An Phoblacht, November 2014

PUBLIC REVOLT

BURNING OF LONG KESH 1974

MAÍRIA CAHILL

Mob journalism

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Sraith Nua Iml 37 Uimhir 11

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DUP O

Stormont talks progress stonewalled

by First Minister Peter Robinson’s party

N talks

process O N

5 The men behind Peter Robinson – the DUP’s Maurice Morrow, David McNarry and William McCrea; the Orange Order; TUV’s Jim Allister and PUP’s Billy Hutchinson

2 November / Samhain 2014

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IN PICTURES

photos@anphoblacht.com

WHAT'S INSIDE 7

Loyalist death threats to solicitor and republicans

5 Peadar Tóibín TD shows his support for the anti-fracking campaign

Kincora cover-up fears

9

Slógadh 2014

Building an Alternative

5 Republicans from across Belfast turn out in large numbers and stand with the families of the republican dead from Ardoyne, The Bone and Ligoniel as a mural in honour of the area’s fallen activists was unveiled and rededicated

10 & 11

Mark Langhammer and Peter Bunting

12

Historical Enquiries Team – Historical failure

16 & 17

Dublin and Belfast rally against austerity taxes and Tory cuts

18

Ukraine – Odessa massacre survivor talks to An Phoblacht

Uncomfortable Conversations 19

5 Members of the Irish Farmers’ Association hold a 24-hour protest in Rathdowney, County Laois. Farmers are protesting over unsustainable low prices being paid by meat factories for beef

5 Martina Anderson with Pink Floyd frontman and human rights campaigner Roger Waters after both took part in the Russell Tribunal on Palestine at the European Parliament in Brussels

Dr David Latimer on a way out of the frozen political landscape

26

Brighton Bomb anniversary

Books 28

The public school Citizen Army anarchist

2015 REPUBLICAN

CALENDAR

EVENTS & IDEAS THAT LED TO THE EASTER RISING

5 Mitchel McLaughlin was the keynote speaker at the Peter Corrigan Lecture in Armagh City – pictured here with veteran Armagh republican Tina McNally

5 QUB Sinn Féin signed up record numbers of activists at Freshers’ Week and collected hundreds of signatures in support of Irish unity and against Tory cuts

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November / Samhain 2014 3

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anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht Editorial

DUP looking over their shoulders THE Democratic Unionist Party are looking over their shoulders at their newly-unveiled allies in the ‘pan-unionist front’, including the ‘political advisers’ to the UVF and the UDA. Sitting alongside them at their strategy meetings are the unelected Orange Order with UKIP and a Traditional Unionist Voice party that likely goes to bed dreaming of a return to a unionist one-party Orange state before the Civil Rights campaign.

That’s why there’s political gridlock at Stormont despite the best efforts of Sinn Féin and, it must be said, the SDLP, the Alliance Party and the Green Party.

The Conservatives no longer call themselves the Conservative and Unionist Party but what’s in a name? They are still unionist through and through and this has a negative influence overshadowing the political process in the North of Ireland.

David Cameron hosted a lavish reception in the Downing Street garden exclusively for the DUP in May. Secretary of State Theresa Villiers chose the Ulster Unionist Party conference in October to restate this British Government’s pro-unionism.

Nine days earlier, on the BBC, the British Secretary of State talked down a role for the US administration and explicitly excluded the Irish Government from a role in discussing ‘Strand One’ issues.

She represented her role as that of a facilitator rather than a talks participant.

The DUP is dictating Villiers’ and the NIO’s approach.

The British Government’s pandering to unionist intransigence damages the political process. It undermines the Good Friday and other Agreements’

process and principles, and it strengthens the ascendant unionist anti-Agreement axis.

Republicans have no confidence in the commitment of the British Government to the political process.

This British Government should be part of a pro-Agreement axis, and it is not. While that remains the case, the extremists will set the political agenda.

There must be no diminution of the Irish Government’s co-equal involvement in these talks.

That would be a subversion of Irish democracy.

The political process and institutions must be robustly defended and sustained.

Trilateral Irish, American and British Government commitment to the Good Friday Agreement political model and momentum is critical to the success of these talks.

the policing vacuum. This included dealing with criminality and on occasion abusers.

The IRA, while well-intentioned, was ill-equipped to deal with this complex and sensitive issue. They had only recourse to expedient methods of punishment.

Gerry Adams has acknowledged that the approach of the past failed victims.

The conflict is over and there are now fully accountable civic policing and legal processes in the North.

There is a need to ensure support for victims of

abuse and safeguard the community. That is why it is necessary for anyone with any information on abuse to come forward to the relevant authorities.

This includes members of the community and those making allegations of a republican cover-up.

Despite the politicisation of this issue by elements in the media, An Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil and Labour Party leaders, we must recognise the failings of the past and not be distracted from the pressing need to support victims of abuse in the here and now.

Maíria Cahill THE CASE of Maíria Cahill created significant media and political discussion. Sinn Féin rightly refutes any allegations of a cover-up but it must be remembered, in the midst of the shrill anti-republican voices in the media and political parties, there is a victim of abuse.

In the past, the primary focus of policing and the legal system in the North, was to prosecute a war against republicans. It was to safeguard the state and not the people.

Into this, the community looked to the IRA to fill

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RESTORE RESPITE CARE GRANT

BY MICHAEL NOLAN SINN FÉIN has joined forces with a number of carers’ groups to launch an appeal to the Irish Government to reverse cuts made to the Respite Care Grant two years ago.

The cut of €325 was part of Budget 2013 and has been described by many of those dependent on it as “cruel”.

Sinn Féin spokesperson for Social Protection, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, along with party colleague Mary Lou McDonald TD, invited a number of the carers’ groups to Leinster House on 22 October where they met TDs and senators from all parties..

A new online petition has also been launched calling on the Taoiseach and the Minister for Social Protection to ensure that the full Respite Care Grant is restored in the Social Welfare Bill due to be enacted on November 18.

Many of those signing the petition have described what the payment means to them and their loved ones.

Kieran from Dungarvan said: “The cut to Respite Care Grant was a cruel blow to a minority of citizens who could never protest as a group because they are too busy caring. Carers work tirelessly, are healthcare providers, nurses, personal hygienists. They work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”

Rose from Tullamore said: “I depend on respite care grant to heat my home for the year and also to take a weekend break (once yearly when on full grant) to recharge my batteries.”

Deputy Ó Snodaigh said: “Restoring the Respite Care Grant should have been a priority. In the overall scheme of things we are not talking about a huge sum of money 5 Launch of Sinn Féin’s Alternative Budget 2015 – Pearse Doherty, Mary Lou McDonald, Gerry Adams, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin – just €29.6million out of a budget of billions.” and Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Sign the petition – www.change.org/p/minister-for-social-protection-restore-respite-care-grant

4 November / Samhain 2014

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‘Law and order’ parties jettison court verdicts for political point scoring

Maíria Cahill case exploited by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil

“Dáil Éireann is not a court of law, neither is POLITICAL OPPONENTS and long-standing anti-republican commentators in the media the media.”

The legal adviser added: are shamelessly exploiting alleged rape victim “I am seriously concerned that in the course Maíria Cahill in a bid to damage Sinn Féin of the parliamentary debates some will seek to and topple Gerry Adams.

hide behind ‘parliamentary privilege’ and conduct their own ‘kangaroo court’.”

The media furore has prompted the Public Prosecution Service to review three cases linked to what BBC News still describes as “the alleged rape of Belfast woman Maíria Cahill”. The move by the PPS has been endorsed by Sinn Féin.

Gerry Adams and other Sinn Féin leaders have reiterated Sinn Féin’s position that people who have suffered sexual abuse – from whatever quarter – should take their cases and evidence to An Garda Síochána or the Health Service Executive in the South, or the PSNI or Social Services in the North.

In a lengthy speech in Belfast on 25 October (the full text can be read on the An Phoblacht website), Gerry Adams said: “Nobody doubts that Maíria has been through great distress. I have never doubted that she suffered abuse. And, like every citizen, she is fully entitled to truth and justice.”

The allegations made by Maíria Cahill, though, “have been seized upon in the most cynical, calculated and opportunistic way” by Sinn Féin’s political opponents, he said.

“Their aim has little to do with helping victims of abuse but everything to do with furthering their own narrow political agendas.

“The serious and sensitive issues of abuse should be dealt with in a victim-centred when she withdrew her evidence. Four people alleged to have been an IRA investigation team way by the appropriate authorities.” were also acquitted.

The legal verdicts, however, have been cast aside by the mainstream media and political opponents (ironically, from parties who have long lectured Sinn Féin on accepting ‘the rule of law’) who have sought to retry the cases again – trial by media.

Such was the flagrant disregard by political opportunists and the anti-republican media to drive their agenda way beyond the bounds of acceptable comment or investigative journalism that solicitor Peter Madden felt compelled to make public on 24 October his letter to Taoiseach Enda Kenny on behalf of four clients named by the media.

In reference to comments in the Dáil made by the Fine Gael leader himself that week, Peter Madden said that, on 22 October, “during the course of exchanges in Dáil Éireann, An Taoiseach set aside the judicial process and ignored the findings of a court of law”.

Peter Madden reminded “An Taoiseach and others that there are still unresolved legal matters on this issue in relation to one of my clients” 5 Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin and that: The BBC TV Spotlight programme broadcast on 14 October came just five days after an Ipsos/ MRBI poll put Sinn Féin popularity level pegging with the largest Government party in the South.

Spotlight reported that Maíria, a grand-niece of IRA legend Joe Cahill, was raped and sexually abused in 1997, when she was 16, by a man claimed to have been a member of the IRA. The Spotlight programme included the alleged role of the IRA in investigating the case, her meetings with Gerry Adams to discuss what she had been through, and her case taken by the police and the Public Prosecution Service but which she refused to pursue.

A man accused by Maíria Cahill was subsequently charged with rape but was acquitted by the courts

Solicitor Peter Madden wrote to Taoiseach Enda Kenny to tell him he had ‘set aside the judicial process and ignored the findings of a court of law – the Dáil is not a court of law, neither is the media’

5 Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach Enda Kenny with Maíria Cahill at Government Buildings

The Taoiseach has repeatedly claimed that he has knowledge of alleged child abusers from the North but living in the South, Gerry Adams said.

“He says that others have given him information identifying these alleged child abusers. He has raised alarm and concern on this issue.

“Has the Taoiseach gone to the Garda with this information? Has he insisted that those who gave him this information go to the Garda? If not , why not?”

He added: “There are many legacy issues arising from the conflict. Sinn Féin accepts our responsibility to help bring about the resolution of these issues. That is not our responsibility

alone. The governments and others must deal with the past also.”

He continued: “How the various protagonists dealt with the issue of sexual abuse is clearly one of the legacy issues which needs to be resolved as part of the necessary business of dealing with the past.

“I have acknowledged that while IRA Volunteers were acting in good faith, the IRA was not equipped to deal with these difficult matters. But

‘The difficult issues raised

by Maíria Cahill must be addressed. But there are processes for doing this.

They should be applied and respected. Let us be clear – this is not achievable by exploiting her story in a blatant effort to demonise Sinn Féin’ GERRY ADAMS the clock cannot be turned back. Sinn Féin cannot change what happened in the past. But we can acknowledge failure. That is what I have done.”

Gerry Adams ended by insisting that Sinn Féin is not part of any conspiracy to protect child abusers or to cover up abuse.

“The difficult issues raised by Maíria Cahill must be addressed. But there are processes for doing this. They should be applied and respected.

“Let us be clear – this is not achievable by exploiting her story in a blatant effort to demonise Sinn Féin.”

November / Samhain 2014 5

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5 Maíria Cahill at the centre of media attention after she met Taoiseach Enda Kenny at Government Buildings

5 Gutter journalism – Daily Mirror’s allegations against the late Joe Cahill

MOB JOURNALISM

BY RÓISÍN CUSACK ONE of the most important elements in ensuring Ireland today will be egalitarian and democratic is the media that comments on, criticises and investigates how that society operates. The newspapers, radio and TV news and current affairs programmes, together with the growing number of online news services that make up the Irish media, all have a role to play in holding that society to account, as do the increasingly small number of wealthy or powerful owners of mainstream media outlets.

For republicans, being called to account by the media in Ireland and internationally has been challenging, and most Sinn Féin activists and public representatives feel the party is getting a raw deal, that the news media is decidedly biased and partisan against Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin members want truth and accuracy in how the media reports the party’s activities but what actually happens is a combination of ceaseless attacks and criticism.

Liz O’Donnell

In October, the Sunday Independent reported continually for the resignation of Gerry Adams. how the Press Ombudsman upheld a complaint by Alongside this is criticism of other parties and Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD that a report groups who do not measure up to those critics in that paper was in breach of the ‘Principles of who do not want Sinn Féin in government or Truth and Accuracy and Respect for Rights’ in the even in elected office, whatever the voters want.

Press Council of Ireland’s Code The Sunday Independent (19 of Practice for Newspapers and October) accused RTÉ of allowThere has been Magazines. ing Sinn Féin “a soft ride on Cahill an ongoing media The Sunday Independent had case”. Liz O’Donnell gets castiwrongfully claimed that Gerry campaign to attack and gated for her views made in an Adams had “tried to gag” the Irish Independent article earlier undermine Sinn Féin that week on “low blows against paper. However, in that paper’s same edition there was no fewer and lobby continually Sinn Féin”. This becomes “Liz than 13 other articles criticising lazy reflections”. Is for the resignation of O’Donnell’s Sinn Féin and its elected reprethis really how the news media Gerry Adams sentatives, principally Gerry in Ireland sees its role?

The Daily Mirror jumped on Adams and Mary Lou McDonald, in respect of the allegation by Maíria Cahill the bandwagon with a front-page headline on 20 that she was raped in 1997.

October claiming: “British spies recruited paedo IRA The trauma and hurt that Maíria had articu- chief”. In this case it was Joe Cahill, a grand-unlated in that day’s paper, in the previous week’s cle of Maíria. The article’s anonymous sources BBC TV Spotlight programme, in included unnamed “intelligence the subsequent news coverage Why does scrutiny of sources” and an unnamed “senior on radio, TV, newspapers and Sinn Féin morph into IRAIt’ssource”. online cannot be quantified or a strange world where an endless torrent of supposed IRA sources are detracted from. prepared to talk to the Daily There are, though, other snarkiness, aspects to the news coverage that back-biting and vitriol Mirror and surely it would have merit comment and criticism, more a news splash to aimed at the party, its made one being the lack of a voice for make these allegations when representatives and the republicans scrutinised in the Cahill was alive? original Spotlight programme Alison O’Connor in the Irish supporters? and the subsequent surge in Examiner of 24 October asks: media comment on the Maíria Cahill controversy. “Why is Gerry Adams still the leader of Sinn Féin?”

There has been an ongoing media campaign The Irish Times editorial of 21 October calls on to attack and undermine Sinn Féin and lobby Sinn Féin’s public representatives to show that they

5 The Press Ombudsman upheld complaints over the truth and accuracy of Sindo reports

“are not just the dupes of the Sinn Féin machine”.

A Sunday Times editorial (1 June) titled “Parties need to burst Sinn Féin’s electoral bubble” advises: “The Coalition needs to spend its remaining term of office nailing Sinn Féin’s economic lies.”

The Sunday Business Post the same day flagged an article on the front page titled: “How Sinn Féin will destroy your pension”, while the Sunday Independent had “Sinn Féin searching for soft coalition partners.”

It is entirely right that Sinn Féin’s actions and policies be subject to rigorous scrutiny but why does this supposed scrutiny morph into an endless torrent of snarkiness, back-biting and vitriol aimed at the party, its representatives and supporters?

The last and perhaps most important words go to Dolan O’Hagan, Executive Editor of the Irish Examiner. He wrote on 22 October: “The time has come to stop the political point scoring . . . What is at stake is far more important than that. For a truly better and shared Ireland the debate and commentary must centre on the issues and policies that will shape our future, not the issues and dysfunctions that shaped our past.”

Alison O’Connor

6 November / Samhain 2014

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BY-ELECTIONS

Strong showings for Sinn Féin

BY ROBBIE SMYTH WHILE disappointment was probably the first reaction of many republican supporters after being pipped for the Dublin South-West by-election seat by the Socialist Party’s Paul Murphy running under the flag of the Anti-Austerity Alliance, the Sinn Féin performances there and in Roscommon/South Leitrim in October were, in fact, very good and augur well for the next Dáil general election.

5 Cathal King topped the poll in Dublin South West with 30.3% but just missed out on transfers at the eight count

In Dublin South-West, Cathal King topped the poll with 30.3% of the vote and was just beaten on the eighth count for the seat.

