An Phoblacht, November 2016

REPUBLICAN WOMEN

Flames Not Flowers

oirse Ní sasaoirse go Ban na m

MEDIA OWNERS

DENIS O’BRIEN’S NEWS AGENDA

SINN FÉIN YOUTH

LEADING FROM THE FRONT

anphoblacht Sraith Nua Iml 39 Uimhir 11

November / Samhain 2016

Martin McGuinness to British Prime Minister...

You Brexit, We Remain

Price €2 / £2

2 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

GERRY ADAMS

Sinn Féin’s politics are embedded in the Proclamation of 1916. It is these politics and policies that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil fear

President of Sinn Féin

The ‘centre ground’ and the politics of Tweedledee and Tweedledum BUDGET 2017 marks another step in the slow, incremental realignment of politics in the South. The common interests of the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaderships have crystallised more clearly than ever before – so much so that Fianna Fáil never even published an alternative budget of their own.

Instead they and Fine Gael have been very busy espousing the importance of so-called ‘centre ground’ politics.

In his Dáil speech on the Budget, Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Paschal Donohoe said: “Those of us in the middle ground of politics have a duty to show that co-operation and consensus can work; to show that our tone can be moderate, but still convincing; and to show that things will not just fall apart and the centre can and will hold, stay firm and will grow.”

He was followed minutes later by the Fianna Fáil Finance spokesperson, Michael McGrath, who raised the spectre of the ‘extremes’. According to Teachta McGrath: “The bigger picture is that the centre ground of politics is under attack, not just here in Ireland but throughout Europe, and I agree with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, that there are various definitions of centre ground. When one looks at the alternative, one realises just how vital it is that the centre holds.”

Later in the Dáil debate, Thomas Byrne of Fianna Fáil returned to the notion of the centrist politics when he claimed that it is the people of Ireland who “are at the centre of our thinking, as are the policies that will make change happen for them”.

Fine Gael Health Minister Simon Harris took time out of his Budget remarks to “agree with one point made by Deputy Byrne, namely, the one on the centre holding. There are many people

IN PICTURES

5 Frenemies: Enda Kenny and Mícheál Martin

on the extreme of Irish politics who would not have thought that we could have delivered a Budget and who did not do anything to contribute to that process.”

What does all of this mean? At one level it is about using fear – trying to frighten sections of the electorate into supporting Fine Gael and Fianna

Fáil. At another level, it is complete nonsense.

Mícheál Martin made a play for the centre ground of Southern politics in a speech he gave to the MacGill Summer School in the Glenties in July. He warned that it is the “extremes which are setting the terms of the debate” and he spoke of the challenge to “democratic societies”.

Sinn Féin’s articulation of radical republican politics and policies challenges the conservatism of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour

For Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, their strategy to try and curb the growth of Sinn Féin is ‘Operation Fear’.

At the same time, the Fianna Fáil leader is verbally embracing Sinn Féin’s progressive policies.

Fairness is the new buzzword for Fianna Fáil.

But Budget 2017 is not about fairness and equality.

Nor can its politics end the crises in health and housing; or deliver tax fairness; or end water charges. On the contrary, Budget 2017 represents the same old doublespeak and political manoeuvring of the past. There is no new politics, just new language for an old story.

The conservative parties remain firmly wedded to an ideology that prefers cuts to Capital Acquisition Tax for some of the wealthiest citizens in this state rather than investment in the health service. At a time when homelessness is at an historic level and people are being priced out of the rental and first-time buyers’ market, Budget 2017 will simply make matters worse. And the Budget allocation for a health service in crisis will not resolve the underlying problems.

And none of this takes into account the huge threat to the economy of this island and to society by Brexit.

In the Dáil, Sinn Féin is THE Opposition.

In policy terms, it is Sinn Féin’s articulation of radical republican politics and policies that is challenging the conservatism of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and Labour.

Sinn Féin’s politics are embedded in the Proclamation of 1916.

We are for economic equality and sustainable prosperity and a New Republic which will deliver the highest standard of services and protections for all our citizens. It is these politics and policies that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil fear.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin Republican Youth join a Union of Students in Ireland 5 Former POWs Mary Doyle and Síle Darragh at the 'Flames Not protest against a propised Irish Government student loan scheme Flowers’ event in Richmond Barracks commemorating the 77 women republicans imprisoned after the 1916 Rising – See pages 16 &17 , calling instead for publicly-funded third-level education

5 Sinn Féin Republican Youth at the Derry Anti-War Coalition protest against the bombing of Syria

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

SDLP, UUP and PBP rhetoric versus Sinn Féin delivery

3

5 Sinn Féin ministerial team – MLAs Chris Hazzard, Megan Fearon, Martin McGuinness, Michelle O'Neill and Máirtín Ó Muilleoir

THE impact of the “Brexit” referendum continued to dominate business at Stormont as First Minister and deputy First Minister Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness met British Prime Minister Theresa May in Downing Street on Monday 24 October with the leaders of Scotland and Wales.

While the Assembly has not had the opportunity to debate the referendum result – in which the majority of the people of the north voted to remain – the issue has arisen during several debates during recent weeks.

One of the main debates on the issue was around a motion calling for the North to be given special status in recognition of the majority vote here.

What was notable during the debate was the position of People Before Profit MLAs Eamonn McCann and Gerry Carroll. Both MLAs abstained from the vote and, as a result, the motion was defeated by just one vote.

Not only did the pair vote against the democratic wishes of the majority of the population of the North, they also failed to offer any rationale for their position during the debate. It’s far from the “accountability” platform they campaigned on in May’s elections.

Essentially, the pair – from the Foyle and West Belfast constituencies, both

areas which benefit from EU funding – aligned themselves with the most reactionary right-wing elements of the British Tory Party, including Boris Johnston and Liam Fox, who campaigned for Brexit in the first place.

The Assembly also had its second “Opposition Day” by the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP (not that anyone

During a debate on social housing provision, the Ulster Unionist Party/SDLP Opposition actually proposed building fewer houses than the Executive would have really noticed as it went well below the media and public radar).

Following on in the same vein as the first one, it was an entirely lacklustre affair, not making any noticeable impact or headlines.

More than five months on from the Assembly elections, the so-called

Opposition have yet to make their mark and show people what they have to offer except negativity.

In the first “Opposition Day” the disjointed pairing of the SDLP and UUP brought forward three motions, two of which fell outside of the remit of the Assembly! This time around they brought forward a motion on hospital waiting times, which was totally flawed as it mixed up patients and referrals.

Another swing and a miss.

UUP leader Mike Nesbitt and his deputy leader of the Opposition, the SDLP’s Colum Eastwood, have yet to produce anything concrete and they keep sticking to their mantra of “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Meanwhile, Sinn Féin Infrastructure Minister Chris Hazzard opened the new £35million Magherafelt by-pass. Rhetoric versus delivery.

One of the most telling examples of the Opposition’s ill-thought-out approach came during a debate on social housing provision when the Opposition actually proposed building fewer houses than the Executive.

With policies like that it’s not hard to see why both the SDLP and UUP had such a bad election.

Despite stunts such as Colum Eastwood speaking at the UUP

Eamonn McCann

Colum Eastwood

Mike Nesbitt

conference (just as he did at the Fianna Fáil think-in recently – hedging his bets?) the Opposition is still floundering and is little more than a title.

And they can't even agree on that as

Sinn Féin maintained its pressure on the British Government over its failure to deal effectively with the legacy of the past both Nesbitt and Eastwood claim to be leaders of the Opposition.

At times in Stormont, as in all debating chambers, elected representatives have been accused of speaking for too long, making sure they use up all of their allotted time, regardless of what they are saying.

Gerry Carroll

That could certainly not be said of Sinn Féin’s ministers at the dispatch box in the Stormont chamber in recent weeks. Their short, snappy answers to oral questions have been direct and to the point.

On one particular occasion, after a long, rambling question from the UUP’s Robin Swan in an attempt to put Sinn Féin Health Minister Michelle O’Neill under pressure, calling on her to appear before the Health Committee to discuss hospital waiting times, the minister rose to her feet and gave a one-word response. “Brilliant,” she replied.

Elsewhere at Stormont, Sinn Féin maintained its pressure on the British Government over its failure to deal effectively with the legacy of the past.

Martin McGuinness and Junior Minister Megan Fearon met British Secretary of State James Brokenshire on the issue and made it clear that they are coming to the conclusion that the British Government is not – and never was – serious about finding a resolution to the outstanding issues.

4 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 8

Carrickmines & Travellers – A civil rights issue 10

Éigse na mBan – Drama, art and feminist politics 12

Mary Lou McDonald – A mental health lifeline 24/7 13

Windsor Park’s new dawn opens under a cloud 20

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht

Stop Westminster Tories driving us off Brexit cliff BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Theresa May has been left under no illusion by Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness that Westminster cannot ignore the reality that the people of the North voted to remain in the EU and the enormous consequence of Brexit for Ireland.

Sinn Féin deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and First Minister Arlene Foster were at 10 Downing Street on Monday 24 October for a two-hour Joint Ministerial Council meeting with the leaders of Wales and Scotland, Carwyn Jones and Nicola Sturgeon, with Theresa May. In the run-up to the meeting, the British Tory Prime Minister called for a strengthening of the Union during the Brexit process.

The First Ministers of Wales and Scotland raised concerns that Westminster is railroading this process over the heads of the devolved Assemblies.

Nicola Sturgeon added: “What I am not prepared to do, as First Minister, is to stand back and see Scotland driven off a hard Brexit cliff edge because the consequences in lost jobs, lost investment and lower living standards is too serious.”

Martin McGuinness said: “The frustration which Nicola is talking about, which I share, is the lack of information about precisely what objectives the British Prime Minister has in relation to the outworking of this negotiation and what she is going to face when it comes to triggering Article 50.”

The deputy First Minister said that there is a “democratic imperative to recognise and respect the vote in the North to remain in the EU” in the Brexit negotiations process. He continued: “Any attempt to drag the North

Contact

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

NEWS editor@anphoblacht.com NOTICES notices@anphoblacht.com PHOTOS photos@anphoblacht.com British spy cops given Garda licence to roam in Ireland 25

Irish support for the Spanish Republic 31

Dylan dilemma

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

out of the EU represents a fundamental change in the constitutional position and an undermining of the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.”

There will be no good Brexit. It will be bad for our people, bad for our economy, and bad for our services.

It will further entrench partition and is fundamentally undemocratic.

Brexit is bad for all Ireland.

In the Assembly in the North, People Before Profit aligned with unionists and abstained on a vote for special status for the North. This caused the motion to fail.

There is an even greater imperative for united action across the political, community and commercial spectrum to make our voices heard – before the Tories at Westminster entrench partition and drag the North out of the EU.

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

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

www.anphoblacht.com

British on Brexit – no plan or care about consequences, says Adams “IT IS increasingly clear that the British Government has neither a plan for Brexit or a care as to how it impacts on Ireland,” Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD says.

“The British Government has claimed that an agreement has been reached, with the Irish Government, for immigration control into Britain to be in place in Irish ports and airports.

"I have twice raised this directly with the Taoiseach and on both occasions he has failed to answer.

This is unacceptable.”

The Sinn Féin leader adds: “There is a need for the Irish Government – and all parties – to

stand up for our national interests in all discussions with the British Government and at the European Union.

“That means respecting and giving effect to the vote in the North to ‘Remain’ in the EU. “Sinn Féin has called for and supported the Taoiseach in developing an All-Ireland Forum on Brexit.

“The Taoiseach needs to make clear that the Civic Dialogue will identify and chart a course to ensure that the whole island remains within the EU and to minimise the impact on our nation of the British decision to leave the EU.”

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

5

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh Léirionn taighde nua le Nasc Tuaithe na hÉireann an ghéarchéim bochtaineacht in Éireann

Bochtaineacht tuaithe níos measa san Iarthar TÁ SÉ SOILÉIR ó thaighde nua atá foilsithe ag Nasc Tuaithe na hÉireann (IRL Irish Rural Link) go bhfuil géarchéim bochtaineachta againn in Éireann, go h-áirithe sna ceantair tuaithe agus astu sin gurb iad na ceantair san Iarthar, lártíre agus cois teorainn is measa atá buailte.

I dtuairisc a d’fhoilsigh siad le mí anuas deir siad go mbíonn an bhochtaineacht tuaithe ceilte go minic, ach go léirítear go follasach é sna dúshláin a bhíonn roimh na pobail tuaithe. Dúshláin ar nós an easpa córais iompar, easpa infreastructhúr teicneolaiochta, an easpa fostaíochta, an ganntann i seirbhisí bhunúsacha agus mar sin de.

De réir na staitistici a chuireann siad ar fáil sa tuairisc ‘Poverty & Social Inclusion – The Case for Rural Ireland’ léirítear go bhfuil duine as gach cúigear san gceantar ‘BMW’ i mbochtaineacht – a leath acu sin ar bhonn leanúnach.

Tá an ráta dífhostaíochta níos airde sna ceantair tuaithe ná an meán náisiúnta freisin agus is léir gur sna bailte móra is mó atá an fás fostaíochta ag tarlú. Lena chois sin, léirítear go bhfuil caighdeán na fostaíochta sna ceantair tuaithe níos ísle – conraí gearra, séasúracha ar phá níos íseal agus araile.

Níl aon amhras ach an oiread go bhfuil an droch chóras iompar agus rochtain ar leathanbhanda ardluais ag cur leis na deacrachtaí atá ann chun comhlachtaí a mhealladh le lonnú faoin dtuath. Tagraíonn IRL do staidéar a rinneadh ar na seoltaí idirlíon atá ag comhlachtaí beaga in Éirinn a thaispeánann go bhfuil an ceathrú cuid díbh dhá choinneáil ó ghníomhaíochtaí ar-líne de bharr droch chaighdeán leathanbhanda.

IN PICTURES

Tá cuid mhór de na moltaí atá sa mbeartas polasaí tuaithe ‘Margadh Nua Don Iarthar’ atá againn ag deileáil go direach leis na ceisteanna tromchúiseacha seo

Cuid lárnach den bhochtaineacht a thugann siad le fios ná an ganntann bhreosla. Tá caighdeán na tithíochta tuaithe ag cur leis na fadhbanna sa gcomhthéacs seo. Níl na roghanna céanna ar fáil agus go minic bíonn an bhreosla níos costasaí de bharr cúrsaí iompar, rud a bhaineann pingineacha breise amach as pócaí na ndaoine chomh maith.

Tá fócas faoi leith sa tuarascáil ar chás na mban faoin dtuath. Tagraíonn siad don maoiniú a baineadh de chuid mhaith eagraíochtaí pobalbhunaithe a bhí ag díriú ar thacaíochtaí eacnamaíoch agus sóisialta a chur ar fáil do mhná. Luann siad chomh goilliúnach is atá cás na dtuismitheoirí aonair, gurb iad mná a bhformhór, na deacrachtaí a chruthaíonn easpa seirbhísí feiliúnacha cúram leanaí ó thaobh deiseanna fostaíochta agus oideachais na mban freisin. Ach, deacrachtaí nua atá tagtha chun cinn le linn na géarchéime is déanaí ná méadú

Tugann siad le fios chomh maith go bhfuil an ganntann ioncam níos follasaí sna ceantair tuaithe ná sna bailte móra agus go bhfuil na h-ioncaim atá ag feirmeoiri go maith faoi bhun an meán-phá náisiúnta agus teaghlaigh ag brath ar fhoinsí eile seachas ioncam na feirme chun maireachtáil. Ach, tá laghdú le blianta beaga anuas ar an teacht isteach ó na gníomhaíochtaí 5 An Feisire Michelle O'Neill a thug isteach polasaí profáíl breise seo, rud atá ag cur inmhart- tuaithe fad is a bhí sí ina hAire Talmhaíochta & Forbartha hanacht na bhfeirmeacha féin i mbaol. Tuaithe sa gComthionóil

ar an bhforéigean baile agus ar líon na mban agus teaghlaigh gan dídean.

Tá ceisteanna móra áireamh shóisialta ag cuir as do na pobail tuaithe chomh maith. Bhuail an ghéarchéim ioncam lucht na tuaithe níos mó ná muintir na cathracha. Cruthaíonn an laghdú ioncam a chuid deacrachtaí féin. Áirítear anseo, imeallú ón bpobal, daoine a bheith ag obair astu féin, easpa áiseanna agus maoine, deacrachtaí le ganntann modhanna taisteal, easpa deiseanna oideachais, fostaíochta agus seirbhísí.

