’S CREDIBILITY IN BITS

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anphoblacht

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IN PICTURES

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WHAT’S INSIDE

5 Trevor Ó Clochartaigh: Pobal na Gaeilge ‘Dearg le Fearg’ 6 Ballymurphy Massacre: Irish Government finally backs families’ justice campaign

5 Members of Belfast Republican Youth have a bit of craic during a community clean-up in Lagmore, near west Belfast

8&9 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis 2014 in Wexford, home of the 1798 Rebellion 12 Cén fáth bheith faiteach faoi neamhspleáchas na hAlban?

14 ETA arms move ‘very significant’, says Gerry Adams 18 ‘Water Meter Man’ – One activist’s stand against new tax 19 Five new nuclear power stations to face Irish coast from Britain 20 & 21 Remembering the Past: The Curragh Mutiny and James Connolly’s opposition to partition 22 & 23 Fish farms: Robert Allen goes West to see the campaign to ‘Save Bantry Bay’

5 Fishermen and their families in Carrigaline with Sinn Féin Councillor Noel Harrington protest at the offices of the Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Food Simon Coveney

5 A boy makes a stand in a ‘Save Moore Street’ protest against plans by Chartered Land to build a new shopping mall on a site associated with the 1916 Rising. While some buildings will be preserved, others of historical importance will be knocked down 5 Demonstrators speak out against Russia’s anti-gay laws at a protest in Derry

26 & 27 Bad Politics: Peadar Whelan on how mainstream unionism is pandering to fringe loyalists 31 Book Review: A treasure trove on James Connolly and the British Army’s tall tales of the Tan War

5 Sinn Féin’s Seán Crowe TD and Councillor Máire Devine at February’s Spanish Civil War commemoration at Jarama to remember those who died fighting fascism in Spain

5 Martina Anderson MEP signs her support for the European Cancer Patients’ Bill of Rights at a World Cancer Day event in Strasbourg

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Garda scandals reveal urgent need for change

BY PÁDRAIG Mac LOCHLAINN TD Sinn Féin spokesperson on Justice, Equality and Defence SINCE late 2012, many accusations have come into the public domain surrounding the practices of senior members of An Garda Síochána, including the alleged bugging of the offices of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) and the whistleblower controversy.

Each of these scandals has demonstrated Alan Shatter’s unhealthily close relationship with the Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan, and an inability to properly address these issues in a manner befitting his title of Minister for Justice.

The first instinct of the Justice Minister on each occasion has been to circle the wagons around the Garda Commissioner and other senior gardaí rather than to get to the truth of the allegations before him without fear or favour.

While it is clear that Minister Shatter’s position is untenable and he should resign, this series of controversies is much more serious than his position. It is now about the confidence of the people in the administration of justice and policing in this state.

The approach that the Justice Minister has taken in all of these controversies has seriously undermined public confidence.

After the publishing of Sinn Féin’s Private Members’ Business motion calling for an independent inquiry into the matter, Minister Shatter appointed retired Judge John Cooke to carry out an independent review of the controversy. This halfbaked review under Judge Cooke is simply not good enough to restore confidence. This Government must move to instigate a Commission of

5 Why has Minister Shatter avoided utilising the Commission of Investigations Act 2004?

Investigation under the legislation into the alleged bugging of the GSOC offices and separately into

Each of these scandals has demonstrated Alan Shatter’s unhealthily close relationship with the Garda Commissioner and an inability to properly address these issues in a manner befitting his title of Minister for Justice this whistleblower and Garda Confidential Recipient affair. Why has Minister Shatter avoided utilis-

ing the Commission of Investigations Act 2004?

Under this Act, the person or persons appointed to conduct the investigation can compel all witnesses and documentation and make findings of fact without huge cost and in a timely fashion. This legislation is custom-made for this moment. This should have been the Justice Minister’s first port of call when looking to establish the mechanism for investigation. It is unacceptable that an inquiry has not been established under its provisions.

In the Six Counties, we have worked tirelessly to ensure that justice and policing is representative of the people and the communities they are working for. Sinn Féin recognises and supports the essential role of An Garda Síochána and the commitment that the overwhelming majority of gardaí show in fulfilling their duties.

We believe that changes must be made to ensure An Garda Síochána is protected and strengthened through the establishment of an ‘Independent Policing Authority’.

Now, more than ever, it is vital that there is a clear separation of the government from the gardaí and this new independent policing authority should be fully accountable to a representative policing board, to the houses of the Oireachtas, and locally to Joint Policing Committees.

We also need to increase the powers of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission so that they can fulfil their responsibilities effectively and make the Garda Commissioner fully accountable to the independent body.

Sinn Féin will soon publish our Garda Síochána (Amendment) Bill 2014.

In this Bill, our party will present our vision for change and our solu-

tions to the problems so evident over the last 18 months, from the penalty points debacle to the failure

While it is clear that Minister Shatter’s position is untenable and he should resign, this is now about the confidence of the people in the administration of justice and policing in this state of senior Garda management to fully co-operate with the Garda Ombudsman.

Change is needed to restore public confidence in a public service.

Read Eoin Ó Murchú, Page 4 - ‘Shatter must go – but so must Callinan too’

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Shatter must go – but so must Callinan too

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ THE significant thing about the Shatter and bugging controversies is not the facts themelves – distorted, proven or alleged – but how the Government and the majority of the Establishment have reacted to them.

In any normal society the suggestion that an agency (a ‘police watchdog’ no less) like the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) had been bugged by the force over which it technically has oversight would be a matter of grave concern.

It would be taken most seriously, with every support needed to ascertain whether such suggestions were well-based, had an innocent explanation or just couldn’t be definitely established.

The response of the Minister for Justice and Law Reform, Alan Shatter, supported by the entire Government, was to explode in outrage that any such suggestion could be made. It was, as it were, ‘subversive’ to even suggest that the Garda could have been engaged in such activity, and demands from top gardaí for GSOC to have its wings clipped went unchallenged.

The Government and the Garda also moved their media friends into action. RTÉ repeatedly dismissed the issue as “a puff of smoke”, the Independent Group published article after article rubbishing the suggestions, and Shatter serenely misled the

Dáil (‘by accident’, as Pat Rabbitte suggests, or by design as many others believe).

Remember too that this affair does not exist in isolation.

The suspicions about bugging came about during GSOC’s investiga-

The political choice we have is either to accept that An Garda Síochána is above oversight, that it is unaccountable to the Irish people and is a law unto itself or to insist upon a genuine democratisation of policing in the 26 Counties tion into convicted drug dealer Kieran Boylan, who was given Garda protection in return for information.

GSOC was forced to take the unprecedented step of publicly complaining that the Garda wasn’t cooperating in their inquiry. When it

Case against Donegal republican John Downey collapses THE collapse of the case against Donegal republican John Downey after a London court ruled that his prosecution for an IRA bomb attack on the British Army close to Hyde Park Barracks in 1982 should not continue has been welcomed by Sinn Féin leaders.

The ruling that his prosecution was an abuse of process was made public on 25 February as An Phoblacht went to print. It means John Downey should be free to return home to his family.

John was arrested at Gatwick Airport at the end of May 2013 for the 1982 attack in which four soldiers from the prestigious Household Cavalry died.

As a former republican prisoner, John was a popular Donegal Sinn Féin member and a long-time supporter of the Peace Process.

Gerry Adams said in response to John’s release: “Following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 it was publicly accepted by the British and Irish governments that an anomaly existed in respect of those who are described as ‘OTRs’ (On the Runs). Both governments gave firm commitments to deal with this matter. A process was put in place to deal with outstanding cases, including that of John Downey.

“The arrest of John Downey by the London police was in clear breach of this and of the commitments given by the British Government in 2004 during the Peace Process negotiations at Weston Park and in subsequent negotiations.

“John Downey should never have been arrested and this has been vindicated by the court decision.”

5 Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan – on their way out concluded, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan simply refused to carry out the recommendation of disciplinary action against named gardaí.

In this period too, Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe compiled a dossier of cases where investigations had not, in his opinion, been handled properly.

These were similar to the Boylan issue and included the premature release of Jerry McGrath, who had seriously assaulted a woman taxi driver but on release went on to kill another woman.

When the assault victim complained, she was told that Sergeant McCabe was the man who authorised the premature release and was also responsible for a phone call telling her not to bother to turn up in court. This was a direct lie, as McCabe was not even on duty when McGrath was arrested and subsequently released and had nothing to do with the telephone call which played such a crucial part in minimising the evidence

IN PICTURES

against McGrath for the assault and thus ensuring his full release — a release that allowed him to kill another woman.

What is evident in all this murky saga is that leading elements of An Garda Síochána consider themselves to be the law and not subject to it. And anyone who breaks ranks to shine a light on what is really happening is to be demeaned and have their character impugned.

Garda Commissioner Callinan, for example (without reproof from Justice Minister Shatter) described Maurice McCabe’s whistleblowing actions as “disgusting”.

And remember again that GSOC itself came about after the Morris inquiry into the perversions of justice in Donegal found systematic abuses of the system. Remember Frank McBrearty and Frank Short?

The political choice we have is either to accept that An Garda Síochána is above oversight, that it is

unaccountable to the Irish people and is a law unto itself or to insist upon a genuine democratisation of policing in the 26 Counties.

That is a police force which will merit the support of the public because it too obeys the law, a police force that doesn’t police the people but polices on behalf of the people.

In this context it isn’t just Alan Shatter who has manifestly shown himself unfit to hold his position (though don’t hold your breath for the Labour Party to insist on his removal).

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan must go also. We need a clear message to the top ranks of the Garda that they are public servants who must co-operate in GSOC’s oversight of their actions. And we need a clear message to younger gardaí that the attitudes and behaviour of Callinan and his ilk have no place in a democratic police force.

Shatter indeed must go . . . but Callinan must go with him.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Protesters (including Sinn Féin TDs and senators) at a vigil calling for the immediate release of anti-war activist Margaretta D’Arcy and an end to the use of Shannon Airport by the US military. Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and Trevor Ó Clochartaigh also visited Margaretta in prison

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March / Márta 2014 5

Le Trevor

Ó Clochartaigh

Ós cionn seacht míle duine ar shráideanna Bhleá Cliath ar son na teanga

Pobal na Gaeilge ‘Dearg le Fearg’ BHÍODAR ann ó chian agus ó chóngar lena míshastacht a léiriú leis an gcaoi a bhfuil an rialtas ag caitheamh le pobal na gaeilge. Bhí idir óg agus aosta ann, cainteoirí dúchais, daoine líofa, foghlaimeoirí agus lucht tacaíochta. Léiriú dearfach, spleodrach ar neart phobal na Gaeilge agus an tacaíocht láidir atá ann dár dteanga dhúchais.

Tá míshshuaimhneas leanúnach ann ón olltoghchán deiridh maidir le cur chuige an rialtas seo i leith na gaeilge. Ach, ina bhfocail féin tá an earnáil ‘Dearg le Fearg’ anois i gcomhthéacs a bhfuil ag tarlú. An rud a chur an sméar mullaigh ar an gcantal atá orthu ná gur bh’éigean don gCoimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, eirí as ar bhunphrionsabal de bharr an easpa tacaíochta ón rialtas agus na ranna stáit maidir le cur i bfheidhm Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla.

Tá comharba ceaptha ag an rialtas ar Sheán Ó Cuirreáin, an t-iriseoir, Rónán Ó Domhnaill, ach muna bhfuil geallúintí faighte aigesan ón Aire go mbeidh athrú ar mheon an rialtais, is beag breise a bheidh sé in ann a bhaint amach sa ról, seachas an fear a chuaigh roimhe. Sin ráite, ní h-aon ribín réidh é Ó Domhnaill. Is duine oilte, cumasach, díograsach, macanta é a thabharfaidh faoin ról le fuinneamh agus le misneach tá mé cinnte agus guím chuile rath air.

Muna mbeadh slua ar na sráideanna do ‘Lá Mór na Gaeilge’ ba dheacair argóint a dhéanamh i gcoinne cur chuige fabhtach Dinny McGinley i leith na teanga. Ach, ba leiriú ar neart agus díogras phobal na gaeilge a raibh i láthair ann. Ní agóid leithscéalach, diúltach a bhí ann ach an oiread ach dearcadh beo beathaíoch, ceolmhar, fuinniúil ar aicme den phobal a thuigeann go bhfuil a gcearta bunúsacha dhá sharú orthu agus nach bhfuil dul ag cur suas leis a thuilleadh.

‘Cearta Gaeilge, Cearta Teanga’ ceann de na roisc chatha a bhí dhá ghairm ag an slua le linn an mhórshiúil. Sin bun agus barr an scéil.

Go mbeadh, mar shampla, i bhfocail Sheán Uí Chuirreáin ceart ‘gan cheist, gan choinníoll’ ag Gaeilgeoirí a gcuid gnóthaí a dhéanamh leis an státchóras i ngaeilge más mian leo sin.

Ní féidir sin a dhéanamh go praiticiúil i láthair na h-uaire agus is ar gcúl atá cursaí ag dul seachas chun cinn.

Is beag rialtas nach mbaineann úsáid as géarchéim maith le droch pholasaithe dá gcuid a bhrú chun cinn. Measaim go bhfuil an rialtas seo ag úsáid an ghéarchéim eacnamaíoch reatha le lagú a dhéanamh ar stádas na gaeilge agus roinnt mhaith d’ardfheidhmeannaigh na státseirbhíse ag tacú go fonnmhar leo. Sílim go raibh drogall go dtí seo freisin ar ghaeilgeoirí seasamh mór poiblí a ghlacadh, mar go rabhadar ag feiceáil an slad a bhí dhá dhéanamh ar sheirbhísí leasa pobail, sláinte, oideachais is araile agus gur beag trua a bheadh ag an bpobal go ginearál-

5 Muintir Chonamara ag bailliú ag Oifigí Roinn na Gaeltachta roimh freastal ar an agóid i mBaile Átha Cliath

Measaim go bhfuil an rialtas seo ag úsáid an ghéarchéim eacnamaíoch reatha le lagú a dhéanamh ar stádas na gaeilge agus roinnt mhaith d’ardfheidhmeannaigh na státseirbhíse ag tacú go fonnmhar leo. ta maidir le cearta teanga sa chomhthéacs sin.

Ach, tá cearta teanga iontach tábhachtach.

Is cuid de spiorad agus anam na tire í an Ghaeilge agus an cultúr ar fad a ghabhann léi.

An difríocht is suntasaí mar shampla idir muid féin agus an dream a chónaíonn sa Bhreatain ná ár bhféiniúlacht Gaelach, an teanga, ceol, traidisún agus gach a théann leis. Má bhaintear sin dúinn beifear dár mbrú i dtreo an

5 An Seanadóir Trevor Ó Clochartaigh ag seastán de chuid Gaelacholáiste Chill Dara ag 'Lá Mór na Gaeilge'

5 Cairbre agus Trevor Ó Clochartaigh i gcuideachta Gerry Adams ag 'Lá Mór na Gaeilge' i mBaile Átha Cliath ghalldachas dár mbuíochas.

Caithfidh Sinn Féin mar pháirtí ár gcuid féin a dhéanamh go polaitiúil leis an gcas a mhaolú. Caithfidh muid brú a choinneáil ar an rialtas ó dheas. Caithfidh muid géarú ar an bhfeachtas chomh maith maidir le hAcht Gaeilge do na sé chontae agus aird a dhíriú ar ról na rialtais i Westminster agus Baile Átha Cliath seasamh le geallúintí Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta ina leith seo.