In Roscommon/South Leitrim (where winning Independent candidate Michael Fitzmaurice had the backing of outgoing TD Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, whose European Parliament success caused the by-election), Sinn Féin’s Martin Kenny was third on the first count, holding on until the fifth.

In the Seanad by-election, the key transfer of 11 of the 22 votes for Sinn Féin’s Catherine Seeley to Independent candidate Gerard Craughwell played a decisive role in his election. It brought a fitting end to the Fine Gael debacle surrounding this seat and the opportunistic cronyism that characterised the candidacy of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s nominee, John McNulty.

5 Martin Kenny almost doubled the Sinn Féin vote in Roscommon/South Leitrim

Dublin South-West growth The return of Seán Crowe to the Dáil in 2011 was the catalyst for more growth in this constituency reflected in the increased representation across the South Dublin County Council area in this summer’s local authority and EU elections.

In the 2014 local elections, Sinn Féin won 18,411 votes, 23.9% of the vote, nearly double the 2009 performance, with the party electing nine councillors and becoming the single largest group on South Dublin County Council.

Cathal King’s by-election performance demonstrates that this support is still solid despite the negative campaigns of the party’s rivals. With a vastly-decreased turnout, nearly half of that recorded in 2011, the Sinn Féin first-preference vote tally was almost at the 2011 figure, with the party’s vote share jumping from 17.7% in 2011 to 30.3% in 2014.

Roscommon/South Leitrim Sinn Féin elected four members to Leitrim County Council in May 2014, with 19.19% of the vote, an increase of 6.65% on 2009. In Roscommon, the party elected one councillor, Michael Mulligan, from the Athlone electoral area.

Across Roscommon, Sinn Féin won

8.02% of first-preferences, up 3.79% on the 2009 total. In the May local elections, Sinn Féin took 5,085 first-preferences in the local authority areas of Carrick on Shannon and Ballinamore from South Leitrim and the Athlone, Boyle and Roscommon electoral areas that make up Roscommon County Council.

With 5,906 votes in the same electoral area this time around, it’s clear that the party is still growing in this constituency.

The failing Establishment parties I n th e D u bl i n S o u th -We s t

5 Catherine Seeley’s transfers were key to preventing a Fine Gael victory

5 Gerard Craughwell

constituency, Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil all lost votes on their 2011 performance.

For Fianna Fáil (who had a disastrous showing in 2011, losing two TDs here), the party trailed in fifth on the first count with 8.7% of the vote, a further 2.7% down on 2011 and a perhaps unbridgeable chasm from the 39.27% the party won here in 2007.

Fine Gael’s vote was down 19% in this constituency compared with 2011 and the Labour Party fell a massive 27.8%, making both the Labour seats look shaky next time around.

For Fine Gael in Roscommon/South

a Fianna Fáil TD to Leinster House with Sinn Féin the clear beneficiary and gaining increasing voter endorsement.

Leitrim there was another substantial vote shedding with the party down 21.7% on the 2011 election. The Labour Party came in sixth on the first count, down 3.3% to 6.1%.

Fianna Fáil did record a 7.1% increase on 2011 but their 22% is some way off the 38.84% the party won in 2007. Most interestingly is that Fianna Fáil won 35% of the Roscommon vote in the 2014 local elections and 34% across the Leitrim electoral areas but wasn’t able to repeat that performance in the by-election.

One conclusion of this is that the local electorate is still wary of returning

Sinn Féin Roscommon/South Leitrim Vote

%

Turnout %

2011

4,627

9.76%

77.88%

2014

5,906

17.7%

53.84%

Sinn Féin Dublin South-West Vote

%

Turnout %

2011

8.064

17.17%

66.51%

2014

7,288

30.3%

34.49%

The real opposition Across the 26 Counties, annual budgets and five-year county council development plans are being drawn up this winter, with greater Sinn Féin involvement than ever before. It is a significant step in the party’s growing importance and relevance.

Sinn Féin is beginning a long-term process of reforming the first tier of government in the state and, for the first time ever, providing an electoral voice to disenfranchised communities ignored by the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/ Labour hegemony of the past that believed that local government was solely a tool for political advancement, cronyism and, at times, endemic corruption.

Five months from the May local elections, the by-election results show that the Sinn Féin message is still growing across the state and that Sinn Féin are the true opposition to the current coalition and the failed Fianna Fáil party.

November / Samhain 2014 7

www.anphoblacht.com

Loyalist death threats to solicitor and republicans

BY PEADAR WHELAN

√

Paul Maskey MP

A WEST BELFAST solicitor under threat from loyalists has insisted he will not be deterred from continuing to represent his clients.

And two Belfast republicans working with unionist and loyalist communities have also received death threats.

Solicitor Pádraig Ó Muirigh was informed by the PSNI on Friday 17 October that loyalists were monitoring his movements and intended to attack him.

It has since emerged in media reports that members of a UDA death squad implicated in the assassination of well-known human rights lawyer Pat Finucane, shot dead in his home

in front of his family in February 1989, was convicted earlier this year for head are behind the threats to Ó Muirigh. butting her and received a suspended The threat is said to be linked to one sentence.

She has since been forced from her home after a series of attacks. Ó Muirigh described the threat, coming from a gang previously involved in killing a solicitor, as a “sinister development” but said he will continue to represent his clients, including Tracey Coulter.

‘Mo’ Courtney was named as a member of the gang, including five British agents, that assassinated Pat Finucane. He was subsequently identiof the solicitor’s clients, Shankill Road fied as agent L/22 in QC Desmond de woman Tracey Coulter.

Silva’s report into collusion between Ms Coulter has been involved in a British state forces and the death squad long-running dispute with Shankill UDA behind Pat Finucane’s death. chief William ‘Mo’ Courtney. Courtney Meanwhile, Sinn Féin MP Paul Maskey

UDA death squad members implicated in the assassination of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane are reported to be behind the threats to another solicitor

is calling on loyalists responsible for issuing death threats against west Belfast republicans, former Belfast Mayor now historian Tom Hartley and Seánna Walsh to withdraw them immediately.

News of the threats, linked to the UVF, emerged on Wednesday 22 October.

Paul Maskey said: “Tom Hartley and Séanna Walsh have been engaged with unionists and loyalists for most of the last 20 years of the Peace Process on a range of topics.

“Many of these engagements have been in loyalist areas. At no time did either Tom or Séanna encounter any hostility to their presence.

“These death threats need to be lifted to ensure this essential peace-building work can continue in unionist and loyalist areas.”

5 Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast

Kincora announcement fuels fears of ‘cover-up’

BY PEADAR WHELAN

“THERE NEEDS to be an independent inquiry into the sexual abuse of boys in the Kincora Boys Home,” said Sinn Féin’s West Belfast MP Paul Maskey after the British Government said on 21 October that the Kincora Boys’ Home will not be part of its Woolf inquiry looking into child sex abuse but will be included in the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry chaired by Judge Anthony Hart.

The West Belfast MP said that, without the power to compel members of the British intelligence organisation MI5 or the other British security services, the Hart inquiry will be “impotent”.

Maskey said the suggestion by secretary of State Theresa Villiers that all British Government departments will

‘MI5 weren’t just aware of child abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home – they were monitoring it’ KEN LIVINGSTONE

“co-operate to the utmost of their ability in determining what material they hold that might be relevant” flies in the face of openness as the onus is with them to decide what is relevant and not Judge Hart.

At the centre of the Kincora affair was Housemaster William McGrath. McGrath was the head of loyalist paramilitary group Tara and a man central to the formation of the loyalist Ulster Defence Association in 1971.

McGrath was also closely connected to senior figures in both major unionist parties as well as having links to the Orange Order.

Former Labour Party MP Ken Livingstone said earlier this year: “MI5 weren’t just aware of child abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home – they were monitoring it. They were getting pictures of a judge in one case,

5 Kincora housemaster and Tara leader William McGrath

politicians, a lot of the Establishment of Northern Ireland going in and abusing these boys.”

One of those most vocal in his reaction to October’s British Government announcement was Colin Wallace, an “information officer” at the British Army HQ psychological warfare section in the North in the mid-1970s.

Writing for the Spinwatch Public Interest Investigations website, Wallace wrote: “It would appear that, in both England and Northern Ireland, MI5 prevented the police and/or the [British] Army

from taking action against those who were systematically sexually abusing children.

“Surely this obvious link between MI5’s apparent role in covering up abuse in both England and Northern Ireland should be investigated by a single inquiry and not two separate inquiries?

“Also, any meaningful inquiry must have the power to demand the full disclosure of all relevant official documents and records and to subpoena witnesses to give evidence under oath.”

8 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

Top PSNI briefings on answering inquests into controversial killings

BY PEADAR WHELAN UNIONISTS and the mainstream media were wrong when they accused Sinn Féin and Policing Board member Caitríona Ruane MLA of trying to block the appointment of PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris because he was the man who signed the arrest warrant for Gerry Adams earlier this year.

5Ruane informed the Policing Board about the need for absolute transparency

Caitríona Ruane withdrew from the process in September and called for a new panel, arguing

It is worth noting, however, that Drew Harris was in the news more recently when it was discovered that he and retired Deputy Chief Constable Judith Gillespie addressed meetings with retired RUC and PSNI personnel where it is believed they were briefed on how to deal with inquests into controversial killings by state forces.

Advisers from the PSNI’s Legacy Support Unit also attended.

Gillespie addressed the meeting on “the legacy landscape” while Harris spoke about “the view from crime operations”.

Crime Operations, which Harris headed up before his promotion, includes the C3 Intelligence unit, formerly Special Branch.

It was members of C3 who acted as ‘gatekeepers’, deciding what information would be passed to investigators and the Historical Enquiries Team (HET).

This knowledge, added to the fact that 15 of the 17 HET investigators were either retired RUC or PSNI members, closes the circle showing how Special Branch and its successor, C3, is a malign force with the power to ensure that the state and its agents escape with impunity.

Crime Operations, which Harris headed up before his promotion, includes the C3 Intelligence unit, formerly Special Branch that the process was flawed and urging that a new one be convened.

In a statement on Monday 15 September, she said: “I informed the Policing Board of my concerns about the need for absolute transparency in the recruitment process for the post of DCC in writing on Friday.

“I outlined serious concerns I have about the process. I then made it clear today that I could not take any further part in the current process.

It is the integrity of the process which is most important in my view.

“I want to make it clear that none of my concerns reflect in any way on either of the two senior officers involved. They are clearly not at fault here.”

5 PSNI’s Drew Harris and Judith Gillespie

5 Caitríona Ruane MLA

HET to be scrapped . . .

Historical failure to deal with state’s past SEE PAGES 10 & 11

New inquest into RUC killing of Pearse Jordan THE upholding by the Court of Appeal of a High Court’s quashing of a 2012 inquest verdict into the shooting dead of unarmed IRA Volunteer Pearse Jordan in Belfast in 1992 opens the way for a fresh inquest into the controversial killing.

The Chief Constable of the PSNI and the inquest coroner were challenging the High Court decision delivered in January.

Pearse Jordan was shot dead by the RUC on the Falls Road in November 1992.

The 23-year-old was unarmed when he was gunned down although the RUC initially issued statements claiming he was armed. It was considered by nationalists to have been a summary execution amongst a number of ‘shoot-to-kill’ assassinations carried out by the RUC. No member of the undercover crown forces unit that killed him was ever brought before a court.

The PSNI has been held by the courts to be responsible for the long delay in holding an inquest.

When the inquest was eventually held, in 2012, it failed to reach agree-

The unarmed 23-yearold IRA Volunteer was shot dead by the RUC on the Falls Road in 1992 ment on key aspects of the killing of Pearse Jordan.

The jury was split on whether reasonable force was used in the circumstances, the state-of-belief on the part of the officer who fired the fatal shots,

and whether any alternative course of action was open to him.

Pearse’s family mounted a legal challenge as part of their ongoing campaign to achieve justice.

January’s High Court decision was based on a number of grounds, including a failure to disclose the Stalker/Sampson reports into other shoot-to-kill cases to the Jordan family and the decision to sit with a jury.

West Belfast Sinn Féin MLA Pat Sheehan said of the Appeal Court ruling in mid-October: “The judges clearly recognised that the original inquest was obviously flawed.

“This is yet another vindication of the long campaign for justice by Pearse’s parents, Hugh and Teresa.

“A fresh inquest will hopefully reveal the truth about Pearse’s killing.”

5 Pearse Jordan is remembered at a commemoration in February

www.anphoblacht.com

November / Samhain 2014

5 Honor Ó Brolcháin

9

5 Eoghan Mac Cormáic le Gerry Adams agus Martina Anderson

Athbheocan na Gaeilge cuspóir Shinn Féin LÉ PEADAR Ó FAOLÁIN THUAR Uachtarán Shinn Féin, Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh TD, go bhfuil cuma ghruama ar thodhchaí na Gaeltachta agus é ag oscailt Slógadh Shinn Féin 2014. Agus é ag labhairt ag an Slógadh i gCultúrlann Uí Chanáin, i nDoire, thuar sé go ‘bhfaighfidh an Ghaeltacht bás mura ndéanann an rialtas gníomh láithreach.’

I dtaca le sin dúirt sé, “is mithid do Rialtas na hÉireann gníomhú gan moill nó is amhlaidh atá imeacht in éag in ndán do na ceantracha Gaeltachta.” Chuir leis an argóint nuair a mhaígh sé, ‘deir na saineolaithe go mbásfar na Gaeltachtaí taobh istigh de tríocha bhliain muna ndéanann an rialtas idirghabháil go luath.

Ina theannta dúirt Mac Ádhaimh, “tá an rialtas ag déanamh an mhion obair agus ag déanamh neamart ar an Ghaeilge.”

Mhol sé Seán Ó Cuirreáin as an dian obair a rinne sé agus é mar oifigeach na Gaeilge agus gheall sé tacaíocht Shinn Féin ar Rónan Ó Domhnaill an coimisinéir nua-cheaptha. Mhol sé comh maith, Carál Ní Chuilín agus an feachtas ‘Líofa’ agus bhí moltach as John O’Dowd as an mhéid tacaíocht a bhronn sé ar an ghaeloideachas ina ról mar Aire Oideachais sna sé contae.

Bhí Aire Cultúir, Carál Ní Chuilín i láthair ag an Slógadh comh maith agus dúirt sí go bhfuil an

5 Carál Ní Chuilín, Gerry Adams, Martina Anderson, Trevor Ó Clochartaigh agus Raymond McCartney

sprioc a bhí aici don scéim ‘Líofa’ ná go mbeadh 5000 duine líofa sa Ghaeilge fá 2015, ag sárú na tuartha ar fad agus meastar go mbeadh rath ollmhór i gceist leis an scéim.

Rinne Róise Ní Thoirealaigh MLA, an chéad seisiún a stiúradh ina ról mar chathaoirleach.

Bhí aochainteoirí ceannairí Éirí Amach na Cásca i láthair agus labhair ar scéalta a gclainne. Is iad na painéalaithe a bhí i láthair ná, James Connolly Heron, garmhac le James Connolly, Honor Ó Brolacháin, iarua le Josepth Plunkett agus Éamonn Mac Diarmada as Cathair Dhoire.

Ba é, ‘My Grandparents and the struggle for

5 Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, Gerry Adams, Honor Ó Brolcháin agus James Connolly Heron

Irish freedom’ an teideal a bhí ar léacht Mac Diarmada. D’inis Mac Diarmada scéaltaí a shean-tuistí agus dhírigh sé ar an ról a bhí acu in Éirí Amach na Cásca agus i dtaca le sin rinne sé iarracht spiorad an tSlógaidh a léiriú nuair a thug sé cearn dá léacht trí mhéan na Gaeilge.

Thug sé sracfhéachaint ar an stair a bhí bainte lena shean-tuistí agus na cúiseanna a b’éigin dóibh Doire a fhágáil le bunú an stáit ó thuaidh.

Thug Honor Ó Brolcháin caint ar shaol Joseph Plunkett agus an ról pleanála stratéis mhíleata a bhí aige le linn chruthú an Éirí Amach. Bhí sí ábalta mion sonraí agus íomhánna éifeacha a

úsáid le linn an léacht agus thug léargas cruinn beacht ar shaol Plunkett agus ná rudaí a bhí acu air a shaol mar shampla, an eitinn (TB) agus caidreamh s’aige le Grace Gifford.

Labhair James Connolly Heron ar an tábhacht atá le coimhéad agus comóradh.