Tá dreamanna éagsúla sa bpobal a mbíonn an imeallú seo ag cur as dóibh níos mó, ar an áirítear na mná, daoine aosta, óganaithe, daoine le míchumas, pobail mhionlaigh agus mar sin de.

An moladh is mó atá ag Nasc Tuaithe na hÉireann le dul i ngleic leis na dúshláin éagsúla seo ná go ndéanfaí profáil tuaithe ar pholasaithe agus straitéisí uile an rialtais sa gcaoi is go mbeidh deiseanna ag pobal na tuaithe fanacht faoin dtuath agus na seansanna céanna a bheith acu post maith a fháil agus saol réasúnta a chaitheamh.

Dár ndoigh, seo sprioc atá ag Sinn Féin le fada an lá agus tá cuid mhór de na moltaí atá sa mbeartas polasaí tuaithe ‘Margadh Nua Don Iarthar’ atá againn ag deileáil go direach leis na ceisteanna tromchúiseacha seo. Níos mó ná sin, fad is a bhí an tAireacht Tuaithe againn sa gComthionóil rinne muid beart de réir briathar agus chur muid an polasaí sin i bhfeidhm. Agus déanfaidh muid amhlaidh ó dheas, ach an deis a fháil.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Paul Donnelly, Denise Mitchell TD, Carol Nolan TD, Councillor Phil Lynam, Councillor Natalie Treacy and Dessie Ellis TD joined a successful protest by the St Mochta's Build Action Group from Clonsilla, Dublin, calling for funding for a new school building

5 Sinn Féin deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness MLA with special friends at the opening of Foyle Down Syndrome Trust Grand Kitchen

6 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

European report takes a look at who owns Ireland’s news outlets

THE ‘PERFECT STORM’ THREATENING MEDIA PLURALITY IN IRELAND Grúpa Cónasctha den Chlé Aontaithe Eorpach • den Chlé Ghlas Nordach

GRÚPA PARLAIMINTEACH EORPACH

www.guengl.eu

BY MARK MOLONEY URGENT ACTION is needed to address “grave concerns about the high concentration of media ownership in the Irish market, and in particular regarding the position of Independent News & Media and Mr Denis O’Brien”. That is part of the conclusion of a European report on Ireland’s media landscape commissioned by Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan and her group in the European Parliament, European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL).

“As someone who thought about a career in journalism when I left school, I have a lot of respect for journalists and their role in holding

Ireland has one of the most concentrated media markets of any democracy power to account and seeking truth,” Lynn Boylan tells An Phoblacht on why she decided to commission the Report on the Concentration of Media Ownership in Ireland.

“When an EU Commission report in March showed Ireland as ‘high risk’ in terms of media plurality, it prompted me to take action. Everyone in Government was saying tackling media ownership could not be done but I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Lynn and GUE/NGL commissioned top lawyers from Britain and Ireland: Gavin Booth and Darragh Mackin (Young Lawyer of the Year Winner 2016) of Belfast-based KRW Law, and Caoilfhionn Gallagher and Jonathan Price of the prestigious Doughty Street Chambers in Britain. (Doughty Street members include Amal Clooney, Louis Blom-Cooper, Helena Kennedy and Keir Starmer, now Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.)

They looked at EU Competition Law, the Irish Constitution and the Charter of Fundamental Rights into what can be done to tackle the lack of media plurality.

5 Denis O’Brien

Billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien is the largest shareholder of Independent News & Media (INM), which publishes the Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Sunday World, Sunday Life and The Herald evening newspaper as well as owning 50% of the Irish Daily Star and the Belfast Telegraph.

INM also owns 13 regional papers and has recently announced its proposed takeover of the Celtic Media Group – adding a further seven regional titles.

It operates a print plant in Newry and is one of two main wholesalers and distributors of

newspapers and magazines in Ireland via its subsidiary company, Newspread.

Its holdings encompass NewsTalk, Today FM, 98FM, Spin1038, Spin South West and TXFM. Communicorp suffered a blow in 2007 when its attempt to buy Dublin’s FM104 was rejected by the Competition Authority who believed it would give O’Brien an “undue” share of the radio market in the capital.

The state argues that while it can block such expansion under competition law, it cannot act retrospectively.

Gavin Booth tells An Phoblacht that it is

important to remember that media pluralism also encapsulates other aspects, including the variety of sources and viewpoints available to listeners: “While Ireland has plenty of local and regional radio stations, we note that the Communi-

‘Everyone in Government was saying tackling media ownership could not be done but I wouldn’t take no for an answer’ Lynn Boylan MEP

5 The Communicorp-owned NewsTalk supplies news to the entirety of Ireland’s 31-strong ‘independent’ radio network

corp-owned NewsTalk supplies the news to Ireland’s 31-strong independent radio network.”

Lynn Boylan adds: “So even if they don’t own the radio stations, they are literally supplying the news.”

The report says it is “alarming” that Ireland has “one of the most concentrated media markets of any democracy”.

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Health Minister Michelle O’Neill launches her 10-year vision to transform North’s health and social care system

5 Caoilfhionn Gallagher, Jonathan Price, Gavin Booth and Lynn Boylan launch their report into media concentration This is a finding which Lynn Boylan says she reporting concerning their business interests.” found “absolutely shocking”.

Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan accuses the majority “We were aware that there was a problem,” of politicians of balking at the idea of ‘picking a she says, “but to find out Ireland is one of the fight with the media’: “This report is the first step and it clearly sets worst is pretty disturbing.” out that there are no legal barriers to remedyThe report states: “We conclude that there are extremely grave ing this imbalance. Obviously, the devil is in the concerns about the high concentration of media detail. We don’t deny it would be difficult. One ownership in the Irish market, and in particu- of the very concrete proposals is a multi-dislar regarding the position of INM and Mr Denis ciplinary commission – as supported by the O’Brien.

National Union of Journalists.

“Accumulation of communicative power within “We need to work with all politicians who share the news markets is at endemic levels and so our concerns. No politician should be afraid of a Ireland has one of the most concentrated media markets of any democracy. This feature – alarming in itself – must be viewed alongside the other gravely concerning aspects of the Irish media landscape which we have highlighted: sustained and regular threats of legal action by Mr O’Brien to media organisations and journalists who are engaged in newsgathering or reporting about his activities, and the ‘chilling effect’ of the current defamation laws.

“This is a toxic combination for freedom of expression and media plurality.”

The report is also highly critical of “serious shortcomings in the defamation framework” of the state, noting unusually high jury awards which are completely at odds with much of the rest of Europe. NewsBrands Ireland, whose management committee includes representatives of each of Ireland’s mainstream newspaper publishers (including INM), has warned that the defamation situation means many newspapers “do not take the risk of publishing potentially controversial material given the possibility of high damages awards and the unpredictability for publishers, who cannot reliably ascertain their potential liability pre-publication”.

These factors contribute to creating “a perfect storm which threatens news plurality and underLynn Boylan MEP mines the media’s ability to perform its watchdog function”, the report says, adding: “This report concludes that there are very proper, robust media – if you’ve nothing to hide grave concerns about the situation in Ireland, then you shouldn’t be afraid of those who seek and the threats to diversity, plurality and freedom to find out the truth.” of expression.

Lynn says the failure to deal with media owner“We strongly recommend that these concerns ship in a retrospective manner means that all that be addressed as a matter of urgency and be seen has happened is the cementing of the position to be addressed. of one individual while setting up barriers to “It is imperative that safeguards are considered others who wish to challenge him. to ensure journalistic and editorial autonomy, to She also calls on Communications Minister protect and promote plurality in the Irish media Denis Naughten to “be the politician who is market, and to address the ability of powerful courageous enough to take on the thorny issue of media proprietors such as Mr O’Brien to dictate media ownership once and for all and deliver the news agendas and stifle newsgathering and fourth pillar of democracy that Ireland deserves”.

‘So even if they don’t own the radio stations, they are literally supplying the news’

‘HEALTH AND WELLBEING 2026: DELIVERING TOGETHER’ ASSEMBLY Sinn Féin Health Minister Michelle O’Neill has launched ‘Health and Wellbeing 2026: Delivering Together’ – a 10-year vision to transform the North’s health and social care system.

Unveiled on Tuesday 25 October, the plan was compiled after considering a report from the ‘Systems, Not Structures; Challenging Health and Social Care’ by a panel of experts led by former Basque Health Minister Professor Rafael Bengoa.

Sinn Féin said that the vision announced

by Minister O’Neill is “part of Sinn Féin’s commitment to building an all-Ireland universal health system which is free at the point of delivery”.

The Health Minister said that the system, itself, is now “at breaking point” facing a number of challenges, not least demographic changes and considerable health inequalities which continue to persist.

“The way services are organised is constraining transformation and our ability to provide high-quality services,” Michelle O’Neill said.

“We need to support people to keep well in the first place and when they need care and support, services should be safe and of the highest quality.

“In line with the draft Programme for Government, we will move from a focus on action

based targets to one based on patient outcomes and co-production of services.”

She added: “Across health and social care, clinicians and staff are working harder than ever to deliver high quality care and support to patients and carers but working in a system designed to meet 20th century needs that does not work in the 21st century world.”

She said this is an opportunity for a ‘fresh start’, supported by the Executive – not just the will of one minister or one department.

“There is total agreement across the Executive that this needs to be done.

“Changing the health system is the right thing to do, it’s the right time to do it, and it is right for the people who use it.

“This change will be planned, managed, incremental– this is not a ‘Big Bang’. Meaningful change does not happen overnight. This will take time, money and the support of staff, those who use our health and social care services, as well as the support of Government.

“I want to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of all those working in the service; the depth of their commitment and compassion continues to astound me.

“Thank you for all that you do to improve the health and wellbeing of those who live in the North.”

7

8 November / Samhain 2016

BY COUNCILLOR CHRIS CURRAN

www.anphoblacht.com

CARRICKMINES AND TRAVELLERS A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE

ON SATURDAY MORNING, 10 October 2015, the nation woke up to the news that a fire had taken place in Glenamuck in south County Dublin and that at least eight people had perished.

As a local councillor representing the area I rushed to the site to find the road blocked by gardaí. I met local residents and friends of some of the deceased, all stunned by the unfolding news.

In the years before, the family had been moved on by the council to an isolated field in the countryside before being relocated to the temporary site on the Glenamuck Road.

The day after the fire, the Southside Traveller Action Group took care of the family in their premises in Sandyford, where friends and family gathered and many people arrived with clothes and food. This family lost not just those most precious to them but also their home, personal belongings and clothing.

There was an expectation that the Taoiseach would arrive but we learned 5 An ambulance leaves the scene of the devastating fire on the Glenamuck Road in Carrickmines in 2015 later that he simply went to the site of Last year, the council offered a new the fire, just a kilometre or two up the the fire hydrant was extremely poor and lacked detail. site to the family. The site is miles from road, and had his photo taken with the It is expected that Garda forensic the family’s home. It was impractical, then Fine Gael councilor (now TD), given that the children are schooled Josepha Madigan, who had actually reports will bring greater clarity than that offered by the council. nearer the Glenamuck site. campaigned on an anti-Traveller ticket Either way, there are many Under emergency powers, the in the local election just the year before! unanswered questions, including council has provided temporary accomNeither arrived to see the family. modation in Ballyogan. The tempoThe council met immediately after whether or not these deaths were rary site is in the car park of a council the tragedy and councillors were briefed avoidable. by local authority chiefs of their intention to provide an emergency site in Rockville Drive.

For years the council had a poor relationship with Rockville Drive residents. The absence of consultation only served to inflame an already fractious interaction, as residents blocked access to a site adjoining their homes where the Council proposed rehousing the Traveller family as an emergency measure.

Some maintained that the protest was because the site was for Travellers, but others countered that the absence of consultation was ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’.

It must still be asked, though – if this had been a family from the settled community, does anyone believe such a protest would have occurred? My view is that it definitely would not have.

Emergency accommodation was found for the family in Glencree where myself and Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD went to see them.

At that meeting we heard the horrific accounts of what had happened that night in Glenamuck.

A response to council questions put down by Sinn Féin regarding electrical works, fire safety equipment, the positioning of the units and maintenance works affecting 5 Travellers and supporters protest about their rights not being recognised in Ireland

Over the last 12 months, Irish society has witnessed a mix of reactions

depot. The site is windswept and has no protection from the elements. Overhead electricity cables and underground gas pipes accompanied with “No smoking” signs offer little comfort to a family who have suffered so much.

Understandably, the family wants to get off this site to a place of permanence to call home, a place to begin rebuilding their lives.

In July, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council ratified the provision of day units back in Glenamuck, on a new site beside the location of the disaster. The works are out for tender and expected to be ready by July 2017.

Day units are buildings consisting of a kitchen, bathroom, utility and dining areas along with a separate space for a trailer or caravan. This form of accommodation does not meet the needs of a grandmother raising her grandchildren. The family needs houses, not day units.

The current Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Traveller Accommodation Plan, however, only allows for day units.

Changing this plan to bring about group housing is an 11-month process. Furthermore, the Part 8 process, the public procurement and construction phases, could add years to the delivery of the required accommodation.

Housing Minister Simon Coveney is aware of this situation. A meeting has been agreed where, it is hoped, that mechanisms will be explored to expedite the process and provide the family with what they need – a home.

Over the last 12 months, Irish society has witnessed a mix of reactions, from unprecedented sympathy and anger to sickening ignorance and generalisations about Traveller issues.

I’ve witnessed that too but I’ve also witnessed a deeply caring, strong grandmother intent on keeping her family together and providing for the needs of her grandchildren.

The lives of those lost on the Glenamuck Road that night must leave a legacy. That legacy should involve Irish society embracing and celebrating the diversity of Traveller culture rather than marginalising, isolating and oppressing it.

Former Labour Party leader Éamon Gilmore said of the marriage equality campaign that it was “the civil rights issue of this generation”.

It’s not the only civil rights and equality issue of this generation, however.

In the wake of the Carrickmines tragedy and with the prime-time showing on RTÉ of the documentary series John Connors: The Travellers, the discussion has at least begun.

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ THROUGHOUT EUROPE, social democratic parties are in decline. The voters they once represented have got increasingly tired of being used as cannon fodder for the various ‘lite’ versions of the exploitative policies put forward by the genuine Right.

Most explicitly, working-class communities have turned to more coherent socialist representation, such as SYRIZA in Greece and Podemos in Spain, or to populist right-wing forces such as UKIP in England who play upon concerns over immigration and community decline that the ‘official’ Left ignore.

The failure of the Soviet Union to sustain itself has severely undermined the credibility of communist parties throughout Europe. In their absence, the gap is being filled by more ambiguous leftists or by plain reactionaries.

The result has been the surrender in Greece of SYRIZA to the austerity policies it was originally elected to oppose. In Spain, Podemos has also failed to convince the radical working class

Until the Irish Labour Party admits that it was wrong (not just tactically but morally as well) to abandon its own supposed outlook for the sake of office, it will not recover that it is really different from the discredited social democrats.

The only social democratic party that has been somewhat immune from this has been Portugal’s Socialist Party that, while still supine before the EU, nevertheless rejects austerity.

In Ireland, we see an even more cynical evolution of our Labour Party.

Having participated enthusiastically in a viciously right-wing austerity government led

by Fine Gael, Labour who were once in government with the power to effect change are only now talking about the rights and needs of the working class!

They seem to believe that people will just forget what Labour did (or didn’t do in terms of defending the working class) when in Government and will be willing once again to let themselves be led by the nose down the road of betrayal.

The opinion polls, however, show that Labour’s ploy isn’t working. The party continues to flounder around the 5% mark despite the continued connection with established elements of the organised labour movement such as SIPTU. Until Labour admits that it was wrong (not

Filling the gap left by social democracy’s decline

5 Sinn Féin's Oireachtas team at Leinster House

5 Sinn Féin and the Right2Change movement offer a real alternative to austerity politics

just tactically but morally as well) to abandon its own supposed outlook for the sake of office, it will not recover. Even time will not obscure the facts of their role, as the polls also show that Sinn Féin has a commanding lead of

support among young people, with Labour holding on best among the oldest age cohort.