Mar pháirtí, go h-inmheánach, caithfidh muid leanúint d’fhorbairt na Gaeilge ag gach leibhéal. Ní leor an béal binn ina leith seo ach an oiread. Tá ceannródaíocht dhá thabhairt ag pearsaí éagsúla sa pháirtí, ach tá cuid mhaith bóthar fós le siúl againn chun go mbeidh ár dteanga dhúchais fite fuaite i ngach gné dár gcuid oibre agus ar gcuid baill ábalta a gcuid oibre a dhéanamh ‘gan cheist, gan choinníoll’ chomh maith.

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Hillsborough inquiry chief and former Police Ombudsman asked to join probe

5 John Teggart's father, Danny, was shot 14 times by British troops

5 Family members of the 11 people killed in the Ballymurphy Massacre are joined by Gerry Adams and Paul Maskey outside Leinster House to call on the Irish 5 Rita Bonner's 20-year-old brother, John, was murdered by British Government to support their campaign for justice paratroopers; her 18-year-old brother was tortured

42 years later

Irish Government backs Ballymurphy Massacre justice campaign

BY MARK MOLONEY AN TAOISEACH Enda Kenny and the Irish Government have finally given their support to the campaign for justice by the families of 11 people murdered by the British Army during a shooting rampage in west Belfast in August 1971 known as the Ballymurphy Massacre.

Ten people – including a priest and a grandmother – were shot dead by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment during a 48-hour period between 9 and 11 August 1971.

Another man died of a heart attack when troops placed an unloaded pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The same British Army regiment would go on to be involved in the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry six months later.

The shootings occurred in the immediate aftermath of the introduction of internment without trial.

The Ballymurphy families want the British Government to establish an independent inquiry similar to the one into the 1989 Hillsborough soccer stadium disaster in which 96 Liverpool soccer fans died.

Speaking to An Phoblacht before their meeting with the Taoiseach in Leinster House, Rita Bonner said: “My brother, John Laverty, he was 20 and an

innocent civilian. I’ve campaigned for 42 years for justice and still my brother’s name is not cleared. For two days before he was murdered we were under siege. When the bin lids rattled, my brother went out to see what was going on in the area. That was very normal in those times.

My other brother was 18 and he went out with him. The result was my brother John came back in a box.

“My other brother was tortured and humiliated by the paratroopers and served six months in prison for a crime he did not commit. I will not

John Teggart’s father, Danny Teggart (44), was shot 14 times, mainly in the back, as he lay wounded stop campaigning until every breath in me is done. And when I’m finished there’s people behind me and these other families to take over our campaign.

“We would like to see justice done very soon.”

John Teggart, whose father, Danny Teggart (44), was shot 14 times (mainly in the back as he lay wounded) told An Phoblacht: “I was only 11. I remember the heavy gunfire.

The first I heard about what had happened was coming into my house and my mother was in

the process of telling my older brother that daddy had been shot by the British Army. It feels just like yesterday.”

He says the panel proposal used in the Hillsborough stadium disaster is tried, tested and cost-effective.

“The Irish Government needs to strongly support these families and other Irish citizens in the North.”

The families have already approached a number of individuals to sit on the independent panel, including Nuala O’Loan, the former Police Ombudsman in the North, and the author of the Hillsborough disaster independent report, Phil Scraton.

Following a 90-minute meeting with the Irish Government (during which the families were accompanied by representatives from Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance Party), the Government announced it is “fully committed to assisting the families in their search for justice, finding out the truth and vindicating the good name and reputation of their loved ones. The Government supports the call for the appointment of an independent panel to examine all documents relating to the context, circumstances and aftermath of the deaths.”

The Taoiseach has also given a commitment to raise the issue personally with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

When the families left Government Buildings, many were in tears on getting the Government’s backing. John Teggart says the Irish Government has made the right decision:

“This is a significant development in our campaign for the truth. There is still much work to be done. We need the Irish Government to persuade the British Government of the merits of this proposal.”

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD, who is from the Ballymurphy area of Belfast, welcomed the news that the Taoiseach has backed the families’ campaign for justice: “I welcome this commitment from Enda Kenny and I urge him to act upon it by talking to

When the families left Government Buildings, many were in tears his British counterpart and urging him to make a similar commitment.

“The onus is very much on the British Government to give these families the closure they deserve and which they have been denied for over 40 years.”

The families told reporters in a statement that all of those who died were killed in breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, adding: “The case raises serious questions regarding human rights abuses committed by the British Army and of a culture of impunity in the North of Ireland in which members of the security forces routinely were above the law.”

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March / Márta 2014 7

In Ireland we started off quite well on the road to equality but somehow along the way we lost that pioneering spirit in terms of women’s rights

LYNN BOYLAN Dublin EU candidate, Sinn Féin

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY – SATURDAY 8 MARCH

Some way to go INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY is always a good time to reflect on the advances that women have made in Irish society but also to take a critical look at what we have still to achieve.

International Women’s Day was 100 years old in 2011 and in Ireland we started off quite well on the road to equality.

The 1916 Proclamation referred to the equal rights of men and women, and women in Ireland gained the right to vote (albeit limited to some women) in 1918.

New Zealand led the way on suffrage but Ireland was not too far behind considering it was 1944 before it was granted in France and 1976 before women in Portugal had their say.

We were also first to appoint a female Cabinet minister when Constance Markievicz became Minister for Labour in 1919.

So Ireland was fast out of the traps but somehow along the way it lost that pioneering spirit in terms of women’s rights.

We have elected only 92 female TDs to the Dáil since Markievicz in 1918. We are ranked 24th out of 28th in the EU in terms of female representation.

flexibility demands on employees with no remuneration for that flexibility: zero-hour contracts and spreading part-time hours over a full week – locking employees out of social welfare protection – are common practices.

Protecting Workers’ Rights is a Sinn Féin policy document proposing changes that would strengthen workers’ rights and ensure that all workers receive a living wage. It would go a long way to

Saturday 8 March 12 noon – 4pm GPO, Dublin #NWCISoapBox

The 1916 Proclamation referred to the equal rights of men and women That translates to 85% men in the Dáil with the Stormont Assembly not doing much better with 80% men.

Sinn Féin have always held a strong view on the importance of gender equality. To create policy that is beneficial to the whole society, the decision-makers must be reflective of the society they govern. It is no surprise that maternity benefit was one of the first items to come under the axe in the Fine Gael/Labour austerity budgets when the four-man Economic Management Council has an average age of 63.

In the elections in May, Sinn Féin will field a team of candidates that is over 30% women (streets ahead of Fianna Fáil’s 17%).

It is not just in political representation that Ireland is failing its women. Women are also losing out in the workplace.

International Women’s Day has its origins in the fight for better working conditions for women yet here we are over 100 years later and women earn less (a 14% pay gap), work less and are far more likely to be living in poverty or at risk of poverty.

In employment, women make up a large chunk of the ‘precariat’ — those employed in uncertain, unpredictable work. These jobs often make high

The all-male bank chiefs leave Leinster House after a meeting with the all-male Economic Management Council of Howlin, Kenny, Gilmore and Noonan

addressing the working conditions of women across the state.

Another area that needs attention is society’s protection of women from violence. One in 7 women in Ireland will experience domestic violence and 1 in 5 women have experienced a sexual assault in adulthood. While I am not ignoring that there are many men who also suffer from domestic and sexual violence, it is far more prevalent among women.

A quarter of all violent crimes reported involved a man assaulting his wife or partner.

It was 1990 before it was made illegal for a man to rape his wife.

The South has 136 refuge places; to bring it up to the Council of Europe standards it would need to be 458.

One very positive step that can be taken to address this issue is for Ireland to sign up to the Istanbul Convention, which sets a benchmark for countries to reach.

So while we have come a long way we still have some way to go to achieving full equality.

On 8 March, Sinn Féin’s female local election candidates will join feminists from across the island in taking part in the National Women’s Council of Ireland ‘Soapbox’ event on O’Connell Street in Dublin.

From 12 noon to 4pm, women will be given the opportunity to stand on a specially-designed soapbox and speak on the issues that they would like to see addressed to achieve full gender equality. I hope to see you all there.

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2014 SINN FÉIN ARD FHEIS, WEXFORD

Ireland, North and South, is changing OVER JUST TWO DAYS, ten thousand people logged on to the Sinn Féin website during Ard Fheis 2014, joining 1,200 delegates and visitors at the Wexford Opera House in early February.

On Facebook, the Ard Fheis reached 45,000 people. Gerry Adams’s closing address was broadcast live on RTÉ and BBC TV and the YouTube/Ustream video of his speech alone has had 3,500 views.

Just a few hundred metres from the Opera House in Wexford Town stands a monument to the 1798 Rebellion depicting a United Irishman wielding a pike. Situated in an area known as the ‘bullring’ where Cromwell massacred the local civilian population in 1649, in 1798 the same area became an open-air armaments factory where pikes, swords and other weapons were made and repaired for the rebels.

Labour Party Mayor of Wexford George Lawlor hosted a civic reception to welcome the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis to the town for Friday evening and Saturday, 8 and 9 February.

Local radio reported that the Ard Fheis had given a million-euro boost to the local economy.

CATHERINE SEELEY Lively fringe events taking place throughout the weekend focused on such varied topics as ‘Women in Struggle’, youth affairs, the pylons controversy, rural regeneration and the Cuba Five.

The main Ard Fheis agenda included keynote addresses from Martin McGuinness MLA, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD, Mary Lou McDonald TD and Declan Kearney.

There were also addresses by international delegates from Palestine, the Basque Country and the African National Congress.

An emotional highlight was a special memorial event remembering the legend of Nelson Mandela (chaired by former H-Blocks Hunger Striker Pat Sheehan MLA) in which the thousand-strong crowd gave the clenched fist salute and the freedom cry “Amandla!” It was a scene that got more than 20,000 views and shares across the world via social media from the An Phoblacht and Sinn Féin sites alone.

One of the most stirring moments was the appearance on stage of Sinn Féin Councillor Catherine Seeley, the young teacher hounded out of her job at a Protestant boys’ secondary school in north Belfast by outsiders and online sectarian abuse.

Greeted by a prolonged standing ovation, Catherine commended education reform being led by Sinn Féin Education Minister John O’Dowd and drew particular attention to under-achievement among Protestant working-class boys:

government, made a direct appeal to the broad unionist community.

“To ordinary unionists out there – who believe in the Peace Process, who want to see a better future built for our children – make your voices heard and embolden your political leaders to do the right thing and build a shared future together on the basis of equality and respect.”

Mary Lou McDonald said that Fine Gael and Labour are no better than Fianna Fáil. Scandal is the hallmark of their government and they put themselves and their friends first, the Dublin TD and party deputy leader said as she made “our pledge” to the Irish people: “Sinn Féin is in nobody’s pocket.

“We are not afraid to ask the hard questions.

“We are not afraid to stand up.

“It is time for a change in direction.

“It is time for a government that stands up for its citizens, at home and abroad.

“It is time to put Ireland first and Sinn Féin is the party to do that.”

5 ‘Amandla!’ – Members of the ANC lead a clenched fist salute in memory of Nelson Mandela at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis “Protestant working-class boys are entitled to the same life prospects as everyone else,” the Sinn Féin councillor and teacher insisted, and added: “I want to take this opportunity to publicly send a message of gratitude to those pupils of the Boys’ Model

DETAILS OF VOTES ON MOTIONS, VIDEOS AND FULL SPEECHES CAN BE SEEN AT www.sinnfein.ie/ard-fheis-2014

School in north Belfast who have courageously offered me their full support.”

UNIONIST COMMUNITY

Martin McGuinness, joint First Minister in the North’s Executive

5 EU South constituency candidate Liadh Ní Riada and Gerry Adams TD at the 2014 Le Chéile event in Whites Hotel, Wexford Town. The annual event, which coincides with the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, honoured six republicans (pictured) – Jack ‘Danny’ McElduff (Cúige Chonnacht), Ann O’Sullivan (Cúige Laighean), Sheila and Denis Hanlon (Cúige Mumhan), Joe McKenny (Cúige Uladh) and Jim McDonald (Idirnáisiúnta)

TIDE OF HISTORY The theatre was packed for Gerry Adams’s Presidential Address on Saturday night, with standing room only.

He reiterated Sinn Féin’s ‘positive alternative’ to the austerity policies endorsed by Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil and renewed his appeal for parties of the Left to come together around viable policies to the status quo in the same way the conservative parties and lobbies unite around their issues.

Regarding the North, the Sinn Féin leader highlighted outstanding commitments from international agreements between the parties and the Irish and British governments.

And he extended an invitation to the Orange Order to have a dialogue on parades, identity and other issues.

“I am happy to meet with the Orange Order at any time to discuss these matters. I want to see the Orange Order treating its Catholic neighbours with respect. I want to see it treated with respect. I want to see it upholding law and order.

Orange is one of our country’s national colours. The Orange Order of Ireland is one of our national traditions.

“And Sinn Féin wants all our traditions freed up from sectarianism from any quarter, to live together in peace and respect and with tolerance from everyone for everyone,” Gerry Adams said.

“The tide of history is with those who seek to build a peaceful and inclusive future. And Ireland, North and South, is changing.”

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IN PICTURES – 2014 SINN FÉIN ARD FHEIS, 7th & 8th FEBRUARY, WEXFORD

5 Dublin (Castleknock) local election candidate Natalie Treacy and Pearse Doherty TD listen from the platform to delegates

PHOTOS BY MARK MOLONEY

5 Gerry Kelly MLA signs copies of his H-Blocks book 'The Escape'

5 Joint First Martin McGuinness MLA, Mary Lou McDonald TD and EU candidates Lynn Boylan and Liadh Ní Riada with party press officer Shaun Tracey at the opening of the Ard Fheis weekend 5 A banner in memory of Nelson Mandela, known by his tribal name Madiba, is lowered during the international section of the Ard Fheis

5 A capacity crowd packs into the Wexford Opera House for Gerry Adams's Presidential speech to the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis

5 Jim Monaghan and other delegates queue to speak on a motion

5Delegates vote

5 Seamus Drumm, Mary Lou McDonald TD, Dr Margaret Ward and Rita O'Hare take part in a fringe event on the continuity of republican women in struggle

5 Liadh Ní Riada, Sinn Féin Enniscorthy Mayor Johnny Mythen and Mary Lou McDonald TD are welcomed by Wexford Mayor George Lawlor. The Ard Fheis was reported to be a million-euro boost to the local economy

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THE CONCERNED PARENTS AGAINST DRUGS MOVEMENT, 1984

PEOPLE POWER AGAINST THE PUSHERS

BY JOHN HEDGES 1984 saw the ‘official’ formation of the Concerned Parents Against Drugs — a campaign that spontaneously erupted in working-class areas across Dublin as a response to the heroin dealers who were crucifying their communities and killing their families.

Drugs dealers ruled the roost in working-class Dublin. The misery they piled upon addicts and their families and friends seemed to be of little concern to the state — including the Labour/Fine Gael Government and the Garda — so long as it was contained in working-class communities.

The roots of the CPAD can be traced back to Hardwicke Street Flats, not far from the Garden of Remembrance at Parnell Square and O’Connell Street.