Cé go raibh sé dírithe ar shaol James Connolly bhí sé tábhachtach aige an feachtas ‘Moore Street’ a léiriú agus a chuir chun cinn. Ba é Moore an lonnadh deireanach a bhí ag an Rialtas Sealadach a bunaíodh le Forógra 1916. Chaith cúigear as an seachtar sínítheoir a n-oíche dheireanach de shaoirse ann. I dtaca le sin tá Connolly Heron bainte le na teaghlaigh de bhaill troda 1916 agus is guth é in aghaidh an droch beartaíocht atá idir lámha ag an rialtas maidir le comóraidthe céad bliain atá ag druidim linn. Tar éis cruinniú eagraithe ag 1916 Relatives Association ar an 12ú Deireadh Fómhar, dúirt rúnaí an ghrúpa Úna MacNulty dúirt sí, “tá díoma orainn faoin dóigh atá an rialtas ag caitheamh le cuimhne na fir agus mná a fuair bás ar son cruthú na tíre agus an deacracht atá ann iad fiú a chuimhniú”.

Sa tráthnóna sin bhí ionadaithe ó Conradh na Gaeilge, Cumann na bhFiann, Glór na nGael, Gael Linn agus Coiste Infheistíocha Gaeilge ag plé a bpleananna leis an Gaeilge a chur chun cinn.

Bá é an Seanadóir Trevor Ó Clochartaigh a bhí ina chathaoirleach sa díospóireacht sin.

Ag labhairt i ndiadh an tslógaidh dúirt Míchéal Ó Domhnaill, a bhí ina eagraí den lá go raibh sé sásta leis.

5 Caoimhín Mac Giolla Mhín, Coiste Infheistíocha Gaeilge, agus Caitríona Ní Cheallaigh, Cumann na bhFiann

10 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

MARK LANGHAMMER

Elected member ICTU Northern Ireland Committee

Writing in personal capacity

Border poll needs a wider canvass THE Scottish referendum has increased speculation about a Border poll here.

The Scottish campaign was mature and enthusiastic, particularly on the ‘Yes’ side. Although Scotland (like here) is socially conservative, enabling 16-year-olds to vote, combined with the ‘networked’ campaigns of Radical Independence, National Collective, the Common Weal platform, blogs like Gerry Hassan and Bella Caledonia, William McIlvanney’s ‘Dreaming Scotland’ (and others) energised politics as never before.

Exit polling suggests that, but for heavy ‘No’ returns from older voters, Scotland might now be independent.

Socialist voters ignored Labour in the Glasgow and central belt heartlands, with cuts and the NHS major factors. Essentially, 1.6million Scottish voters voted ‘Yes’ to stay the same – to retain social responsibility, social democracy and a decent, civilised, welfare safety net. The Scottish vote is best understood as a vote for social solidarity and against free market liberalism.

Would our Border poll energise a similarly mature political debate? Today, a Border poll might stimulate communal antagonism but there are two ‘live’ issues with capacity to erode traditional communal voting blocs.

One is that a Border poll would highlight the semi-detached, quarantined and unquestionably second-class nature of ‘Northern Ireland’ within the UK state. A second is the effect that a growing Ireland would have within a successful Eurozone, combined with the potential of a British exit (“Brexit”) from the EU. Comparing our Border poll with Scotland’s is like comparing apples with bananas. Scotland is an integral part of the UK. Its votes elect real governments. It elects Cabinet ministers like Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, George Robertson and Robin Cook, to name a recent few. Northern Ireland doesn’t. No one here casts a vote to elect (or chuck out) a UK government and no major British party seeks a mandate here.

Dr Pat Walsh’s recent book, Catastrophe, The Catholic Predicament in Northern Ireland (Athol Books, 2014), sets out clearly that the purpose of the ‘Northern Ireland’ entity was never good government but rather an imperial device to retain purchase on the whole island. And ‘unionists’ consciously rejected the British party political road long ago, adopting a ‘settler’ mentality.

Within the context of a Border poll, at least

5 Would a Border poll in Ireland energise a similar mature political debate?

some Protestant middle-class people are bound to ask – is it full citizenship within a new Ireland?

Or second-class, semi-detached, quarantined status within the UK? Don’t expect them to be happy, or to campaign. But, in the privacy of the ballot box, who knows?

Game-changer The real game-changer is Europe.

The European Union is in decline, the practical idealism developed under Christian Democratic

tutelage gone. Europe’s problems started when it dismantled its founding protectionist policies and adopted globalist, free market financial policies, at Britain’s behest. Now this is unravelling in Scotland, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Belgium, Ukraine, Moldova and elsewhere. Outwith the EU, we see rumblings of a pan-European counter-balance to Anglo-Saxon high finance.

Since the European Commission was stripped of its lead role in the 1990s, the EU has experienced decision-making paralysis. This paralysis

5 Berlin Wall – Germany has been preoccupied in constructing a unified German state, then the Eurozone

obliged Eurozone states to make decisions by “enhanced co-operation” outside EU structures.

Few people ‘get’ this.

Notwithstanding its historic reticence and disabling war guilt, Germany has reluctantly asserted its place as Europe’s most powerful nation. It moved decisively with France to keep Britain ‘out of the room’ to save the currency – a conscious effort to rebut the traditional, disruptive British ‘balancing powers’ instinct.

And these days, where Germany and France lead, Ireland follows.

True, Germany doesn’t relish transferring subsidies to less-efficient southern economies.

It doesn’t concede that German Eurozone trade benefits from the inability of other countries to competitively devalue. A weak euro helps German exports outside the Eurozone. Yet, in defending the euro, Germany has proposed a fiscal compact, an outcome which may see a northern European budgetary and taxation area.

Since communism collapsed, Germany has been preoccupied in constructing a unified German state, then the Eurozone. It now confronts choices it hasn’t faced for 70 years.

Germany remains a vibrant manufacturer, producing huge annual trade surpluses. Its vocational education and apprenticeship system is without parallel. German domestic banking remains utilitarian and German society is culturally resistant to consumer or state debt. Germany nowadays resembles a mercantilist economy in the midst of a free trade area.

So let’s imagine that the German domestic banking model prevails throughout the Eurozone. Imagine a Financial Transaction Tax and a European ban on derivative financial products. Imagine the separation of investment from savings banks, with state aid for banks only in return for public shareholding and ‘co-determination’. What odds then for a German-led Europe seeking an alternative to finance capitalist austerity? The jury’s out but the noises are getting more positive.

Then imagine a United Kingdom set on “Brexit”.

Not that the EU matters much, since all the ‘action’ is within the Eurozone fiscal compact.

Ireland at the heart of a German-led Eurozone versus an isolated, unproductive UK, shrinking as a financial centre and reliant on ever-more mendacious speculation?

In my book, that would be a choice worth having a referendum on.

November / Samhain 2014 11

www.anphoblacht.com

PETER BUNTING

Assistant General Secretary Irish Congress of Trade Unions

Tough decisions SAMMY WILSON was on the radio again, talking about tough decisions. Sinn Féin’s Mitchel McLaughlin did not deserve to be the Speaker of the Assembly because his party was ‘incapable of taking tough decisions on welfare reform’. The DUP, on the other hand, could take tough decisions. That is why they were taking the tough decision to renege on an agreement about which MLA would replace the DUP’s Willie Hay as Speaker.

You tend not to see toughness being applied upwards. You don’t hear calls for Corporation Tax to be raised by 50% to the level it was at in the boom year of 2006; you hear calls for it to be halved again to the tax haven levels of Dublin.

You don’t hear calls for EU-wide actions to prevent firms like JTI Gallaher shifting to cheaper

You tend not to see toughness being applied upwards. Reform is for the little people. The perks of the poor are luxuries which cannot be afforded labour markets in Romania; you hear demands that the EU scraps the Tobacco Directive.

Reform is for the little people. The perks of the poor are luxuries which cannot be afforded.

There is an argument that what we have in Stormont right now is an outbreak of politics and that, between now and the general election of May 2015 (perhaps even until the Assembly elections due in 2016), the main item on the agenda is not one which is rigidly sectarian but about economics.

There is a real ideological cleavage opening in Stormont, with the DUP and most (but not all) unionists and the Alliance Party applying what could be called a direct rule mentality.

Their excuse is that if the Assembly strays too far from the path of Tory rectitude, the Treasury will sanction us, fine us and then offer us a loan to be paid off next year’s allowance. This is a cross between paternalist patron and Mafia loanshark.

It makes a mockery of devolution and a display of just how lopsided is Stormont’s relationship with Westminster.

We are facing the same dilemmas as the Scots as they consider their place post-referendum, but also the Welsh and the regions of the north of England – the shifting of wealth and power to London.

“Any halfway serious investigation of the relationships between our nations and regions

5 The DUP’s Sammy Wilson MLA

prosperous, from the cradle to the grave, is a core value of our movement, one that unites the creeds and classes.

We look forward to further and more productive discussions with Ivan Lewis, as with all political leaders. We even look forward to our next meeting with Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s pointman for point-scoring on Radio Ulster’s The Nolan Show. We might remind him that when all was well with the parties in the Executive, back in January 2012, he told The Irish News that the trade unions should “shut up” with 5 ICTU protest in defence of workers’ rights and against Tory welfare cuts

will end up showing how much of Britain’s business model is built on taking wealth and power from across the country and handing it to a small cabal of financiers and businesspeople in central London,” wrote the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty.

Money is being sucked into London and the offshore accounts of the super-rich faster than The Sunday Times Rich List can keep up.

Democracy in Britain is becoming as distorted by corporate cash as it is in the US. Take the Lobbying Act, passed this year after another scandal involving lobbying MPs and peers with chequebooks and directorships. The finished Act ignores this legalised bribery and instead is an attempt to regulate into neutrality trade unions and charities who dare speak out against the enforced consensus of neoliberalism.

We in the trade union movement have no intention of shutting up.

Our members are under attack, as is the concept of a decent and equitable society fit for its citizens. It is for our members that we raise our voices and take to the streets, not for or against the electoral fortunes of any political party. But when we see a party supporting policies that are wrong or dangerous, we will object and we will support those politicans who do the right thing. On welfare reform, that means hailing the stance taken by Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Green Party and especially Michael Copeland of the Ulster Unionist Party.

It also means that when our ‘traditional’ friends make errors (such as Labour Shadow Secretary of State Ivan Lewis MP when he tried to sound ‘tough’ on welfare reform), we point that out to them.

We oppose welfare reform not along sectarian lines but because we believe that a comprehensive system that protects the vulnerable and the

Trade union members are under attack, as is the concept of a decent and equitable society fit for its citizens “scaremongering” figures of almost 26,000 job losses across the public sector between now and 2017. The then Minister for Finance stated that the unions “haven’t a clue where it is coming from”. We responded in detail at the time but can now speak with hindsight. We were right then and we are right now about welfare reform.

The point of making a tough decision is that it can hurt. Martin McGuinness made a tough decision when he met the Queen. Ian Paisley made a tough decision when he shared power with Martin McGuinness. As for those politicians in Stormont being tough for the marginalised and the vulnerable we say this – hang tough.

12 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

PSNI Historical Enquiries Team to be scrapped and replaced with a new investigations unit

Historical failure to deal with state’s past

THE NEWS at the very end of September that the largely discredited Historical Enquiries Team (HET) is to be jettisoned by the PSNI due to budget cuts may be of little concern to some (if not many) nationalists but cuts to the Police Ombudsman’s Office is a different case altogether.

Set up in 2005 by former PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde to investigate the deaths of more than 3,000 people between 1968 and 1998, the HET came under the direct control of the PSNI’s Intelligence Branch and therefore lacked the independence required to investigate conflict-related killings.

This point was driven home in July of last year when HET investigations into killings carried out by the British Army were shelved.

The move came after the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary police watchdog reported that the HET investigated state killings with “less vigour” than those carried out by non-state forces.

As a consequence, inquiries into killings carried out by British soldiers were shelved and HET Director Dave Cox resigned.

PSNI Temporary Deputy Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said the force will form a smaller Legacy Investigations Branch to replace the HET, which will be wound up by Christmas.

Also in the cuts firing line is the Police Ombudsman’s Office, which is to lose 8% of its budget. A number of major inquiries due to be undertaken by the Ombudsman will now be postponed. These involve the killings of dozens of nationalists by the notorious South Armagh-based ‘Glenanne Gang’ (made up of serving and ex-members of state forces and unionist paramilitaries) and an investigation into the 1975 Kingsmills killings (claimed by the ‘South Armagh Republican Action Force’) will also be affected.

While the loss of the HET will not cause nationalists too much concern, they might see the Police Ombudsman’s office differently.

The present Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, has done much to restore the credibility of the office after the disastrous tenure of Al Hutchinson.

Maguire’s widely-reported threat to take the PSNI to court in June of this year over its refusal to hand over files in respect of 60 killings (including the UVF attack on The Heights bar in Loughinisland, County Down, in June 1994 during an Ireland World Cup soccer match) was a sign of his willingness to fulfil his role without fear or favour.

The situation was resolved when, in early September the new PSNI Chief Constable, George Hamilton, agreed to give Maguire access to the relevant files.

With the Ombudsman’s powers to properly investigate the state’s role curtailed, those on the British side responsible for the killing of citizens – directly or indirectly through collusion with unionist death squads – will most likely breathe easy again as accountability is once more postponed.

Had Maguire’s earlier legal bid gone to a full hearing, it would likely have exposed a legal

BY PEADAR WHELAN WITH JOHN HEDGES structure that has protected the RUC, British Army and subsequently PSNI officers from prosecution for the past 45 years.

Reacting to the findings of the 1970 inquiry

by London Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Kenneth Drury into the death of Sammy Devenny (beaten by the RUC in his Bogside home in April 1969 and dying later of his injuries), the then RUC Chief Constable, Sir Arthur Young, announced that he could not identify those responsible because of what he described as “a conspiracy of silence” among his own police officers.

That “conspiracy of silence” has persisted down the decades and right up to today. And the Drury report has

3 HET investigations into killings by the British Army were shelved

recently been reclassified by the British Government and will remain secret until 2022 – at least.

Counter-insurgency As the political crisis in the North worsened through the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, the British authorities, despite public claims that they were dealing with a ‘law and order’ situation, were privately tailoring strategies developed during their recent experiences in fighting anti-colonial and counter-insurgency wars in Africa and the Far East to (once again) suppress republicanism in Ireland.

Brigadier Frank Kitson, a senior British Army counter-insurgency theorist whose strategies were outlined in his book Low Intensity Operations, smoothed out the contradiction that allowed the ‘law makers to become law breakers’ when he wrote: “No country which relies on the law of the land to regulate the lives of its citizens can afford to see that law flouted by its own government, even

November / Samhain 2014 13

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Brigadier Frank Kitson in an insurgency situation. In other words, everything done by a government and its agents in combating insurgency must be legal. But this does not mean that the government must work within exactly the same set of laws during an insurgency as existed beforehand, because it is a function of government to make new laws when necessary.”

Brigadier Kitson (who was to rise through the high command of the British Army and be knighted by the British queen to become General Sir Frank Kitson GBE, KCB, MC & Bar DL, “Commander-in-Chief, UK Land Forces”) added: “Anyone who is prepared to use illegal force against his own country [sic] has no right to expect anything other than total extermination, as fast as possible, by any ‘legal’ means.”

Kitson’s paradigm was constructed to make ‘law and order’ mean what the British wanted it to mean.

An example of this is the arrangement that become known as the “Tea and Sandwiches Agreement”.

This 1970 arrangement – involving the Chief Constable of the RUC, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the British Army as well as the judiciary – ensured that no British soldier involved a shooting, fatal or otherwise, would be investigated by the civil authority. This effectively gave them immunity – a licence to kill.

Between 1970 and 1973, British soldiers shot dead more than 150 people in the North. Not one was ever prosecuted.

State’s ‘shoot to kill’ policy Kitson also advocated the use of what he called ‘counter-gangs’ – undercover military units operating on their own or with locally-recruited death squads.

The spotlight was recently shone on the activities of one such British Army unit, the Military Reaction Force (MRF).

In November 2013, members of the MRF admitted on a BBC Panorama programme that they shot and killed unarmed civilians.

Despite their on-camera boasts that they were “not there to act like an army unit” but there “to act like a terror group”, the PSNI announced in May 2014 that none of the MRF soldiers had “admitted a criminal act” and no action would be taken.

The crude methods of the 1970s would be replaced in the 1980s with a more sophisticated ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy.

In north Armagh in 1982, six unarmed men were shot dead by a specialist RUC unit, E4a.

This police unit was trained by the SAS. Three of the dead were IRA Volunteers: Eugene Toman, Seán Burns and Gervaise McKerr; two, Roddy Carroll and Seamus Grew, were INLA members; 17-year-old Michael Tighe was a civilian.