The Labour Party’s future does not look bright.

In itself, this doesn’t matter. There is nothing

5 Labour Party ministers in government had no problem laughing off the cuts and hardship they imposed on people with their Fine Gael partners

9

more nauseating than a party which ignored the needs of the working class when in power now trying to present itself as a part of that class’s defence guard.

But political change, which we need, does not come about because some individuals think that it should – it comes about when organised workers see through the pretences of the ruling class and, as Connolly said, strike out in their own interest.

Those who want change need organised labour to take its place in the fight for change.

Organised labour – trade unions, community action groups and so on – not specifically any particular party.

The Labour Party clearly cannot play that role unless it begins to understand how wrong it was to back Fine Gael in government. Again, not an issue of party names but an issue of party programmes.

The Left in Ireland remains weak and divided, primarily because it cannot take a firm stance on the national question, the fight for a united and truly independent Ireland in which the Irish people alone have unfettered control over Irish destinies.

Sinn Féin is largely on its own on these

Those who want change need organised labour – trade unions, community action groups, etc – to take its place in the fight for change issues while the Trotskyist parties such as the Anti Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit spend more of their energy attacking Sinn Féin than they do in attacking capitalism.

In the North, for example, Sinn Féin is alone in looking both for the reunification of Ireland and for the transfer of tax-raising powers in the interim from Westminster to the Northern Executive, but that doesn’t stop People Before Profit from basing their programmes on raising taxes that the Executive does not have the constitutional power to raise – an absence of power that PBP never talk about.

There are elements within the trade union movement, largely associated with the Right2Change grassroots mobilisation, that are looking for ways to rebuild an organised labour component of the broad front we need if we are to advance the joint fights for national freedom and social emancipation.

Those elements need full support and encouragement, and Sinn Féin members in particular need to be open to the sensitivity required to bring them along.

10 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Éigse na mBan ENNIS, COUNTY CLARE

» Inspirational festival combines music, 5 Martina Hynan, artist and campaigner with the Elephant Collective, with her 5 Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington talks about her grandparents, Hannah and Francis, and portraits of eight women who died in 5 Elaine Dalton (middle) one of the organisers, with women who performed about her fight for equality in Galway University in some of the festival's dramas maternity care

BY PEADAR WHELAN ‘ÉIGSE NA mBAN,’ in Ennis, County Clare, over the two days of 8 and 9 October, was a politically provocative and innovative activist weekend.

‘SILENCE AND VOICE: The Festival of Feminisms’ used dance, song, poetry, drama and discussion to highlight and address issues relating to women in all walks of life – from politics to health to domestic life.

It was created by a group of women from County Clare who are part of the Clare Women’s Network, a feminist community-based organisation in Ennis linked to the National Collective of Community-Based Women’s Networks.

It also explored how women were silenced in the years since the revolutionary period from 1916 through partition and up to the present day. It looked at the traumatic effect on women of “being silenced” by patriarchy, poverty, the Catholic Church, neo-liberalism and the austerity policies pushed by the state since the economic crash of 2008.

In this centenary year of the Easter Rising of 1916, Éigse na mBan, inspired by the women of 1916, wanted to discuss what it was like for women as founders of the state, how women contributed to Ireland’s development as a republic, and how those women too were silenced.

The organisers’ Mission Statement said: “We wanted to marry all of these different issues and wanted to mark the historical contribution which the women of Ireland made to its independence.

“Simultaneously, we wanted to explore how, 100 years later, on the centenary of the Irish state, women still are silenced and how the current silencing is presenting itself, through a

5 Portraits of women involved in the political struggle around 1916

whole variety of different structures internationally and locally.”

While the main focus of the programme was the conditions of women in the 26 Counties, organisers recognised that partition has affected women in the North differently from those in the South and they invited Belfast-based psychotherapist Bríd Keenan to address the reality of life for Northern women.

The overall objective was to “inform, engage and encourage women to share their stories in order to ensure learning from the silencing of women, recognise the strength of our female ancestors and in 2016 address and eradicate once and for all the ‘herstorical’ silencing of women in Ireland . . .

“Inspired by the women of 1916, the women of 2016 speak.”

5 Mary McDermott chats with Nóirín Lynch

5 Bríd Keenan discusses the day's proceedings with Anne Rynne

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

11

Éigse na mBan ENNIS, COUNTY CLARE

drama, art and feminist politics THE OLD ADAGE attributed to the American revolutionary Emma Goldman “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution” was at the heart of the Éigse na mBan festival held in Ennis over the weekend of 8 & 9 October when dance, singing, poetry and drama was used not just for entertainment but also to make serious political points.

Upwards of 150 women (and a number of men such as myself) travelled to the County Clare town from Limerick, Waterford, Galway and even further afield for two days of serious political discussion, debate and conversation around issues affecting women’s lives in today’s Ireland. There was a special focus on the way women are silenced by the political and social systems, North and South.

Organisers Clare Women’s Network were determined to ensure that what the participants faced was not a ‘dry conference’ so the two days were heavily balanced towards festival rather than seminar. Art, song, dance and performance replaced political statements with flip-charts and powerpoint presentations consigned to the dustbin of history (at least here in Clare).

In one of the most moving yet powerful examples of dance being used to complement real-life action, Marcella O’Sullivan told the story of her brother, Paul, diagnosed as being autistic with sensory and environmental overloads, and the harrowing existence he and others faced while in a residential care home in Cork run by the Health Service Executive.

The Ennis woman fought for 10 years to have her brother, who had only known life in residential care and lock-up institutions from the age of 8, removed from the secure unit he was held in and where his only treatment was medication.

Marcella became Paul’s voice and fought against the indifference of the state, an attitude reflected by a Minister for Education who told Marcella: “I know it’s hard but accept the situation and move on.”

The situation Marcella was told to accept included, in 2010 and 2011, when things got very serious: head gashes, epileptic seizures, rapid changes in medication, medication not given when he was coming out for weekends, blows to his face and not being told of incidents, 22 staples to his head, and 18 teeth extracted.

“One staff member said to me that Paul would be killed in there if something wasn’t done,” Marcella recalled. “No one has been held accountable for any incidents and reports didn’t reflect the truth of what had happened.”

After years of neglect and ill-treatment, including medical failures, Paul finally left institutional care to learn the skills of personal hygiene, laundry,

5 Nóirín Lynch sings 'Fenian Women Blues'

5 Marcella O'Sullivan (right)

cooking, cleaning, and paying bills. He is becoming integrated into his community and meeting new friends. He has a passport, a travel pass and a bank account – all in his own name as an independent individual.

Marcella was Paul’s voice and she made sure she was heard.

With the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment very much in the political spotlight, the issue of women’s reproductive health generated much debate.

Artist Martina Hynan (whose portraits of Jennifer Crean, Bimbo Onanuga, Tania McCabe, Nora Hyland, Sally Rowlette, Evelyn Flanagan, Dhara Kivlehan and Savita Halappanavar, adorned the walls of Dánlann an Chláir, where the festival was held) described the work of the Elephant Collective and its campaign in support of the families of the women who died while in maternal care.

The news that inquests in cases of maternal deaths are not mandatory shocked many of those in the theatre.

Martina explained that the Elephant Collective takes its name from the actions of elephants that gather round a cow when she is giving birth, to protect her and the calf. “Like the elephants, we want to provide better protection for Irish mothers when they are giving birth in hospital,” she said.

To lend weight to her contribution, a woman

sat beside a bed covered in a huge quilt, with a border of 400 elephants, made of squares knitted by student midwives as a way of reliving their stress related to maternal deaths. As word of the project spread, the organisers were inundated with over 100 squares, each representing a story linked to maternal death.

The bed, sitting prominently, was a stark reminder of the loss suffered by so many families.

Feminist activist Siobhán Madden took centre stage on Sunday morning to address ‘Silence, Memory, Knowledge & Transformation’. Drawing on Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s poetry and the image of a mermaid forced onto dry land as a metaphor, she focused on the potential for transformation through story-telling and feminist community education.

Siobhán’s delivery was entertaining and instructive as she delved into Ní Dhomhnaill’s imagery while at the same time highlighting the need for social change.

Obstacles to change were brought to the fore

by Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington.

The academic from NUI Galway recounted stories of how the principles and feminism of her grand-parents, Francis and Hannah, brought them to the fore of activism in the years leading up to 1916 and how it influenced her own life and activism. This led to her confronting the sexism

5 Mary Keenan performs

and gender discrimination in the Galway university that saw her refused promotion. Eventually after five years, she won her case in 2014. This in turn inspired five other women academics to challenge the bias that is ingrained in the power structures of third-level education.

That education and knowledge can open people’s minds and empower them, giving them a belief in themselves, was a cornerstone of the Éigse na mBan festival.

When I checked my Irish/English dictionary (the seminal Tómas De Bhaldraithe version) for the exact meaning of Éigse it translates as “an assembly of learned men, sages and poets”!

The word has a new interpretation after the Clare assembly – learned women, sages, poets, singers and dancers.

Inspired by the women of 1916, the women of 2016 do speak. We should all listen.

12 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD says crisis intervention services must go beyond office hours

MENTAL HEALTH

Offering people a lifeline 24/7

BY MARK MOLONEY SINCE the general election in February this year, Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD has taken on the role as the party spokesperson on Mental Health & Suicide Prevention. Working alongside Pat Buckley TD and Senator Máire Devine – as well as Health Minister Michelle O’Neill in the North – she has dedicated much of her time in recent months to meeting service providers, state agencies, service users and families and assessing what issues need to be prioritised.

At the top of her list is the provision of 24/7 crisis intervention services.

“At the moment, if you are in crisis and it happens to be outside of 9 to 5 office hours, then you are in big trouble,” Mary Lou tells An Phoblacht at the Dáil. “We’ve heard story after

A Dáil motion by Sinn Féin for 24/7 crisis intervention services within 12 months wasn’t supported by other parties story of people, in the depths of trauma and distress, who end up sitting in an A&E for hours on end. They are discharged and many times they are back there in the future. Tragically, in some cases we have met families where those people went on to take their own lives. So the issue is absolutely critical.”

A motion brought before the Dáil by Sinn Féin on 5 October called for the Dáil to deliver 24/7 crisis intervention services within 12 months.

“Unfortunately, other parties weren’t prepared to make that commitment,” Mary Lou says, with clear annoyance. “But that isn’t going to stop us pursuing this issue. It is something we will press time and again.”

Dual diagnosis is also something the party is focusing on. It refers to people who have both addiction and mental health issues. Recent meetings were held on the issue in Dublin and more are planned for across the state.

“It means a large amount of people are falling between the cracks,” the Dublin TD says, referring to how the Health Service Executive deals

4 Mary Lou McDonald at a meeting on 'Mental Health Matters' in Ballybough, Dublin

with the problem, although it says it is working to address it.

“In a huge number of cases you find addiction and mental health issues all rolled into one. The system needs to respond and change, not tell somebody who is in trauma: Your issue is not mental health, it is addiction.”

In Budget 2017, the Government pledged €35million in mental health funding. Mary Lou says clarity is needed on whether that money is ring-fenced and she says Sinn Féin will be keenly observing the HSE service plans.

“I think it’s fair to say that mental health didn’t get the kind of priority and focus that was needed,” she says.

“It’s not enough to talk the talk, you actually have to deliver – and that means resources, it means staff, and it means prioritising mental health.”

One issue which angered many, and came in for heavy criticism on social media, was the Government’s decision to spend €20million to change Capital Acquisition Tax arrangements to benefit a mere 2,000 people in terms of tax relief on large amounts of inheritance. That same amount of funding could have been used for 24/7 crisis intervention services.

“It’s about choices and what you prioritise,” says Mary Lou. “This isn’t about me point scoring. It is much too serious to turn it into a political football but there are times when you

just have to call people out on things. And we are calling the Government out now, saying: You worried and fretted enough to allocate €20million to about 2,000 people. Our choice is that €20million would be better spent so that people who are in crisis at a weekend or in the dead of night have the supports they need.

“Those are the moments where choices are made between life and death. That’s not an exaggeration, those are services that will save lives. Families will tell you first-hand that is how finely balanced it can be for a person who is in deep distress.”

Mary Lou also tells An Phoblacht that Sinn Féin is rolling out SafeTalk training for its own constituency office workers and elected representatives to equip political and community activists to recognise signs of mental distress and to be effective, compassionate and supportive.

She says it is vital to ensure that people who are

‘It’s not enough to talk the talk, you actually have to deliver – and that means resources, it means staff, and it means prioritising mental health’ dealing with the public know that what they are doing or saying is the right thing.

Mary Lou describes her colleague Pat Buckley as “an inspiration”. His work, after losing two brothers to suicide, is “the definition of political courage and political activism”.

Looking back over her first few months as spokesperson on Mental Health, she says the resilience of people who have suffered loss has been inspirational.

“Very often families have been to hell and back.

I met one family recently from north Belfast, Paul and Sarah Fox, who lost their lovely young son Aaron who died by suicide.

“It’s incredible to talk to people like them. Iin the midst of their own grief, their big concern is for everybody else’s kids and their concern is that it doesn’t happen to anybody else’s child.

“That’s an incredible thing. It’s very, very humbling. You could understand why somebody could turn in on themselves but I have met so many families who have turned such bleak tragedies into something that becomes a beacon of hope for others.”

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

13

WINDSOR PARK’S NEW DAWN OPENS UNDER A CLOUD

BY PEADAR WHELAN LEAVING Paralympians Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop out of the highly-publicised “Lap of Legends” celebration at the refurbished Windsor Park seems like a rerun of the past at the “National Football Stadium” and the home of Linfield FC. Many nationalists had hoped a new chapter might be opened with the event ahead of the World Cup qualifier against San Marino.

Smyth and McKillop competed for Ireland in three Paralympic Games, including this year at Rio. Between them, they have amassed nine gold medals.

They are angry at being snubbed by the Irish Football Association (IFA) despite being from Eglington in County Derry and Glengormley, respectively – and especially as it emerged that Paralympian swimmer Bethany Firth, who represented Britain (“Team GB”) in Rio, was invited.

In a tweet to deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness (who attended the grand reopening on 8 October), Jason Smyth – who as a devout Mormon is neither Catholic or Protestant – said: “Only in NI does the colours you wear matter more than what you achieve.”

It was a clear reference to what he believed to be a political snub to himself and McKillop because they had competed for Ireland.

Olympic boxers Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan, who competed for Ireland at the Rio games, were also excluded from the Lap of Legends, despite being from Belfast.

At a time when the North’s soccer authorities are endeavouring to shake off the sectarian history of the ground and present Windsor Park as a national

Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan, who competed for Ireland at the Rio games, were also excluded from the Lap of Legends, despite being from Belfast

,stadium in a new light, where everyone is welcome, this is not a good start.

Not helping the uphill battle faced by the Irish Football Association is the blithe dismissal of criticism by unionist politicians such as DUP Communities Minister Paul Givan. “I have no doubt whatsoever

that the IFA had absolutely no intention of causing offence to anybody,” he said.

“We shouldn’t allow this to overshadow what was a very successful occasion.”

This is the Communities Minister who sparked a controversy by posing for picture lighting an Orange Order bonfire on Eleventh Night.

Givan’s refusal to face up to the casual contempt for the notion of parity of esteem or respecting nationalist aspirations runs through the Establishment sports and media world in the North.

A glaring example of this came on 9 October 2015 at Windsor Park with the third goal against Greece to lead 3-0 and guarantee qualification for the European Championships.

As the stadium erupted, the BBC commentary team joined in and laughed as they described how the whole ground was jumping up and down and everyone was “doing the bouncy”.

The “bouncy” – when people all jump up and down on the spot – is said to have originated in Scotland with the notorious fascist Billy Fullerton and his infamous “Billy Boys”, whose reputation for sectarian violence included jumping up and down on the heads of their victims.

The “bouncy” is said to mimic this violence and in later years it transferred to the North with the killing of Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill, beaten to death in 1997 when a gang of loyalists jumped repeatedly on his head.

The action is invariably carried out to the sectarian chant: “If ye cannae do the bouncy, you’re a Tim.” In March 2013, in the wake of Belfast City Council’s vote to bring its protocol on flying the Union flag more into line with local authorities in England, Linfield supporters flew Union flags during their match in Dublin against Shamrock Rovers

2 0 1AR7 CA LEND

COMMEMORATION | CELEBRATION | COMMITMENT COMÓR ADH | CÉILIÚR ADH | DÚTHRA CHT

FÉILIR E

and provoked clashes with gardaí.