Writing in An Phoblacht/

5 Inner City Dublin’s Hardwicke Street Flats

5 Concerned Parents Against Drugs protest in Ballyfermot, April 1984

Republican News in March 1984, our reporter Siobhán O’Malley said that “scarcely a household was not affected in some way by the drug problem and the related wave of petty crime”.

The identities and activities of the drugs dealers were known to practically everyone in the close-knit communities — and to the authorities too. People were, literally, dying in front of their eyes. Human beings were suffering slow, painful, awful, agonising deaths less than a mile from tourists snapping photos of the GPO, where the 1916 Proclamation pledged to “cherish all the children of the nation equally”. But the Government and the police force that inherited that mantle did not cherish the children of the nation equally.

Dublin Corporation was pleaded with to evict the pushers. Addicts were ‘shooting up’ in the stairwells, leaving pools of vomit and discarded syringes on the stairs used by everyone, including young children. The Department of Health was begged for treatment services for addicts. The police were called on to move against the open dealing on the streets and the major crime gangs dealing in death. The appeals were met with excuses or piecemeal responses. There were even outright denials there was actually a significant problem.

People living in the shadow of the drug dealers knew different.

In 1982, a delegation from Hardwicke Street Flats Tenants’ Association went to the door of a well-known pusher in the flats and called on him to leave. The drugs dealer ignored them. A tenants’ public meeting attracted 300 people.

The pusher finally took notice and left. It became a model for the Concerned Parents Against Drugs. Groups mushroomed across the city and county, each adapting their tactics to their own particular environment.

It was a movement noticeable by the fact that women were the initial driving force.

Existing groups offered advice and solidarity in a fraught atmosphere. Drug dealers not only threatened anti-drugs activists but actually attacked them, some were stabbed and even shot.

Sinn Féin activists living in the neighbourhoods blighted by drugs were to the forefront of the CPAD, but so were members of other political parties. While rank-and-file members of Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil also stood with their communities, their leaders and the viciously anti-republican Workers’ Party tried to undermine the street movement by portraying it as being a front for or directed by Sinn Féin and the IRA. A sensationalist tabloid media was, as ever, the willing tool of an embarrassed Establishment trying to deflect attention from its criminal neglect and abandonment of entire communities where the unemployment rate was tipping 60%.

A Sinn Féin spokesperson responded at the time: “The Garda and some politicians are so frightened that people in these areas are organising themselves that they claim they are being manipulated.

“They can’t conceive that ordinary workingclass people can organise themselves.”

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5 The CPAD held weekly protests to lobby Health Minister Barry Desmond for action on the drugs crisis

S A MILKMAN, Kevin Fitzpatrick on his daily delivery rounds saw the devastation wrought by heroin. Every morning, he heard from his hundreds of customers about how their lives were becoming a living hell.

“Mothers were spilling their hearts out to me about what was happening to their kids,” Kevin tells An Phoblacht at his home in Sallynoggin, on Dublin’s, southside. He was born and reared here and still delivers milk around the neighbourhood.

Back in late 1983 and early 1984, Kevin used to allow two young lads to help him on his rounds in the Dún Laoghaire suburb rather than have them ‘scutting’ on the back of his milk float. Both fell victim to the drugs pushers. One was found dead with a needle in his arm; three weeks later, the other was found near a Halloween bonfire.

“Their mothers were in an awful state,” Kevin says, remembers. “They didn’t know what to do.

Everyone knew who the dealers were but the Garda and the politicians didn’t want to know.

The Guards said go to the politicians and the politicians said go to the Guards.”

Kevin went to the dealers and told them he would go to the Guards with their names if they didn’t stop. They threatened him. The Garda still didn’t want to know, he says.

THE TOP HAT MEETING

Soon after that, a meeting was called in the Top Hat ballroom in Dún Laoghaire and “800 or 900 people” turned up, Kevin recalls. A wellknown and popular figure from having delivered milk in the area for more than a decade, Kevin was elected chairperson of the local anti-drugs movement. They asked the Concerned Parents Against Drugs in Dublin’s north and south inner city for support.

“They said they’d come out to my house the next Thursday night for a meeting,” Kevin told Nell McCafferty in The Irish Times in July 1984.

“I opened the door that evening and the garden was packed with them. The street was lined with their cars and vans. They spilled over into other people’s gardens. There was about a hundred of them, all come out from Dublin with placards and everything to help.”

It was 4 July, Independence Day in the USA; there was a sort of declaration of independence in Dún Laoghaire too.

The CPAD supporters from Dublin City and local families marched through the district. They stopped in the streets near where drugs dealers lived to announce through loudhailers that they were taking a stand.

“It was people power,” Kevin Fitzpatrick says with a pride that still burns today, 30 years later.

The next day, as he collected the milk money from his customers, the groundswell of support grew.

“Parents whose kids were on drugs were watching them die in front of their eyes,” he says.

“And they couldn’t leave purses or jewellery down because their own kids would steal the money meant for groceries or bills to pay for their next fix.

We’d get 20 calls a day from people like that.

“People were desperate – families and addicts.”

MINISTER FOR HEALTH The CPAD marches grew and open-air meetings were held from the backs of flat-bed trucks and lorries.

People also went every Saturday morning to the constituency office of local Labour Party TD and Minister for Health Barry Desmond to lobby for action. They were met every week by ranks of 20 to 30 gardaí blocking the road and surround-

5 Kevin Fitzpatrick addresses a CPAD demonstration in Dún Laoghaire ing Desmond’s office. The Government minister wouldn’t meet Kevin Fitzpatrick because he was a member of Sinn Féin. “So I stood aside and our local CPAD Secretary Marian O’Neill went in to see him,” Kevin says, “He still did next to nothing.”

Kevin’s disgust at the minister’s attitude burns through, even after all these years.

“We were talking about kids’ lives, young ones lying in the streets with needles hanging out of their arms. Barry Desmond said it was because he was a Labour minister. It wasn’t. We went to Barry Desmond because he was Minister for Health – who else would you go to? If Gerry Adams was Minister for Health I would have gone to his door too to ask him what was he doing.”

The very visible and noisy CPAD marches captured the headlines and TV news. “Thousands of ordinary people marching across Dublin — you’d never seen anything like it in your life outside of the H-Blocks marches,” Kevin says proudly.

Even a visiting New York Police Department anti-narcotics officer went on one of the marches with the Dún Laoghaire CPAD for the experience. “He sent me a good luck telegram afterwards,” Kevin says.

The RTÉ flagship current affairs programme Today Tonight (a forerunner of Prime Time) came out to the Boylan Community Centre to do a ‘special’ where Establishment figures defended their records. Kevin recalls that he didn’t get into

the hall for the programme, being screened after the Nine O’Clock News. “I was arrested by the Garda Special Branch at 6:15pm and held until 9:45 to stop me getting there.”

ADDICTS

Kevin did a nine-month drugs education course in nearby Ballybrack and he says while the street marches and vigils at notorious drug-dealing spots are what most people associate with the CPAD, there was a lot of work away from the spotlight in helping addicts access treatment.

“It was never about targeting addicts, it was about targeting the dealers,” Kevin emphasises, showing me a photograph of a teenager carrying a CPAD placard with the slogan “Clinics not coffins”.

He points to the Health Service Executive drugs treatment centre that now exists at Monkstown Farm as being a legacy of the CPAD and the local anti-drugs movement. “That came from the back of a truck and the marches,” Kevin says, “because of the people who stood up to be counted, not because of any politician.”

Does he have any regrets?

“We all make mistakes and so did the CPAD,” he says candidly. “But you have to remember that it was a people’s movement made of ordinary people who got up to a crisis every day. Their kids were dying on their doorsteps. It was a nightmare.”

One of his regrets is that the CPAD “had to adopt” a policy of not co-operating with the Garda.

“While Garda chiefs were telling us there wasn’t a problem, some gardaí on the ground were great.

The Drugs Squad and the Special Branch, though, had their own agendas (like the Government) and used dealers and addicts for their own ends as informers and agents so we stopped trying to work with them because they were working against us.”

He thinks dealers are back “ruling the roost again – only today instead of riding pushbikes they’re driving around in top-of-the-range cars and 4x4s”.

Kevin Fitzpatrick was a member of Sinn Féin in 1984 and he still is today, but he doesn’t try to claim any special credit for the party. He pays tribute to all the activists and supporters, people of all parties and none.

“It was people power.”

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EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

Cén fáth bheith faiteach faoi neamhspleáchas na hAlban?

TÁ AN díospóireacht faoi neamhspleáchas na hAlban ag dul idteo sa tír, agus tá tionchar ag an díospóireacht orainne freisin mar is léir nach dteastaíonn ó lucht rialaithe an stáitín seo go rachaidh na hAlbannaigh sa treó sin.

Ar ndóigh is cinneadh do mhuintir na hAlban é dul go neamhspleách nó fanacht le Sasana, is don mhuintir sin amháin é. Tá impleachtaí ann dúinne in Éirinn, thuaidh is theas, do mhuntir Shasana, thuaidh is theas, is don Bhreatain Bheag freisin.

Ach glacfaidh na hAlbannaigh an cinneadh a oireann dóibh agus caithfidh gach náisiún eile glacadh leis.

Mar sin fhéin is fiú an cheist a chur cén fáth go bhfuil meánaicme Bhaile Átha Cliath chómh buartha sin in aghaidh neamhspleáchas na hAlban. Cinnte beidh comortas níos géire againn le hAlbain ó thaobh infheistíochtaí ón gcoigrích, ach ceapaim gho bhfuil ár meánaicme buartha faoin sampla a thabharfadh se dúinn.

Mar theip orainn fíor-neamhspleáchas a chruthú, agus na rátaí móra eisimirce, bochtanais is dífhostaíocht mar fhianaise dó sin. Theip ar neamhspleáchas bréagach an tSaorstáit, ag cloí go critheaglach le Sasana agus ina dhiaidh sin leis an Eoraip.

Ní theastaíonn go gcuirfeadh rud ar bith ag smaoineamh arís muid.

Ar ndóigh feiceann muid faoi lathair anchuid bagairtí ar na hAlbannaigh: an rialtas Sasanach ag rá nach mbeidh cead acu an punt steirling a úsáid a thuilleadh, agus uachtarán Choimisiún na hEorpa, José Barroso, faoi spreagadh ns Spainne ag rá nach mbeidh cead isteach in Aontas na hEorpa acu.

Cinnte tá faitíos ar rialtas na Spáinne faoin gCatalóin mar is cosúil go bhfuil móramh sa tír sin neamhspleáchas a fháil ón Spáinn.

Agus maidir leis an bpunt - agus nílim ag rá gur ciallmhmar an cinneadh fanacht leis - ach d’fhan Saorstát Éireann leis an bpunt le os cionn caoga bliain.

Ach seo argóintí a chaithfeas muintir na hAlban féin a mheas.

Ceard faoin bpobal Éireannach ann?

Meastar go bhfuil 800,000 ar de shliocht Éireannach iad i measc na gcúig mhilliún sa tír.

D’fhulaing an pobal seo seicteachas agus ciníochas ar feadh na mblianta a fhágann anaimhreasach cuid mhaith díobh faoi neamhspleáchas.

Ní theastaíonn uatha stát Óráisteach a fheiceáil in Albain.

Ach tá an páirtí náisiunta ag síneadh lámh amach dóibh agus is cosúil go bhfuil cuid mhaith den aos óg de shliocht Éireannach sásta glacadh le neamhspleáchas anois: cinnte ní mheallfadh an Brat Aontachta iad.Ach cibé toradh a bhéas ar an reifreann ní

Seachtain na Gaeilge 1 – 17 March FOOTBALLER Ciarán Kilkenny and presenters Máire Treasa Ní Dhubhghaill and Lynette Fay are this year’s ambassadors for Seachtain na Gaeilge.

Seachtain na Gaeilge 2014 will run from 1 - 17 March and there will be thousands of events running in Ireland and abroad to celebrate the Irish language and culture.

Among the main events of Seachtain na Gaeilge 2014, the national opening will take place in Killarney on Saturday, 1 March, from 2.30 – 4.30pm. There will be a street festival with free open-air concert with the well-known band Seo Linn, who were seen in Coláiste Lurgan’s music videos last summer. Rith 2014, the national relay run from Baile Bhúirne in Cork to Belfast will take place from 7 – 15 March and there will be many more events covering every county in the country. With thousands of events running from 1 – 17 March, everyone will have the opportunity to enjoy the festival and the Irish language, whether you have a cúpla focal or a lot

IS IAD AN peileadóir Ciarán Kilkenny agus láithreoirí Máire Treasa Ní Dhubhghaill agus Lynette Fay ambasadóirí Sheachtain na Gaeilge 2014. Beidh Seachtain na Gaeilge ar siúl ó 1 – 17 Márta agus beidh na mílte imeacht ar siúl in Éirinn agus thar lear chun an Ghaeilge agus an cultúr Gaelach a cheiliúradh.

I measc phríomhimeachtaí Sheachtain na Gaeilge, beidh oscailt na féile i gCill Airne Dé Sathairn, 1 Márta ó 2.30 – 4.30in. Beidh féile sráide le ceolchoirm saor in aisce ón mbanna ceoil aitheanta, Seo Linn, a bhí le feiceáil sna físeáin de chuid Choláiste Lurgan i rith an tsamhraidh. Beidh Rith 2014, an t-ollrith náisiúnta ó Bhaile Bhúirne go Béal Feirste, ar siúl ó 7 – 15 Márta agus beidh go leor imeachtaí eile i ngach contae sa tír. Agus na mílte imeacht ar siúl idir 1 – 17 Márta, beidh deis ag an bpobal ar fad sult a bhaint as an bhféile agus as an nGaeilge, is cuma má tá cúpla focal agat nó a lán.

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METROPOLITAN POLICE DENY FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST AND RECLASSIFY INVESTIGATION

Files on 1969 RUC killing of Sammy Devenny to stay secret for 50 years

BY JOHN HEDGES & PEADAR WHELAN A METROPOLITAN POLICE investigation into the death of Derry man Samuel Devenny after he was severely beaten with police batons by the RUC in 1969 is to stay secret until 2022 – at least.

British authorities’ reclassification of the findings of Chief Superintendent Kenneth Drury’s independent inquiry in 1970 for at least 50 years has naturally raised further suspicions about the motives.

Sammy Devenny’s family say they are “disgusted” by the move, which has all the hallmarks of a state cover-up.

A Freedom of Information request by investigators from the

Even the RUC Chief Constable of the time spoke of ‘a conspiracy of silence’ Pat Finucane Centre for access to ‘The Drury Report’ was denied in early February. Disclosure, the Metropolitan Police claimed, “would not be in the public interest”.

Sammy’s daughter, Christine, insisted: “The officers involved have never been charged and were protected by others. There is information in those files that we have a right to see.”

Sara Duddy of the Pat Finucane Centre expressed the human rights group’s “grave concern” and added: “We can only assume that these files contain information damaging to the RUC.” Only 12 copies of the Drury Report were delivered at the time – to the then RUC Chief Constable Sir Arthur Young and Government figures.

Even the RUC Chief Constable spoke of “a conspiracy of silence motivated by a misconceived and improper sense of loyalty to their guilty comrades”.

The North’s Prime Minister, James Chichester Clark, noted that “some members of the RUC are aware of who the culprits are but, perhaps through a misguided sense of loyalty, as the Chief Constable puts it, are unwilling to co-operate with the authorities to establish the truth”.

Sammy Devenny, a 42-year-old taxi driver, died on 16 July 1969, three months after RUC officers broke into his home and attacked him and his family with batons.