Martin McCauley was shot and seriously injured

5 Of the 400 people killed by British state forces, over half of them were civilians, including 75 children in the same incident in which Tighe was killed.

The RUC said both men were armed and they issued a warning before opening fire. McCauley rejected this, saying the police opened fire, unleashing 47 rounds without warning, and the two targets had not fired at the RUC. It transpired that the hayshed where the shooting occurred was under MI5 surveillance and that tape recordings of the incident, which would have supported McCauley’s version of events were destroyed.

McCauley was convicted of possessing rifles found in the shed, a conviction that was overturned in Belfast’s Court of Appeal in May 2014 as it was found to be unsafe.

In respect of the other killings, four RUC members were charged but eventually acquitted by a non-jury Diplock court’s judges whose ruling underpinned the rationale behind the shoot-to-kill policy.

Judge McDermott, contrary to forensic evidence presented at RUC officer John Robinson’s trial, said he accepted Robinson’s claim that he had been fired on.

McDermott also ruled that he was “not conducting an inquiry into how the officers acted . . . I am not concerned with any RUC cover-up”.

It was the acquittal of RUC officers Sergeant William Montgomery and Constables David Brannigan and Frederick Robinson of killing Eugene Toman in the first shoot-to-kill ambush that sent the clear message from the judiciary that it was legal to kill suspected republicans.

When freeing the three RUC men, Lord Justice Maurice Gibson commended them for their “courage and determination in bringing the three deceased man to justice — in this case, to the final court of justice”.

Relatives for Justice According to Relatives for Justice, an advocacy group representing the families of people killed by state forces, of the almost 400 people killed by the state, over half were unarmed civilians and 75 were children.

Only four British soldiers have been convicted of killing civilians in the North: Light Infantry soldier Ian Thain served 22

5 Teenager Michael Tighe was murdered by British soldiers staking-out a hayshed

5 Sammy Devenny was killed by the RUC months for the 1983 killing of Thomas ‘Kidso’ Reilly; Paratrooper Lee Clegg served just over two years for shooting dead Karen Reilly (no relation to Thomas Reilly) in 1990; Scots Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher served six years after being found guilty

of gunning down Peter McBride in north Belfast in 1992.

The British Army continued to pay the wages of all four while in prison and they were welcomed back into their regiments on their release.

The actions of the locally-recruited Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), formed in 1970 to replace the notoriously sectarian B-Specials paramilitary police, provided another example of how breaking the law — according to the Kitson dictum — was legal if it served British political interests.

A 1973 British Government document, uncovered in 2004, titled ‘Subversion in the UDR’, found that between 5% and 15% of UDR soldiers in 1972 were members of unionist paramilitary death squads, primarily the UVF and the UDA. The report said that the UDR was the main source of weapons for unionist paramilitaries at the time and revealed that 70 members of two UDR companies based in Girdwood Barracks in Belfast had links to the UVF and that UVF members socialised with UDR soldiers in their British Army ‘mess’ on base.

As the notorious Glenanne gang was made up of members of the British Army’s largest regiment, the UDR, and the RUC as well as the UVF, it may not be a coincidence that the Ombudsman’s investigation into its activities is now stalled as the political clash over welfare cuts ordered by the Tory-led British Government at Westminster rumbles on.

14 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh €850m d’airgead stáit faighte ag comhlachtaí príobháideacha gan iniúchadh cuí

Brabach as fulaingt na dTeifeach TÁ SÉ CURTHA i leith comhalchtaí príobháideacha a ritheann ionaid do lucht iarrtha tearmann in Éirinn go bhfuil na céadta milliún euro dhá fháil acu ón stát agus nach bhfuil iniúchadh cuí dhá dhéanamh air.

Rinne Karen McHugh, ón eagraíocht Doras Luimní a chuireann seirbhísí tacaiochta ar fáil do theifigh, na líomhaintí seo ag cruinniú den Chomhchoiste Oireachtais um Fhormhaoirsiú Seirbhísí Poibli agus Achanaíocha an tseachtain seo.

De réir fianaise a thug sí ag an gcomhchoiste tá ós cionn €850m tugtha ar lamh do chonraitheoirí príobháideacha ón bhliain 2000 leis na hionaid Chóireáil Dhíreach (Direct Provision) a rith. Íocadh €62m leo i 2012 agus €55m i 2013. Tá 53 de na h-ionaid seo in Éirinn agus níl ach seacht gcinn acu faoi úinéireacht stáit. Is ar bhonn príobháideach, brabasach atá an chuid eile dhá reáchtáil. Maítear go bhfuil ar a laghad cúig chinn de na comhlachtai seo faoi úinéireacht i ndliteanais seachtracha ar nós British Cayman Islands agus Oileán Mhanainn.

Deirtear go bhfuil cuid de na comhlachtaí i ndiaidh níos mó ná €100m a fháil ón stát ar son a gcuid seirbhísí le blianta beaga anuas. Is dream a bhíodh ag obair mar fhorbróirí, lucht bainistíochta óstain, bainc agus eile atá i mbun na h-ionaid seo. Tá níos mó ná ionad amháin dhá rith ag roinnt acu. Níl de dhualgas orthu ach leaba, lóistín agus bia a chur ar

fáil agus cloí le dlíthe a bhaineann le sláinte agus sábháilteacht agus maitear go bhfuil caighdeán an íostais agus an chóiriú neamhrialta go leor trasna na h-ionaid.

D’ardaigh Doras Luimní ceisteanna tromchúiseacha ag an éisteacht maidir le iniuchadh airgeadais ar na comhlachtaí seo. Ní léir dóibh go bhfoilsitear cuntais phoiblí I ngach cás, toisc gur comhlachtaí neamhtheoranta cuid díbh. Níl sonraí do na conraí aonaracha le fáil go poiblí ach an oiread a dúradh. Dúradh chomh maith nach bhfuil dualgas ná na scileanna cuí ag baill foirne sna h-ionaid chun deileáil le dúshláín sláinte intinne agus pearsanta na dteifeach ach an oiread.

Níl aon mhonatóireacht neamhspleách dhá dhéanamh ar na h-ionaid ó thaobh cúrsaí sláinte agus coiríochta de, mar a bhíonn ar bun ag HIQA in ionaid eile agus níl aon chóras neámhspleách gearáin ar fáil ag na teifigh má bhíonn deacrachtaí acu leis an gcóras.

Tá na h-éisteachtaí seo ar bun ag an gComhchoiste mar thoradh ar fhiainaise atá tugtha ag Ombudsman éagsúla dúinn maidir leis an imní atá orthu faoin easpa freagrachta agus monatóireachta neamhspleách ar na h-ionaid seo ar fud na tíre.

Chomh maith le Doras Luimní, tá fianaise tugtha ag eagrais eile a oibríonn le lucht iarrtha tearmainn ar nós Comhairle na dTeifeach in Éirinn, Spirasi agus Gluaiseacht na hÉireann i gcoinne Díbirt Inimirceach – chomh maith le scéalta na dteifeach féin.

BRITISH CAYMAN ISLANDS

Deirtear go bhfuil cuid de na comhlachtaí i ndiaidh níos mó ná €100m a fháil ón stát ar son a gcuid seirbhísí le blianta beaga anuas

4 Karen McHugh

Tá éileamh bhunúsach dhá dhéanamh ag na finnéíthe go gcuirfí deireadh leis an chóras ar fad agus áiírd faoi leith ar na coinníollacha mídhaonna sna h-ionaid éagsúla dhá maíomh acu.

Is páisti iad aon trian den 4.500 duine atá ag lorg tearmann in Éireann atá ag fanacht sna h-ionaid seo. Le cuig bhliain anuas tá ós cionn 1,500 cás maidir le h-aire leanaí, nó imní faoi dhaoine óga atá I mbaol curtha in iúl do na seirbhísí sóisialta. Sin trí nó cheithre h-uaire níos mó ná an mheán náisiúnta.

Tá iliomad cás de

OILEÁN MHANAINN

theagmháil neamhoiriúnach idir daoine fásta agus daoine óga ar an taifead chomh maith. In ionaid áirithe tá páistí ag roinnt somraí folcadh le fir agus mná nach bhfuil gaol ná damh acu leo. Agus tá teaghlaigh le páistí agus déagoiri ag roinnt seomra amháin eatarthu i gcásanna áírithe.

Tá an córas institiúdeach ann féin ag cothú deacrachtaí breise do na daoine seo sa mhullach ar na dúshláin choitianta atá acu de bharr teitheadh óna gcuid tíortha dúchais.

Tá sé scannallach má tá na milliúin euro de bhrabach dhá dheanamh ag comhlachtaí, príobháideacha mar thoradh ar an gcóras seo agus muna bhfuil trédhearcacht iomlán ann ó thaobh maoirsiú airgid ná eile ann.

Beidh an chomhchoiste ag déanamh éisteachtaí leis na h-eagrais stáit atá freagrach as an gcóras seo go luath agus muid ag súil soiléiriú a fháil ar na ceisteanna fíorthromchúiseach atá ardaithe go dtí seo.

s Jamen y l l o Con 4 School 201

SINN FÉIN ÁTHA CLIATH

UNITE Union Hall, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1pm to 5pm Saturday 8 November www.anphoblacht.com for more

November / Samhain 2014 15

www.anphoblacht.com

Progressive Unionist Party conference talks Left and walks Right

PUPs barking up the wrong tree the same time get your drains sorted out and deal with flooding.

“Are we pushing grassroots politics? How are we responding to the level of disappointment and disillusion with the Peace Process? We’ve got not just low expectations but no expectations.”

Party leader Billy Hutchinson did use his speech to oppose “welfare reform”, support the NHS and call for progress on working-class Protestant education.

But he also launched an attack on Sinn Féin’s campaign against the Tory cuts and claimed that the party has failed to deliver a united Ireland and

BY PEADAR WHELAN & JOHN HEDGES EVEN THOUGH the Progressive Unionist Party annual conference in mid-October endorsed positions opposing Tory welfare cuts, protecting the NHS, and for the abolition of zero-hour contracts – natural positions for a party locating itself on the Left of the political spectrum – a key plank of the party leader’s address was support for the Orange Order to march through Ardoyne or anywhere else it wants.

PUP leader Councillor Billy Hutchinson told 80 PUP delegates in Antrim on Saturday 11 October that, whatever happened in upcoming talks processes: “Effective leadership within unionism must reveal itself at the table and ensure that any potential agreement reaffirms the rights of the Orange brethren at Twaddell and elsewhere to civil and religious freedoms. There can be no fudge on the issue.”

Despite being closely associated with the still active paramilitary UVF and with just four councillors out of more than 450 in the North, the PUP and its UDA counterpart have been welcomed by the mainstream unionist parties and the Orange Order into a pan-unionist front to parade in predominantly nationalist areas such as Ardoyne.

Guest speakers at this year’s conference included journalist Eamonn Mallie and John Brewer, Professor of Post-Conflict Studies at Queen’s University Belfast, who wrote in February’s An Phoblacht on the need for compromise and the Haass Talks.

Professor Brewer asked the PUP delegates: “Are you focused enough on class politics?

What loyalism needs is a Protestant Sinn Féin – a party that can deal with national issues but at

‘Are you focused enough on class politics? What loyalism needs is a Protestant Sinn Féin’ Prof John Brewer

5 PUP leader Billy Hutchinson falsely claims there’s a cultural war being waged against unionists

this failure “has given birth to an ugly campaign of cultural war”.

Hutchinson noted the 20th anniversary two days later of the 13 October 1994 UVF and UDA ceasefires as part of the Combined Loyalist Military Command. The former UVF prisoner said loyalists had “shown vision”.

Republicans and nationalists would like to see a genuine left-wing politics emerging from within unionism to seriously challenge “Big House unionism”. The PUP, on its present showing and despite its rhetoric, is not that party – yet.

And with the millstone of the UVF drug dealers and racist attackers around its neck, the PUP cannot be the credible champion that workingclass unionists need.

Racist attacks rise

BY PEADAR WHELAN

BELFAST may not deserve the title given to it by some mainstream media of “Race Hate Capital of Europe” but a racist attack reported almost every day in the Six Counties carries extra impact in such a small geographical area.

Back in 2004, there was an intense campaign of attacks on people from central and eastern Europe and Africa living and working in the North. The Ulster Defence Association (linked to British neo-fascist groups) was considered responsible.

In 2014, it is the other unionist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force, that is responsible for the majority of racist incidences.

Ashan Parhiar was the victim of an orchestrated attack on Sunday 12 October in which his car and home were smashed. He says he no longer feels safe in Belfast.

The Parhiar family were targeted repeatedly in a campaign which began

in August just after they moved into Bray Street in the unionist Woodvale area, just hundreds of yards from the loyalist self-styled ‘civil rights’ camp at Twaddell Avenue.

Ashan Parhiar, an EU citizen born in Pakistan, moved his wife child back to Pakistan a number of weeks ago as he feared for their safety.

In previous incidents, on Friday 19 September, two Hungarian men were assaulted by a gang wielding knives and a hatchet.

The gang followed the pair into the unionist Hesketh area, where they threw a bin at the window of a house occupied by other Hungarian residents.

On Saturday afternoon, the same gang threatened more Hungarian nationals at a second house in Hesketh Park.

The response of unionist leaders has been muted.

Recent PSNI figures show that the rate of racist attacks is increasing with over 300 incidents reported since April 2014 alone.

16 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

Fighting Austerity North and South

BY MARK MOLONEY THE SIGHT of an estimated 100,000 people marching through the capital city in opposition to water charges panicked the Government and forced them to announce a €100 tax credit relief plan in Budget 2015 in a desperate attempt to soften the impact of their unfair tax on hard-pressed families.

But the Right2Water campaign, which organised October’s huge protest, says this move is just the latest blunder in the Government’s shambolic water charges policy. A spokesperson told An Phoblacht: “Clearly, the Government is out of touch and has underestimated the anger at these unfair water charges. When you factor in that the tax credits will apply in retrospect (meaning nobody will benefit next year) it will mean our campaign will only grow and grow.

“And make no mistake – water charges will be the number one political item in the run-up to the next general election.”

As An Phoblacht goes to print, more than 42,000 people have signed a

‘Make no mistake – water charges will be the number one political item in the run-up to the next general election’ – Right2Water campaign petition by Right2Water Ireland (www. right2water.ie) calling on the Fine Gael/ Labour Government to scrap domestic water rates.

Right2Water cites no less a body than the United Nations General Assembly as a foundation for its campaign.

The UN has passed a motion that “Recognises the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.”

(Bizarrely, given Fianna Fáil’s public position now, the then Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government was one of 41 states that abstained from supporting this motion in 2010.)

While the Fine Gael/Labour Government claims that water charges are a necessity, Right2Water says all they will do is increase poverty and damage the economy.

The new charges will have an immediate direct effect of reducing consumer spending with the Nevin Economic Institute estimating that this could cost up to 2,500 job losses.

The campaign says that all the move to water charges does is create a new type of poverty – alongside food poverty and fuel poverty we will now have water poverty.

The ‘neutral Budget’ adjustments now see more than two million people facing an increase in their overall taxes despite the Government’s boast of tax

Panic stations for Fine Gael and Labour

cuts for the so-called “squeezed middle”.

Councillor Daithí Doolan, a Sinn Féin representative on the Right2Water Campaign, says the campaign has a long-term strategy and that it wants to make water charges the general election issue: “We believe water is a human right and that water charges are wrong. We were absolutely blown away with the size of the march in October and we want to build on that. We will campaign and put pressure on politicians that

Right2Water cites no less a body than the United Nations General Assembly as a

100,000

in capital march against water tax

foundation for its campaign these unfair and unjust water charges must be scrapped.”

There are also serious concerns that Irish Water will be sold off to private companies for profit. The establishment and management of Irish Water to date has been an unmitigated disaster.

Gerry Adams TD says Sinn Féin “will oppose tooth and nail any attempt to privatise water services” with the party saying Irish Water cannot remain as the utility responsible for the delivery of water services in its present form.

“The company is toxic,” says Mary Lou McDonald TD. “It must now be radically reformed into a single utility that acts in the interests of our citizens.”

With news that almost one million households had refused to register

Gerry Adams says Sinn Féin ‘will oppose tooth and nail any attempt to privatise water services’

5 Councillor Daithí Doolan speaks at the Right2Water rally

5 Getting across a simple message

01.11.14

5 Members of the Dublin 15 ‘No to Water Charges’ campaign 5 Sinn Féin protesters at the Right2Water rally

with Irish Water with just ten days to the original 31 October deadline, what is the Right2Water campaign’s position on payment?