Pickets were organised to stop Cliftonville fans attending games at Crusaders’ Seaview venue in February 2013.

In December 2013, a bus carrying Cliftonville fans was attacked after a game at Ards during which they were subjected to constant sectarian abuse.

I do wish it was otherwise but it seems that, in reality, the ‘new’ Windsor Park

­ with its history, its trappings of British– ness and its underlying sectarianism – will remain a cold house for nationalists until and unless the suits in charge address these issues.

Sadly, given their exclusion of those Olympians who represented ‘Team Ireland’, it seems they have a long way to go to convince grassroots sports fans such as me.

2017 CALENDAR 9 9 .

4 €

» IRA prisoners come home » First election victories AND AGE G T S O » Death of Thomas Ashe + P CKAGIN PA » Keeping Connolly’s flag flying » 1867 Fenian Rising and the Manchester Martyrs » 1916 Centenary remembered

SINN FÉIN BOOKSHOP 58 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland.

Phone: (00 353 1) 8148542 Web: www.sinnfeinbookshop.com Email: sales@sinnfeinbookshop.com

BULK ORDERS AVAILABLE Contact: Tommy (00 353) 868110415

14 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

2016 Annual

Volunteers Baile Átha Cliath Dinner Dance

A Night of Celebration and Remembrance 7.30 Saturday 26th November Gresham Hotel

Includes four course dinner, Music and Dancing till late Chair: Mary Lou McDonald TD

Táille

€50

Tickets available from your local Cumann/Organiser or Ann O’Sullivan : 087 226 1956 AnnMarie.OSullivan@Oireachtas.ie Brian Dowling : 087 230 1882briandowling@sinnfein.ie

This year's honoree is

Críona Ní Dhálaigh

In the Centenary Year of the 1916 Rising Críona was the first ever Sinn Féin Árd Mhéara of Dublin City. The dignified and diligent way she fulfilled her role made republicans proud.

Críona has been a republican activist in Dublin for over 30 years. From her time as a member of Fianna Éireann to her election as a city councillor and Ard Mhéara she has worked tirelessly for Irish unity and freedom, for social justice and equality and for the Irish language.

A special brochure featuring a profile of Críona with messages of support and solidarity from her friends and comrades will be available on the night.

All areas are asked to take out ads in the commemorative brochure to show their appreciation for the contribution that Críona has made to the struggle over many years.

PRICE FOR BROCHURE:

Full page €100 1/2 page €50 1/4 page €25 Personal Ads: €10 Ads to be sent to Brian Dowling at: briandowling@sinnfein.ie

Scéal dhá chogadh: Aleppo is Mosul

LE MÍ anuas tá RTÉ ag tuairisciú faoin uafás atá ag titim amach in Aleppo sa tSyria, ach is mó de bholscaireacht chlaonta ná tuairisc iomlán a craoladh.

Níl aon dabht ach gur uafasách (sa mbrí ceart den fhocal sin) an rud é a bheith taobh thíos de bhuamaí a chaitheann aerfhorsa na Rúise ar dhaingin na reibiliúnach in Oirthir na cathrach sin.

Ach is uafásach an rud é freisin a bheith taobh thíos dena diúracáin a chaitheann na reibiliúnaigh isteach in Iarthar na cathrach, an taobh atá slánaithe ó ghreim na sceimhlitheóirí bunchreidmheacha.

Sea, agus ní thuairiscíonn RTÉ ach an oiread gurb é Al Nusra, cómhghuaillí Al Qaeda is ISIS, a ghabh seilbh ar an Oirthear is atá ag coinneáil an daonra ann mar chosaint. Maraítear aon duine a ghabhtar agus é nó í ag iarraidh éaló mar tá pasáiste slán geallta ag rialtas na Syria d’éinne atá ag iarraidh imeacht.

Bhí sos comhraic ann, agus dhiúltaigh na bunchreidmhigh seo aon aitheantas a thabhairt dó, sa gcaoi go dtuigeann an rialtas anois nach bhfuil aon bhealach ar aghaidh ach Al Nusra a dhíbirt amach ón gcathair.

Agus sin é atá ar siúl ag an rialtas in éineacht lena gcómhghuaillithe Rúiseacha.

Ní laghdaíonn sé sin uafás an scéil ach tugann sé cómhthéacs is míníonn sé i ndáiríre nach bhfuil aon rogha ann.

Mar a tharlaíonn tá sé á fhógairt anois go bhfuil rialtas na hIaráice, faoi thionchar na Stát Aontaithe, le ionsaí mór a dhéanamh ar Mhosul

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ le ISIS a dhíbirt amach ón gcathair sin.

Beidh na Meiriceánaigh ag caitheamh buamaí le daingin na sceimhlitheóirí bunchreidmheacha, agus deir an Chrois Dhearg go mbeidh 300,000 i mbaol mar gheall ar an mbuamáil chéanna.

Ach má tá Mosul le glanadh ó ghreim na sceimhlitheóirí, an bhfuil rogha eile ann?

Tá’s againn ámh nach mbeidh RTÉ ag cáineadh ghníomhaíocht na Meiriceánach is ní bheidh sraith bholscaireacht gan chríoch ag tabhairt le fios gur coireanna cogaidh a bhéas ar siúl acu.

Sin fimínteacht na Meiriceánach, ach fimínteach is mí-ionraiceas na n-iriseóirí de chuid RTÉ a chuireann na bréaga seo amach ar an telefís.

Cuimhnigh air sin nuair a thuairisceófar an ionsaí ar Mhosul.

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

15

5 Ex-POW Gearoid MacDomhnall with prison crafts, including a harp he made in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight

5 Dr Johanne Devlin Trew of University of Ulster speaks at the project's launch. Also pictured are Geraldine McAteer, Joe Austin and Angelina Fusco

Symbols of resilience and resistance

New project explores importance of prison crafts as part of history

WORDS AND PICTURES

BY PEADAR WHELAN THE ARRAY of prison crafts on display in Belfast’s Conway Mill for the launch of the ‘Irish Republican Prison Crafts: Making Memory & Legacy’ project is testimony to the creativity of republican POWs who produced harps, Celtic crosses, handbags, wallets and soft toys for family and friends. These now reflect part of the legacy of prison struggle and evoke memories of that struggle and the effects it had on the lives of those who experienced imprisonment from the other side of the prison wall – the families, friends and comrades on the outside.

The project is co-ordinated by Coiste na nIarchimí, the republican ex-prisoners’ network, and supported by the West Belfast Partnership Board.

Speaking at the project’s official launch on Monday 26 September, Pádraig Ó Dubhda from Coiste na nIarchimí outlined its significance as a means of allowing families to tell the story of how they were affected by imprisonment and the connections between the prisoner who crafted the piece and the person receiving it.

“The stories of ex-POWs and their families are woven through the history of the piece of art or craft,” said Pádraig.

“Most pieces have been in a household for many years and the status of the piece over that time has inevitably changed and contains the narrative of

more than one generation.”

Among the speakers at the launch were former POW Gearóid Mac Domhnall and Sinn Féin Councillor Geraldine McAteer. Gearóid spoke from the perspective of a POW and a prolific producer of handicrafts while Geraldine explained the sense of pride and elation she felt when she received an item sent from one or other of the North’s prisons.

Also speaking at the launch was Angelina Fusco from the Heritage Lottery

‘Communities have begun to reclaim their own past as an important part of the present’

Dr Johanne Devlin Trew, University of Ulster

Fund, which is supporting the project financially.

Belfast Deputy Mayor Mary Ellen Campbell, herself a former POW, endorsed the project and brought along a number of pieces she had made while in jail.

“They mightn’t be the most artistic

things ever made in the jails,” she joked, “but they are important to me and I am proud of them because I am proud to be a republican ex-POW and honoured to have been in prison with some brilliant people. These crafts remind me of that time.”

Geraldine McAteer recounted a number of stories relating to the items she brought to the launch, not least the green Aran jumper knitted by IRA Volunteer Mairéad Farrell while in Armagh Gaol.

Movingly, the Andersonstown woman recalled her friendship with Farrell and spoke of how the “geansaí” connected her to Mairéad’s experience and always reminded her of the republican ex-prisoner who was shot dead by the British SAS in Gibraltar in 1988.

She also told how the magnificent harp she had on display, crafted by south Armagh man Pat Thompson for her infant daughter, spanned three generations.

“My mother-in-law asked Pat to make the harp for my daughter when she was born. She wanted something special for her grand-daughter, and it is special and it has pride of place in our sitting room.”

Former POW Gearóid Mac Domhnall, who served over 20 years in British prisons – from Long Kesh to Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight to the top-security Whitemoor Prison in England – who captured the imagination of the crowd at the launch with stories of how prisoners used crafts to subvert the prison system.

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Geraldine McAteer proudly displays the Aran jumper knitted for her in Armagh Gaol

by IRA Volunteer Mairéad Farrell

5 Angelina Fusco of the Heritage Lottery Fund

5 Belfast Deputy Mayor Mary Ellen Campbell shows the artwork she created as a POW

The Belfast man explained how he would put labels on his pieces with his name in Irish and “CCP” written on the label.

“CCP stood for Cime Cogaidh Polaitiúil, but they didn't know that,” he smiled.

Mac Domhnall also brought along a sea chest he made from wood brought into Leicester Prison by some of the ‘Great Train Robbers’. “I always wanted a sea chest,” laughed Mac Domhnall, even though there was no treasure to be found in this particular box.

Dr Johanne Devlin Trew, a lecturer from the University of Ulster involved in the university's ‘Living Legacies 1914-18’ project, set the Coiste project in the wider context of what she calls the “memory boom” which has “over the past 20 years been generated by communities themselves which have begun to reclaim their own past as an important part of the present”.

The University of Ulster academic places the Coiste project – which uses “testimonial objects” to explore memory – in the same light as those from the Holocaust “but so many other examples exist of objects made by the inmates of concentration camps, slave plantations, ghettos and prisons”.

In his closing remarks, Pádraig Ó Dubhda summed up the project: “Sharing such narratives is essentially a very positive thing. People have a deep pride in what they came through.

They cherish their symbols of resilience and for many the craft piece is a proud reminder of a loved one who is no longer with us.

“Each piece is unique and each story is personal and the ‘Irish Republican Prison Crafts: Making Memory & Legacy’ project is an opportunity to record for posterity at least some of those stories that are part of our collective memory and legacy.”

16 November / Samhain 2016

n e m o Win the Rising

www.anphoblacht.com

ON 2 April 1914, Cumann na mBan was founded in Wynn’s Hotel in Dublin City Centre at a meeting led by Agnes O’Farrelly. Cumann na mBan’s purpose was to work in conjunction with the recently-formed Irish Volunteers.

The involvement of women in the fight for freedom in 1916 was a culmination of many factors – notably their involvement in most

Celebrating the 77 women republicans imprisoned at Richmond Barracks in Dublin after the 1916 Rising and those ‘Unmanageable Revolutionaries’ who followed in their footsteps RICHMOND BARRACKS in Dublin is a place of huge historical significance for Irish republicans, a place where 77 women patriots were imprisoned in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD told a special event there for women republicans and ex-prisoners on Saturday 15 October.

“Women have always been considered the most ‘Unmanageable of Revolutionaries’,” the Dublin deputy said. “They have been amongst the bravest of republican Volunteers over the years and in the decades that followed.

“Tonight we acknowledge all of our sisters. Their unified individual and collective contribution to the republican struggle will never be forgotten.”

nationalist, socialist and feminist movements in existence from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the Rising of 1916, women rose in rebellion within two organisations, the

Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan. On 23 April 1916, the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood completed its plans for the 1916 Easter Rising. Cumann na mBan was included with the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army into “The Army of the Irish Republic”. By the end of 24 April 1916, women were involved at rebel strongholds throughout the city.

FLAMES NOT FLOWERS Ní saoirse go saoirse na mBan

ONE of the special guest speakers was Mary Doyle, who took part in the 1980 Hunger Strike as a POW in Armagh Gaol. Mary was released in 1983 and has been involved in republican activism since then.

Síle Darragh, who was the IRA O/C in Armagh Gaol during the hunger strike in 1980 and until her release in 1981, was another ex-POW appearing at the event. She is now Political Administrator in the office of Sinn Féin Chairperson Declan Kearney.

This is Síle’s address to comrades at ‘Flames Not Flowers’.

I’m not sure why I was asked to speak at this event, especially as Mary has covered the history of the protests in Armagh Gaol.

There’s not a lot that I could add to what she said and I don’t want to tell you my personal experiences because my story is nothing special.

There are dozens of women in this room who have led much more exceptional lives than me.

There are women here who could tell stories that would make your hair stand on end. There are women here who have shown bravery that would be considered well above the call of duty in any other walk of life. And there are women here who have quietly lived their lives and never told anybody of the things they did to further republicanism.

5 'Women have always been considered the most ‘Unmanageable of Revolutionaries' – Sinn Féin deputy Any of you are as qualified to speak here today leader Mary Lou McDonald TD

as I am because, regardless of the protests in Armagh, we protesting prisoners were nothing special. We were republicans, first and foremost, and as republicans we did what we had to do to resist the British and unionist governments’ attempts to criminalise us, our community and the republican struggle.

From Margaret Skinnider, to Constance Markievicz, to Marie Moore and Mairéad Farrell, we were what we were; we are what we are.

It’s as simple as that.

But the irony is that people who are so quick to condemn us for taking the positions we did have never once considered what inspired so many Irish women, young and old, to make the decisions we did during these last 40 troubled years.

You can be certain that not one of us woke up one morning and decided on a whim to become actively involved in struggle.

There are always reasons and circumstances behind what people do. And we need as much today to consider those journeys as much as the journeys of the women who were imprisoned here in 1916.

Circumstances and history shaped all of us.

That’s undeniable.

Through the decades, republican women have always been to the forefront in demanding rights: in the suffragette movement, the labour

‘As republicans we did what we had to do to resist the British and unionist governments’ attempts to criminalise us, our community and the republican struggle’ movements, the Gaelic League, and many other organisations – much as republican women today are still deeply involved in organisations working to better people’s lives.

In every phase of the republican struggle, women have taken risks. From their involvement in the 1950s ‘Border Campaign’ – including those who filled their aprons with stones and filled in the craters in roads that the British Army had blown up – to those who broke the Falls Curfew and carried guns and ammunition out under their coats, in prams and in shopping bags.

Women confronted raiding parties and hindered British Army snatch-squads. And very many were militarily active, were imprisoned, forced to go on the run, and many lost their lives.

Most of us here know women who lifted sleeping children from their beds to let a weary Volunteer get a few hours’ sleep. We all know a house where there was always an extra spud in the pot in case someone needed a bite to eat.

We know many who sat up all night watching for raiding parties, and rattled bin-lids to warn of their approach.

And we know many who lost their loved ones, and their own lives, to plastic, rubber and live bullets; on active service for the IRA, and to loyalist and British state murder squads.

We all know women who walked the streets

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

17

'From Margaret Skinnider, to Constance Markievicz, to Marie Moore and Mairéad Farrell, we were what we were; we are what we are'

5 Circumstances and history shaped all of us and in every phase of the republican struggle women have taken risks

5 Former POWs Mary Doyle and Síle Darragh

wrapped in blankets, in bare feet, in rain and snow, to highlight the plight of the prisoners in the H-Blocks and Armagh; who smuggled ‘comms’, love letters, and much more into and out of the prisons; who marched in their hundreds to the steps of Stormont when Sinn Féin were

‘There are women here who have quietly lived their lives and never told anybody of the things they did to further republicanism’

the vilest of sectarian abuse and threats of death.

Today, republican women are elected throughout the 32 counties of Ireland – MEPs, TDs, senators, MLAs and councillors.

Unbowed, unbroken, proud and undaunted Irish women.

Through all the decades, republican women played their parts willingly.

In April 1916, Cumann na mBan Volunteer Rose McNamara said: “The men gave each of us their small arms,

locked out of talks, demanding their rights and representation.

There are women here who travelled every week, for years, to visit loved ones imprisoned in this state, in the Six Counties and in England, most times with young children in tow. The hardship of prisoners’ families is sometimes forgotten and overlooked, and imprisonment impacted on thousands upon thousands of people, not just the prisoners themselves.