Two days earlier, on 14 July, 67year-old Francis McCloskey was found dead in a doorway following an RUC baton-charge on a nationalist crowd that had been throwing stones in Dungiven on 13 July.

They are considered to be the first two fatalities of ‘The Troubles’; Sammy Devenny is regarded by many as the first.

On Saturday 19 April 1969, a planned Civil Rights march from Claudy to Derry via Burntollet was called off. A large crowd gathered in Derry’s Guildhall Square and was attacked by stone-throwing loyalists. The RUC then intervened by attacking the nationalist crowd.

Rioting began and the RUC sealed off the nationalist Bogside area.

During the rioting that Saturday night, the RUC smashed down the door of the Devenny home in William Street, rushed in and used

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5 Sammy Devenny in Derry

5 Sammy Devenny at home on the day of his discharge from Altnagelvin Hospital

Sammy Devenny died three months after RUC officers broke into his home and attacked him and his family with batons

their batons on the family members, including a five-year-old boy.

Sammy Devenny was severely beaten on the head and body and taken to hospital. He suffered a heart attack and remained ill after his release from hospital. He died after a second heart attack.

Not one RUC officer was made amenable in respect of any aspect of misconduct, never mind an offence, as a consequence of Sammy Devenny’s death even though the Metropolitan Police chief interviewed 123 officers of varying rank, 38 of whom were members of the Land Rover force that charged the rioting crowd in William Street.

Drury identified certain officers and said: “Constable A is fully aware of what took place at the Devenny home [and] there is every indication that Constables B, C and D know what took place at the Devenny home.”

He added: “There is little doubt that Constables A, B and other members of the force are in fear of retribution from colleagues if they tell the truth.”

And there is little doubt that senior figures in the unionist and British Establishment at New Scotland Yard and Westminster are still in fear of the truth.

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5 Thousands attend the funeral of Sammy Devenny in Derry, July 1969

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SPANISH GOVERNMENT URGED TO ENGAGE IN PEACE TALKS

ETA arms move ‘very significant’

BY JOHN HEDGES FILM of the Basque separatist military organisation ETA putting a cache of weapons and explosives “beyond operational use” in January in a symbolic gesture reaffirming ETA’s commitment to the Basque peace process was released on 21 February by members of the Amsterdambased International Verification Commission.

Gerry Adams (one of a number of Sinn Féin figures who has been proactive in trying to build the peace process in the Basque Country over many years) immediately hailed the move as “a very significant step forward”.

He urged the Spanish Government to respond in a positive way and he called for the release of jailed Basque leader Arnaldo Otegi and more than 600 political prisoners.

“These and other related measures would make a real difference in strengthening the peace process and facilitate progress toward demilitarisation and national reconciliation,” the Sinn Féin leader said.

He reiterated the need for the Spanish authorities to engage in dialogue, something Madrid has steadfastly refused to do.

“The key that unlocked the peace process here in Ireland was talking,” Gerry Adams said. “I would like to think that the Spanish Government, despite the challenges, would embrace talking as the way forward.”

Former US President Bill Clinton tweeted: “Good news from Basque Country yesterday.

Hope their peace process continues.”

The International Verification Commission is headed by Ram Manikkalingam, a Sri Lankan who advised his government during talks with Tamil Tiger rebels. It includes former Northern Ireland Office political director Chris Maccabe and Ronnie Kasrils, previously a senior African National Congress military commander and a former Intelligence Minister in post-apartheid South Africa.

ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or “Basque Homeland and Freedom”), declared an end to its armed campaign in 2011 but the Spanish state, rather than engage in the peace process with political representatives, has pursued a policy of repression against Basque civic society and political prisoners even though more than 100,000 people marched in Bilbao in January in support of the political prisoners.

On 21 February, the BBC received exclusive video footage, recorded by ETA at a secret location, of two masked ETA members displaying a small part of the group’s weapons arsenal.

The decommissioning monitors said the small amount of arms and explosives involved was the result of constraints caused by operating “in clandestine conditions”.

Commission members were later questioned by an investigating judge in Madrid. They told him they did not know the identity of the ETA members they met nor where their weapons were kept.

Commending the work of the International

5 International Verification Commission members Ram Manikkalingam and Ronnie Kasrils meet two masked ETA members with part of the group’s weapons arsenal

5 Over 100,000 people march in Bilbao in January in support of Basque political prisoners

5 Gerry Adams has endorsed ETA’s initiative Verification Commission, Gerry Adams said of the move by ETA: “This is a good news story for the Basque Peace Process which has sought to match the success of the Irish Peace Process.

“Since before the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Sinn Féin has been involved in assisting the building of a peace process in the Basque country. The Irish Peace Process is seen by

many as a model, an example, of what can be achieved if there is political will.

“There is overwhelming support within Basque society for a resolution of the conflict.

“There is an onus on the Spanish and French governments to respond positively to the announcement by the Verification Committee.

“Peace processes need constant attention and encouragement, and the active and positive participation of all sides. The Spanish and French governments have a key role to play in promoting a process of dialogue that can advance the goal of a just and lasting peace in the Basque Country. That means responding in a positive way.

“Confidence building measures (which were an important part of the Irish Peace Process) can assist in this. In this context, the release of Arnaldo Otegi, Secretary General of SORTU , would be an important step.

“The Spanish and French governments should also end the policy of dispersion, an arbitrary measure applied to Basque prisoners, and transfer prisoners to prisons closer to their families.

Seriously-ill prisoners who need treatment should also be released under existing legislation.

“These and other related measures would make a real difference in strengthening the peace process and facilitate progress toward demilitarisation and national reconciliation.”

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ANOTHER

VIEW

EOIN Ó BROIN

s t r u h e l t t i Every l

EAMON GILMORE’S address to the Labour Party conference was strong on rhetoric but short on specifics.

With the local and European elections only months away, the Labour leader seemed reluctant to make any big commitments.

But old habits die hard and Gilmore just had to promise something.

Near the end of his speech he tantalisingly dangled reductions in income tax and Property Tax to a public desperate for some relief after six long years of crippling austerity.

But voters beware.

The Labour Party’s track record on honouring pre-election promises is pretty poor.

In the final weeks of the 2011 general election campaign, Labour’s poll numbers were starting to slide. The party panicked, fearing that Fine Gael would form a government without them.

The heavy-hitting strategists at Labour Party HQ came up with a bright idea.

Their wordsmiths and graphic designers got to work and produced an ad campaign

5 Labour Party wordsmiths and graphic designers produced an ad campaign under the slogan ‘Fine Gael – Every little hurts’ Tax. However, they promised to introduce it after 2014. They also said that it would be “fair”, taking account of the value of “property in different regions, the need to exempt some

So how did Eamon Gilmore’s six promises fare in the subsequent Coalition budgets? under the slogan “Fine Gael – Every Little Hurts!”

The Tesco-style adverts identified six areas of Fine Gael policy that would hurt lowincome to middle-income families.

Fine Gael wanted to increase VAT by 2%, DIRT by 3%, motor tax by €50, add a euro to the price of a bottle of wine, impose water charges of €238 per year and cut Child Benefit by €252 for families with two children.

The message was very clear – vote Labour and in coalition with Fine Gael they would make sure these policies would never be implemented.

Polling day came and went. Fine Gael and Labour formed a new government.

So how did Eamon Gilmore’s six promises fare in the subsequent Coalition budgets?

In Budget 2012 the Government raised VAT by 2%. Promise Number 1 was broken.

In the same Budget, they raised DIRT by 3%.

Promise Number 2 was broken.

Motor tax was also hiked – and in some cases by significantly more than the €50 promised by Fine Gael. Promise Number 3 was broken.

The Government also cut Child Benefit – not just once but twice.

In Budget 2012, families with three children lost €228 per year and those with four children lost €432 per year. The following year,

Labour were right – every bit does hurt, but it’s Labour doing the hurting categories of homeowners, and the need to take account of those who have recently paid large sums in stamp duty or who are in negative equity”.

Within a few months of taking office this promise was broken and an annual charge was placed on all residential homes with no exemptions, no regional variations, and no compensation for those in negative equity or those unable to pay.

5 Broken promises: Labour Party leaders Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte Child Benefit was cut by an additional €120 per year for the fourth and each subsequent child. Promise Number 4 was well and truly broken.

Budget 2013 also saw the Government put an extra euro on a bottle of wine. Promise Number 5 was broken.

And later this year (though probably not before the local and European elections) we will know how much we have to pay in water charges.

The IMF has estimated that the average

price per house could be as much as €370.

Promise Number 6 is soon to be broken.

Labour were right – every bit does hurt, but it’s Labour doing the hurting.

Given that the Labour Party have demonstrated such a propensity to do this, it’s hard to imagine voters taking any new promises seriously.

But Eamon Gilmore’s Property Tax cut promise was truly galling.

Page 16 of the 2011 Labour Party manifesto committed the party to introduce a Site Value

Does Eamon Gilmore really think that people are stupid enough to believe that the party that lied about the introduction of the Property Tax will keep a promise to cut that tax?

Unfortunately, dishonesty and deception are all too common in politics and no party is completely clean. But Eamon Gilmore’s Labour Party has taken the art of pre-election lies to a whole new level.

When Pat Rabbitte was put under pressure

by RTÉ’S Seán O’Rourke to justify Labour’s broken promises he said: “Isn’t that what you tend to do during an election?” An ‘unfortunate slip of the tongue’ it may have been but it reveals a lot about the Labour Party’s attitude to honesty.

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not mouthpieces for austerity

Sinn Féin’s Midlands North West EU candidate MATT CARTHY talks to MARK MOLONEY

Working for Ireland “THERE was a lot of anti-Irish sentiment, verging on bullying, by teachers as well as students in the school I was attending,” Matt says about his brief time living in the Welsh border town of Holywell when he was 11. “There was just three Irish students at the school and we got hell. I wasn’t from a republican family so I hadn’t really much sense of the situation.”

That was in 1988. Now living in Carrickmacross in County Monaghan, married to Lynn and with four young children (Seán, Mairéad, Aoife and Niamh) the 36-year-old Sinn Féin councillor is seen as a strong contender to take a seat in the European constituency of Midlands North West.

The son of Irish emigrants, and born in Birmingham, England, he moved back to Ireland at a young age and spent most of his childhood in Strokestown, County Roscommon. When he was eleven he moved to Holywell for a brief period when the IRA’s bombing campaign in England was underway – and he and other Irish students came face-to-face with anti-Irish racism.

He says it was when his family settled in Carrickmacross in Monaghan a year later that he began taking an interest in republicanism: “The first thing I did was join the library and start reading about Irish politics and Irish histo-

After his barnstorming speech at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis last month, mainstream political pundits and the media are sitting up and taking notice of Matt Carthy ry. Basically I wanted to understand why Irish men and women were going over to England to plant bombs.”

Back in Ireland and living within ten miles of the Border also influenced his outlook.

“I remember being in south Armagh and it was just like a fortress. That certainly shaped my view as to what British occupation meant. As I grew up I also became more aware of the impact of partition on my own town and others along the Border.”

Going on to study marketing at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) in 1996, Matt says it was the first real opportunity he had to get involved with Sinn Féin.

“I spent about a fortnight knocking at the door of the Blessington Street cúige office but with no answer. It still had a big Sinn Féin sign outside it but it turned out it had been closed for a while,” he laughs. “I was cursing them, saying ‘Would you ever bother to answer the fecking door!’. He was determined, though. “I eventually found the Parnell Square Head Office and that’s how I got involved.”

Within a year Matt was working full-time for Sinn Féin. Along with activists like Pearse Doherty, Eoin Ó Broin and Toiréasa Ferris, he

5 Matt Carthy is contesting Midlands North West in the European Parliament election – Ireland’s largest EU constituency, spanning 15 counties was heavily involved in setting up Sinn Féin Youth and went on to become its second National Organiser from 1998 to 2000.

“I barely ever attended college. We were too busy campaigning on issues. I’d say we’d chained ourselves to almost every building in Dublin,” he laughs loudly. Ógra Shinn Féin, as it became known, was active campaigning for the release of political prisoners as part of the ‘Saoirse’ campaign and there was militant demonstrations demanding the release of Róisín McAliskey. Matt became centrally involved in setting up cumainn on college campuses across the city.

He says the Garda Special Branch harassment of young republicans at the time was astonishing.

“You couldn’t walk out of the office without being stopped and having your bag or whatever you were carrying searched and spilled across the street. It was intense. They called to members’ work, they called to their homes. It was constant.”

His involvement at this time also opened his eyes to the media campaign against republicans.

Following a protest against Special Branch harassment during the first Ógra Congress in 1997 on Abbey Street, a story appeared in The Irish Times by Jim Cusack.

“It was a verbatim report by the Garda basically calling us a bunch of thugs. But journalist Niall

Stanage attended the conference and he wrote a response piece for Hot Press magazine with the headline ‘I read the news today, oh boy’ which explained what actually happened. It really showed me what the media are like when dealing with us.”

From 1999 until 2002, Matt worked in the Sinn Féin Press Office as well as being elected to

‘We have four MEPs in the counties that now make up the Midlands North West constituency and all of them are mouthpieces for austerity’ Carrickmaross Town Council in 1999. He went on to be elected to Monaghan County Council in 2004.

He says it’s his involvement in previous EU elections and the increasing influence of European decisions on Ireland that spurred him on to put his name forward for EU elections.

“I decided it was time to take the European elections seriously following the Austerity

Treaty. We have four MEPs in the counties that now make up the Midlands North West constituency and all of them are mouthpieces for austerity – parroting the Government line. There isn’t one alternative voice even though 40% of the electorate of those counties supported Sinn Féin’s analysis and opposed the Treaty.”

He is critical of the Irish Government and Irish MEPs who are telling others in Europe that everything is fine back in Ireland.

“We need a republican voice there to tell it as it is, but also to bring forward solutions that require a European dimension. We need to argue that decisions affecting communities on the ground should be made as close to those communities as possible. Instead of handing power over to Europe we should be devolving power to local government.”

The Midlands North West constituency is the largest of the four in Ireland. It covers the counties of Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Kildare, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo and Westmeath.

“The constituency has 15 counties; the one next door, Dublin, has just one county,” Matt says. “That sets out in very stark terms to me the regional imbalance that has been allowed to evolve – and one that is getting worse and more stark every year.”

He says the root cause of much of the difficul-

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5 Matt Carthy and activists help launch Sinn Féin’s ‘Alternative Budget’

5 1998: Matt speaks at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in Dublin

5 Gerry Adams TD and Matt Carthy at the National Ploughing Championships last year

Sinn Féin is the only party standing European Parliament candidates on an all-Ireland basis:

Lynn Boylan (Dublin), Liadh Ní Riada (South), Martina Anderson MEP (Six Counties) and Matt Carthy (Midlands North West) is to bring the policies and politics to the fore.”

The EU elections are being held on the same day as the local elections (in the North on 22 May and the South on 23 May).

At both the local and EU levels, constiteuncy boundaries have received a major shake-up.

“It’s highly conceivable that there will be a Sinn Féin councillor elected to every local authority in Ireland. That’s something that has never been done before by any party.”

I ask if a team of four Sinn Féin MEPs elected to the European Parliament can really make a difference.