“Right2Water’s position is that it is up to individuals, political parties and campaign groups to decide on this issue for themselves.

“We are not telling people to pay or not pay.

“Just because a person pays water charges doesn’t mean they agree with them – and they still have every right to campaign to have them scrapped.”

The Right2Water is a citizens’ campaign supported by trade unions Mandate, Unite, CPSU and OPATSI along with Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, the Anti-Austerity Alliance and the Workers’ Party.

LOCAL DEMONSTRATIONS NATIONWIDE

November / Samhain 2014 17

www.anphoblacht.com

Fighting Austerity North and South

Belfast rallies against Thatcherite welfare cuts from Westminster

5 Sinn Féin activists take part in the Communities United Against Tory Cuts rally in Belfast

5 Leo Fleming and Gearóid Ó hEara at the rally

5 Sinn Féin MLA Maeve McLaughlin

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE REPUBLICANS from across the North joined trade unionists, charities, church groups and disability organisations in Belfast city centre on 11 October to campaign against the Tory cuts agenda.

The rally, organised by the ‘Communities United Against Tory Cuts’ umbrella group, was held in Writer’s Square and was attended by more than a thousand people from a wide cross-section of society.

It was chaired by Gerry McConville from Falls Community Council and the platform party included Sinn Féin MP Michelle Gildernew, Maureen Collins from Derry cancer support

‘Every day, more and more people are realising the devastating impact welfare cuts would have on all communities’ MICHELLE GILDERNEW group The Pink Ladies, anti-poverty campaigner Goretti Horgan, John Dawson from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the SDLP’s Councillor Tim Attwood, and Church of Ireland Minister Rev Adrian McCartney.

Addressing the crowd, which included republicans who had travelled from across the North, Michelle Gildernew outlined Sinn Féin’s opposition to the welfare cuts agenda of the Tory-led Westminster Government under the guise of “reform”.

“Don’t be fooled by the title,” the Fermanagh/ South Tyrone MP said, “this has nothing to do with reform. It is simply an attack on the poor by a Cabinet of millionaires who have no idea of the realities of trying to survive on benefits.

5 Paul Maskey MP with protesters in Belfast “It is a Thatcherite agenda designed to hollow out the welfare state and destroy public services.”

Michelle Gildernew said the impact of the cuts would be felt by tens of thousands of people.

“If implemented here, these cuts will take money out of the pockets of real people. That includes the poor, the unemployed, those on low incomes and people with disabilities.

“This is not simply about people who are unemployed. These Tory cuts would hit people receiving child tax credits and working tax credits.

“Sinn Féin is not prepared to allow that to happen.

“We are opposed to welfare cuts because it is the right thing to do. We are opposed to austerity in the North and in the South.

“Sinn Féin makes no apologies for standing up for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society and we will continue to do so. That is why we are opposing Tory welfare cuts,” she said.

She told the crowd at Writer’s Square that welfare cuts which have already been imposed in Britain have led to spiralling rates of poverty.

“The roll-out of this cuts agenda in Britain to date has been a disaster.

“The Tories, Liberal Democrats

and Labour have all told us that we need to implement these cuts but they are clearly divided on whether they support these cuts in their own back yard.

“Liberal Democrats Business Secretary Vince Cable told his party conference that the Tories are ‘ideologically obsessed with cuts’ and added that they see this policy as a way of destroying public services and the welfare state.

“Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the Tories are trying to reduce the deficit by ‘beating up on the poor’.

“A n d t h e y a r e supposed to be partners in government!

“The reasons for their criticisms are clear.

Thousands of people have been made homeless and many more have been forced to rely on food banks simply to survive.

“Rate of malnutrition have increased and people have been driven to desperation and, in some cases, suicide.

“Prime Minister David C a m e ro n i s m o re concerned about protecting his friends and supporters in big banks and ensuring they continue to get bonuses while thousands of people are forced to rely on food banks.

5 Michelle Gildernew addresses the rally “And now they want to go even further and introduce further benefit freezes and an even more punitive cap on housing benefits.

“We will not allow the same situation to unfold here,” she said.

The Sinn Féin MP also said it is important that communities stand together in opposition to the welfare cuts agenda.

‘David Cameron is more concerned about his friends in the big banks while thousands of people are forced to rely on food banks’ MICHELLE GILDERNEW “There is a growing campaign against this punitive policy. Every day, more and more people are realising the devastating impact welfare cuts would have on all communities.

“These cuts would devastate communities from the Ballybeen to the Bogside, from Shantallow to Sandy Row, and from Belcoo to Ballygawley.

“Trade unions, church leaders, charities and

public representatives have all warned of the impact of these Tory cuts on our society.

“We are calling on all those who want to protect the poor and most vulnerable in our society from the devastating effects of this Tory-led policy to present a united front against these cuts.”

18 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

48 died in Ukraine trade union hall torched by neo-Nazis

Odessa massacre

Scenes from the attack on the Trade Unions House in Odessa by far-Right gangs

survivor talks to An Phoblacht

BY MARK MOLONEY IN MAY of this year, a right-wing gang burned 48 people to death at a trade union building in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa at the height of the Ukraine crisis.

President Viktor Yanukovych, seen as being close to Russia, had been forced from office by the so-called Euromaidan protest movement and replaced with an unelected pro-EU official.

In Dublin, six months later, Ukrainian organisation Mobius hosted a photo exhibition dealing with the attack in Odessa and the ongoing war in Donbass. Speaking at the opening of the exhibition, Irish Congress of Trade Unions President John Douglas said: “Workers everywhere should know the real truth and should support their comrades in Ukraine. Our Foreign Affairs Minister needs get involved and call for an immediate international inquiry into what happened on 2 May when innocent trade unionists, progressive thinkers and politicians were herded into a building and burned to death, and bludgeoned as they tried to escape.”

One of those at the Dublin event is Julie. A student, she is also one of only a handful of people who survived the attack on the trade union building.

Out of concern for her parents’ safety she has asked that we do not disclose her full name.

Julie was in Odessa visiting her parents after her studies when rumours circulated of a fight in the city centre between rival demonstrators. Locals said there were many people wounded but Ukrainian TV, now under the control of the unelected regime, had no reports.

“Me and my sister decided to go into

the city to find out what was going on,” she tells An Phoblacht.

“My sister is a doctor so we brought some medical supplies and went in to see if anybody needed help. We just didn’t realise how bad the violence was.”

In Odessa city centre, clashes had broken out between rival pro- and anti-government protesters.

“When we got to the city centre there was gangs of really aggressive young guys chanting things like ‘Death to Russians!’ and really extreme nationalist slogans. We got a call from a girl in Kulikovo Square telling us there were people injured there so we headed towards it.”

Kulikovo Square had been the site of a large protest camp by those opposed to the overthrow of the President by pro-EU activists. Many of those there also expressed their solidarity with the pro-Russia rebels in the east of the country who had declared independence from Kiev.

When they arrived, Julie’s sister began applying bandages to an injured man in the square while Julie went into the trade union building.

“I asked where the medical volunteers were and was told they were inside Trade Unions House. The door had been broken down as the building was usually closed. I went to the second floor and I saw two volunteer nurses wearing red crosses and gave them the medical supplies. As I was walking down the stairs back out to my sister I just heard lots of people screaming ‘Everybody inside!’”

Thousands of pro-Kiev protesters, including members of the neo-Nazi Right Sector organisation were heading towards the protest camp.

“There was a flood of people through the doors. I didn’t know what was going

on. My sister came in and she grabbed me by the hand and said ‘We need to go.’ We were the only two who decided to leave the building. It was difficult to get out because everybody was still pouring in. When we were outside we ran towards a nearby park. I turned and saw huge numbers of people, many carrying baseball bats, descending on the square.

“We saw five police officers near the building and screamed and pleaded with them to do something. We told them there were women and elderly people inside. They just ignored us. As we crossed the bridge over the railway we saw the building go up in flames.”

Her voice cracks and tears well up in her eyes.

“The people we had seen only a few minutes ago were still inside.”

Dozens of people were killed in the blaze. Others were beaten to death by Right Sector thugs after they jumped from windows trying to escape. In total, 48 people died that day; 50 others from the city are still missing.

Julie criticises the police for failing to carry out any type of real investigation.

She says she believes they have no interest in catching those responsible.

Six months on, there is still immense fear on the streets.

“People are terrified to speak about the political situation over the phone or online. The repression is immense.

“What happened in Odessa was a pure massacre. I hope people will think more about the situation in Ukraine.

The only thing I feel I can do for the people who died and for those still living in fear is to speak out about it.

“European politicians need to wake up and stop supporting these extremely nationalistic, and in some cases fascist, 5 Families and friends of those killed at a commemorative service on Odessa movements in Ukraine.”

November / Samhain 2014 19

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

The time has come for all political representatives to set aside their differing views of the conflict

DR DAVID LATIMER First Derry Presbyterian Church

Creating a way out of the frozen political landscape

5 Martin McGuinness meeting Queen Elizabeth

SETBACKS on the journey from a divided past to a shared future can, so easily, cause us to forget how different life actually is in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.

Despite its imperfections, it represents a massive step forward from what had gone before. Aware of how it was nothing short of an historic breakthrough prompted former US President Bill Clinton earlier this year to helpfully inform us: “Never underestimate the impact that this small place has had on the large world because of that peace agreement.”

While the Good Friday Agreement symbolises something very significant, it is not an ending. It is not even a beginning. It is but one step, albeit a crucially important step, along the road to a better and brighter future.

Few will deny Northern Ireland has come a long way in the last 16 years. By the same standard, few will deny more still needs to be done!

The stark reality is that a truly reconciled, shared future will forever elude us unless the sad legacy of violence is adequately dealt with. Choosing to draw a line through the past, pull a veil over it or remain silent about it is not conducive to shaping a sustainable culture of peace.

All wrongs committed during ‘The Troubles’, whether by state forces, loyalist groups, republican groups or by institutions must be investigated on exactly the same basis.

Our violent past, if not dealt with in an appropriate manner, will resemble a fire that intermittently flares up, resulting in years of quiet being abruptly interrupted by a period of unrest.

No right-thinking person wants to go back to armoured cars and barbed-wire walls. Consequently, the time has come for all political representatives to set aside their differing views of the conflict as well as their competing narratives about the conflict.

For the sake of securing a generous measure of healing and hope for hurting and traumatised people, an independent International Commission to help our society face the past, embrace it and no longer be imprisoned by it should be appointed without any further delays or discussions.

If the political process is faltering – particularly around how to deal with the past – prevailing corrosive relationships, so apparent right across the political spectrum, cannot be other than a major impediment to progress and stability.

All the talk about moving forward and working to build a shared future will amount to so little as long as people’s hearts are hardened against each other.

It is utterly deplorable, especially in the most religious

5 Martin McGuinness with Ian Paisley Snr

5 US President Bill Clinton

part of the United Kingdom where church attendance remains comparatively high, that both traditions have still not learned how to live in harmony.

Hatred and blame cannot forever be used to conceal the reality that eventually we will have to find our way together, lower our barriers, stand alongside people we would not normally even acknowledge and put aside our judgements of one another to share peace.

For such a time as this, like-minded people must band together. People who wish to shape society so that they and their children for generations to come will be able to learn and grow as part of the solution, not part of the problem. People who will neither slacken their step nor lower their gaze but will, through word and deed, seek to be the change they wish to see.

Having put our hands to the plough, we cannot for any reason turn back, otherwise a new generation could return to violence.

Children growing up without some vision of a shared cross-community future could too easily learn the ways of conflict again.

To limit the possibilities of this ever materialising, primary and post-primary schools in Derry/Londonderry, Donegal and Omagh embracing Controlled, Maintained,

Irish-Medium, Integrated and Special Care sectors were invited to compose 25-word peace pledges. With support from the Western Education & Library Board, 116 schools have, so far, produced pledges which succinctly express what young people consider we all need to be doing so as to live better together.

Young people are full of vibrant ideas. They can show our country a new path to peace and prosperity. Unconstrained by the convention of “what is” and untainted by ‘The Troubles’, they can help us build the road and gradually create a way out of the frozen political landscape so that in the fullness of time “we can burn as one unified sun that can light up our world and even our universe”.

Blame cannot forever be used to conceal the reality that eventually we will have to stand alongside people we would not normally even acknowledge and put aside our judgements of one another to share peace

DAVID LATIMER returned from Afghanistan in 2008 as Hospital Chaplain in Camp Bastion and resolved to become more active in peace building. The 2013 visit

by Martin Luther King III to Derry was part of the ‘Bright Brand New Day’ initiative which led to ‘Pathway to Peace’, reaching into schools and involving young people as peace builders.

20 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.co

The Irish Neutrality League’s first circular was issued on 5 October, signed by a committee headed by James Connolly as President

BY MÍCHEÁL MAC DONNCHA

The Irish Neutrality League

BY NOVEMBER 1914, the scale and horror of the war in Europe was beginning to emerge and the British Government was desperate for recruits to swell the ranks of the British Army. In Ireland, John Redmond and his Irish Parliamentary Party had agreed to become British recruiting sergeants but they were met with determined opposition from Irish republicans, trade unionists and other progressive voices.

The British felt confident enough to send Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to Dublin on 25 September where he spoke along with Redmond at a recruiting meeting in the Mansion House. However, the hall had to be guarded by a large force of police and British soldiers as thousands of people, led by the Irish Citizen Army, demonstrated on the streets outside.

The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, led by Jim Larkin and James Connolly, and their paper, The Irish Worker, were vocal in opposition to the dragging of the Irish people into the war. So also was Sinn Féin, as well as many individual radicals, such as husband and wife Hanna and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. He was a well-known pacifist and she was a prominent feminist and republican. In October 1914, Hanna demonstrated in Wexford town against one of Redmond’s recruiting meetings and narrowly escaped with her life when she was violently attacked by his supporters.

The Irish Volunteers had by this time repudiated Redmond and said in their statement rejecting him: “Ireland cannot, with honour or safety, take part in foreign quarrels otherwise than through the free action of a national government of her own.”

The Irish Republican Brotherhood backed these efforts to assert Irish independence and saw in the war an opportunity to strike a blow for Irish freedom.

It was these forces which came together in the autumn and winter of 1914 under the banner of the Irish Neutrality League.

Its first circular was issued on 5 October, signed by a committee headed by James Con nolly as President, Seán T. O’Kelly as Secretary and members including Arthur Griffith,

5 Hanna and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

5 Jim Larkin and James Connolly

Constance Markievicz and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington.

As well as seeking to keep Ireland out of the war, the statement spoke of preventing employers forcing workers into the British Army and the need to safeguard food supplies in Ireland. Like the

Connolly in the chair and committee members and others speaking.

Connolly stressed the unity of the various groups involved, including, Cumann na mBan, Iníní na hÉireann and the various women’s franchise groups.

Major John MacBride (executed for his part in the 1916 Rising) said that any Irishman who joined the British Army

earlier Irish Volunteers’ declaration, the League statement also denounced the proposed partition of the country to which Redmond had agreed in principle.

The Irish Neutrality League held its first public meeting on 12 October with

The story of the Irish Neutrality League is told in a new publication from the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA). The Irish Neutrality League and the Imperialist War 1914-1918 has contributions from a variety of Irish contributors as well as one each from Germany and Britain. A well-researched piece

by Francis Devine provides probably the first proper overview of the League, while the publication places the League in the context of the current pressing need to reassert Irish neutrality and independent foreign policy. The booklet, which is very well-illustrated and designed, is available from PANA www.pana. ie, from the Sinn Féin bookshop and other outlets, price €5.

“deserved to be shot in this world and damned in the next” to cheers from the audience.

The Irish Neutrality League, while short-lived as an organisation, brought together the forces opposed to Ireland’s involvement in the war and it defined Irish neutrality more clearly than ever before. Opposition to the war, as well as its use as an opportunity to strike a blow for Irish freedom, would continue to be crucial to unfolding events, including the 1916 Rising, the fight against conscription and the 1918 general election.

The Irish Neutrality League was active in the autumn and winter of 1914, 100 years ago.

5 Major John MacBride, Transvaal Irish Brigade, holding the sight of a British cannon captured at Colenso

November / Samhain 2014 21

www.anphoblacht.com

British Labour should mobilise on living standards and Peace Process

BY CONOR MURPHY

MP

EVERY POSITION and statement by all the parties in England, Scotland and Wales is being taken with an eye to the outcome of next May’s general election. And recent by-election results in England have added to this, in particular the response to the growth of UKIP, which has negatively shifted the political agenda to the Right.