Brave republican women stood as Sinn Féin candidates when, in local councils throughout the Six Counties, they were vilified and subjected to 5 Some of the women at the event

to do as we like with, thinking we were going to go home. But we were not going to leave the men we were with all the week to their fate.

We decided to go along with them, and be with them to the end, whatever our fate might be.”

That sums up the attitude of republican women for me. It would be easy to go home.

But we never take the easy roads, do we?

And the struggle hasn’t ended. The circumstances and methods may have changed but we still aspire to our republican goal. Our supporters,

those who flock to the ballot boxes in their thousands to return Sinn Féin elected representatives, also aspire to that goal – a democratic republic that cherishes all of the children of the nation equally.

I’m an exponent of people telling their stories – whether written or recorded – because too much of our history is being lost, and others are writing a history that tells nothing of the times we lived through.

When Margaret Skinnider released her recollection of the Easter Rising to an audience in New York, she said: “When the revolt of a people that feels itself oppressed is successful, it is written down in history as a revolution – as in this country in 1776. When it fails, it is called an insurrection – as in Ireland in 1916. Those who conquer usually write the history of the conquest.”

And this has been the case throughout the decades of our troubled past. Even to the present day, those who perceive themselves as the

'The struggle hasn’t ended – the circumstances and methods may have changed but we still aspire to our republican goal' conquerors are the most vociferous in revising our collective history.

Thousands throughout this country have amazing, heroic and sometimes horrific stories to tell.

I think we have a duty to future generations to tell those stories.

Finally, I’d just want to remind people that the 28th of this month marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Sinn Féin Vice-President Máire Drumm. And to end with a quote from that indomitable woman: “We must take no steps backwards, our steps must be onward; for if we don’t, the martyrs that died for you, for me, for this country, will haunt us forever.”

18 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

Steps in the right direction

MEGAN FEARON

Junior Minister, Executive Office I SPOKE at the opening of a new 1916 community garden in Camlough in October.

The sacrifice of 1916 and the enduring vision it set out for all of us is something I have commemorated many times with pride.

This was different, though.

This garden was a memorial to all those who lost their lives in 1916 at home – and abroad.

Camlough has always been a proud republican village, home to people like Joe McIlhaw and Raymond McCreesh, therefore this gesture holds particular significance.

I know that republicanism is, by its nature, tolerant, respectful and inclusive and so recognising the sacrifices made by those of different traditions and opinions 5 Martin McGuinness has reached beyond and stepped across barriers that still exist is hugely important.

We measure the impact of gestures (and others) gave their lives on the battlefields of Europe not by the response or reciprocation during the First World War. It is a fact we may not like of others but by how we ourselves feel but it is one we cannot ignore. about them. Initiatives like this are a 1916 was an important year in our history. This sign of confidence in our beliefs and in year’s centenaries gave us the choice of whether we our society. paid attention to only the anniversaries which mean I am a proud republican. I have never more to us personally or whether we try to seek a shied away from that fact. But in my better understanding of that shared history which has role as a Junior Minister in the Office of shaped us all today. the Executive, I represent people of all In that regard, I’m very proud of the steps Martin persuasions. As a republican, I am very proud to do that.

The complexities we deal with in our society today are down to our very complex history. It’s a history we all share.

Of course, we tend to view it through the prism of our own individual backgrounds. Certain aspects of our history or the motivations behind them may not sit well with us but in a mature society we should be able to respect the right of others to view history differently.

Yet our political narratives are often too selective in the parts of history we recall whilst we continue to shy away from exploring those parts which sit uncomfortably with our own views.

In my own family history I have an uncle who died fighting against the British and a great grandfather who fought for the British at the Battle of Jutland. This example is not uncommon across Ireland.

Ignoring the multifaceted history we have would be a mistake because those events continue to influence our present.

It is only right that we remember the sacrifices of those men and women who struck a blow for freedom that Easter Week, and I have done so countless times.

5 Megan Fearon speaks at the Stormont Assembly But the fact is that many young men from my tradition

I have an uncle who died fighting against the British and a great grandfather who fought for the British at the Battle of Jutland

McGuinness and others have taken in reaching out and stepping across barriers that still exist in our community.

Going forward, opportunities will be presented to us to build respect and a sense of understanding that has perhaps been lost in our recent past. These opportunities must be embraced.

During the last few months as Junior Minister in the North’s power-sharing Executive, I’ve engaged with many people and many communities I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do this before. Our society is more diverse and multicultural than ever before. I can

Ignoring the multifaceted history we have would be a mistake because those events continue to influence our present see that selective views of our shared history, or the idea that cultures must compete against each other, will not positively influence the next generation of citizens.

We should give due attention and effort to building respect and understanding between our communities.

Any step towards reconciliation and building a more inclusive, equal and united society is certainly a step in the right direction.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Guest writers in the Uncomfortable Conversations series use their own terminology and do not always reflect the house style of An Phoblacht.

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

19

UNCOMFORTABLE CONV ERSATIONS

Reconciliation is an imperative – not an option DECLAN KEARNEY

Sinn Féin National Chairperson RECONCILIATION and healing in our society are an imperative for the Irish Peace Process. But their achievement continues to be both challenging and elusive. The required political and civic critical mass to bring them about still does not exist. We have to collectively work at building momentum to make them the new phase of the Peace Process.

So if not now, then when?

And if not by all of us, then by who?

Very recently I attended an event organised by the County Fermanagh Orange Order, in association with local Protestant churches, to discuss the 1916 Easter Rising. I believe it was an important event genuinely aimed at developing greater understanding about our different traditions and identities, and I commend the organisers for that.

I said from the floor that it is quite valid for us to agree to disagree but that a willingness to engage with each other on the basis of equality must be paramount. Engagement about our historical and current differences increases mutual understanding and that builds mutual respect.

Huge suffering has taken place in Ireland, North and South, and also in Britain.

The divisions in our society which exist are visceral. The pain from past actions experienced by our generation is real, not abstract or in another place.

I am sorry that hurt was caused to many families. That extends to the families of all combatants who acted on behalf of the British state.

All wars and political conflict create carnage and death.

No war should be glorified or romanticised. That applies to our most recent conflict in Ireland.

But all sides caused pain and all sides suffered. Huge numbers of nationalist civilians, Sinn Féin members and IRA Volunteers were killed and the pain of their families is equal to the grief of any other family.

There were different sides to our conflict and there are multiple narratives.

They include republican, unionist and constitutional nationalist narratives, a British state narrative, and also the narrative of those who say none of this had anything to do with them.

There are issues about the past about which we will have to agree to disagree.

It is just as futile to ask political unionists to repudiate the B-Specials, the RUC and the British Army as it is futile asking a republican like me to repudiate the IRA. I may disagree fundamentally with the British state and political unionist narratives but I also recognise that for those of that tradition these are valid and legitimate.

During her visit to Ireland in 2011, Queen Elizabeth spoke about how, with the benefit of hindsight, we can all see things which should have been done differently or not done at all. Prince Charles made similarly helpful comments in 2015.

5 Declan Kearney addresses Sinn Féin's 2016 Ard Fheis

It is not acceptable to pass the legacy of the past on to a new generation to sort out

6 Prince Charles shakes hands with Gerry Adams

There is an importance to that perspective in helping our society to move forward.

Republicans have publicly and privately acknowledged Queen Elizabeth’s sentiments and generosity.

But I have yet to hear unionist political leaders do the same.

The British royal family seems to have a more developed and advanced view about the direction of our Peace Process than some unionist political leaders.

There are no right victims and no wrong victims; no innocent victims and no guilty victims.

There are only victims: republican, unionist, Irish, British, Green and Orange, Gael and Planter.

And the collective responsibility of all political and civic leaders must be to ensure that there are never again any more victims.

When we speak of the legacy of the past it is not abstract for many families. It is real and living.

So it is not acceptable to pass that legacy on to a new generation to sort out. The legacy of our past and absence of reconciliation has ensured that we remain a deeply divided society in the present.

The legacy of the past cannot be avoided if we are to move forward to a new phase of the Peace Process.

We all need to be prepared to deal with these issues by coming together, privately and publicly, to engage meaningfully and not to score points.

Reconciliation will not be built upon resentment and recrimination.

The mechanisms agreed under the Stormont House Fresh Start Agreement are an essential vehicle for moving forward The mechanisms agreed under the Stormont House Fresh Start Agreement are an essential vehicle for moving forward.

It is unacceptable and wrong that the potential of this framework is being held back by the British Government’s veto on maximum information disclosure and refusal to release the funds which would allow legacy investigations and inquests to proceed.

There is no point in ending the war for it to be carried on politically and psychologically – by refusing to engage, to reach out, and to lead.

Sinn Féin is absolutely committed to ensuring a process of reconciliation and healing is established.

Republicans have stretched and challenged ourselves to develop the Peace Process.

And we have done so in pursuit of reconciliation and healing – sometimes at a cost.

It is now time that others began to do the same.

That should include active and unambiguous commitment from the leaderships of political unionism.

There is a need for both a fresh start and a new start by political unionism towards reconciliation.

Reconciliation is not a one-way street.

At this year’s Ard Fheis, Sinn Féin adopted our policy document on reconciliation and healing, Towards an Agreed and Reconciled Future. It is a substantive public policy contribution to designing a roadmap towards making reconciliation the new phase of our Peace Process. We want reconciliation placed at the heart of government in the North and across Ireland. It means being prepared to reach out and to undertake meaningful initiatives which show real respect to each other; and, through combined, collective leadership, to demonstrate zero tolerance against bigotry and racism.

Sinn Féin is fully committed to that agenda. We cannot do this alone. It is crucial that others also begin to embrace this challenge and responsibility.

To see more go to – www.anphoblacht.com/uncomfortable-conversations

20 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Fine Gael doesn’t question British undercover police activities in Ireland

Nothing to see here, Justice Minister?

LYNN BOYLAN MEP DÁIL Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald stands out from her counterparts when it comes to demanding answers about possibly illegal activity in her jurisdiction by undercover British police officers – she doesn’t seem to want to know.

In 2011, information regarding the activities of undercover British Metropolitan police officers infiltrating activist environmental groups started to hit the headlines.

It emerged that some members of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the National Public Order Intelligence Units (NPOIU) had abused their positions.

They had encouraged activists from the organisations they were monitoring to carry out violent acts. They had testified using false names and in some cases had established sexual relationships with female activists and even fathered children.

In March 2012, the then British Home Secretary (now Prime Minister), Theresa May, set up an inquiry into the behaviour of the SDS and the NPOIU in England and Wales.

It has since come to light that the activities of these undercover police officers were not

Mark Kennedy is the only British undercover police officer that we know for sure was in the 26 Counties – there is strong evidence to suggest that he was not the only one confined to England and Wales. It turns out that they were also operating in Scotland, Germany and on the island of Ireland.

The North’s Justice Minister, Claire Sugden, and her predecessor, David Ford, have both written to Theresa May, asking that the scope of the inquiry be extended to cover the Six Counties. Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly has raised the matter at the Policing Board.

Scotland and Germany have also called for its extension.

Minister Frances Fitzgerald curiously, however, has refused to call for any such extension.

In fact, the Fine Gael Justice minister refuses to ask any questions whatsoever regarding the presence of undercover British police in Ireland.

Following numerous Dáil Parliamentary Questions to Minister Fitzgerald by Pearse Doherty TD, it has transpired that Garda HQ claim they were aware of the presence of undercover British police officers operating in the 26 Counties.

This is a unique situation, given that the PSNI, Germany’s Bundespolizei and Police Scotland

5 British police spy Mark Kennedy

5 Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald

all say that they were unaware of the presence of spy police.

The explanation given by the Garda of why the undercover police were present in Ireland also fails to stack up. In Minister Fitzgerald’s response she says that the Garda would enter into arrangements with other police forces when an external activist unknown to gardaí entered their jurisdiction.

This jars with the information we have about the most infamous undercover police officer, Mark Kennedy of the London Metropolitan Police and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, the subject of exposés in The Guardian newspaper and on Channel 4. British activists have given testimony that travelling to Ireland was, in fact, Kennedy’s idea. He not only suggested the trip but paid for it and provided the transport and itinerary. This itinerary included to protests and events by ShannonWatch and Shell to Sea and various locations in Belfast and elsewhere.

The Garda claim that undercover police officers from other jurisdictions can only monitor activists from their own jurisdictions.

During his trips to Ireland between 2004 and 2010, however, Mark Kennedy visited the families of Irish Shell to Sea protesters and he chaired 5 The PSNI, Police Scotland and Germany’s meetings of ShannonWatch.

Bundespolizei all say they weren't aware of spies Mark Kennedy is the only British undercover

police officer that we know for sure was in the 26 Counties, although there is strong evidence to suggest that he was not the only one.

Yet Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald fails to see the discrepancies between the Garda account and the evidence that we have of Kennedy’s activities.

In England and Wales, over 50 convictions have been overturned because members of the SDS and the NPOIU testified under oath, using their fake identities. It has also emerged that in many of the convictions it was the undercover police officers who suggested or incited the violent or illegal action that led to the court case.

It beggars belief, therefore, that Minister Fitzgerald has not sought assurances from the Garda that no individuals were prosecuted using intelligence

In many of the convictions it was undercover police officers who suggested or incited the violent or illegal action that led to the court case or testimony from undercover police officers.

The British Metropolitan Police have admitted that they had 460 target organisations on their list – so why is Minister Fitzgerald not demanding access to that list?

Why is she not concerned that British police were monitoring Irish campaign groups such as ShannonWatch and Shell to Sea? The failure to demand answers from the British Government and from An Garda Síochána is a shocking indictment of our Minister for Justice.

While her counterparts in Scotland, the Assembly and Germany are jumping up and down looking for answers, the minister with responsibility for policing is content to say, ‘Move along – nothing to see here.’

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

21

T D A L s a r u h t Mo Scríobhann fear óg an Iúir, John McCaul, go fírinneach faoina thuairimí i leith an phobail Leispiach, Aerach, Déghnéasach agus Trasinscneach agus faoina thuras phearsanta féin LE JOHN McCAUL SAN ALT seo scríobhaim faoi mo thaithí féin agus faoin turas LADT s’agam le blianta beaga anuas.

Agus mé ag scríobh, tá Seachtain Mhórtais an Iúir i ndiaidh tarlú agus tá meas mór agam don Phobal Rainbow áitiúil agus don choiste ‘Bród san Iúr.’ Jab den scóth atá deánta acu ar feadh deich mbliana anuas agus iad ag deánamh ionadaíochta do dhaoine leispiacha, aeracha, déghnéasacha agus trasinscneacha (LADT) sa phobal – ag eagrú paráidí, féilte agus cóisirí agus eile.

Sna laethanta seo, is féidir á rá go bhfuil Iúr Cinn Trá chomh sábháilte agus chomh cairdiúil don phobal LADT is a bhí sé riamh anall.

Sin ráite, tugadh iarracht imeachtaí 2016 ó chur ó mhaith nuair a rinneadh ionsaí uafasach ar chúigear ball den choiste Rainbow taobh amuigh de theach tábhairne i ndiaidh na féile. Is annamh a tharlaíonn a leithéid, má tharlaíonn sé ar scor ar bith, ach taispeánann sé go gcaithfidh muid níos mó oibre a dhéanamh chun stop a chur le homafóibe, le trasfóibe agus le claontacht gnéasachta ar an Iúr.

Eachtra phearsanta agus thábhachtach liom ba ea an Chóisir Mhór ar oíche Shathairn na féile.

Cuireadh tús leis an turas seo agam siar sa bliain 2011 agus mé i mo chéad bliain mar mac léinn staire agus polaitíochta ar Ollscoil na Ríona, Béal Feirste.

Déarfadh na Meiriceánaigh go raibh mé i mo ‘frat boy’ ansin – fear óg, lán den téististéaróin, a bhí ag iarraidh cailíní a phógadh an chuid is mó den am i rith oícheanta airnéala. Níl náire orm faoin saghas duine a bhí ionam an t-am sin ach tá aiféala orm faoin homafóibe. Mhothaigh mé míchompordach agus daoine LADT i mo chuideachta agus, go héagórach, chreid mé go raibh homaighnéasacht ina rud inghlachta.