“Look at the Dáil,” Matt says, leaning forward, pushing his finger into his hand to emphasise

Along with Pearse Doherty, Eoin Ó Broin and Toiréasa Ferris, Matt was heavily involved in setting up Sinn Féin Youth

5 Sinn Féin’s EU candidates Liadh Ní Riada, Martina Anderson, Matt Carthy and Lynn Boylan with joint First Minister Martin McGuinness at the Ard Fheis ties faced in these counties is the simple fact that rural communities have been neglected.

“We’re expected to allow our landscape be blighted by pylons, we’re expected to allow our traditional rights such as turf cutting be taken away from us yet at the same time there is no investment. Since the foundation of the state there has been very little meaningful investment. Even in very recent times, broadband acces, key to most businesses nowadays, is abysmal and an absolute joke in a lot of these counties.”

‘If we’re given an opportunity to articulate Sinn Féin politics then the people will respond’

Following his barnstorming speech at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis last month, mainstream political pundits and media outlets, including RTÉ, are sitting up and taking notice of Matt.

“If we’re given an opportunity to articulate Sinn Féin politics then the people will respond.

The media are saying that the only people who can win are celebrity candidates or former TDs. They’re happy to play along with these mock battles between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael candidates. They are too willing to focus on silly personality games than the actual politics. Our job

the point. “Nobody can tell us politics isn’t better because Pearse Doherty is in there. He’s been the voice of hundreds of thousands of people in this state. Look at our councillors. They’re renowned as being the hardest-working across the island, as people who get things done. So at a European level we want to bring that same voice and vigour by electing four MEPs. And it will also mean that there won’t be a single citizen in Ireland that doesn’t have Sinn Féin representing them at some level.

“I think that’s what’s frightening our opponents. I think that’s where all the attacks are coming from with Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour joining their pals in the media to try and stymie our growth. They know that Sinn Féin growing in strength equates to the ordinary working people of Ireland taking power – and the Establishment don’t want to see that.”

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5 Alain Ó Donaile with local Sinn Féin representative Natalie Treacy outside his Clonsilla home where markings for the installation of the water meter are still visible

ONE MAN’S STAND AGAINST THE NEW WATER TAX

‘WATER METER MAN’

BY MARK MOLONEY THERE’S a quiet revolution going on in the large west County Dublin suburb of Clonsilla.

As Irish Water installs water meters as part of the Irish Government’s roll-out of water charges across the state, some residents are fighting back and refusing to allow contractors on to their property.

Local resident, Sinn Féin activist and father-ofthree Alain Ó Donaile has been dubbed ‘Water Meter Man’ for his one-man stand against the installation of a meter at his home. As An Phoblacht goes to press, 70 days have passed since Alan was given a deadline that the meter would be installed. Despite threats of fines, 12 separate meetings with Irish Water representatives, a dozen separate notices that work is to commence, and threats of arrest – still no water meter has been installed.

I meet Alain in as his home in the middle of February as a massive storm is bearing down across Ireland: “I see we’re running low on water,” he jokes, looking out at the driving rain.

A member of Sinn Féin since 1979, Alain says he has no objection to paying for water but that this is a form of double-taxation: “If I lived in the Sahara desert I could see how water would be a precious commodity and a scarce resource. It isn’t in Ireland. Just look out

the window. I don’t mind paying for water to be delivered to my home – I already do that through my taxes.

“I cannot understand why they are trying to make us pay for it twice. They are developing a company, using taxpayers’ money, ready for privatisation.”

On 7 December, Irish Water began installing water meters in his estate. He immediately went out to speak with staff and raise his objection: “I went down and asked to speak to the foreman,” he said. “I told them to knock into my house before any work began on my property and when they did I said quite firmly but politely: ‘I object to water charges and you are not fitting a water meter in my house’.”

The foreman told Alain that everyone has to get one. It is not a choice.

“Well, I’m not,” he replied. “They didn’t seem to know what to do. They just kind of stared at

each other blankly. Later, two officials showed up and repeated again that I had no choice in the matter. I told them they had no permission to block access to my property. They even threatened to call the gardaí.”

Alain, who worked in the building trade, also frustrated Irish Water by asking for numerous types of documentation regarding health and safety and permission to block off access to his property.

He says other residents who objected to the installation of meters on their property were threatened with arrest by gardaí under public order offences. The gardaí claimed they were there to ‘protect workers’ despite all opposition being peaceful. In one instance, a householder was threatened with arrest for asking the workers to leave his property. Other locals confirmed gardaí had been aggressive and threatening when dealing with their concerns.

They are trying to make us pay for water twice and developing a company, using taxpayers’ money, ready for privatisation

Complaints about Garda behaviour have also been raised through the local policing forum by local Sinn Féin representatives Natalie Treacy and Paul Donnelly. The fact that gardaí spent four hours sitting on the street ‘protecting workers’ was heavily criticised by local residents who would much rather have them out tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.

So far, Alain’s one-man stand appears to have worked. The installers have moved out of his estate and on to Corduff, where they are facing similar resistance from residents.

“At 8 o’clock in the morning a woman over there went out and stood on the stop-cock, which is on her private property,” says Alain.

“While she was standing on it they actually marked out the guides for digging around her!”

The woman was determined not to allow the meter to be installed and eventually, due to her objection, the workers left.

Alain says this and a dozen similar objections from residents in his area shows the huge opposition to water charges on the ground. And Alain says he is prepared to be arrested if it comes down to it as an act of peaceful disobedience.

Alain’s story was picked up by the news website TheJournal.ie and garned more than 61,000 views and 400 comments.

“That’s what I wanted,” says Alain, “to get people talking about it and have their say about what’s really behind this water metering. And I wanted people already squeezed for money to see that they can take a stand, even just to make a gesture, to say: ‘This is wrong.’”

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FIVE NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS TO FACE IRELAND’S EAST COAST

ROBBIE SMYTH

NUCLEAR

‘GOLD RUSH’ behind schedule and five were over budget.

Despite these damning failures, the executives who run Nuclear Managing Partners were paid bonuses of £6.6million in the years 2009 to 2012. (Managing, are ye?)

The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) published a report in June 2013 maintaining that the new nuclear building programme posed a “very low” risk to Ireland.

However, our most recent reference point is the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, which led to 154,000 people having to leave their homes – 18,000 are still not allowed return.

The RPII report did concede that in the event

IT IS the equivalent of a new gold rush, lucrative to the tune of billions of euro and the only fools are the Irish people.

The governments of France, China, South Korea and Britain, as well as companies in Japan and the USA, are all involved in a race to build a new generation of nuclear power plants in Britain, many of them on the western seaboard near the key population centres of Ireland’s east coast.

Last October, the Conservative/Liberal Government in Britain signed a contract commissioning state-owned French energy company EDF to build a new power plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Yes, the same flooded, envi-

One of the defences offered by lawyers acting for the British Energy Secretary was that the Irish Government had not objected to the new nuclear plant! ronmentally-comprised Somerset in the news throughout February.

The Hinkley contract conditions make for interesting reading. EDF get a guaranteed price for the electricity the plant produces; they will also be able to draw on state aid of up to £17billion (according to EU Commission estimates).

An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, sought a judicial review of the decision in the British courts. Last December, the High Court rejected An Taisce’s case. One of the defences offered by lawyers acting for British Energy Secretary Ed Davey was that the Irish Government had not objected to the new nuclear plant!

In this they were right. The Irish Government have been silent on not just the new Hinkley plant; they have had nothing to say on a strategy that could bring new nuclear power stations

5 The Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan led to 154,000 people having to leave their homes to Braystones, Sellafield, Kirksanton, Heysham and Wylfa on the English and Welsh west coasts.

The record of how Sellafield has been operated highlights the reality of the nuclear industry in Britain, complete with massive losses of taxpayers’ money as well as deadly health and environmental implications for Cumbria in England and the Irish east coast.

The clean-up of Sellafield alone is now estimated at over £70billion. Nuclear Managing Partners, a US-led consortium, has the contract for dismantling the 2.3 square miles of facilities and 1,000 buildings used to house the world’s largest store of nuclear waste and other

radioactive materials. Japanese company Toshiba are proposing to build a new nuclear power plant at Sellafield, so the site will never be free of a radiation threat to Ireland.

Last December, Nuclear Managing Partners apologised for cost over-runs on the clean-up projects, missed deadlines and dubious expenses, one of which involved a claim for a £700 taxi bill to transport a cat owned by an NMP executive who was moving house.

In June 2013, Sellafield Ltd was fined £700,000 for mistakenly sending radioactive waste to a landfill site. In 2013, it was reported that of 14 clean-up projects at the site, 12 were

of “any accident” there would be a “socio-economic impact” on Ireland and that “there was a continuing need for maintenance of emergency plans in Ireland to deal with the consequences of a nuclear accident abroad”.

EDF Energy (who now own eight nuclear plants in Britain) have applied to extend their working life for a further 10 years than originally planned; four of these are on the British west coast, facing Ireland.

Once again the Irish Government has nothing to say on this nuclear proliferation and it is hard to have faith in the British Government or their nuclear regulators who continually prioritise and subsidise nuclear power over renewable energy. One thing is clear: the Irish people’s concerns about nuclear power in Britain are not being listened to.

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The leading mutineer, Brigadier General Hubert Gough, travelled to London where he was welcomed by Sir Henry Wilson

CENTENARY OF THE

CURRAGH MUTINY

IN THEIR opposition to Home Rule for Ireland during the crisis of 1912 to 1914, the unionists were backed by a large section of the British Establishment, including many senior British Army officers.

When the Ulster Volunteer Force was formed in early 1913, the Tories in Britain helped to officer, arm and train them and their first commander was retired British Army General Sir George Richardson, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, Companion of the Order of the Star of India, Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire.

The deeply reactionary nature of the Tory/unionist alliance was expressed by Lord Willoughby de Broke who said that “every white man in the British Empire” would be supporting Orange resistance. With the UVF in place, the unionists began to demand the “exclusion of Ulster” from the Home Rule Bill. At first, the British Liberal Government of Herbert Asquith and the Irish Party of John

‘Any man would be justified in shooting Mr Asquith in the streets of London’ Tory MP Lieutenant-Colonel Pretyman Newman Redmond opposed this, but the Liberals were soon climbing down in the face of Tory/unionist rebellion.

Asquith said there would have to be another Westminster election before Home Rule became law and during 1913 and early 1914 he and Redmond gradually crumbled under the pres-

sure to the point where they agreed in principle to “exclusion”, thus paving the way for the partition of Ireland.

While force was being used by the British Government against Dublin workers during the 1913 Lockout, the armed unionists and Tories who threatened civil war went untouched by the Royal Irish Constabulary or the British Army. It was only in December 1913, after the formation of the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers, that the importation of arms into Ireland was banned.

The Tories/unionists threatened that if the British Army were used to ‘coerce Ulster’ there would be mutiny.

“If Mr Asquith did employ the British Army, he would break the back of the army and any man would be justified in shooting Mr Asquith in the streets of London,” warned Tory MP Lieutenant-Colonel Pretyman Newman.

On 9 March 1914, the Home Rule Bill had its second reading for its last session in the House of Commons.

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Brigadier General Hubert Gough

Director of Military Operations Henry Wilson

The Liberal Party’s Jack Seely

British Army General Arthur Paget

Unionist leader Edward Carson

Tory MP Pretyman Newman

Asquith proposed a “county option with a time limit” by which any Ulster county might vote itself out of Home Rule for a period of six years. Edward Carson retorted: “We do not want sentence of death with a stay of execution for six years.”

As the debate continued at Westminster, troops were to be moved to various points and the Royal Navy was to support with warships sailing over from Scotland. The operation was to take place on 21 March.

Sir Henry Wilson, Director of Military Operations at the War Office in London – a man who had helped establish the UVF – told Carson what was about to happen.

On 19 March, Carson stormed out of the House of Commons and came back to Craigavon, estate of unionist leader James Craig and headquarters of the “Provisional Government of Ulster”. The UVF had been ordered to “wipe out” the police if they tried to arrest Carson.

The British Army Commander-inChief in Ireland, General Sir Arthur Paget, called a conference of senior officers whom he told of the orders he had received from “those swines of politicians”. He told the War Office he would not move troops. Liberal Party Secretary of State for War Jack Seely tried to negotiate with Paget, who was supposedly under his command, but on 20 March he received a telegram from Paget stating that the 57 officers at the Curragh Camp in County

Kildare who would “prefer to accept dismissal if ordered North”.

It was mutiny.

Seely backed down. The leading mutineer, Brigadier General Hubert Gough , travelled to London, where he was welcomed by Wilson and assured that troops would not be used to meet armed opposition to Home Rule in the North. The mutinous British Army officers were reinstated and in the end it was Seely who resigned.

The Tory Morning Post newspaper summed it up with the headline: “The Army has killed the Home Rule Bill.”

Commenting on the mutiny, James Connolly wrote: “Suppose mere privates on being ordered to march against strikers had refused, what would befall them?

Imagination fails to picture the columns of the Tory, Liberal, and Home Rule press during the ensuing week. But of one thing we may be assured, viz that any one of such privates so refusing who was out of prison inside of 12 months would be a lucky man.”

Irish republican Roger Casement said that the mutiny had shown that “the real Government of Ireland, on the unionist principle, is in the Curragh Camp”.

• The Curragh Mutiny by senior British Army officers was a serious blow against the prospect of Home Rule for Ireland and took place in March 1914, 100 years ago this month.

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Such a scheme . . . would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements whilst it endured

BY

BY MÍCHEÁL MÍCHEÁL Mac Mac DONNCHA DONNCHA

‘LABOUR SHOULD GIVE PARTITION THE BITTEREST OPPOSITION’ JAMES CONNOLLY

When the plot to partition Ireland was first exposed in early 1914 it was condemned vehemently by James Connolly.

On 14 March 1914, he wrote an article in the Irish Worker titled ‘Labour and the Proposed Partition of Ireland’.

100 YEARS ON, WE REPRINT THAT ARTICLE IN FULL

THE RECENT proposals of Messrs Asquith, Devlin, Redmond and Co for the settlement of the Home Rule question deserve the earnest attention of the working-class democracy of this country. They reveal in a most striking and unmistakeable manner the depths of betrayal to which the so-called nationalist politicians are willing to sink. For generations the conscience of the civilised world has been shocked by the historical record of the partition of Poland; publicists, poets, humanitarians, patriots, all lovers of their kind and of progress, have wept over the unhappy lot of a country

torn asunder by the brute force of their alien oppressors, its unity ruthlessly destroyed and its traditions trampled into the dust.

But Poland was disrupted by outside forces, its enemies were the mercenaries of the tyrant kingdoms and empires of Europe; its sons and daughters died in the trenches and on the battlefields by the thousands rather than submit to their beloved country being annihilated as a nation. But Ireland, what of Ireland?

It is the trusted leaders of Ireland that in secret conclave with the enemies of Ireland have agreed to see Ireland as a nation disrupted politi-

cally and her children divided under separate political governments with warring interests.

Now, what is the position of labour towards it all? Let us remember that the Orange aristocracy now fighting for its supremacy in Ireland has at all times been based upon a denial of the common human rights of the Irish people; that the Orange Order was not founded to safeguard religious freedom but to deny religious freedom, and that it raised this religious question, not for the sake of any religion, but in order to use religious zeal in the interests of the oppressive property rights of rack-

5 H. H. Asquith, Joesph Devlin and John Redmond were criticised by Connolly for their proposals on settling the Home Rule question

emembering R the

Past

5James Connolly expressed his opposition to partition in ‘The Irish Worker’ newspaper renting landlords and sweating capitalists.