Responding to UKIP by rushed proposals to ‘tighten up’ on immigration has been the order of day from the mainstream. But, as Labour MP Diane Abbott has pointed out, instead of blaming migrants for the economic problems of ordinary people, progressive parties (and Labour in particular) should be mobilising its own support by putting forward policies to defend living standards.

Scapegoating immigrants is divisive and a

diversion from those who are really responsible.

In Ireland, Sinn Féin has had the approach – often against the prevailing grain – that there needs to be an entirely different framework in terms of our economic policy.

Cuts and austerity have made the crisis worse.

Despite Secretary of State Theresa Villiers’s assertions that the Tories have been proven right on the economy and that there is a recovery, this is not the case. This is a recovery only for a tiny minority.

Most people’s real pay (after inflation) and living standards are continuing to fall. The same

other parts of the world in building the economic development of those countries. Capitulating to racism and xenophobia out of fear of losing votes is not only false but will simply serve to fuel support for those who are the furthest to the Right. There are some clear parallels on both these issues for the political debate in Britain.

For us, the discourse around the Peace Process (dominant at the fringe debates at the party conferences that myself and other Sinn Féin MPs spoke at) is absolutely central. However, this was absent from the floor of the main conference discussions.

In England, the growth of UKIP has negatively shifted the political agenda to the Right

We urgently need a proAgreement axis which asserts itself at an international level, and particularly in Britain

case can be made around Enda Kenny’s claims of economic recovery in Ireland.

In the British state, and affecting the Six Counties, the economic divide is sharper than ever. According a recent report, top directors get 120 times what their average employees earn (Incomes Data Services survey). This is up from 2000, where the figure was 47 times more. Whilst the Tory-led government is quibbling over a 1% pay rise due to health workers, top executives are getting record pay rises.

The Tories want to make this worse for us in the Six Counties by forcing the Assembly to implement the welfare cuts which are already biting in England and Wales.

We have stood firmly against austerity and in favour of a pro-investment policy to stimulate growth. This has to be state-investment led and

Filleann an Rialtas ar an bhFeall BHÍ ÍONADH beag ar lucht na Gaeilge ar fud na tíre nuair a d’fhógair an t-iar Aire Iompair, Leo Varadkar go raibh sé le coras nua comharthaíocht bhóithre a chur faoi thriail a chuirfeadh an Ghaeilge ar chómhchéim le Béarla.

Rinneadh Varadkar an moladh seo in aghaidh toil an Údarás um Sábháilteacht Bhóithre a mhaígh go raibh fadbanna sábháilteacht mar dhea ag baint le comharthaí cothrom sa dá theanga.

Ní cosúil ar ndóigh go bhfuil aon dainséar den chineál seo i dtíortha eile, ar nós na Beilge a chuireann comharthaí in airde i bhFraincis agus in Ísiltíris, agus ní raibh i gcur i gcoinne an Údaráis ach sean-chlaonadh naimhdeach an státchorais in aghaidh na Gaeilge.

Bhí na comharthaí nua le bunú ar scéim a mhol Conradh na Gaeilge, agus fair play do Varadkar an tuairim a bhí le clos ó lucht na Gaeilge faoi.

Ní hamháin sin, ach léiríonn pobalbhreith

cannot simply be left to a dependence on the private sector. Our position is not only right for the economy – it is proving electorally popular, with our vote continuing to steadily increase.

Similarly on social issues, such as opposing racism, we have consistently stood squarely against scapegoating people. We have celebrated our multicultural communities. Immigration is central to economic growth and we know from our own experience the role of emigrants in

The Good Friday Agreement has been under some concerted attack now for some time, facilitated by decisions taken by the current British Government. This is at odds with the immense support in Britain for the Peace Process. But this support has been fairly passive and silent in recent years, and there is failure to grasp just how serious a threat exists to the Agreement.

We urgently need a pro-Agreement axis that asserts itself, including at an international level and particularly in Britain. This can exert some much-needed influence on the British Government and impact on the general election. And, for the British Labour Party, this would be a hugely popular policy issue, given the support that exists for the Peace Process on the ground.

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ de chuid Millward Brown a foilsíodh i dtuairisc.ie go 61% ar son an phlean agus gan ach 22% ina choinne.

Ach in ainneóin go bhfuil tacaíocht an phobail fré chéile taobh thiar den mholadh, tá an t-Aire nua Iompair, Paschal Donohoe, le plean Varadkar a chur ar ceal, dar le Maitiú Ó Coimín i dtuairisc.ie na seachtaine seo, agus filleadh ar an gcleachtas reatha a dhéanann beag den Ghaeilge.

Léiriú eile é seo den bhíogóideachas frithGhaeilge atá forleathan

sa státchoras. Aon rud a thabharfadh aitheantas don Ghaeilge caithfidh é a chur ar leataobh ar leithscéal fánach éicínt, leithscéalta nach mbíonn aon bhunús leo ar ndóigh.

Ach féach comhthéacs an scéil: Tá taoiseach againn atá líofa sa Ghaeilge, taoiseach a chuir a chuid páistí féin go dtí scoileanna Ghaeilge is a bhíonn bródúil as an teanga go pearsanta.

Ach seo é an Taoiseach a chuir deire le toghchán díreach do Údarás na Gaeltachta, a cheap Aire Gaeltachta nach féidir a

5 Paschal Donohoe agus Leo Varadkar

chuid ghnó a dhéanamh i nGaeilge, atá ag ligint don Straitéis Fiche Bliain imeacht le deannach agus atá anois ag ceadú do Phascal Donohoe stop a chur leis an t-aon fhiontar fiúntach i bhfábhar na Gaeilge a tháinig ón rialtas seo.

Ach céard tá lucht na Gaeilge ag déanamh faoi?

Tá corr-ghearán ann, cinnte; tá altanna fiúntacha i leithéidí tuaisic.ie; ach ag deire thiar tá muid sásta an gearán a choinneáil againn féin.

Go dtí go ndeanann muide, lucht na Gaeilge, scéalta móra polaitíochta dena gearáin atá againn ní thabharfar aon aird orainn.

22 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

40 years on and questions remain over British Army’s use of CR gas

The burning of Long Kesh, 1974 The prisoners deployed cage by cage as units, armed with rudimentary weapons made from bedsteads and with other hastily-contrived batons.

The British Army squads which had surrounded the republicans were fully equipped and armed to the teeth with riot weapons, including rubber bullets, CS gas and wearing gas-masks.

Some 1,371 CS gas canisters and grenades were used according to the British Army’s own log, some dropped on the prisoners from the air.

Eventually and inevitably, the British Army wrested back control of the camp.

With their superior firepower and overwhelming numbers as well as excessive brutality they over-ran the prisoners.

BY PEADAR WHELAN THE BURNING of Long Kesh and the events of 15/16 October 1974 is one of the most significant events in the history of the conflict and republican prison struggle.

Involving as it did the destruction of the Long Kesh camp and pitched battles between IRA prisoners and the British Army (described by some as the biggest military engagement of the war), the repercussions from the events of that October and the days following are still being felt 40 years later.

The incidences of cancer among republican prisoners involved in the revolt in Long Kesh have led many to believe that these illnesses and subsequent deaths can be linked to the British Army’s use of CR gas to quell the uprising.

Spearheading a decades-long campaign to ferret out information and piece together the story of what happened at the time are former POWs Jim McCann, Joe Barnes and Joe Doherty.

All are convinced that specialist British Army units were deployed with instructions to use the secretive CR gas and that this was effectively a ‘field experiment’ designed to test the weapon’s capability and the effects it had on those affected by it. The Long Kesh POWs were human guinea pigs.

Research by the ex-POWs and others has established that CR gas was stockpiled and ready for use at Long Kesh.

Whether its use has in some ways contributed to the cancers contracted by the political prisoners remains.

10 times more potent than CS

5 POWS begin to set the fire inside the cages of Long Kesh

The camp erupts In the months leading up to the burning of the ‘Cages’, continual protests and confrontations with the prison authorities were the order of the day.

In challenging the prison regime over the appalling conditions they were forced to endure, the POWs refused visits, destroyed beds and bedding, rejected prison food and existed on their parcels, and as a last resort staged mass hunger strikes.

Brutal raids by the British Army were another bone of contention as British soldiers exacted revenge on high-profile prisoners or those convicted of attacks on military targets.

In the week prior to the burning of Long Kesh, an agreement of sorts had been thrashed out between the camp staff and the prison authorities.

Within days of the agreement, the authorities went back on their word as the British Army continued to carry out intensive searches.

On 15 October, an incident in Cage 13 saw a row between its occupants and prison guards over the prison food.

When the authorities refused to allow the prisoners’ O/C (Officer Commanding) to mediate it was clear nothing had really changed.

It was against this background that the decision to torch Long Kesh was taken.

There were as many as 1,600 republican POWs in what was known as ‘the Cages’ of Long Kesh, with each one consisting of three accommodation huts, each holding 80 men.

Both sentenced prisoners and internees were incarcerated in Long Kesh and when the order was received they set fire to the huts.

The prisoners seized control of the interior of

5 The set-piece battle took place on the centre of the camp’s football pitches

5 British Army squads which surrounded the republicans were fully equipped and armed to the teeth

the camp as the prison warders retreated, leaving the protesting POWs to ignite what they could.

As the British Army controlled the perimeter of the camp with armed patrols there was no question that the burning was part of a wider attempt at a mass breakout.

One former POW, Joe Doherty from Belfast’s New Lodge Road area, told An Phoblacht the British Army imposed “martial law” on the camp

and said anyone trying to escape would be shot dead.

The night of 15 October passed with the POWs having free rein but awaiting the inevitable confrontation with the British Army intent on retribution.

The set-piece battle would take place on the camp’s football pitches, located in the middle of the complex, as daylight broke on 16 October.

It was in the last throes of the fighting, with about 350 prisoners making a last stand in the south-east corner of the playing fields, that the British Army unleashed what many believe to have been CR gas.

Again according to the British Government’s own documents released under the 30-year rule ‘Report on Helicopter Activities in Support of operations in the Maze Prison – 15/16 October 1974’ the helicopter returned to base to collect 15 new canisters and grenades which it then dropped on the remaining prisoners.

According to some of the besieged POWs, these were cluster bomb type devices with pellets exploding over a wide area making it harder to escape the debilitating effects of the gas.

In his efforts to get to the bottom of what transpired in Long Kesh in October 1974, former POW Jim McCann from Ballymurphy has uncovered documents that confirm CR gas was held in Long Kesh even if they cannot prove the weapon (or “Riot Control Agent”) was used on the protesting prisoners.

In January 1999, British Armed Forces Minister John Spellar, responding to a question from Labour MP Ken Livingstone, wrote: “The British Army has never used CR gas operationally.” Yet, in a subsequent answer, Spellar wrote: “CR gas was selected some decades ago as a potential counter-terrorist response capability and there are no surviving records of this decision.

However, stocks of CR gas continue to be held as tests have confirmed it to be effective as a potential counter-terrorist capability.”

What McCann and others involved in the campaign are asking is: “Were these ‘tests’ carried out in Long Kesh in 1974?”

Research carried out for North Belfast ex-prisoners’ group Tar Isteach by researcher Chris Kelly found that the experiences of those prisoners caught up in the last stand at the football pitches are consistent with the findings of research into the use of CR gas in the British Government’s Porton Down military chemical research facility in England. Kelly wrote: “Tests completed at Porton Down show CR to be much more aggressive than CS. CR is 10 times as potent as CS and as such would produce much more debilitating effects.”

In interviews with prisoners bombarded with the CR gas, Kelly was told by one: “I thought my face was going to explode.”

Another said: “I remember not being able to breathe. The gas was so thick I tried to prise my throat open in an attempt to increase the air passage.”

As most of these prisoners would have

November / Samhain 2014 23

www.anphoblacht.com

5 CR gas campaigner Jim McCann at the ‘Burning of Long Kesh’ and CR gas mural on Belfast’s International Wall

5 Campaigning on the streets against the brutal treatment of political prisoners

5 It was in the last throes of the fighting that the British Army unleashed what many believe to have been CR gas “incoordination, spasms and convulsions”, indicating that CR contains properties that attack the central nervous system.

Prisoners in the last group experienced similar sensations with one telling Kelly: “My body wasn’t reacting to what my mind was telling it to do.”

The same prisoner remembers seeing “grown men literally running into each other dazed, confused and screaming”, adding: “It is something I’ll never forget.”

Despite British Government denials, it seems near certain that CR gas was used in Long Kesh.

Writing in the Observer newspaper in January 2005, Craig Morrison and Martin Bright declared: “The British Government secretly authorised the use of a chemical riot control agent, fired from aerosols, water cannon or dropped from the air, to be used in prisons [in the North].”

Citing papers from 1976 released under freedom of information legislation, the journalists said “the use of ‘CR’ or dibenzoxazepine – a skin irritant 10 times more powerful than other tear gases – was permitted from 1973 to be used on prison inmates in the event of an attempted mass breakout”.

Chris Kelly concludes that research shows that the British Government’s official line – that only CS gas was used in Long Kesh in October 1974 – is false. experienced CS gas on the streets of the North, eyeball, a painful or acute burning sensation of they would easily have recognised the different the skin and excessive lachrymation”.

The prisoners he surveyed experienced similar “Snowdrop” effects of CR. Quoting from ‘The Historical Survey of the effects.

Jim McCann and those other ex-POWs say Other research, according to Chris Kelly, Porton Down Volunteer Programme’, Chris Kelly found symptoms such as “severe pain about the found that animals exposed to CR gas exhibited the operation to use CR gas was authorised

under guidelines codenamed “Snowdrop”. British Government documents obtained by them quote an A. W. Stephens, Head of the British Ministry of Defence’s DS10 section, describing Snowdrop as “the contingency plan developed to deal with hijacking and other serious armed terrorist incidents” with members of the SAS, transported in helicopters, trained to carry out the operation.

It is clear that all the elements needed for the British to ‘field test’ CR gas existed in Long Kesh in October 1974.

That 35% of those interviewed by Chris Kelly for his research have reported major lung problems, 12% to 15% of the prisoners in the camp at that time have since contracted various forms of cancer (including leukemia and other lung diseases) raises serious questions for the British Government.

Experience tells us these answers will be a long time coming but Jim McCann and his comrades among the ex-POWs aren’t giving up.

24 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

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

Another Europe is possible

5Martin McGuinness with Martina Anderson and Liadh Ní Riada brief the ECR group, including Jim Nicholson and ECR chairperson Syed Kamall 5Martin McGuinness addresses a GUE/NGL conference on the Peace Process in Brussels

LIADH NÍ RIADA

Important boost for jobless funding NEW MEP Liadh Ní Riada has hit the ground running in Brussels and Strasbourg. As a member of the EU Budget Committee, Liadh proposed and secured a large majority for the very first piece of legislation to come before this new parliament.

The Ní Riada Report simplified and extended the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF). Under her proposals the fund will become more accessible, allowing regional and local authorities access the fund directly as well as opening it for the first time to the formerly self-employed.

Crucially, the threshold to access the fund will be reduced from 500 to 200 unemployed

workers across one sector or area, meaning the fund can be utilised more widely to tackle largescale instances of unemployment.

Fisheries Committee

Representing a constituency bounded by a huge coastline that sustains many communities as an MEP for Ireland South, Liadh’s position on the Fisheries Committee provides her with a forum to raise the many issues concerning our fishing industry.

Liadh has already proposed a number of amendments that would ease the administrative burden on Irish fishermen by securing a gradual introduction of the landing obligations that will

come in under upcoming Omnibus Regulations.

Fishing for queen scallops is a significant part of the Irish seafood market employing hundreds of people. While EU regulations allow for scallop fishing with dredgers, net-catching scallops is less harmful to ocean life and a more sustainable solution. Liadh has highlighted the contradiction in restricting fishermen to the use of 120mm regulated nets, which make scallop fishing impossible, and called for a change in policy.

LEADER power grab

Liadh has been very vocal on the power-grab for EU LEADER funding by the Department of the Environment and will be bringing a delegation of

stakeholders –– including management, community representatives and employees –– to Brussels to raise their concerns with the Parliament and the Commission.

LEADER was designed to assist with rural development to create sustainable, ground-up local economies so that people in agricultural communities are not forced to give up livelihoods made unviable through a lack of rural investment.

Liadh has campaigned strongly for LEADER to remain politically autonomous in the face of the Government decision to place them under the auspice of local authorities and county development plans, which will have a detrimental impact on this grassroots organisation.

MATT CARTHY

Appointed to key EU-US delegation as TTIP talks progress MATT CARTHY, MEP for the Midlands North West Constituency has been appointed to the European Parliament’s delegation to the US on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The delegation engages with the US administration and Congress, political actors, the media, academia, business and civil society to raise awareness of the EU issues and concerns and promote the importance of the EU-US relationship among the American public.