Ní raibh mé eolach faoi daoine trasinscneacha ag an am. Ag cóisirí arasáin sa chéad bhliain ollscoile, d’iompraíodh duine de mo chairde é féin ar dhóigh an-phiteogach chun cur isteach orm d’aonturas.

Lean na heachtraí seo ar aghaidh sa chéad bhliain acadúil eile agus mé i mo chónaí i mBéal Féirste le cairde liom as an Iúir. Ba ghnách liom éirí garbh agus daoine LADT thart orm, daoine a fuair cuireadh le bheith

@sinnfeinlgbt

ag stopadh linn faoi choinne oícheanta airneála, de ghnáth. Is cuimhin liom gur labhair iarghirseach liom faoin iompar seo – níor éist mé lei.

An cor cinniúna? Ba é sin an clár staidéir sna Stáit Aontaithe nuair a tugadh áit dom ar Choláiste Warren Wilson (CWW), mar ar thug mé faoi Theastas i gCleachtadh Gnó Meiriceánach.

Is coláiste beag oibre é CWW in Swannanoa, North Carolina a bhfuil fócas aige ar an tréidhe – staideár, obair agus obair dheonach sa phobal áitiúil. Faoi cheann seachtaine agus mé ag an choláiste i mí Lúnasa 2013, fuair mé cuireadh páirt a ghlacadh san fhoireann in Oifig Chlár Seirbhíse (OCS), i ndiaidh dom riomhpóst a chur agus agallamh gairid a dhéanamh.

Ghlac mé leis an chuireadh seo agus chuaigh mé i gceann mo dhualgais mar dhuine de na hOifigigh – Food Security (Poverty) Policy Community Liaison .

Tá pobal an-láidir LADT ag CWW – mic léinn, múinteoirí agus lucht oibre an choláiste ina measc. Leis an fhírinne a rá, bhí daoine LADT san fhoireann s’agam agus i measc oibrithe eile na hoifige. Thug siad moladh dom le linn na bliana thar sáile in Iar-Thuaisceart Carolina agus d’éirigh mé cairdiúil leo.

An Stiúrthóir a chuir agallamh orm sa chéad dul síos, bhí sí féin ar dhuine acu siúd.

Is tríd an taithí a fuair mé ag comhoibriú leis na daoine seo, a d’fhoghlaim mé faoin dochar agus faoin idirdhealú atá go fóill á dhéanamh ar an phobal LADT. Is cuimhin liom go raibh fíor-fhearg orm ag an am nach raibh ceart ag cairde agus múinteoirí liom duine den inscne céanna a phósadh.

Chomh maith leis seo ar fad, ba thábhachtach an eachtra í nuair a bhuail mé leis an bhean a bhfuil mé geallta di - Ashlyn. Tá dúil as cuimse aici i gcúrsaí LADT agus ní bhíonn teip uirthi in am ar bith na tuairimí caolaigeanta s’agam a cheartú. Cuidíonn sí liom go rialta amharc ar chúrsaí ar chuma dhifriúil. Is féidir liom an coincheap a thuiscint – go bhfuil daoine trasinscneacha ann – mar gheall ar na comhraí seo againn agus mar gheall ar chomhraí faoi ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ (clár teilifse) agus faoi sheónna drag ar fhreastail sise orthu sna Stáit Aontaithe.

Leis an fhírinne a rá, is i rith cóisir breithlá cúpla mí ó shin; faoin téama ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’, shocraigh mé, i ndiaidh cuid mhór diospóireachta agus mé ag glacadh leis go raibh mé i gcomharsanacht sábháilte, shocraigh mé go ngléasfainn suas mar bhanríon drag.

I rith na cóisire, agus mé mar ‘Nasty Onassis’, thuig mé go raibh coincheap na hinscne ina rud luaineach – rud a bhaineann le hintinn an duine. Ghléas cara liom, Jake, mar bhanríon drag fosta agus músclaíodh mo mhisneach. I mo thuairim féin, d’athdhearbhaigh sé seo sábháilteacht na timpeallachta thart orm agus chuir sé seo ar mo shaimhín só mé nó go raibh cara heitrighnéasach ann liom.

Tá mé cinnte gur chuidigh na heachtraí seo uilig liom bheith compordach agus páirteach sa chóisir Mhórtais ar oíche Shathairn. Bhain mé an-sult go deo as agus mo dheartháir agus cairde eile inár gcuideachta, dála an scéil.

Ni féidir le duine ar bith an todchaí a thuaradh ach tá muinín agam go bhfuil eachtraí speisialta le teacht ar mo thuras LADT. Tá mé ag dúil le buaileadh lena thuilleadh daoine iontacha agus le deiseanna eile chun mo thuiscint féin a fhorbairt. Tá agus fáilte.

22 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip

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

TTIP & CETA – Matt Carthy MEP

Matt Carthy MEP

THE European Parliament’s Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee has passed a report on rural job creation, including amendments from GUE/ NGL warning about the negative impact that international trade agreements TTIP (US-EU), CETA (Canada-EU) and Mercosur (South America-EU) would have on traditional farming practices and the social fabric of rural areas.

GUE/NGL Shadow Rapporteur Matt Carthy MEP welcomed the result of the vote on the report titled ‘How the CAP can help to create rural jobs’ which received the overwhelming support of MEPs. Matt Carthy said after the vote on 29 September: “This vote comes at a critical juncture. With many aspects of the CAP currently being examined in advance of the mid-term review process and with job creation in agriculture and rural areas becoming an important point of debate, this resolution will hopefully contribute to the future reform of CAP policy.

“I am pleased that the majority of the amendments I put forward were accepted by MEPs from across all nationalities and political groups.

Before submitting my amendments, I consulted with all Irish farm organisations, growers’ associations, local enterprise groups and environmental groups.

"Farmers operate in an increasingly global market and experience a far greater exposure to

Agriculture Committee passes amendments warning of negative impact on farming

price volatility than other sectors. The Commission has today been warned that deals such as TTIP, CETA and Mercosur pose direct threats to job creation and threaten traditional farming models in rural areas. The changes that these trade deals would bring would work against policies aimed at stimulating local production and supporting agricultural livelihoods in Ireland.”

Through GUE/NGL’s amendments, the report passed by the European Parliament’s Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee also highlighted the devastating results of austerity policies on employment in rural communities and included warnings about the negative impact that withdrawal of Pillar 1 payments would have on farmers.

In addition, it called for: • Measures to address issues faced by young farmers; • Simplified measures to protect local produce; • The bottom-up approach to LEADER programmes to be restored;

• Increased support for co-operatives; • Fairer distribution of Pillar 1 payments; • Region-specific flexibility to be restored in the Second Pillar.

Meanwhile, Matt Carthy insisted that the Dáil should vote on the proposed “toxic” Canada-EU (CETA) trade agreement before the Irish Government seeks to ratify it at the European Council.

His call follows the decision by Seanad Éireann to oppose the controversial deal, a move which he said “shows that political representatives are beginning to wake up to the dangers of this deal for Ireland”.

He added: “A recent study by Tufts University, using the UN economic model, has shown that CETA will lead to a reduction of the labour income share, wage compression, job losses and net losses in GDP. “CETA, like TTIP, is bad deal which would have serious negative implications for Irish farmers, workers and consumers.

“Through its provision for an Investment Court, it will undermine Irish democracy and our judicial system.

“The Irish Government’s position in support of this deal is wrong and their intention to ratify it at the Euro Council before any Dáil vote is fundamentally undemocratic.

“Irish citizens are entitled to know where all their TDs stand on this important issue.”

‘World Food Day’: GUE/NGL MEPs raise awareness of climate change ‘WORLD FOOD DAY’ on 16 October saw GUE/NGL MEPs raise awareness about climate change and its impact on food and agriculture.

“To feed a growing world population, expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, there is a need to address the adverse effects of climate change and rethink the way we produce food,” GUE/NGL said.

Rather than promoting industrial farming and GM crops, the world must recognise people’s right to produce their own food, argued GUE/NGL MEP Lidia Senra. She said: “Europe does not have to feed the world but should instead help people feed themselves. To eradicate hunger, poverty, social exclusion and contribute to the fight against climate change it is fundamental to promote and enhance agro-ecology, peasant farming, access to land and seeds and prioritise short marketing circuits.”

Faced with a reality of more and more people living under the threshold of poverty and growing hunger, a direct result of austerity policies, Lidia Senra called for a radical shift in the EU towards “an end to neo-liberalism and free trade agreements, which are at the roots of inequality”.

‘Europe does not have to feed the world but it should help people feed themselves’

Concurring, Lynn Boylan MEP added that genetically modified (GM) foods undermine small-scale farmers with a one-size-fits-all approach to farming that does not even come close to fixing the global food and climate change crisis.

“Genetically modified foods with their high and sustained input costs, both financial and chemical, are designed for large monoculture farms which are entirely ill-equipped to address the dual requirements of

feeding the world and fighting climate change,” Lynn said. “Indeed, the only GM crop used by small-scale farmers is GM cotton in India – a non-food crop.

“Furthermore, industrial agriculture’s genetically identical monocultures are actually the most vulnerable to climate and pest stress whilst ecologically sound and diverse crops which sustain local communities without risking biodiversity are much more resilient to climate change shocks.”

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

Liadh Ní Riada

Lynn Boylan

23

www.guengl.eu

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

Mandatory register for EU lobbyists – Martina Anderson MEP MARTINA ANDERSON has insisted that a mandatory register of the huge number of lobbyists working behind the scenes to influence EU policy is vital for democracy and accountability in the European Parliament for citizens’ trust.

‘Transparency International – The Global Coalition Against Corruption’ has been calling for such a register as far back as 2008.

Transparency International estimates that 3,000 “lobbying entities” have an office in Brussels and target European institutions to influence legislation, so it is crucial for transparent EU decision-making that their goals and methods are made clear.

A mandatory joint register for the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers – in which every EU lobbyist has to register – “is the best means to prevent undue influence and to strengthen EU citizens’ trust in European institutions”, Transparency International says.

Martina Anderson agrees.

‘Secretive lobbying undermines democracy and citizens’ trust’ “Secretive lobbying undermines democracy and citizens’ trust in governments and the institutions of the EU,” the Irish MEP said.

“Powerful lobbies such as those connected to alcohol and tobacco have been able to push back restrictions on those industries time and time again.

“The current rules around lobbying are voluntary and, as such, are weak.

“There is a risk that those with the most money and best connections can exercise undue influence.”

There needs to be tighter rules, including the creation of a reliable register of lobbyists to see how many there are and how much money they spend, Martina said.

Escalating militarisation of EU – Lynn Boylan MEP Martina Anderson MEP

Fisheries and Brexit – Liadh Ní Riada MEP IRELAND SOUTH MEP Liadh Ní Riada has told a high-level hearing in the European Parliament on the impact of Brexit that the Irish fisheries community should be “at the heart of the negotiations just as other economic sectors and their relevant stakeholders are”.

Liadh, a member of the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries, said: “A major concern is how quotas will be affected because already we do not have enough quotas for Irish fishermen, what will happen to future distribution of quotas and ‘Total Allowable Catches’,

Fishing should be at heart of negotiations with other economic sectors future funding for fishermen, and access to fishing grounds off the coast of the island of Ireland.

“If access is restricted after Brexit to fisheries that we would share with Britain, combined with future lower quotas as a result, then the big

losers could be Ireland as we fish in their waters particularly for prawns and pelagics.

“Britain, Ireland and the EU would need to negotiate new arrangements dealing with, for example, fish stocks in the Irish Sea, such as the Mourne and Man herring fisheries, and fishing in Irish coastal waters such as Foyle.

“If Britain is going to insist on restricting our fishermen, especially in the North of Ireland, then we must not back down on insisting on historical fishing rights in these areas for Irish fishermen from the South and the North.”

European Commission President to propose European Defence Fund BREXIT has “reignited the ambitions of militarists within the European Union”, Lynn Boylan MEP has warned at a public meeting in Dublin addressed by the Peace & Neutrality Alliance and Shannonwatch. (Scheduled speaker GUE/NGL MEP Sabine Lösing was unable to attend due to illness.)

At the Dublin event, Lynn Boylan pledged her opposition to any increased militarisation and further erosion of Irish neutrality when members of the EU Foreign Affairs committee meet to discuss the establishment of a European Defence Union.

Lynn Boylan MEP

Liadh hosts Irish deaf group in Brussels

LIADH NÍ RIADH MEP invited a group of deaf people to the European Parliament in Brussels at the end of September where they attended a major international conference on language rights for sign language users organised by MEP Helga Stevens.

The group also met Martina Anderson MEP. Liadh has been pressing the Irish Government for full official recognition of Irish Sign Language (ISL), used by 45,000 people in Ireland. On 19 October, ISL took a step closer to that goal when there was cross-party support for a Seanad Bill that had been rejected on two previous occasions.

She pointed out that, four days after the result of the Brexit referendum in Britain, the French and German Foreign Ministers presented a position paper which centred on the EU being able to employ “high-readiness forces and provide common financing for its operations and that the EU would need to take action more often in order to manage crises that directly affect its own security”.

European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker is seeking a European Military Budget and will propose before the end of the year a European Defence Fund “to turbo boost research and innovation”, the Irish MEP said.

“It is clear that, in the coming weeks and months, the EU militarisation agenda will continue to be pushed.

“Make no mistake – a common EU defence policy is centred on creating a federal Europe and has little to do in the way of providing safety.”

24 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Young

republicans

leading from the front

BY OISÍN MacCANNA

5 SFRY protests – Apple tax at Fine Gael HQ, against emigration, and defending our 1916 heritage

YOUNG REPUBLICAN RANKS are experiencing an upsurge in new members with the start of the new college terms building on the numbers involved in this year’s 35th Anniversary Hunger Strike Commemoration and those who signed up at the National Ploughing Championships in County Offaly.

In Dublin alone, Sinn Féin Republican Youth now boasts 300 members. Many members are active not only in their local cumainn, colleges and communities but also are holding their own on major national issues.

Across the island, there are hundreds more active members in places such as Galway, Belfast, Donegal, Limerick and Cork.

The Apple tax scandal was one of a number of issues scandalously defended by the mainstream

parties that prompted Sinn Féin Republican Youth activists to descend on Fine Gael Head Office and decorate the railings outside with dozens of rotten apples to highlight the Irish Government’s rotten position.

Media sources from around the world picked up on the story, most notably Russia Today, The Guardian and Spanish prime-time news.

The accompanying video on Facebook got 161,000 views.

Sinn Féin Republican Youth have been campaigning consistently for increased funding and infrastructure for housing to address the ongoing crisis of homelessness.

Young activists gathered at universities in Dublin, Galway, Belfast and Cork to take part in a student sleep-out event to raise awareness for

– JOIN THE CAMPAIGN

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN

JOIN SINN FÉIN

Text SINN FEIN followed by NAME and ADDRESS to 51444 (26 Coun ties) to 60060 (Six Coun ties)

– JOIN – JOIN THE THE CAMPAIGN CAMPAIGN

IN MP GNAIGN

11/10/2016 11/10/2016 21:16 21:16

in O’Connell Street. It was another initiative that attracted international attention and the video attracted 25,000 views on Facebook.

Young republicans are also making their presence felt and their voices heard in the Oireachtas and the Assembly.

Senator Fintan Warfield is leading the way as the youngest member of the Oireachtas at 24 years old, followed by Cork South Central TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, who, at 26, is Sinn Féin’s youngest Teachta Dála.

In the Assembly in the North, Megan Fearon MLA is the party spokesperson on Women, Children & Young People and is Junior Minister at the Executive Office.

In Dublin alone, Sinn Féin Republican Youth now boasts 300 members

We’re also making our presence felt and our voices heard in the Oireachtas and the Assembly

the need of increased accommodation for young people, often the unheard demographic when it comes to the housing crisis. It11/10/2016 is estimated 21:16that over a hundred young activists from across the spectrum took part to highlight the accommodation crisis young people face, including rent uncertainty, lack of supply and substandard quality, even when accommodation can be found.

Other campaigns Sinn Féin Republican Youth have been taking the lead on include demonstrations supporting the ‘Repeal the 8th’ movement and a banner-drop demonstration keeping the ‘Save Moore Street’ campaign in the public eye.