That the Irish people might be kept asunder and robbed whilst so sundered and divided, the Orange aristocracy went down to the lowest depths and out of the lowest pits of Hell brought up the abominations of sectarian feuds to stir the passions of the ignorant mob. No crime was too brutal or cowardly, no lie too base, no slander too ghastly, as long as they served to keep the democracy asunder.

And now that the progress of democracy elsewhere has somewhat muzzled the dogs of aristocratic power, now that in England as well as in Ireland the forces of labour are stirring and making for freedom and light, this same gang of well-fed plunderers of the people, secure in Union held upon their own dupes, seek by threats of force to arrest the march of idea and stifle the light of civilisation and liberty. And, lo and

behold, the trusted guardians of the people, the vaunted saviours of the Irish race, agree in front of the enemy and in face of the world to sacrifice to the bigoted enemy the unity of the nation and along with it the lives, liberties and hopes of that portion of the nation which in the midst of the most hostile surroundings have fought to keep the faith in things national and progressive.

Such a scheme as that agreed to

by Redmond and Devlin, the betrayal of the national democracy of industrial Ulster would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements whilst it endured.

To it labour should give the bitterest opposition, against it labour in Ulster should fight even to the death, if necessary, as our fathers fought before us.

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‘Save Bantry Bay’ and ROBERT ALLEN on what’s following in the wake of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen

At Swim, Two Salmon fjords and lochs give shelter from the storms.

Location, therefore, is crucial in the aquaculture business.

HUGE RISK

BY ROBERT ALLEN 26 DECEMBER 1796: Wolfe Tone laments his fate.

“Notwithstanding all our blunders, it is the dreadful stormy weather and the easterly winds, which have been blowing furiously and without intermission since we made Bantry Bay, that have ruined us.”

Five days have passed since the winds caused a collision between La Resolu and Redoutable, and La Resolu’s longboat was swept ashore on Bere Island. The Surveilant is badly damaged, later scuttled.

“Two o’clock,” Tone writes in his diary on the 22nd, “we have been tacking over since eight this morning, and I am sure we have not gained one hundred yards; the wind is right ahead, and the fleet dispersed, several being far to leeward.”

By the 29th, after nine days of raging seas and snowstorms, Tone is distraught. “The elements fight against us, and courage is of no avail.”

The attempt fails, the colonial grip is tightened, the status quo is unaltered, the Beara peninsula is changed forever. All that remains is the memory of the inclement weather that wrecked the hopes of the liberators.

And La Resolu’s 12-metre longboat — submerged in Berehaven harbour for 102 years until it was moved to Bantry House in 1898, then to the National Museum in 1944.

This was a ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore double-mast vessel. Built with assorted hardwood, it was capable of good speed under sail and good movement under oars, crewed by 13.

5 Bad weather at Bantry Bay foiled French attempts to aid the United Irishmen in 1796 thrill, won’t endure the fate of the La Resolu’s crew.

O’Donovan has mixed feelings about the storms.

“For 25 years there were very few serious storms, now they are back, storms once a fortnight since October. They come straight in from the Atlantic, from the south-east – raging sea, big swell. Anything out there is severely damaged, even during lulls.”

The 68-year-old is secretary of ‘Save Bantry Bay’, a group dedicated to the preservation of

wild fish against the vagaries of the farmed fish industry.

His task is a mighty one. The forces ranged against him are strong but (unlike Wolfe Tone, the United Irishmen and the redoubtable French), he has the wind in his sails and the elements in his favour.

If one thing is likely to stop aquaculture it is the elemental force of nature.

Salmon farms along the west coast of Ireland do not get the same protection as those in Norway and Scotland, where the

LA RESOLU SAILS AGAIN Sunday morning, 9 February 2014, retired seafarer Alec O’Donovan takes a replica of the La Resolu longboat onto the bay with a young crew. The storm has abated and the teenagers, keen to experience a nostalgic

5 Retired seafarer Alec O’Donovan is the secretary of the ‘Save Bantry Bay’ campaign

Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest Ireland moved into Bantry Bay in 2009 when it took over John Power’s Silver King Seafoods salmon farm and immediately made plans for expansion.

Marine Harvest admits that Bantry Bay, which faces west-south-west into the prevailing wind of the Atlantic, offers little shelter from the most severe storms and winds.

Their proposed 2,800-tonne farm for Bantry Bay is adjacent to Shot Head, close to Adrigole, between Glengariff and Castletownbere. Shot Head, say Marine Harvest, has adequate depth and is afforded some shelter by Bere Island.

Alec O’Donovan, others in the Bantry Bay group, fishers and sailors believe they are taking a huge risk with their choice of site.

“This is the most exposed part of the bay.

There is no shelter. The chances of destruction are very high.”

Marine Harvest argues it has no choice.

“Going further east, whilst the bay offers progressively increasing shelter, areas with adequate depth become fewer. In addition, the needs of maritime traffic and existing users — including the Tarmac Fleming Quarry at Leahill, the Conoco Philips Bantry Bay Oil Terminal on Whiddy Island, the fishery harbours at Bantry and Glengarriff, and traditional inshore fishery operations, as well as mussel lines and a second salmon farm operator — leave no sufficiently large, vacant site options available.”

Simon Coveney (Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine) gave an obtuse reply in the Dáil on Tuesday 11 February when he was asked about the salmon cages belonging to Murphy’s Seafood of Gerahies, the second salmon farm operator in the bay.

“Damage has been done to one of the cages on site and . . . a fish loss is likely to have occurred as a result. Due to the ongoing weather conditions it has not been possible to quantify the fish loss but the company has advised that a fish count will be taken as soon as weather conditions permit.”

Tony Lowes, Friends of the Irish Environment (FOIE), says between 60,000 to 80,000 salmon weighing up to four kilos escaped along with young salmon, “probably tens of thousands . . . who will drift along the coast and then breed anywhere that comes up”.

Marine Harvest was also affected by the inclement weather, reporting financial losses for 2013 as a result of the “very challenging” Irish climatic conditions. Rising seawater temperatures caused the proliferation of parasites and diseases. Storms made it difficult to feed the fish and control sea lice.

In its environmental impact assessment, Marine Harvest offers its emergency strategy for mass fish escape. It does not impress Tony

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Lowes. “This is closing the barn door after the horses have gone.”

These guidelines do not appear to be general and were not applied in Bantry during the recent storms. Two weeks after the Bridget’s Day storm wrecked the Gerahies farm, Marine Minister Coveney was still waiting to hear the extent of the damages.

Lowes asks the obvious questions.

“What about the promise of immediate inspections by divers, and how many times have the fish even been fed to observe the sudden drop in feeding behaviour?”

This, he says, is a sign of the times.

“A changing climate will create challenging conditions for many traditional industries.

Those that won’t adapt do so at their own peril, and sadly at a great cost to the environment.”

Minister Coveney, in the same 11 February reply, rejected any adverse effect on wild salmon. “There have been no documented cases in Ireland of negative population impacts leading specifically to loss of wild stock integrity and productivity.”

O’Donovan is dismayed by this comment.

“We have the unjust situation where the minister orders the expansion of salmon farming, repeatedly states that he is guided by the Marine Institute, whose independence has been called into question, ignores the advice of Inland Fisheries Ireland, the statutory body tasked with the protection of wild salmon and sea trout, appoints the members of a supposedly independent appeal board, and then makes the final decision.”

Coveney met with representatives of Marine Harvest in early February. Following the meeting, Marine Harvest indicated that a decision in its favour was imminent. O’Donovan was aghast.

“This from a minister who supposedly cannot get involved in the process.”

VULNERABLE WILD POPULATIONS The anti-aquaculture lobby also reminded the minister that the Marine Institute was responsible for a ten-year study on interactions between cultivated and wild salmon.

Published in October 2003, it provided “the first scientific evidence that interbreeding between wild and cultivated salmon . . . could lead to the extinction of vulnerable wild populations of Atlantic salmon”.

The Marine Institute said the study demonstrated “that where the number of farm escapees is high relative to the wild stocks, interbreeding has genetic and competitive impacts on wild salmon populations”.

Bird net support (if required)

Feed distribution pipe from feed barge Floatation ring, supporting stanchions and handrail Cage net, suspended off floatation ring Feed monitoring device (optional) Lift ropes for sinker tube / cage net for harvesting etc. Supported off floatation collar Sinker tube to help maintain net shape and prevent deformation

5 Damaged Gerahies salmon cages: 'Not much of a barrier left there,' says Tony Lowes The tit-for-tat posturing by the pro- and anti- aquaculture advocates has frustrated those who believe this is about two different social paradigms, the two types of salmon representing the oppositional views of the future of Irish society – one represents big corporate business, the other small rural communities.

The state has argued for many decades that these conflicts do not exist, that it is and has always been about jobs. Conservationist Damien O’Brien is not alone in believing it has also been about biodiversity, eco-systems

and sustainability – subjects far from the minds of most people.

“I look around and see the apathy in this country. For the most part the people are either lambs or lemmings. Those that do care, not just about this issue but others, are fractured.

“This is endemic in the Irish psyche. When I first got involved in this I could see that we needed to formulate a structured approach to fight what even an idiot can see is wrong.

However, it was evident that was too idealistic.”

Seafarer O’Donovan shares the view that the environmental concerns are being ignored

because the corporates can sway the influence of communities and individuals with a baleful refrain.

“You are always going to have that conflict; it depends on who is going to win.

“Damage to the environment damages the country. This is pollution of the sea, pollution of the scenery and pollution of the body politic. It’s all about money.”

Bantry Bay has everything – fishing, fish farming, maritime, leisure, industrial and, when the sea is rough, the Spanish bring their trawlers in.

“There is only so much this bay can take,” says Breda O’Sullivan, who lives in Agrigole. The proposed farm will be at the end of her boreen.

“This is why we are opposing it.”

“The oil and mussel industries had no impact on people making a living from the bay,” says Alec O’Donovan. “But this salmon farm is an entirely different thing. It has got a massive negative side-effect that should be looked at very carefully.”

OPTIONS People who make their living from and on the sea oppose aquaculture off the west coast because it is, in simple language, a ‘stupid idea’.

Others insist it is the wrong technology in the wrong place, and that land-based containment systems would be a better option.

Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the state agency responsible for developing the Irish seafood industry, argues that it is not technologically feasible to grow large volumes of fish on land, yet this year the Danes will begin harvesting 700 tonnes of salmon averaging a weight of four kilos from land farms. Plans for land fish farms in Abu Dhabi, Canada, China, Mongolia and the USA suggest this technology is feasible . . . and would work in Ireland.

Damien O’Brien believes land-based closed containment is inevitable.

“Sea-based salmon farming will destroy our environment and our wild stocks, and the livelihoods of those dependent on both.

“Land-based systems are not only environmentally friendly, offering safe and sustainable employment, they also produce a premium product. We have an ideal opportunity to be at the forefront of this industry but instead the elected representatives of this country are again choosing money and big business rather than looking at the best interests of the citizens of this state.”

Despite their courage, Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen did not prevail, but their legacy remains, especially in Bantry, where actions and events on the bay define the lives of everyone, even the blow-ins.

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IN PICTURES

photos@anphoblacht.com

DARREN O’KEEFFE

In the interests of ‘the state’ or us?

5 Former H-Blocks Hunger Striker Pat Sheehan MLA and Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane, Officer Commanding the republican prisoners during the 1981 Hunger Strike in Long Kesh, are pictured in a replica cell in the Irish Republican History Museum as they discuss the 1980/1981 Hunger Strike as part of an Al Jazeera TV documentary examining its legacy

5 In whose interests is the state being run?

WE have heard Fine Gael/Labour Government Ministers and TDs explain the rationale for cuts like those made to child benefit, home-help hours, respite care grants and Special Needs Education as being in the best interests of ‘the state’.

This is alarming terminology as it ultimately places the poor, children, the sick and people living with disabilities outside of ‘the state’.

‘Social marginalisation’ is a term often used to describe the mistreatment of the most vulnerable in society. The neoliberal agenda being followed by the Government not only marginalises the poor but also strips vulnerable people of their citizenship and consequently of their human dignity.

If the interests of the poor, the sick and the disabled are not compatible with those of ‘the state’ then a rather obvious question that we have skirted around for far too long is posed: In whose interests is ‘the state’ being run?

If the poor, sick, disabled, low-income to middleincome workers and the unemployed are constantly losing, not gaining, as a result of Government decisions then there are no prizes for guessing who is sitting on the other side of that see-saw.

We are being shown evidence every day (‘Shattergate’ being the latest beacon) that it is pretty naive to view the state as a facilitator of citizens’ interests. Sadly, the major-

ity of us choose to ignore it. No wonder– there are things like X-Factor, the Premiership, Facebook and Netflix to absorb our time.

Even the ‘revelations’ from the Anglo Tapes were not enough to provoke a seismic stir in the great public inertia.

We tolerate the cuts, pseudo taxes, power hoaxes and the absolutely compromised behaviour of the man charged with administering justice because it is too disturbing to drag our heads out of the sand to see that we have been duped.

It is easier for us to believe that Shattergate is simply another scandal in our political soap opera.

Without really probing the question of who gains, Shattergate will come to an end but the broad context in which it happened will remain.

We need to stop taking the easy options.

If we truly want to protect the vulnerable and help the poor, if we truly want to live in a fair society, then we must spend more time asking the question of who gains from decisions made by ‘the state’ and a hell of a lot more time answering it.

If we want that fairer society then we must wake up to the reality that this cannot be done within ‘the state’ as we currently know it.

It needs to change.

5 Sinn Féin’s Dublin EU candidate Lynn Boylan and Ballymun local election candidate Noeleen Reilly at the Luke Kelly monument in Larkhill, Whitehall

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Maurice Quinlivan with Pádraig Malone wishing Limerick Resource Centre for the Unemployed good luck in their new premises

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This is funded by the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL)

BINDING TARGETS ON GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS MAKE SENSE

Aontas Clé na hEorpa/Na Glasaigh Chlé Nordacha Crúpa Paliminta – Parlaimimt na h Eorpa

Another Europe is possible

EU TARGETS were set in 2008 for a greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions reduction of 20% by 2020.

In other declarations, the European Council and the European Parliament have both stated aims of achieving between 80% and 95% reductions of GHG emissions by 2050.

It is essential that we work towards the upper end of that goal and it is important that we have milestones along the way.

To that end, the EU Environment committee voted on a climate and energy framework report in January and I am glad that the Members of the European Parliament voted in favour of three climate and energy targets by 2030, rebuffing a European Commission plan for just one fully-binding goal.

While the vote at the European Parliament has no legal force, it will inform and hopefully influence debate before summit talks between European Union leaders in March on energy and environment policy and its impact on competitiveness.

It endorses fully-binding goals for cutting climate emissions, improving energy efficiency and forcing member states to increase the amount of renewable energy they use. The three binding targets which the EP wish to see adopted by the Energy Council of Ministers in March are a reduc-

tion in GHG, renewable energy and energy efficiency. This would send a strong signal to both the Council and the Commission.

The challenge now is to ensure that these binding targets prompt compliance with the existing EU goal to obtain between 80% and 95% reduction by 2050. This has been made more difficult

The European Commission has weak 2030 climate and energy targets, undermining the EU’s position as a front-runner in decarbonisation of the economy and supporting renewable energy with the Climate Change package recently presented by the EU Commission just four months after the International Panel on Climate Change published a report showing that 95% of scientific research points to human action being the cause of climate change.