It covers a broad spectrum of issues of mutual concern to the US and EU including agriculture, democracy and human rights, development and humanitarian aid, education, energy and environment, jobs and growth, trade and investment and transportation.

Speaking after the first meeting of the delegation on 16 October, Matt Carthy outlined his satisfaction at being appointed to the delegation and his vision for the role in the coming months: “Being a member of the US delegation offers me a unique forum to ensure that the interests of Ireland are represented at every opportunity both in the EU and further afield.

“As the negotiations on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership progress, many individuals and groups have been in touch to express their concern over the potential negative impact the TTIP may have on various sectors in the Irish economy, particularly in terms of environment, agriculture and employment.”

Interests and emigrants

5MEPs Matt Carthy and Martina Anderson with the anti-fracking campaign outside the EU Parliament

Matt Carthy said he believes it is particularly important that Irish MEPs are “vigilant in acting to ensure that Ireland’s interests are protected to the maximum extent possible and I believe my role on this delegation may afford me a greater opportunity to do that”.

“I also intend to use my membership of this delegation to build and strengthen relationships with our Diaspora living in America and highlighting issues of concern to them.”

At the first meeting of the committee he raised issues concerning the undocumented Irish in the United States with the new EU Ambassador to the US, David O’Sullivan, who promised to support the Irish Government efforts to regularise their status.

November / Samhain 2014 25

www.anphoblacht.com

Treo eile don Eoraip MARTINA ANDERSON

Irish MEP made Chair of European Parliament’s delegation to Palestine

MARTINA ANDERSON MEP has work every day to improve the lives of the the closure was linked to the EU Tobacco retraining and reskilling package,” she said.

Products Directive.

Martina Anderson also welcomed Martin been appointed as the Chair of the Palestinian people.

“From our experience in the Irish Peace “The reason for JTI Gallaher’s closing their McGuinness’s visit to the European ParliaEuropean Parliament’s delegation Process, we know the importance of plant in Ballymena is to increase its profit ment to brief MEPs on the current state of to Palestine The Irish MEP said she will use the position to give a voice to the Palestinian people and to put pressure on the international community to act to support efforts to bring peace to the region.

“It is an honour to have been elected as chairperson of the EU’s delegation to Palestine and I will use the position to

dialogue and inclusivity and I will bring that experience to this position,” she said.

The MEP also lobbied for EU assistance for workers at Ballymena-based tobacco factory, JTI Gallaher, which is set to close with the loss of almost 900 jobs.

Claims rejected

She rejected claims by unionist MEPs that

margins and save money on labour costs by moving to a country with lower wages.

“It is irresponsible for elected representatives to provide cover for JTI or seek to score inaccurate political points on the back of job losses.

“We should be standing together as elected representatives to provide those who have lost their jobs with a focused

Liadh Ní Riada

the political process in the North of Ireland.

“The EU can play an important role in reminding people in the North of Ireland of the importance of the Peace Process,” she said. “The successful advancement of our peace process can be of benefit not just for the people of Ireland but also for the EU as an example for the resolution of other conflicts throughout the world.”

Matt Carthy

5Martina Anderson meets the families of those killed by British state violence over Britain’s failure to honour human rights 5Martina Anderson has been selected as chair of the Palestine Delegation commitments

LYNN BOYLAN

Martina Anderson

Right2Water report is primary focus THE Right2Water report being authored by Lynn Boylan is the Dublin MEP’s primary focus. The report is a European Citizens’ Initiative pursuing EU legislation to implement the human right to water and sanitation.

As the author of the report, Lynn is the MEP selected to oversee and to present that report in the European Parliament’s plenary session.

A member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, and in her capacity as group spokesperson on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Lynn has been active in seeking to amend the current GMO draft legislation.

Lynn believes that current proposals put forward by the Commission and the European Council contain too many 5MEP Lynn Boylan meets Páblo Sanchez loopholes and is looking for amendments to Centellas from the EU Right2Water campaign improve the text in the Council’s report and to protect member states’ right to ban GM to maintain the food regulatory body’s cultivation and to support consumer rights in independence. the face of biotech companies’programmes.

During the recent Commissioner Desig- Youth and nates hearings, Lynn questioned an EU unemployment Lynn also recently attended a hearing Commissioner Designate on food safety issues. In particular, she has asked how on Youth and Employment that took place it was intended to manage potential in the European Parliament. Lynn heard conflicts of interest at the European Food from a number of young trade union shop Safety Authority and how it was intended stewards from different member states

5Lynn Boylan MEP with members of the ECCP delegation

on how economic policies dominated by austerity had impacted on their employment prospects.

Lynn’s attendance at this hearing builds on her parliamentary work on the issue, especially with regard to the Youth Guarantee. She has participated in a number of debates on the issue and has asked the President to consider developing a properly considered and funded Youth Guarantee to address youth unemployment. She

also stated that she would like to see a full review of the Guarantee in countries, including Ireland.

In between her activities on GMOs, youth unemployment and working to protect EU citizens’ right to water, Lynn also questioned a second Commissioner Designate before the new European Commission was approved, providing him with some facts and figures on the impact of austerity policies on Ireland.

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

26 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

THE BRIGHTON BOMB

and

History, memory political theatre

Brighton University symposium to mark 30th anniversary of IRA attack on Margaret Thatcher’s Government, 12 October 1984

“THERE IS ONLY very patchy evidence that the British public and political opinion has been willing to engage in critical self-reflection of ‘The Troubles’ and in particular the role of the British state in the conflict . . . in sharp contrast to the position in Northern Ireland itself, where efforts to discuss the contested past have been a fundamental aspect of the contemporary political discourse.”

This by Stephen Hopkins (Leicester University) at the two-day symposium held in Brighton on 15/16 October to mark the 30th anniversary of the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel during the1984 Conservative Party conference was timely when the Peace Process is in danger of foundering due to unionist obduracy fostered by a disengaged and neglectful British Government.

5 The aftermath of the IRA’s attack targeting the British Cabinet at the Grand Hotel

Symposium organiser Brighton University Professor Graham Dawson leads a research group on ‘Understanding Conflict: Forms and Legacies of Violence’. He said the two-day series of events aimed to explore and hopefully challenge “the rarely discussed legacies of the Irish conflict in Britain”, breaching some of the silences and taboos in public and political discourse both during and after the conflict: “What can’t be spoken of.”

The problem was illustrated by responses to other commemorative events held that week in Brighton and London, including an event for young people ‘What’s the Alternative? Beyond Violence, Injustice and Extremism’, and a screening of the film Beyond Right and Wrong, followed by a discussion about the Brighton Bombing.

A public conversation between Jo Berry, daughter of the late MP Anthony Berry, killed in the Grand Hotel, and Patrick Magee, the IRA Volunteer convicted of the

The events aimed to explore ‘the rarely discussed legacies of the Irish conflict in Britain’

BY SUE O’HALLORAN IN BRIGHTON

5 Media reactions to the Brighton bombing

bombing, met with a hostile reaction on social media and in the local press, demanding that Magee apologise and “name names”. The spirit of listening and empathy was distinctly missing. Instead, the old demonising of the IRA and the “closing down of space for alternative voices” (Professor Dawson’s words) that characterised ‘The Troubles’ in Britain emerged again.

The symposium opened with presentations from academics, researchers and former activists on legacies and impacts of IRA campaigns in Britain. Queen’s University’s Gary McGladdery asked whether the bombing campaign in Britain advanced the republican political agenda or set it back. Lesley Lelourc (Rennes University) described how the Warrington bomb was a catalyst for reconciliation. Nadine Finch (human rights lawyer and former Labour Party activist in the 1980s) tracked the impact on security and rights: strip searching, prisoner abuse and plastic bullets, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the broadcasting ban, harassment of Irish people at ports, the prevalence of anti-Irish racism, and the arduous task of getting the experience and politics of republicans heard inside the Labour Party.

In his hard-hitting paper Stephen Hopkins said that “the UK state’s tendency to deny its role and activities as a protagonist in the conflict” makes truth recovery in the North of Ireland and within Britain harder to achieve. He criticised the post-Blair establishment for their misleading claims for the Peace Process as a “model of conflict resolution” by a government with neutral status. Although much grassroots healing and reconciliation work is happening (such as the Pat Magee and Jo Berry engagement and Jo’s ‘Building Bridges for Peace’ NGO), this is “despite the ambiguity and neglect at the heart of Britain’s response”, he said.

The centrepiece of the symposium was the reading of a draft play by two Brighton writers, Josie Melia and Julie Everton. The play is based on interviews

with Jo Berry and Patrick Magee, and other people who experienced the Brighton bomb: hotel staff, other guests, emergency services, journalists, members of the local Irish community, historians and politicians.

It skilfully weaves a narrative about the experiences of the bombing itself by a group of fictional characters, with the story of the real-life reconciliation between Jo Berry and Pat Magee.

In the post-play discussion of political theatre (with local writers, Belfast’s Paula McFetridge of Kabosh, and David Wybrow, director of London’s Cockpit Theatre), Melia and Everton acknowledged that the role of British state violence and responsibility was not part of their play. They said disarmingly they have not yet figured out a way to dramatise this yet, but will tackle it by the time the play is finished next year. To be fair, it is touched on through some quiet comments the Magee figure makes about the context of the attack being “an act of war, not personal”.

As a former Sinn Féin activist in London at the time of the Brighton bomb, I found this symposium to be a praiseworthy initiative, opening up discussion of the aftermath of the conflict in Britain to a plurality of hitherto silenced voices. Hopefully it is just the beginning.

5 Margaret Thatcher

November / Samhain 2014 27

www.anphoblacht.com

One year on from abolition vote, still no serious reform of the Oireachtas upper house

Seanad still synonymous with cronyism

BY MARK MOLONEY MORE THAN ONE YEAR on from the referendum to abolish the Seanad, there’s been no sign of the Fine Gael/Labour Government’s much-promised reform of how the upper house is elected and operates.

After the surprise public poll in October 2013 to keep the much-maligned Seanad, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said he would reflect and decide how the Seanad could become an effective contributor to changes to the Irish political system.

It was clear that those opposed to the Seanad’s abolition were not in favour of maintaining the status quo but of radically reforming the state’s upper house.

Twelve months on from the referendum, Sinn Féin has put a motion

5 Seanad elections discriminate against citizens based on whether they have a third-level degree or not Other Government TDs, however, disagreed.

Fine Gael TD Patrick O’Donovan said he has two votes in the Seanad and he considers this “grossly undemocratic”: “It harks back to a measure of which the apartheid regime in South Africa would have been proud, or the Ulster Unionists in the old Stormont assembly,” he said.

Donegal Sinn Féin TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn called out Government TDs on boasts that meaningful reform of the Seanad was taking place. The reform they speak of will allow senators to raise questions with the relevant ministers earlier in the day.

“Changing the time at which particular debates are held is not exactly earth-shattering stuff, is it?”

Sinn Féin Dublin North-West TD

The Seanad has become synonymous with cronyism and as a safety net for failed general election candidates before the Dáil calling for radical reform of the Seanad.

The proposals include: » Direct elections with universal suffrage for all Irish citizens; » The introduction of Northern representation and representation of the Diaspora; » A gender balance requiring 50% women members; » Ensuring the representation of minority and marginalised groups in Irish society.

Moving the motion, Gerry Adams noted how the Seanad has become synonymous with cronyism and as a safety net for failed general election candidates.

“There have been incidents in which senators were stood down, particularly by Fianna Fáil, just weeks from a general election, to be replaced by others just for those few weeks. Such a brief sojourn in the upper house would secure entitlements such as lifelong parking at Leinster House.”

While praising some senators for their pioneering and advocacy, he said the Seanad is still not in a position to act as “a real check on the excesses of this or any other government”.

Sligo/North Leitrim Sinn Féin TD Michael Colreavy said the Government’s in-built majority in the Seanad is a major problem that needs to be sorted.

He described Government senators

Dessie Ellis said ensuring Northern representation is extremely important.

“It would present a wonderful opportunity to give voice to a people left

Fine Gael TD Patrick O’Donovan said his two votes in the Seanad are something the apartheid regime in South Africa or the Ulster Unionists in the old Stormont would have been proud of out of the narrative of the Ireland of the Oireachtas and could give great insight for political leaders into the nuts and bolts of the Peace Process, which continues to unfold today.”

He also said having 50% women members would further advance the cause of gender equality and show that the Government is serious on the issue, as well as providing a new generation of role models for young women who want to be involved in public life but see nothing but men at the top tables.

Sinn Féin’s motion was defeated as the Government introduced an amendment (in reality a counter motion) which simply boasted about their current minimalist plans.

Cork East Sinn Féin TD Sandra McLellan said: “The failure of Fine Gael and Labour to fulfill their promises to reform our political system is unsurprising. But if we continue to do what we have always done, nothing will change. We need to act now and we need real reform.”

5 (Clockwise) Gerry Adams, Michael Colreavy, Seán Crowe, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, Dessie Ellis and Sandra McLellan

as acting “like the little dogs one sometimes sees in the rear windscreens of cars, with their bobble-heads going up and down. Ninety-nine times out of 100, the Seanad will deliver the answer the Government wants.”

Dublin South-West Sinn Féin TD Seán Crowe criticised the way the Seanad is elected for “discriminating against citizens on the basis of whether they have a third-level education”. Even then, only those with degrees from certain third-level institutions have votes.

Arguing against the Sinn Féin proposal, Labour Party Environment, Community & Local Government Minister Alan Kelly said the costs of universal suffrage for Seanad elections “could be extensive”, saying that a further referendum would be required to switch from postal ballots to polling stations.

Labour TD Joanna Tuffy argued that the current elections to the Seanad are not “undemocratic, unique or unusual”.

5 The referendum result was not a decision to retain the Seanad in its current form

28 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

The public school Citizen Army anarchist Captain Jack White – Imperialism, Anarchism and the Irish Citizen Army

By Leo Keohane Merrion Press Price (Paperback) €19.75; (Hardback) €49.95

IT IS a sad commentary on modern life that mention of Jack White to many people conjures up images of either a landmark pub on the main Dublin to Wicklow road or the lead singer of The White Stripes.

Only a small minority would think of a pivotal figure in Irish nationalist politics.

Captain Jack White was born in 1879 in Antrim into an archetypal Ulster unionist family. His father was a winner of the Victoria Cross, a knighted field marshal and Governor of Gibraltar.

He was educated expensively at the Winchester College public school, followed by Sandhurst Military Academy and destined for a long and illustrious British Army career. He won the Distinguished Service Order (the medal immediately below the Victoria Cross) in the Boer War but became disenchanted with the British Army and British ruling class and resigned his commission in 1907.

Having left the army he returned to Antrim and was outraged at the behaviour of Edward Carson and the Ulster unionists towards Home Rule.

Despite his background of extreme privilege, his beliefs became increasingly socialist and, ultimately anarchist, in outlook.

When he witnessed the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force with the connivance of some parts of the British Establishment, he was appalled and tried to organise influential Establishment figures from the Protestant community (including Roger Casement) to rebut the sectarian agenda.

The Lockout of 1913, accompanied by the police and scab attacks on strikers, caused White to meet with Larkin and Connolly to propose the formation of an Irish Citizen Army to protect strikers and demonstrators, which he was to train and become its first Commandant.

Just as he had left the British Army some years earlier, White left the Irish Citizen Army and joined the Irish Volunteers, which he in turn left in 1914.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Jack White resisted pressure to rejoin the British Army and, instead, volunteered as an ambulance driver in France, but he again left this activity after a period of several months.

From this point onwards, White appears to have been involved in a long list of radical groups, with the anarchists of the Spanish Civil War attracting his strongest allegiance Captain Jack White deserves to be much more widely known. A dining companion of both King Edward and the Kaiser, and an associate of Seán

Captain Jack White was born into an an archetypal Ulster unionist family – his father was a winner of the Victoria Cross, a knighted field marshal and Governor of Gibraltar O’Casey, D. H, Lawrence, Tolstoy, H. G. Wells, T. E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’), and H. G. Wells, he was a comrade of Larkin, Connolly and Markievicz.

His enigmatic and mercurial personality made him both friends and enemies (and quite often the same people).

This is a truly wonderful book on a figure too long neglected in Irish history.