The Bank of Ireland’s closure of the account of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign as part of Israel’s global attack on the worldwide BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) campaign was the focus of a protest by Sinn Féin Republican Youth at its primary Dublin city centre location

A Sinn Féin Republican Youth spokesperson said: “The future might seem unclear for young people across the island who want to thrive rather than just survive. With very little care or support being shown by successive conservative governments, young people are looking for change.

“Sinn Féin Republican Youth is offering an alternative voice for young people feeling the brunt of successive regressive Budgets and struggling to survive on dishonest and unprincipled banded and zero-hour contracts or looking to the future and what sort of job opportunities might be there for them when they finish their education.

“We are prepared to tackle the Establishment wherever we can and we want as many people to join us as possible to make a change, to make a difference.”

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

25

Irish support for the Spanish Republic IN FEBRUARY 1936, the people of the Spanish Republic elected a Popular Front government which included Left republicans, socialists, communists and other progressive forces. The result reflected the great social upheaval of those so long oppressed by the old monarchy, the landed aristocracy, the Catholic Hierarchy, the capitalists in industry, and by Madrid’s suppression of the Basque and Catalan nations.

The new government raised the prospect of fundamental change and the forces of reaction quickly conspired to overthrow it.

Led by General Francisco Franco, senior Spanish Army officers attempted a coup on 17 July 1936. Largely due to the courage of organised and armed workers’ militias attached to trade unions and political parties (akin to the Irish Citizen Army), the coup failed to overthrow the Republic. But with the support of Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Nazi Germany, Franco’s fascist troops grabbed and held large swathes of territory, igniting a war that lasted until April 1939.

Conservative Catholics in Ireland quickly rallied to Franco’s banner.

Cardinal McRory, Archbishop of Armagh, in a sermon in Drogheda in September, said the choice was

‘Most of them, including the youngest, had at some time or other been members of the IRA in which they received military training’

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Frank Ryan

Peadar O’Donnell

he worked to counter the anti-republican propaganda which was rampant in Ireland.

George Gilmore, joint secretary of Republican Congress with Ryan, travelled to Euskadi, the Basque Country. Basque independence was declared in October 1936 and Gilmore

Remembering the Past

met José Antonio Aguirre, President of Euskadi. It was especially significant for the Irish that in the Basque Country the Catholic Hierarchy supported the Basque Government’s stand with the Spanish Republic against Franco. Later, a Basque priest, Ramón La Borda, did a speaking tour of Ireland.

Another prominent republican, Ernie O’Malley, IRA GHQ member during the Civil War and a legendary fighter in the Tan War, rallied to support the Spanish Republic. On 5 November 1936 he chaired a public meeting in Dublin where he challenged the virulently pro-Franco stand of the Irish Independent and the ‘Irish Christian Front’ led

by Paddy Belton.

O’Duffy’s brigade sailed to Spain from Galway on a ship flying the swastika.

Initially, Frank Ryan believed that the fight against fascism should be fought at home but the prospect of the Irish people being misrepresented as pro-Franco spurred him and others to travel to fight for the Republic. Communist parties across Europe were recruiting units for an International Brigade in Spain and the tiny Communist Party of Ireland decided in September that it

MICHAEL O’RIORDAN

between Spain as “a Christian and Catholic land or a Bolshevist and anti-God one”. In a newspaper interview the cardinal called for help to obtain war supplies. Eoin O’Duffy, leader of the fascist Blueshirts, urged on by McRory, called for volunteers to form an Irish Catholic brigade for Franco.

Republican Congress, a party of Left republicans who had departed from the IRA in 1934, replied to McRory through their spokesperson, Frank Ryan, former editor of An Phoblacht. Ryan rejected McRory’s call and said Irish republicans offered “sympathy and support to the Spanish, Catalan and Basque peoples in their fight against fascism”.

In that summer of 1936, Peadar O’Donnell, also a former An Phoblacht editor and a Republican Congress founder, had visited Catalonia. He was there for the July coup and witnessed how the workers of Barcelona defeated the fascists. He assisted the republican forces with their English-language international news bulletin. On his return

5 The Connolly Column fought for the working class in the Spanish Civil War would do so also. The unit’s organiser “We are going out to fight for the was Bill Gannon, a veteran of the Tan working class,” Tommy wrote to his War and the Civil War. The unit drew mother. volunteers from beyond the CP and Frank Ryan described the motivation Republican Congress. of the Irish who, 80 years ago, went Led by Frank Ryan, the republicans out to fight for the Spanish Republic: left in small groups, most travelling “A demonstration of the sympathrough London and then on to France thy of revolutionary Ireland with the and across the border into the Spanish Republic. International Brigade veteran Michael O’Riordan recalled that the first Irish detachment went to the International Brigade base in Madrigueras to be shaped into a fighting unit. “This did not take long as most of them, including the youngest, had at some time or other been members of the IRA in which they received military training,” wrote O’Riordan.

The Irish chose the title of the ‘James Connolly Unit’; the ‘Connolly Column’ was the name later used to cover all the Irish who fought in various International Brigade formations.

The Irish first went into action on the southern front in December 1936. From the beginning, the death toll was high.

At Cordoba, eight volunteers were killed, including 17-year-old Tommy Woods from Dublin. Woods had been Spanish people in their fight against in Fianna Éireann and two of his uncles international fascism. It is also a reply were on the IRA Roll of Honour – to the intervention of Irish fascism in Patrick Doyle, executed in Mountjoy the war against the Spanish Republic in March 1921 and Seán Doyle, killed in which, if unchallenged, would remain the Custom House attack in May 1921. a disgrace on our people.

Ernie O’Malley challenged the virulently proFranco stand of the Irish Independent

5 Eoin O’Duffy, leader of the fascist Blueshirts, at a meeting in Bandon, Cork » FURTHER READING:

Connolly Column

by Michael O’Riordan (2005 edition)

Frank Ryan – the Search for the Republic

by Seán Cronin (1980)

Peadar O’Donnell

by Peter Hegarty (1999)

“We went to show that there is a close bond between the democracies of Ireland and Spain. Our fight is the fight of the Spanish people, as it is of all peoples who are the victims of tyranny.”

26 November / Samhain 2016

ROBERT ALLEN IT STARTED more than a generation ago in places like Danaghers in Cong, The Dubliner in Dublin, O’Dowd’s in Roundstone, in numerous cafés and restaurants in Belfast, Cork and Dublin, and in rural areas where there was a demand for a hearty midday meal.

www.anphoblacht.com

Full and Plenty COLONISATION IS NOT UNIQUE TO IRELAND BUT THE LOSS OF OUR FOOD CULTURE IS

Full and plenty only told part of the story.

Locals knew where to go to get a mighty feed.

It was the tourists and travellers who decided there was nowhere to eat. If asked, “Where can I get good traditional Irish food?” the response was enigmatic.

People knew who employed crazy cooks and competent chefs on their premises and as the 1980s descended into drudgery the very idea that

Most of what existed in the ancient food culture of Ireland began to disappear 800 years ago

Irish society knew how to cater for discerning tastes was left hanging in the air, under sodden skies and soft rain, always more reliable.

And that was the issue. The plates of food served in places that represented the trade were hit and miss, the quality unreliable, the

Black pudding, one of Europe’s oldest recipes, accompanied bacon and eggs in one form or another for breakfast, ‘The Bookie’s Sandwich’ – steak pressed into two pieces of bread – went with the dispossessed and is now a traditional dish of the Americas.

The capricious mackerel of the west and south-west were fished offshore and served pan-fried anytime of the day. Clams, cockles, mussels, oysters and scallops were consumed according to availability and fashion. The fruit cake was boiled long before it was baked; hams were baked and boiled (and hardly ever cured).

Langoustines (and crawfish) were no longer cooked on the boat (a tradition lost throughout the world, not only in Ireland). Liver from various animals was cooked with onions (a tradition that has remained sacrosanct in Venice and the Po Delta in Italy, and in several other places).

Meat and potato stew with mutton rather than beef was always popular (reinvented in northern England as meat and potato pies). Oatmeal found its way into numerous preparations (just

What has remained is now contaminated by ‘big house’ traditions and the remnants of AngloNorman, English, French, Norman, Polish and Saxon influences

5 Sourdough bread is now prominent throughout the food cultures of Europe

taste insipid. There was nothing sensory about the experience.

The majority of people could not afford to eat in hotels, especially in the big houses with their arrogant manners and holier-than-thou attitudes. Occasionally, the word got out that a particular hotel had found a great young chef, and forays were made to check out the assertion. Usually, it was hyperbole.

It is hard to believe today that the majority of food available in cafés, hotels and restaurants during the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s was usually inedible. It was terrible. And the terror did not end there. The emergence of fast-food outlets in the cities and larger towns depressed those who could see no bright culinary horizons.

Comfort food it might have been; rich in minerals

and vitamins it was not. Generally, it was fatty and starchy.

Food historians, restaurant critics, time-served chefs and zany cooks have blamed everyone and everything for this sad scenario – from bad teachers to lazy proprietors to idiotic government regulations to the second coming – without getting to the root of the problem.

Throughout history the produce of this land has been exported. And with a ruling class disinterested in anything other than their own pathetic, outdated beliefs and traditions, the plain people of the country were never given a chance to develop an indigenous food culture that reflected the geography and landscape, a way of living that had not changed that much over the generations.

as it has done in every food culture dependent on grains for sustenance).

Potatoes with buttermilk or kale were preferred to potatoes in their skins or potatoes made into cakes. Raw-milk cheeses continued a culinary line back to antiquity.

Sea vegetables such as carrageen, dulse and kelp played a big role in baking and cooking.

Scallions and leeks spiced up mashed potatoes but were also essential ingredients in soups and soda bread. It remains iconic.

Most of all it was fleshy fish – haddock, hake, herring, mackerel, salmon, sole, trout – that defined the food culture until all of it became a commodity and a luxury.

Wild forager food, from berries to mushrooms, always supplemented the diet.

Somewhere along the timeline, the tradition of air-cured and air-dried products was lost,

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Air-dried fish was once a tradition of all the Atlantic Fringe countries

5 Mackerel caught off the western seaboard remains a traditional food

while pickled, salted and smoked foods gained prominence.

Most of what existed in the ancient food culture of Ireland began to disappear 800 years ago and what has remained is now contaminated by ‘big house’ traditions and the remnants of Anglo-Norman, English, French, Norman, Polish and Saxon influences.

It is easy to say now that, at the same time the stories of legend were being written down, someone should have thought about the oral food tradition and recorded the habit of passing recipes from mother to daughter. Now the recipes we use are hardly indigenous and native. The arrival of the potato, the change from sheep to lambs, the gradual giveaway of the Atlantic, Celtic and Irish Sea fisheries and the mass migrations changed all that.

5 In the 1960s, Maura Laverty told cooks to take seriously food preparation, baking and cooking

Ireland is a million light years away from the type of new cuisine being practised in the Nordic countries, where everything must be fresh and local

Colonisation is not unique to Ireland but the loss of our food culture is. All the post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet countries and regions have in less than one generation reclaimed their food cultures.

That we started to reclaim ours around the same time means nothing today.

Bord Bia and the new bourgeoisie who think they control the pulse of culinary life in modern Ireland will argue that their farmers' and street markets, food festivals and taste events suggest a different reality. They will point to the number of food artisans, gastro-pubs, specialist food shops, themed restaurants and the improvement in the standard of cooking, the quality and skill displayed by chefs who have earnestly learned their trade.

As any of those chefs will tell you, working a shift in a busy hotel or restaurant is tough.

Good chefs who know exactly what they are

doing are still thin on the ground. The best ones are coveted, and many of the really good ones emigrate.

And those who know what they are doing all repeat the same mantra: Ireland has no indigenous food culture. It is a million light years away from the type of new cuisine being practised in the Nordic countries, where everything

27

must be fresh and local.

Of course, these days much of the blame for this is laid at the executive offices of the supermarket chains. Although Supervalu has attempted to introduce local products into its stores, the foreigners we know as Aldi, Lidl and Tesco dominate and control the market, importing vast amounts of produce to the detriment of the home-produced varieties. Sadly, local produce always costs more than the imported brands.

It might be argued that this is all we can expect from a free market economy and that any food industry – whether large or small, foreign or native – must compete. Strange that this does not happen in continental Europe, where EU and non-EU countries have embraced both the concept and the reality of the need to have a strong traditional food culture in every region.

This year saw a very successful Tastes of Donegal event.

At the same time, a similar event for Galway failed to get off the ground, despite the fact that next year Galway will be one of Europe’s gastronomic regions.

To a magician it is all smoke and mirrors, perspectives and unrealities; to those who care a b o u t I re l a n d ' s nascent indigenous food culture, never mind its food sovereignty, the reality is 5 Michael O'Connell fishes Galway Bay for lobster pitiful and the future is written. that is then sent to France

It is a far cry from the days when The Dubliner opened a lunch-time kitchen to serve bowls of coddle to people who remembered it from their childhood, when Danagher’s served large chicken dinners to starving bachelor farmers and hungry young sport heroes and O’Dowd’s realised that their traditional fish dishes were the talk of the town (and much of the world beyond).

In the 1960s, Maura Laverty was cajoling home cooks to take seriously the art of food preparation, baking and cooking. She was ahead of her time because she recognised what north European and west Asian food cultures have always known – breads (and cakes) are the staff of life.

In her Full and Plenty cookbook she announced that bread-making was her culinary credo.

“Soda bread is the traditional bread of Ireland,” she claimed and went on to explain why yeast bakery would take its place. The few bakeries

Maura Laverty said that good ingredients are more readily available in Ireland than any other country in the world

left that still make soda breads of various types are endangered. Factory-made supermarket breads predominate, despite attempts by some bakers to keep old traditions, Irish and other, going. Bakers making breads with sourdough are also few and far between.

She also said that “good ingredients are more readily available in Ireland than any other country in the world”. A generation later, those who realised this had begun to change attempted to revive all that was traditional about the indigenous produce of Ireland. Here we are today, two generations later, and it is hard to see where another food revolution is going to come from.

Not now that you can get a mighty feed of roast meat, chipped or mashed potatoes, sauce and vegetables in almost every pub. Hardly traditional – just full and plenty!

28 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

Academic autopsy of Tan War revisionism Truce: Murder, Myth and the Last Days of the Irish War of Independence

By Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc Mercier Press €17.99

THIS SUPERB WORK undoubtedly ranks as one of the finest books of the year.

It stands out for many reasons, one being that it makes a change to read something that isn’t a rehashed synopsis of Easter Week. More importantly, it is an outstanding work of detailed historical research, superbly written, and a blistering rebuttal of the revision-

Dr Ó Ruairc challenges head-on Kevin Myers, Eoghan Harris and Conor Cruise O’Brien ist propaganda routinely trotted out whenever this period is discussed. Dr Ó Ruairc challenges head-on journalists and politicians, specifically Kevin Myers, Eoghan Harris and Conor Cruise O’Brien, whom he names and would probably shame if only those still alive were capable of feeling that emotion.

Revisionist academics and anti-republican polemicists are dissected in an academic autopsy that demonstrates with forensically researched analysis the falseness of their claims and the bankruptcy of their arguments.

By this stage you have probably realised that I really liked this book but it’s not just because its conclusions chime with my own views. It

IN PICTURES

Cases of bias

really is a fine example of what good historical research should be. It is a detailed analysis of primary sources which are then used to thoroughly refute the contentions of the many revisionist historians who have written on the subject.

The revisionist line is that in the days preceding the Truce, republican forces embarked on a spree of killings, mostly sectarian, or settling old scores, and nearly all on “soft” targets.

Each claim is analysed, sources cited and either confirmed or disproved.

Actually, they are nearly all disproved, with their origins mostly shown to be unionist or Free State propaganda with little or no basis in fact.

There is also a fascinating section of the book dealing with the political and military origins of the Truce, containing much new information (or at least new to me). If it was in the public domain, it certainly hadn’t been widely disseminated, and it provides an enlightening background to the period.

I could go on but why bother? Just get the book. You won’t regret it.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 David Ceannt presents a framed picture of his grand-uncle, Éamonn Ceannt, Proclamation signatory and 1916 leader, to Rosie McCorley as JJ Bradley and Gerry Ó Scolláin of the Felons’ Association look on at a celebratory night held in the Felons’ Club, Belfast

After the Rising: Soldiers, Lawyers and Trials of the Irish Revolution

By Seán Enright Irish Academic Press €17.50 / €45

THIS WORK is a follow-up to the author’s previous volume, Easter 1916, The Trials, which dealt with the trials of the Easter Week combatants.