The Commission has unfortunately published weak 2030 climate and energy targets, undermining the EU’s position as a front-runner in decarbonisation of the economy and supporting renewable energy.

Despite the Commission’s own 2030 impact assessment, which found that a renewable energy target of 30% would create 568,000 more jobs, the right-wing/conservative MEPs pushed for a single overall target. However, at Committee level their efforts were thwarted.

The Commission’s position is seen as a sop to the British Government and Poland, who want to pursue risky or dirty energy from nuclear and shale gas despite their having already been a seismic tremor in the north of England caused by fracking activity.

The International Panel on Climate Change report calls on the Commission to include a mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment for any exploration or extraction of shale gas in any legislation on hydraulic fracturing and for transparency of data on the chemicals that are used in the process.

It makes sense to have binding targets which would clearly demonstrate that Europe is committed to achieving its 2050 GHG emissions targets.

Martina Anderson MEP is a member of the GUE/NGL Group in the European Parliament

NOW ONLINE EVERY WEEK over the next two years, An Phoblacht is making all the editions of The Irish Volunteer – the newspaper of the Irish Volunteer movement – available online exactly 100 years after they were first published The Irish Volunteer — tOglác na hÉireann was first published on 7 February 1914 and every week until 22 April ‘The Irish Volunteer – 1916, just days before the Easter Rising. tOglác na hÉireann’ was Acting as the official newspaper of the Irish Volunteers it first published on 7 outlined the political views of the leadership and reported on the and important events, such as the Howth Gun Running of February 1914 and every 1914. week until 22 April 1916 . .

Included in its pages alongside political opinions and news . just days before the reports are various advertisements for such items as revolvers, bandoliers and military uniforms from stockists across Ireland.

Easter Rising You can now read these fascinating insights into Irish revolutionary history with an online subscription to An Phoblacht for just €10 per year. This includes a digital copy of each new edition of the paper and Iris magazine, access to our digitised historic archives as well as copies of The Irish Volunteer.

ONLY

€10 Fascinating insights into

Irish revolutionary history for you to read online SIGN UP IT’S EASY GO TO

www.anphoblacht.com

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PEADAR WHELAN continues his review of the DUP and UUP leaderships’ pandering to the reactionary rump of unionism

BAD POLITICS serious questions as to whether Edwin Poots has the ability to carry out his duties as Health Minister for all.”

She added: “It goes without saying that we need to have robust screening of blood, whoever it comes from. Discriminating against people from within our community who are prepared to give blood needs to be reversed immediately.”

Incandescent at the Sinn Féin MLA’s scrutiny during the debate, Health Minister Poots accused Sinn Féin of being “more interested in covering up for its paedophile-protecting President” than in serving the public.

He also hit out at judges over the ruling, accusing them of taking power away from elected representatives and ‘attacking Christianity’, adding to the belief that his attempt to ban gay blood donors was based on his fundamentalist religious outlook.

The Assembly passed the Sinn Féin motion, prompting DUP Speaker William Hay to say: “Sinn Féin failed to realise the problems the court judgment would cause for their own ministers.”

This, it seems, was laying the ground for the Hamilton case.

IN THE WAKE of the Haass/O’Sullivan Talks, I argued in February’s An Phoblacht that the unionist parties were not serious about the process.

Reaching agreement on flags, marches and the past was too big a mountain for them to climb, I said. In unionist circles, compromise is a dirty word, something amounting to surrender and defeat at the hands of their republican enemy.

If it is unionists’ belief that republicans are, on the one hand, an enemy to be defeated while, on the other, they are entrenched in their ‘No Surrender’ ideology, then Haass/O’Sullivan could not have succeeded.

To get some understanding as to where unionism is at this present juncture, we need to go beyond the fall-out from Haass/O’Sullivan.

We need to look at the inherent negativity of unionist politics and the myopic political thinking of its leaders.

It is still difficult for many unionist political figures to envisage a world beyond the laager.

Rather than build on the political compromise that the Good Friday Agreement is, unionists have, over the years, tried to undermine the political institutions.

The unionist parties, but especially the DUP, have deliberately set out to frustrate Sinn Féin’s ministers and their initiatives.

Education has been a particular battleground for the DUP. When Martin McGuinness took the Education portfolio after the 1999 Assembly elections and abolished the 11-Plus transfer test for the North’s grammar schools, the DUP constantly attacked Sinn Féin and defended academic selection.

The incumbent Sinn Féin Education Minister, John O’Dowd, in attempting to redistribute funds to schools in areas of high social deprivation (measured by levels of Free School Meals), has come under fire from Mervyn Storey of the DUP. The North Antrim DUP man, Chair of Stormont’s Education Committee, exposed his sectarian mindset when, last September, he said “a greater proportion of controlled state primaries [Protestant schools] would lose funding than Catholic schools.

“I am very disappointed that the minister and his department have stooped to this level of social engineering,” he said.

It is worth noting that sections of the Catholic middle class sided with the DUP on both issues.

HEALTH MINISTER’S FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES A further example of the DUP strategy to sabotage Sinn Féin’s policies came when Finance Minister Simon Hamilton took Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill to court over her planned distribution of £100million (€137million) European money into rural development funding ear-marked to tackle

NORTH BELFAST HOUSING

5 (Clockwise) The DUP’s Peter Robinson, Simon Hamilton, Edwin Poots and Nelson McCausland rural poverty and provide broadband as well as other community facilities.

Sinn Féin East Antrim MLA Oliver McMullan reacted to Hamilton’s challenge by saying: “The decision to challenge the Agriculture Minister’s decision to balance the needs of our farming sector with the needs of the environment as well as rural people in general flies in the face of the fact rural people need services and government resources to improve the quality of their lives.”

Judge Declan Morgan upheld Hamilton’s challenge, saying O’Neill breached the ministerial code.

This adds weight to the view that Hamilton’s intervention was ‘retaliation’ after Maeve McLaughlin exposed Health Minister Edwin Poots’s blundering in a Sinn Féin-sponsored Assembly debate on 6 November last year.

A month earlier, the High Court in Belfast ruled that Poots’s unilateral decision to maintain a lifetime ban on gay men giving blood was “irrational” and he was adjudged to have breached the ministerial code.

Maeve McLaughlin, Chair of Stormont’s Health Committee, said: “The decision raises in many people’s minds

The reluctance, or downright refusal, of DUP ministers to govern in the interests of the people was brought into sharp focus when Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland, the minister with responsibility for housing, wrote on his blog on 1 February: “The truth is that there is no discrimination against Roman Catholics in housing in north Belfast. The number of Protestants on the waiting list is roughly the same as the number of Roman Catholics but the myth of discrimination is so deeply embedded in the nationalist and republican narrative that it will take some time for the truth to prevail.”

McCausland’s stance flies in the face of research gathered by residents which reveals over a decade’s worth of “ministerial, statutory and council failures” which have compounded religious inequality in north Belfast.

The ‘Equality Can’t Wait’ group point to Housing Executive figures which show the inequality experienced by Catholics in need of social housing in Belfast who wait on average 23 months whilst the average wait for Protestants is 12.

In north Belfast specifically, it was further recognised by the Department of Social Development that, based on Housing Executive figures from 2008, 95% of the projected need for new homes in north Belfast by 2012 would be in the Catholic community.

The residents’ campaign is backed by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, who called for social housing inequality impacting Catholics in north Belfast to be tackled.

The residents, whose research was compiled over a 12-month period, was published in January 2013.

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5 North Belfast housing campaign 5 The UVF shot a woman in Belfast and two men in Bangor with hardly a word of condemnation from mainstream unionism A subsequent meeting between residents and the Department of Social Development was cancelled following a letter sent by the minister to residents stating that his department did “not accept” the existence of religious inequality in North Belfast.

ROBINSON’S ‘LETTER FROM AMERICA’ First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson’s ‘Letter from America’ in August last year in which he withdrew his and his party’s support for the development of the Conflict Transformation Centre (or ‘peace centre’) at Long Kesh was a U-turn that exposed the degree to which unionist politics are defined by a negativity bordering on nihilism.

The DUP leader, writing from his Florida holiday retreat, had succumbed to pressure from the Orange Order, Jim Allister’s rejectionist Traditional Unionist Voice and the more rabid unionist elements such as Willie Frazer and their reactionary, fundamentalist philosophy.

Robinson cited Sinn Féin actions and, in particular, the party’s involvement in that month’s Tyrone Volunteers Commemoration parade in Castlederg as the reason for his volte-face.

Needless to say, this was the smokescreen that a weak Robinson chose to hide behind.

Unionists’ preferred option was to see Long Kesh razed to the ground. Were it not for Sinn Féin, it more than likely would have been bulldozed.

So when the plans to develop the Conflict Transformation Centre were made public, on

5 Ballymurphy priest Fr Hugh Mullan

5 Fundamentalist fringe loyalist Willie Frazer 24 April 2013, anti-agreement unionists went into overdrive, attacking the DUP. Their ‘cause’ (articulated by Jim Allister and supported by Willie Frazer and every so-called ‘victims’ group, including ex-RUC, ex-UDR and former prison officers) demanded the listed HBlock, Prison Hospital and other listed buildings be de-listed and destroyed.

RE-RUNNING CRIMINALISATION In effect, these extreme elements are re-

5 Unionists’ preferred option was to see Long Kesh razed to the ground

running the British criminalisation policy of the 1970s and 1980s, the very policy that led to the prison protest and 1980/1981 Hunger Strikes in the first place.

This reinforces the unionist attitude that there is a ‘hierarchy of victims’, where republicans and nationalists are on the bottom rungs.

Union flag protest leader and ‘unionist victims campaigner’ Willie Frazer (quoted in the 15 February edition of the Andersonstown News) said in reference to Fr Hugh Mullan, shot dead by British Army paratroopers in the Ballymurphy Massacre in 1971: “Priests have been heavily involved in terrorism and paedophile rings for years. I don’t know if this one was innocent or guilty or if he was stoking a riot or not.”

This opens a window into a unionist worldview that knows only bigotry.

This is the same Willie Frazer who was personally briefed by senior DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson during the Haass/O’Sullivan talks.

DUP leader Peter Robinson’s refusal to lead from the front has exposed a unionism that is blinkered to the point where a young teacher can be hounded out of her job, Protestants are publicly warned off by the Belfast Grand Master of the Orange Order from speaking Irish, and loyalist thugs can attack their nationalist neighbours and create havoc and fear in Union flag protests, and the UVF can shoot Jemma McGrath in east Belfast and two men in Bangor with hardly a word of condemnation from mainstream unionism.

And when the Chinese-born Alliance MLA

5 Alliance MLA Anna Lo Anna Lo suffers racial abuse when she calls for murals to be removed from the route of the Giro d’Italia, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson responds by claiming that anti-racism campaigners talk up the level of racism to get funding.

This lack of leadership from the DUP has created a vacuum that is being filled by the nay-sayers. By pandering to them they are encouraging them.

That’s bad politics.

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VOLUNTEERS Henry Hogan and Declan Martin were shot dead as they confronted a number of British soldiers from the elite SAS special forces near the Hogan family home in Carness Drive, Dunloy, on 21 February 1984.

The Volunteers opened fire on two SAS troopers, killing one and seriously wounding a second.

A third member of the British special forces unit then fired on the Volunteers, wounding them.

As they lay wounded in a nearby field, the SAS summarily executed them.

SAS Sergeant Paul Oram, who was killed in the gun battle, is believed to have been involved in the killing of IRA Volunteers

George McBrearty and Charles ‘Pop’ Maguire in Derry on 28 May 1981.

Oram was also responsible for killing

The IRA Volunteers opened fire on two SAS special forces troopers, killing one and seriously wounding a second unarmed INLA Volunteer Neil McMonagle in the Leafair area of Derry in February 1983; a second man, Liam Duffy, was wounded.

IRA Volunteers Henry Hogan and Declan Martin 30th Anniversary Commemoration, Dunloy

YOUNG AND OLD INSPIRED

BY BRAVE VOLUNTEERS

BY PEADAR WHELAN FOR all the ‘old heads’, the old comrades, the long-term activists and the former POWs that attended the 30th anniversary commemoration of IRA Volunteers Henry Hogan and Declan Martin in Dunloy, County Antrim, on Sunday 23 February there were plenty of young people there too.

Whether they were playing in the republican flute bands or attended as activists in the Sinn Féin youth organisations, their presence was welcomed and important to the future of our cause.

Indeed, a number of young people (such as Leanne Peacock from Rasharkin, who will represent Sinn Féin in May’s council elections) talked of how they were inspired by the stories of courage and the legacy of Volunteers such as Henry Hogan and Declan Martin.

The main speaker at Sunday’s commemoration was senior republican Seán Murray.

The Belfast man recounted the courage of

5Orlaith Gribben and Rachel Magee carry portraits of Volunteers Henry Hogan and Declan Martin the two North Antrim Brigade Volunteers “as they engaged a professional execution squad with inferior equipment and back-up capacity”.

He went on:

5A section of the crowd including Henry Hogan’s sister Maureen, her daughter Margaret and Margaret McErlain

“Our focus must rest on perpetuating their memory and the role they played in our struggle. In sustaining that memory we must reach out to a new generation too young to have

known our comrades or the conditions that led them to embrace armed struggle at a period in our history when it represented the only effective means of advancing republican objectives.”

Reflecting on the “long and painful journey from the intensity of the armed campaign to where our struggle is today”, Seán Murray asserted: “The challenge for republicans is to popularise our vision and ensure that the political institutions deliver for our people.

“In peace, as in war, we are dependent on our relationship with our community. Without the support of the people, our struggle will not achieve its objectives.”

With local government and European elections looming in both the Six Counties and the 26 Counties, Murray reiterated the need to increase the Sinn Féin electoral mandate right across the 32 Counties.

He concluded: “Republicans are about nation building. We are laying the foundations for a new republic, a real republic, with social justice and equality at its core– the republic that Volunteers like Henry and Declan died for.”

5Hundreds of marchers make their way to the rally point in Carness Drive, where the Volunteers died

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I nDíl Chuimhne 1 March 1983: Volunteer Eddie DYNES, North Armagh Brigade.

3 March 1991: Volunteer Malcolm NUGENT, Volunteer Dwayne O’DONNELL, Volunteer John QUINN, Volunteer Noel WILKINSON, Tyrone Brigade.

4 March 1972: Volunteer Albert KAVANAGH, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

6 March 1988: Volunteer Mairéad FARRELL; Volunteer Dan McCANN; Volunteer Seán SAVAGE, GHQ Staff.

7 March 1990: Sam MARSHALL, Sinn Féin.

8 March 1971: Volunteer Charles HUGHES, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

9 March 1972: Volunteer Gerard CROSSAN, Volunteer Tony LEWIS, Volunteer Seán JOHNSTON, Volunteer

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 14 March 2014 Tom McCANN, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

12 March 2003: Volunteer Keith ROGERS, South Armagh Brigade.

14 March 1972: Volunteer Colm KEENAN; Volunteer Eugene McGILLAN, Derry Brigade.

14 March 1988: Volunteer Kevin McCRACKEN, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

15 March 1974: Volunteer Patrick McDONALD, Volunteer Kevin MURRAY, Tyrone Brigade.

16 March 1988: Volunteer Caoimhín Mac BRÁDAIGH, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

17 March 1975: Volunteer Tom SMITH, Portlaoise Prison.

22 March 1987: Volunteer Gerard LOGUE, Derry Brigade.

23 March 1972: Fian Seán O’RIORDAN,

“LIFE SPRINGS FROM DEATH AND FROM THE GRAVES OF PATRIOT MEN AND WOMEN SPRING LIVING NATIONS.” PÁDRAIG Mac PIARAIS Fianna Éireann.

23 March 1975: Fian Robert ALLSOPP, Fianna Éireann.

23 March 1993: Peter GALLAGHER, Sinn Féin.

25 March 1972: Volunteer Patrick CAMPBELL, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

25 March 1993: Volunteer James KELLY, Derry Brigade.

27 March 1973: Volunteer Patrick McCABE, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

LYNCH, George. In proud and loving memory of George Lynch, an inspiration to all who knew him. George died on 21 February 1991. From Arthur O’Donnell.

MacMANUS, Joe. In proud and loving memory of Joe MacManus, Oglaigh na hÉireann, killed in action in County Fermanagh on 5 February 1992. From your friend and comrade Noel and family.

MAGEE, Joseph. In loving memory of my dear brother Volunteer Joe Magee, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann, killed on active service 21 February 1972. Mary, Queen of the Gael, pray for him. Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day.

Proudly remembered by his loving sister, brother-in-law Sarah and Conn McVarnock, nephews and nieces, Belfast and Australia.

MAGEE, Joseph. In loving memory of

my dear brother Volunteer Joe Magee, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann, killed on active service 21 February 1972. St Joseph, pray for him.

There are no more tomorrows for us to share but yesterday’s memories will always be there. Always remembered by his loving sister and brother-in-law, Betty and Jim Cushnahan, also brothers Emmanuel and Michael, Australia and Canada MAGEE, Joseph. In loving memory of my dear brother Volunteer Joe Magee, 3rd Battalion, Belfast Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann, killed on active service 21 February 1972. St Brigid, pray for him.

Never more than a thought away, loved and remembered every day. Always remembered by his loving brother and sister-in-law, Patsy and Maureen Magee and family.

Comhbhrón FITZPATRICK. Deepest sympathy to the family of James (Shaymo) Fitzpatrick on his sudden death.

From Ian, Catherine and all the members of the

Vol Charlie McGlade Cumann, Drimnagh, Dublin.

McCREESH. Deepest sympathy is extended to Malachy and all the McCreesh family on the trag-

ic passing of his brother. From everyone in Clare Sinn Féin.

McCREESH. Sincere sympathy is extended to

BIG JOHN DAVEY – 25th ANNIVERSARY OF HIS ASSASSINATION

Malachy McCreesh and family on their recent tragic bereavement. From Limerick City Sinn Féin.

» Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@anphoblacht.com at least 14 days in advance of publication date. There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón etc.

IN PICTURES

» Imeachtaí There is a charge of €10 for inserts printed in our Imeachtaí/Events column. You can also get a small or large box advert. Contact: sales@anphoblacht.com for details.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney addresses the crowd

‘A child of the Orange state and a veteran of Operation Harvest’

BY PEADAR WHELAN OLD FACES, NEW FACES. Among the hundreds of republicans who flocked to St Mary’s Cemetery in Lavey, south Derry, on Sunday 16 February to mark the 25th annivrsary of the assassination of Sinn Féin Councillor John Davey were veteran republicans from across Derry, Antrim, Tyrone and further afield.

Also there were the up-and-coming generation eager for the struggle and no doubt inspired by the courage and sacrifice of John Davey – “a child of the Orange state and a veteran of Operation Harvest”, said the main speaker of the day Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney.

John Davey was also a thorn in the side of the British and unionist regime, so much so they targeted him and sent the surrogate death squads of the Ulster Volunteer Force to kill him.

In June 1988, Democratic Unionist Party MP MidUlster Willie McCrea used parliamentary privilege at Westminster to name the Sinn Féin councillor as an IRA member.

As with the killing of Pat Finucane, shot dead two days prior to John, British Cabinet Minister Douglas Hogg used the British parliament to identify him, thus paving the way for loyalist death squads.

Twenty-five years after John’s death his political legacy lives on, especially with the growth of Sinn Féin in the south Derry area. The party is the biggest on Magherafelt Council.

And it was the chairperson of the council, Catherine Elattar, who chaired events back in Gulladuff Hall where a new booklet in honour of Big John was launched.

Antrim republican Gerard Magee was the author of the book which was commissioned by the local cumann.

5 Cairde Youth (Scotland) with Sinn Féin Senator Kathryn Reilly and Belfast’s Eóin McShane

5 Members of Finucane family at the launch of a new mural in Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the killing of Pat Finucane by loyalists in collusion with the British state

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BETWEEN THE POSTS

30 March / Márta 2014

THE

www.anphoblacht.com

BY CIARÁN KEARNEY

HOME IS WHERE THE HURL IS

JUST before 8pm one Saturday night, the phone rang. It was west Belfast MP Paul Maskey calling to talk about the redevelopment of Casement Park.

The next day I bumped into Paul again in Newry. This time he was with his brother, Frank, and his sister-in-law, Ann. I was surprised to see him so soon and we joked about saving time and money on phone calls in future. Paul’s nephews play on the Fullen Gaels hurling team from England. They had just been beaten in the All-Ireland Semi-Final of the club junior championship. But the Baltic weather that day in Newry’s Pairc Esler couldn’t freeze the smile off my face though – the victorious team had been my own C r e g g a n Kickhams, who had now won a place in the All-Ireland Final in Croke Park.

Sitting in the stand beside my uncles and aunts, cousins and former teammates from Creggan, cheering on the team in green and gold, I had no idea that our opponents on the pitch were relations of my friends and comrades. Until chatting with Paul and his family after the match, I

hadn’t realised that this was the third year in a row the team from England had met disappointment in the latter stages of the competition.

Driving home, the historic achievement by Creggan’s hurlers reaching the All-Ireland Final was the main matter on my mind. But I couldn’t help thinking about the way lives and connections are woven together through our involvement in Gaelic games. Paul and I have known each other for 20 years. We’ve worked together for most of that time.

Today, we both live in Andersonstown. But here was a man who grew up in the New Lodge district of north Belfast, down in Newry to support his nephews playing hurling for a team from England.

Whilst here was I . . . born in Antrim town, having lived 25 years in west Belfast, cheering on the team I had played with in my prime.

What is it, I wondered, about community and a sense of belonging which Gaelic games touches?

No townland is complete without a Gaelic club.

Former Antrim hurling star and Cushendall Gael ‘Sambo’ McNaughton said: “The GAA is like having a family and the heart of the family is the club. It’s like a home.

You make friends and you make foes. It is all part of life.”

So it was that the Creggan family

Here was a man who grew up in the New Lodge in north Belfast, down in Newry to support his nephews playing hurling for a team from England

journeyed to Croke Park. Cars loaded with sandwiches, flasks of tea and green and gold flags. On the way into the stadium, a supporter from the Waterford team who were our opponents opined that it had all come down to this. His team were in their first All-Ireland Final too.

He was sorry it had to be against an Antrim team. For there is a kindred spirit, an unspoken empathy, between those playing hurling in the less illustrious counties in Ireland. We cheer for each other when the championship comes except when we have to play each other, like this day.

As the floodlights came on, and rain poured down, nothing could s e p a r a t e Creggan hurlers from their Waterford rivals, Ballysaggart. Blow for blow, score for score. Hurling on the edge. The tension was palpable. It extended to extra time: as agonising as it was exciting. Then, after almost 90 minutes in Croke Park, the match went to a replay. But this is not a match report. This is a story of how Creggan became the first Ulster club to ever claim the All-Ireland Junior Hurling Championship.

This is a club that began in the 1920s as a hurling club. In the 1943 All-Ireland Final, three Creggan players were on the Antrim hurling team. Yet, for four decades, the sport had been dormant. Creggan had no hurling team when I was playing for my county in the late 1980s. Now a crop of young hurlers had grown up who have become the best in Ireland. The pride and determination among these young Gaels inspired a whole community to believe in achieving more. All this from a tiny place along the north shore of Lough Neagh; a place with barely enough inhabitants to acquire ‘hamlet’ status; a network of h o m e s and a s m a l l school without even a local shop.

With a Gaelic club and goalposts at its heart.

For some of the Creggan hurlers, their days in competitive hurling may be numbered.

In the years ahead, who knows where they’ll end up. But one thing is for sure: they’ll always remember who they are and where they come from. For home is where the hurl is.

Cumann 100th Anniversary na mBan Celebration 7.30pm Wednesday 2nd April 2014, Wynn’s Hotel, Abbey St, Dublin » First Showing of Cumann na mBan exhibition » Launch ofCumann na mBan member Margaret Skinnider book by Aengus Ó Snodaigh » Dramatic re-enactment of

constitution and first meeting of Cumann na mBan » Main Speaker Liz Gillis, author and historian » Dublin Sinn Féin EU candidate Lynn Boylan

All welcome contact Noeleen on 087 633 6233 for more details

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March / Márta 2014 31

BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

James Connolly made accessible and a British Army record just incredible the London Marx Library as a result of the interminable internecine strife endemic in the British far Left.

Historian John Callow unearthed it whilst working in the library and has used it as the nucleus of this absolutely stunning volume.

This book is a treasure trove of original documents, photographs, artworks and insightful analysis.

Sponsored by some of the larger trade unions, it might provoke an apprehension in the minds of some

James Connolly and the Reconquest of Ireland

By Dr John Callow Evans Mitchell Books Sponsored by GMB, RMT, Jim Connell Society, SIPTU, Marx Library, TU Link THIS is a really spectacular book. At first glance it looks like one of those glossy ‘coffee table books’ that are very pretty but with no substance.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

This book has everything: lavishly produced but with a core of detailed historical research presented in a superbly readable prose, it is probably the most accessible book on James Connolly available to the general reader that would also serve as a research volume for students and historians.

The Reconquest of Ireland was James Connolly’s last major work, tracing the past history of Ireland and setting out his vision of what needed to be done to win back the nation. It merged the legacy of Jacobin and nationalist revolution with the vision of a socialist republic. The work stressed the need for the survival of Gaelic culture, language, songs and poetry for a national revolution to be successful.

The original manuscript of this important work was lost for many years, languishing in the archives of

Highly recommended – for both the Connolly novice looking for an introduction and the experienced historical researcher

5 1912 – James Connolly is shown in Seán Ó Brógáin’s painting, braving the Belfast drizzle and watchful gaze of the police, in order to expound the principles of socialism

Ground Truths: British Army Operations in the Irish War of Independence

By W. H. Kautt Irish Academic Press THIS is an analysis of a previously restricted British Army publication.

The original document was prepared by a team of staff officers in 1923, after their departure from Ireland, with the ostensible purpose of establishing what “lessons had been learned” from the conflict and to serve as an instructional text to be considered in future operations.

In fact there is very little attempt made to fulfill this brief.

The authors of the original text come across as petulant and selfserving. Their entire narrative is full of bitterness, bile and self-justification of the ‘We was robbed’ variety.

They knew that they appeared to have lost the conflict but they couldn’t quite understand why. This document then became an exercise in apportioning all blame to others and seeking to explain that they could have won if only they hadn’t been stopped by politicians and a biased press.

As an example of their delusional resentment, the authors at one

point complain that William Martin Murphy and the Irish Independent were nothing but republican propagandists and as such should have been suppressed!

The document also trots out the old Establishment lie (repeated endlessly in more recent conflicts) that the only support for independence came from common murderers, fanatics, or a cowardly and supine population intimidated into acqui-

escence or submission by republicans.

The litany of propagandist lies reiterated as fact in a confidential document is staggering. Apparently, Thomas MacCurtain was murdered by republicans for being too moderate and it wasn’t Black and Tans responsible after all. And it seems that the crowd in Croke Park opened fire on peaceful Auxiliaries and 40 revolvers were later found, discarded by the fleeing mob. Prisoners were ordered to go on hunger strike by sinister external forces and only did so in fear of execution on their release if they failed to obey (a line used again in the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes). And . . . Kilmallock RIC Barracks was attacked by a force of 2,300 IRA men who were driven off by the gallant 10 Royal Irish Constabulary defenders.

The authors may have been confusing Kilmallock with Rorke’s Drift but just about resisted suggesting a Zulu Flying Column was operating in the Limerick area.

W. H. Kautt has undertaken a painstakingly detailed analysis of the original document with informative commentary interspersed with the 1923 text. This is a good source book for historians but not for the casual reader – unless you really need to raise your blood pressure.

republicans that this is yet another revisionist volume denigrating Connolly and accusing him of betraying the socialist cause by embracing nationalism. The opposite is true. This book is a celebration of both the nationalist and socialist philosophies that Connolly embodied. It is a tour de force demolition of the trendy establishment revisionist view of Connolly, putting the nationalist agenda firmly centre stage.

For anyone looking to own a book on James Connolly that is not simply a chronological recitation, this has to be number one. Very highly recommended.

CONTACT

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www.anphoblacht.com 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 please contact the Editor first.

AN PHOBLACHT www.anphoblacht.com Kevin Barry House 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone: (+353 1) 872 6 100 Email: editor@anphoblacht.com Layout: production@anphoblacht.com – Mark Dawson

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anphoblacht NEXT ISSUE OUT – Thursday 26th March 2014

Ombudsman probes RUC cases 32

Greysteel ‘Trick or Treat’ and Castlerock loyalist massacre investigations re-examined

BY MARK MOLONEY

THE Police Ombudsman in the North has launched an investigation into how the RUC handled investigations into the actions of a notorious UDA death squad between 1988 and 1993 in Derry and Antrim.

A spokesperson for the Ombudsman said that the issues which have raised concern were uncovered “while carrying out investigations into other matters”.

In 1993, one UDA death squad operating in Derry killed 12 people in two notorious sectarian massacres. In both cases it is alleged that the attacks were carried out with the collusion of British state forces.

On 25 March 1993, a UDA gang shot dead four Catholic workmen as they arrived to work on a housing estate in Castlerock; another man was seriously injured.

At the time, An Phoblacht reported: “The nature of the shooting suggested that one or more of the death squads had received military training.”

The attack also took place within view of an RUC barracks.

One of those killed in the attack was IRA Volunteer James Kelly. Before the killings the men had been regularly stopped and harassed by members of the British military and RUC. Following the attack it emerged that James Kelly’s name and photograph were contained in classified British Intelligence documents passed on to loyalists. His family also say that members of the RUC had told him he would be killed by loyalists unless he became an informer.

Seven months later, the same UDA gang (using the same weapons) opened fire on a Halloween party in the Rising Sun bar in

5 The aftermath of the UDA gun attack on the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel. Torrens Knight (below) was convicted of involvement in the massacre the Derry village of Greysteel. One of the three gunmen yelled “Trick or treat!” before shooting into the lounge with automatic weapons, killing eight people and wounding thirteen.

In 1995, UDA member Torrens Knight was convicted of involvement in both massacres. He was released from prison in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. It has long been suspected that Knight was an agent of the RUC Special Branch. It was later found that he was being paid £50,000 a year through a bogus

Special Branch account on his release. The payments were disclosed after a bank official became suspicious about the payments and reported them to the PSNI. The PSNI later confirmed the payments were “legal”.

Families of those killed in the two attacks said during an earlier investigation: “Collusion was a reality over the decades and in all areas, including County Derry and north Antrim where our relatives were slain by loyalists working hand in hand with Special Branch.”