Sinn Féin National Draw 2014 Crannchur Náisiúnta TOTAL PRIZE FUND OF OVER

DUAIS-CHISTE THAR

€/£25,000

Pearse Doherty with National Draw winner Vera McGuinness

1st Prize

€15,000 Ticket Number

14665 Winner

Vera McGuinness Ballintra Donegal

€100/£100 Prizes (paid in the currency the ticket was purchased)

21885, Odhrán Meenagh, Loughmacrory, Tyrone. 36552, Joe Salmon, Renvyle Connamara, Galway. 3329, Grainne Rennix, Kilnaleck, Cavan. 29239, Sean Coleman, Forkhill, Armagh. 22419, Anne Caughey, Newtownbutler, Fermanagh.

33612, Gavin Bonner, Derry. 15389, Terry and Mary Galvin, Tullamore, Offaly.

18294, Paul McElroy, Clogher, Tyrone. 5378, Eadaóin Hamill, Belast, Antrim.

19670, Kathleen Morgan, Greystone, Antrim. 4949, Marie Kelly, Dundalk, Louth.

24600, Margaret Dolan, Belleek, Fermanagh. 38100, Joe and Jennifer Corcoran, Enniskeane, Cork. 5784, Michael Devine, Feeny, Derry. 40558, Adrienne Kirk, Inniskeen, Monaghan. 5649, Dermot Burke, Dungiven, Derry. 32144, Bernie McGerrigan, Armagh City, Armagh. 205, Pauline Keating, Dublin 2. 11652, Cathy O'Leary, Mulgannon, Wexford. 31454, Bernard McKenna, Newry. 28008, Esther McCluskey, Belfast. 12063, Martin Vernon, Ennis, Clare. 16186, Paraic Ó Fátharta, Athlone, Westmeath. 153, Gary McKenna, Omagh, Tyrone. 32714, Orla Rodgers, Shantallow, Derry. 10037, Cissie Power, Knockboy, Waterford.

27848, Paul O'Hare, Warrenpoint, Down. 29859, Cathy Shivers, Magherfelt, Derry. 12589, Sarah Feehan, Tralee, Kerry. 29134, Máirtín Kelly, Draperstown, Derry. 4829, Denise Beattie, Castlerea, Roscommon. 34309, Martin Connolly, Belmullet, Mayo. 20885, Brendan O'Neill, Ballycastle, Antrim. 11093, Michael Kennedy, Thurles, Tipperary. 8786, Marie Green, Belfast, Antrim. 33375, Sean McGlinchey, Waterside, Derry. 1408, Denise Cairns, Coatbridge, Scotland. 7219, Kristen Cunningham, Newcastle, Down. 10665, James Hickey, Ballylanders, Limerick. 26997, Tommy McIntyre, Loughgiel, Antrim

2nd Prize: £5,000, 7280, Liam Robinson, Downpatrick, Down 3rd Prize: €1,000, 39045, Jackie Nugent, Navan, Meath 4th Prize: €500, 2379, Adriene and Jean, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15 5th Prize: £300, 8268, Breena Gray, Belfast.

Seller Prize: €500, 10849, Dan McSweeney, Bantry, Cork

Thank you for your support

November / Samhain 2014 29

www.anphoblacht.com

I nDíl Chuimhne 6 November 1969: Volunteer Liam McPARLAND, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 6 November 1974: Volunteer Hugh CONEY, Long Kesh 6 November 1975: Fian Kevin McAULEY, Fianna Éireann 8 November 1974: Volunteer Gerard FENNELL, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 8 November 1982: Jeff McKENNA, Sinn Féin 11 November 1982: Volunteer Eugene

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 14 November 2014 TOMAN, Volunteer Gervase McKERR, Volunteer Seán BURNS, North Armagh Brigade 13 November 1972: Volunteer Stan CARBERRY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 14 November 1974: Volunteer James McDADE, England 15 November 1973: Volunteer Michael McVERRY, South Armagh Brigade 15 November 1974: Volunteer John

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations Pádraig Pearse

OPINION DAUGHTER OF MURDER VICTIM HARRY HOLLAND ON THE IMPACT OF HER FATHER’S KILLING

ROONEY, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 15 November 1991: Volunteer Frankie RYAN, Volunteer Patricia BLACK, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 16 November 1984: Paddy BRADY, Sinn Féin 22 November 1971: Volunteer Michael CROSSEY, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 24 November 1978: Volunteer Patrick DUFFY, Derry Brigade

25 November 1992: Volunteer Pearse JORDAN, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 26 November 1973: Volunteer Desmond MORGAN, Tyrone Brigade 28 November 1972: Volunteer James CARR, Volunteer John BRADY, Derry Brigade 29 November 1989: Volunteer Liam RYAN, Tyrone Brigade Always remembered by the Republican Movement

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IN PICTURES

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5 Martin McGuinness MLA at the unveiling of a mural to Cumann na mBan and revolutionary Irish women at Gartan Square in Derry 5 Sarah Holland and Harry’s brother-in-law, John Devlin, speaking at a vigil after the killing

What is justice?

BY COUNCILLOR SARAH HOLLAND

WHEN MY FATHER, Harry, was murdered in September 2007, my sisters and I felt as though we had stepped into an alternate reality. The safe walls of our home had been smashed down; we were set adrift without our anchor and had to find our own way back to reality and normality.

It was the shocking violence of his death that left us traumatised. I walked into the Royal Victoria Hospital to see my strong Dad hooked up to machines, fitting and shaking with blood spattered on the floor around him and my mother white-faced and crying.

Our emotions veered from horror to rage to a bleak emptiness and back

again, and this went on for months as we scrambled to hold on to normality. His death scraped us down to the bare bones of ourselves and we had to start to rebuild.

What occurred to me most during this time was the idea that I had to hold on to my humanity. The people who did this to my father were less than human to me – devoid of empathy, they became monsters in my mind.

However, over time I identified that this dehumanisation could lead me to become like them. We rejected outright any thoughts of revenge or retribution and concentrated on bringing them to justice through the courts.

The murder investigation team built a compelling case. People from the area came forward in record numbers, at a time when acceptance of the PSNI was still on shaky ground, in order to help us bring the murderers to justice. The Public Prosecution Service let everyone down – us, the murder investigation team, the entire community were aghast when box-ticking civil servants let three of the accused wander off into the ether.

Now, years later, Patrick Crossan, one of the gang, has been shot, reportedly by a ‘dissident’ group. The young man in question has been in and out of jail

for most of his adult life for a variety of violent offences. He has addiction problems and could be regarded as vulnerable due to his lower-than-average intelligence.

We want to see an end to violence on our streets. We want our kids to grow up free from fear. We want to be able to place our trust in the institutions that form part of a normally

Reverting to the dark days of punishment shootings is not a solution and is a massive step backwards functioning society – police, courts, prison services.

Our focus should be on reforming these institutions and making them fit for purpose. Reverting to the dark days of punishment shootings is not a solution and is a massive step backwards.

Those who shot Patrick Crossan are as devoid of empathy as Patrick Crossan himself and we say, loudly and clearly – not in our name, and not in our father’s name.

5 Rosie McCorley MLA with a great group of young people, Irish and Scottish, at Lenadoon republican commemoration at Roddy’s

30 November / Samhain 2014

www.anphoblacht.com

BETWEEN THE POSTS

BY CIARÁN KEARNEY

PREPARING FOR THE END-GAME THE FRONT of our end-terrace house in Andersonstown in Belfast is like a window on the changing seasons.

Chestnut trees nearby offer a windfall while the October breezes slowly undress them, peeling the golden leaves off their wooden limbs. It makes autumn very easy on the eye.

It also reinforces the inexorable cycle of change –– the impermanence of everything in our lives.

This applies to sport as well. You don’t always get out what you give. Or, rather, you don’t always get what you expect.

When expectations and attitudes are premised on a false promise, problems for the future are already being sown.

Especially for the end of a sporting career.

Every autumn is filled by announcements of retirement from sport. Some careers sparkle with success; most others do not.

This year, Armagh Gaelic footballers Aaron Kernan and Brian Mallon stepped down from their county team. Kernan and Mallon played through the grades at the same time in the Armagh panel and enjoyed Ulster titles with the Orchard County in the mid-2000s. Mallon had meagre success with his own club Tír na nÓg whilst Kernan earned numerous county, Ulster and All-Ireland titles with the legendary Crossmaglen Rangers.

Do these differences matter to either

man? Probably not. Should the number of medals and honours influence or determine how they’re remembered?

After they stop playing inter-county football, does anyone really care about former players?

Both retired from the Armagh panel within 48 hours. Manager Kieran McGeeney said their departure was “unfortunate” while Kernan issued this statement: “I am particularly proud to have contributed to my family’s long-standing connections with Armagh football and to have been involved both with my brothers and my father Joe at the top level.

“I believe the time is now right to make the transition although I will continue to play for my club Crossmaglen and remain actively involved in the GAA and the Gaelic Players’ Association . . .

“I was very fortunate to play alongside and against some outstanding footballers, sportsmen and individuals and will cherish those memories forever.”

Coming from a family steeped in Gaelic sport and with brothers still on the county panel, retiring could be a huge challenge for Kernan. It’s a good thing that he recognises his

‘transition’. Guidance and support from his family is reflected in the statement. He already has another career in the family business. Significantly,

it’s memories which Kernan says he cherishes, not medals.

Derval O’Rourke is another athlete who retired this year. Wisely, O’Rourke

IN PICTURES

5 Sports Minister Carál Ní Chuilín MLA welcomes Ulster’s All-Ireland winning GAA teams to Stormont

had already mapped out a way ahead with her own just-published cookbook (Food for the Fast Lane: Recipes to Power your Body and Mind, Gill & Macmillan, €19.99) and continuing her writing with The Irish Examiner. Planning new roles for life after competitive sport is a vital part of transition.

So too is clearly influencing expectations.

Former Irish rugby international Brian O’Driscoll also stepped back this year from sport.

His retirement had been trailed in the media long beforehand.

However, not even O’Driscoll could have foreseen that his final match would be the night Ireland won the 6 Nations rugby title.

All of those mentioned so far retired on their own terms. Some players and athletes are not so fortunate.

Last year, during a McKenna Cup match, a talented young player returned to competition after a lay-off from injury.

Twenty minutes into the match he followed his marker into the air to field a kick-out from the opposition goal. As he landed on the heavy ground a few feet from where I stood, I could hear his knee crunch.

He was stretchered off. Spectators

sympathised. What they could not know was that the day before he had been told his sporting talent had earned him a scholarship to play soccer in the United States. His plans, not just his knee, had been dealt a devastating blow. In this case, excellent back-up support was available to the player. Many players, though, leave sport without support.

Recently, the Gaelic Players’ Associ-

Every autumn is filled by announcements of retirement from sport ation hosted an event in Croke Park for former players. GPA President Dermot Early said that the aim is to aid player transition: “The goal is that no player goes without receiving help, should they require it.”

It’s a noble and necessary ambition.

Sport is imprinted into the identity of former players and athletes, and woven into the fabric of Irish culture and society. But, like the leaves falling from the trees, sports careers must end to make way for new growth. We owe it to those who enrich our lives with sport to help them find a new start.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Members of the Kenna Family, Dundalk, at the recent Annual Kenna Cup Memorial Tournament held in memory of former Sinn Féin Councillor Seán Kenna. Sinn Féin Councillor Edel Corrigan presented the cup to tournament winners Redeemer and runner-up medals to Shamrocks

www.anphoblacht.com

Samhain 2014 31

November /

5 There is evidence that elite female athletes are closing the gap on males

Playing with the boys THE YEAR 1972 saw the passing into law by the US Congress and Richard Nixon of Title IX to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The amendment read: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

It was part of an attempt to introduce an overall Equal Rights Amendment to strengthen the position of women in the United States. One of its main impacts was to be in the sphere of women’s sport.

In subsequent guidelines, the US Department of Education evaluated whether women athletes were being treated equally on the basis of coaching facilities, quality of equipment, timing of events, and so forth. In other words (to use a pained analogy), to try to ensure that female sportspeople were operating on a level playing field.

The impact of the changes was massive.

Between 1971 and 2001, the numbers of women students taking part in college sports increased from fewer than 300,000 to almost three million, with women athletes now comprising over 40% of all college athletes. The quality of women’s sports has also immeasurably improved (as seen particularly on the track) but also in team sports where standards are much higher.

One of the few relative successes of the socialist states was that women’s track and field was far superior to the United States. The holders of the world records in 100m, 200m and 1500m in 1972, prior to Title IX, were all East German and Soviet runners.

So the moves to favour women athletes in the US may have been as much a reflection of progress already being made within women’s sports internationally as it was a spur to achieve American dominance, and of women’s sprints events in particular.

Women’s team sports worldwide have improved immeasurably as a spectacle with no further proof required than the women’s equivalents of the senior hurling and football championships, with two excellent finals this year (even if Dublin did conspire to commit hara-kiri against the great Cork team in the football final!).

While initial opposition to Title IX came from conservatives in American sports who were concerned that it would ‘undermine’ male college athletics, there has been a thread of criticism in recent years from some women who argue that ‘equal opportunity’ is no longer sufficient and

MATT TREACY that women’s sports need to be placed on an absolute level par with male sports, to the extent of integrating them at all levels.

That is the argument in a 2008 book, Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is not Equal, by Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano. Their thesis is that the current ‘inequality’ between male and female athletes is socially constructed. They claim that “coercive sex segregation … enforces a flawed premise that females are inherently athletically inferior to males”.

The solution to that apparently is that female and male athletes be integrated according to grades at all levels. Would that mean, for example, a 4 x 100m Olympic relay team having the top two runners from each gender? And likewise with team sports like soccer and American Football?

It is an argument I find difficult to accept.

There is evidence that elite female athletes are closing the gap on males. The gap between the women’s and men’s 100m, 200m and 1,500m world records has narrowed but men were breaking the current world 100m record for women almost a century ago.

It is difficult then to see on what basis the fastest women sprinters should be on the same team as the fastest men.

Perhaps the last word ought to be left to Pat Griffin, who has been involved in elite women’s coaching and who describes herself as a “sports feminist”. She fears that integration would overturn the post-Title IX situation and discourage girls and women from taking part in sport, as only the “few exceptional women . . . could compete successfully against men”.

Vive la differénce perhaps.

IN PICTURES

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Martin McGuinness takes a penalty against goalkeeping legend Pat Jennings at the launch of the Irish Football Association McDonald’s ‘Grassroots Football Partnership’

5 Sinn Féin MLAs Bronwyn McGahan, Cathal Boylan, Ian Milne, Rosie McCorley and Jennifer McCann with International Boxing Federation champion Carl Frampton

5 Belfast Friends of Palestine fun run from the Dairy Farm, Twinbrook, to Belfast City Centre

anphoblacht NEXT ISSUE OUT – Thursday 27th November 2014

32

Martin McGuinness at EU Parliament

‘Advancing the Irish Peace Process’

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE

MARTIN McGUINNESS briefed MEPs from across Europe on the current state of the political process in the North when he visited the European Parliament in Brussels in October.

Speaking at the ‘Advancing the Irish Peace Process’ event, which was hosted by the GUE/NGL EU Parliament Group, Martin McGuinness warned that the gains of the political process could be under threat if the agreement on contentious issues can’t be found.

During the visit, the deputy First Minister also met with the leaders of several European Parliament groupings to update them on the current impasse.

He told MEPs that repeated attempts have been made to undermine the political institutions in the North in recent years.

“First, mainstream political unionism has sifted towards an anti-Agreement position.

“Second, a partisan Tory-led British Government is seeking to impose its policy of welfare and public service cuts on the North while pandering to a growing list of unionist demands.

“Alongside that, the Irish Government, a co-equal guarantor of the agreements, has been focused on domestic economic issues,” he said.

Martina Anderson MEP told MEPs that the EU has a role to play in supporting the political process.

“We need to find a way forward. There

5 Martin McGuinness addresses MEPs in Brussels on the Peace Process with GUE/NGL President Gabi Zimmer

is a serious danger that the progress we have made will be in vain if these talks are not successful.

“So far in the North of Ireland we’ve received tremendous support from the EU to help move on from conflict and towards prosperity. I hope this continues,” she said.

During the visit, Martin McGuinness also met with EU officials to secure European assistance for workers at Ballymena’s JTI Gallaher tobacco factory which is set to close with the loss of almost 900 jobs.

“I had very positive discussions with key officials and MEPs involved in the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund which has a €150million budget to assist workers facing redundancy by aiding them retrain or to set up their own business.

“I strongly made the case that Gallaher’s clearly falls into the remit of this fund which aims to help people losing their jobs as a direct result of global market trends,” Martin McGuinness said.

5 Martin McGuinness discusses the accessing of the Globalisation Fund for JTI Gallaher workers in Ballymena

SINN FÉIN NATIONAL DRAW 2014 RESULTS

SEE PAGE 28