The first section of the book examines the complete breakdown of the juridical system in the period from the aftermath of 1916 up until the Truce and commencement of Treaty negotiations in 1921.

Important or notable trials from the period are then examined on a chronological basis in the second half of the book.

The final section consists of 50 pages of detailed notes and source information that stand as a testament to the level of scrupulous research invested in this volume.

The trials of Eoin Mac Néill, Roger Casement and Constance Markievicz obviously stand out but the book also considers lesser-known individuals such as John Madden, Joseph Dowling, and Thomas Traynor.

The opening section of the book dealing with the breakdown of the established judicial processes is arguably the most interesting section of the work. It outlines the British Government’s preoccupation with the Versailles settlement at the end of World War One and its apparent assumption that Ireland could be dealt with by a combination of concession and repression: home rule on the one hand, and a combination of judicial and extra-judicial measures to isolate radicals from the general population. The failure of this policy

is evidenced by the increasingly repressive measures introduced by the British Government in a forlorn attempt to bolster their crumbling authority.

This is a beautifully-written and well-researched book by an author with a real affinity for his subject – perhaps too much of an affinity in some cases.

Seán Enright, although Irish, is a circuit judge in England who practised as a London barrister for many years. Whilst

Actions of Auxiliaries are often accompanied by observations of their heroic war records it is apparent that the author has strived to achieve objectivity, he has not always achieved it.

Actions of Auxiliaries are often accompanied by observations of their heroic war records; no such mitigation of republican actions is apparent.

He seems to possess a particular dislike for Constance Markievicz, whom he terms “a snob”, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. In a comment (quite remarkable coming from a barrister) that could be interpreted as a tacit endorsement of police/military death squads, the author observes: “Disaffected policemen shot down those the law could not touch. Markievicz and her comrades had unravelled the law and no one was safe.”

Notwithstanding these observations of bias from an even more biased reviewer such as myself, this really is an excellent book and worth adding to any collection.

5 Seán Enright seems to have a particular dislike of Constance Markievicz

November / Samhain 2016

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 TOMAN, Volunteer Gervase McKERR, Volunteer Seán BURNS, North Armagh Brigade 13 November 1972: Volunteer Stan CARBERRY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 14 October 2016

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

Battalion 14 November 1974: Volunteer James McDADE, England 15 November 1973: Volunteer Michael McVERRY, South Armagh Brigade 15 November 1974: Volunteer John 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.

McCANN, Peter. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer Noel Peter McCann, who left us on 10 November 2000. We loved him then, we love him still. With fondest memories from his friends in Clonmel and his friends and family in the US, but mostly his still grieving partner Barbara.

Comhbhrón HOLDEN. Deepest sympathy is extended to the family and friends of Michael Holden, formerly of Hemel Hempstead in England. Michael worked tirelessly over a long number of years for republican prisoners and their families, finding

accommodation for them and travelling all over England with them, and liaising with their legal teams. His kindness and integrity was incredible. Thank you, Michael. So sad that you have left us. From Helen O ‘Brien and Mary

McLaughlin, Bundoran, Donegal.

HOLDEN. Deepest sympathy is extended to the wife and family of Michael Holden, who passed away at the end of September. We wish to acknowledge his immense work for and dedication

to republican prisoners in English gaols and the bonds of friendship he maintained with them long after their release. All are saddened by his passing, as are friends and comrades in the West London Republican Support Group,

29

» Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@anphoblacht. com at least 14 days in advance of publication date.

There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón etc. » Imeachtaí There is a charge of €10 for inserts printed in our Imeachtaí/Events column.

You can also get a small or large box advert. Contact: sales@anphoblacht.com for details.

Hammersmith. From Jim McDonald.

QUIGLEY. The Halpenny, Worthington, Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk, deeply regrets the death of Johnny Quigley, brother of our friend and comrade Jock. Condolences to all the family.

5 Basques who travelled to the commemoration sang a moving rendition of the song Txoria Txori (The Bird)

Óglach Diarmuid O’Neill 20th anniversary commemoration

BY CIONNAITH Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN

FRANCIE MOLLOY MP, several Sinn Féin TDs and party county councillors, republican former prisoners, a delegation of Basque political activists, and hundreds of Irish republicans joined with members of the O’Neill family on 25 September for the 20th anniversary commemoration of the killing of IRA Volunteer Diarmuid O’Neill in England.

A piper and colour party led the large crowd on a short parade into Timoleague Cemetery, west Cork, to the graveside of 27-year-old Diarmuid, who was shot dead by London police on 23 September 1996.

Michael O’Donovan, Cathaoirleach of Clonakilty Sinn Féin (which has organised the annual commemoration every year since 1997), extended a céad míle fáilte to all.

He reminded people that Amnesty International and other human rights 5 Former H-Blocks Hunger Strikers Pat Sheehan MLA and Raymond McCartney MLA on organisations have repeatedly called for stage with moderator Dermot Keyes in Garter Lane Theatre following a screening of teh a public inquiry into the controversial film Bobby Sands: 66 days killing as it was clear that Diarmuid was in a discussion moderated by local took place in the Craftsman bar on under round-the-clock surveillance for journalist Dermot Keyes.

Saturday night where friendships were months before the killing.

He extended a special welcome A Mayoral Reception was held on copper-fastened that will stand the to Diarmuid’s family “who, on a very Saturday evening for the visitors from test of time.

Dungiven with presentations made to It is hoped to make this a biannual personal level, must find this date very Kevin’s family and to members of the event, with a return journey already trying indeed. They have stood by their flute band named after him. A function being planned to Dungiven next August. son’s memory, they have cried over his

5 Mayor John Hearne makes a presentation to Kevin Lynch's sister, Bridie

Kevin Lynch Weekend in Waterford WATERFORD Sinn Féin hosted a weekend of events in Waterford City on 30 September/1 October to mark the death in 1981 of H-Blocks Hunger Striker Kevin Lynch. Kevin was a Dáil general election candidate in Waterford in 1981, securing 3,370 first-preference votes.

Kevin’s sister Bridie and his nieces travelled from Dungiven, County Derry,.

They joined the Kevin Lynch Republican Flute Band, the Carrick-on-Suir RFB and the local community for the weekend’s events, including a large commemorative parade in Waterford City on Saturday afternoon with people from all over the South-East turning out to show their support.

H-Blocks veterans Pat Sheehan MLA and Raymond McCartney MLA were in Waterford for the Kevin Lynch Weekend and they gave first-hand accounts of their experiences on hunger strike for 55 days and 53 days, respectively. They spoke following the screening of Bobby Sands: 66 days in Garter Lane Theatre

grave but they have also stood proudly with us in his memory.”

He also welcomed “our comrades from the Basque Country" who were present in numbers and led by Diarmuid’s fiancée at the time of his killing, Karmela.

Wreaths were laid by a number of people, including by Diarmuid’s family, the Justice for Diarmuid O’Neill Campaign in London, the West London Republican Support Group, Karmela Ereno for Basque comrades, and Eddie Butler on behalf of republican ex-prisoners. A lament was played by piper Dermot Milner.

Clonakilty-based Sinn Féin County Councillor Paul Hayes read the 1916 Proclamation and the main oration was delivered by veteran republican and civil rights activist Francie Molloy from Tyrone, Sinn Féin MP for Mid-Ulster.

Francie recalled attending the inquest into Diarmuid’s killing in London, where the police shooters were vindicated. He believes that the order to kill an Irish republican at that time came from the highest levels in the British Government of the day.

The Basque group performed a musical dance at the side of Diarmuid’s grave as is customary in their country when they remember a fallen patriot. They then sang a beautiful song called Txoria Txori (The Bird) and they also placed a sunflower, known in Basque as an Eguzki Lorea, on Diarmuid’s grave.

The ceremony concluded with Ámhrán na bhFiann.

30 November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

The spirit that makes Gaelic games special PRIDE AND PASSION are two words that are often associated with GAA – and rightly so. On a daily basis, people across the island are taking part in, coaching or doing some form of administrative back-up duty for their club or county.

Sunday 24 September was no different. Thousands of people, club colours proudly displayed, and eager ‘neutrals’ had packed into the Athletic Grounds in Armagh with anticipation to watch the Ulster Senior Camogie and Hurling Finals.

The billing for both match-ups was Slaughtneil v Loughgiel, a fine achievement for both clubs and testament to the hard work and dedication to all involved at any level within them.

It is here that marks that Sunday as particularly poignant. It fell two days after Slaughtneil said goodbye to a stalwart of the club – Thomas Cassidy.

Thomas played an instrumental role in reviving hurling in the club, coaching under-age sides and guiding many throughout their playing careers.

Two of his sons, Éanna and Seán, featured in the successful hurlers; his three daughters – Aoife, Bróna and Eilís – all played an instrumental role in the Camogie Final, showing great character to earn a draw in a pulsating game.

Each of Thomas’s children and indeed the two teams were the epitome of bravery. They displayed great pride and passion not only for the GAA and their club but also for Thomas, paying

IN PICTURES

NIAMH ARCHIBALD tribute to him in the most fitting way they knew how – by playing.

On a hugely emotional day for Slaughtneil, the years of hard work by

but perhaps in their minds they were also thinking of other loved ones and members who were missing from the historical day.

Tragedy hits every club and players all over the country will have played through and will play through testing times Thomas and everyone throughout the club paid off as The Emmets became the first Derry side to ever claim the Ulster crown After the game, Slaughtneil captain Chrissy McKaigue paid tribute to Thomas, saying: “He was the main driver of this dream.

His spirit today lived in all of us.”

I have no doubt that everyone in the crowd was thinking of Thomas Cassidy

Tragedy hits every club and players all over the country will have played through and will play through testing times.

In the past few weeks, Magilligan banished 28 years of hurt when they claimed their first-ever Derry Championship title.

The club’s triumph comes less than a year after the death of Steven Deeney.

The 33-year-old collapsed and died

during a training session in January 2015.

He was described as the “heart and soul of the club” and undoubtedly he was not far from the minds of his teammates and fans.

Their triumph and Slaughtneil’s is the stuff of fairytales and no one would begrudge either side their day. That’s why they serve as inspiration, albeit somewhat sadly, to us all.

This is what makes the GAA special.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy hosts a delegation of farmers, producers and local representatives from across Ireland in Brussels for discussions on how to protect and promote Irish produce

5 Sinn Féin TDs Kathleen Funchion, Mary Lou McDonald and Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire launch the party's childcare proposals for alleviating the burden of spiralling childcare costs

November / Samhain 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

ROBBIE SMY TH

DYLAN DILEMMA

NEW NOBEL LAUREATE Bob Dylan has filled many hours for me over the years. He has commanded my turntable, CD selections, iPod playlists and now (when I am supposed to be working) even my YouTube browsing.

Yes, Springsteen, Neil Young, the Beatles, Bowie, the Ramones, Moving Hearts, Seamus Ennis and many others make prolonged appearances but it often comes back in unforeseen moments to Dylan.

When I first ventured into An Phoblacht’s hallowed offices in 1991 there was a firm ‘No Dylan’ embargo. Warren Zevon, Bob Marley, Christy Moore, any punk, ska or soul band or other no-name politically correct outfit you cared to mention got time on the layout floor’s sound system. (Actually, it was an ageing, near-wrecked

When I first ventured into An Phoblacht’s hallowed offices in 1991 there was a firm ‘No Dylan’ embargo boom-box and there was an ongoing debate over the political credibility of Paul Weller.)

When I was pushed upstairs to the journalists’ rooms there was endless Sky News and MTV but no Dylan. Gerry Adams can now tweet about Leonard Cohen and Van Morrison – and I have heard that The Eagles’ Greatest Hits Volume 1 was a regular in the Cages of Long Kesh – but we have a Dylan blindspot.

They did apparently play The Hurricane in Long Kesh. Maybe it was something to do with the lines “Rubin Carter was falsely tried” or “The man the authorities came to blame/For somethin’ that he never done”.

I believe Bob Dylan and Irish republicans have a lot in common. Yep, I just made that audacious claim. It is based on the idea that Dylan, for all his success, is engulfed at times by sneaking regard and false praise.

And so we hear how Dylan’s early work is better, his later work patchy – his voice, never good, is shot, his lyrics at times misogynist. I have lost count of how many times I have heard a new

FOR REPUBLICANS

Dylan record compared to the 1975 Blood on the Tracks, as in ‘Not as good as . . .’.

It is a stretch, I know, but I hear the same voices

after Sinn Féin has another election victory.

‘Your vote could have been higher’; ‘It’s your tax policy’; ‘It’s time for a leadership change’. And so

31

the same people who never protested, never sat through interminable marches and meetings, never lobbied, canvassed or leafleted, have all the best advice in the world. I think of them the same way as I think of some of the musical critics of Bob Dylan.

The same people I find who didn’t understand Dylan’s withdrawal temporarily in 1966 from public life and his refusal to be a wind-up protest singer are the ones who refuse to accept Sinn Féin as a radical party of the Left.

There is this strange one-size-fits-all party of the Left political correctness and similarly a one-size-fits-all protest singer mould. We can’t all be Joan Baez or Ewan MacColl.

Strangely, it is the 1983 Infidels album, one of Dylan’s most politically dodgy records, that cemented my adult life with him.

Like all Dylan, there are some great insightful songs that capture the politics of the era and then there is track three, Neighbourhood Bully. It is clearly about Israel. Dylan sings: “His enemies say he’s on their land/They got him outnumbered about a million to one.”

You can’t get much clearer than that, except maybe the album’s back cover clearly shows him on a hill outside Jerusalem!

Infidels came during his born-again Christian period, so I still don’t know what his reasoning for the song was. He has never played it in concert, even when he performed in Tel Aviv in 2011. (Leonard Cohen was there in 2009, by the way!)

While we are on the various Dylan ‘issues’, I do know he performed, acted and adapted his Oscar-winning song Things Have Changed for a two-minute Chrysler Superbowl ad in 2014. I

Neighbourhood Bully is clearly about Israel do know that he appeared and sang in a Victoria's Secret ad in 2004, an ad for IBM and, yes, he has played a corporate gig for General Motors.

I have been at a Dylan concert where he wore a baseball cap, hoodie up and sunglasses the whole time ­– and, yes, it was at night.

But it was an excellent gig.

I did find it strange when Adele recorded his song Make You Feel My Love but not as strange as meeting those who don’t believe he wrote the song.

Yes, I did cringe when last year’s X Factor winner’s song was Dylan’s 1974 Forever Young. But maybe the answer is in the song’s lyrics: “May your song always be sung.” This is so true of Dylan.

Still wonder, though, when the Nobel Prize committee is going to recognise Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams.

NEXT ISSUE OUT Thursday 24 November 2016

anphoblacht

32

Sraith Nua Iml 39 Uimhir 11 – November /Samhain 2016

IN PICTURES

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 (Left) Pat Sheehan speaks at the Sinn Féin office at Sevastopol Street, Belfast, at a commemoration ceremony to remember friend and comrade Pat 'Pat Beag' McGeown; (Right) Paul Murphy of the Mid-Falls Commemoration Committee makes a presentation to Pat's daughter, Siobhán

5 Pictured at the Sinn Féin Alternative Budget 2017 launch are party Economic Advisor Eolan de Búrca, David Cullinane TD, Mary Lou McDonald TD, National Policy Director Miriam Murphy and Pearse Doherty TD

59

th

EDENTUBBER Annual Commemoration

5 Sinn Féin TDs joined other Oireachtas members to protest the prosecution of a Jobstown youth over an anti-water charges protest during a visit by the then Labour leader and Tánaiste, Joan Burton

Cuimhneachán Bliantúil Éadan Tobair

5 Sinn Féin Republican Youth sponsored walk of Scalp Mountain in Inishowen for Cúnamh, a community-led mental health project also dealing with suicide prevention

5 Young republicans protest the presence of a British Army recruitment station in the grounds of Queen's University, Belfast

1957 - 2016

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 13th, 2016 At 2.30 p.m. - Main Speaker: Megan Fearon, MLA

5 Sinn Féin protest at the Bank of Ireland office in Dublin's O'Connell Street after its decision to close an account belonging to the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign