An Phoblacht, October 2016

MÁIRE DRUMM

EYEWITNESS PALESTINE

The village that refused to be consigned to oblivion

40th ANNIVERSARY OF HER KILLING

ALLEGATIONS

‘A pile of crap’

anphoblacht Sraith Nua Iml 39 Uimhir 10

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

Price €2 / £2

For Sinn Féin, it’s very much about reducing the cost of living for families, investing in services and infrastructure, and ensuring that those who can afford to do so pay their fair share

We need a fair Budget where no one is left behind ALTERNATIVE

BUDGET 2017

2 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

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‘A collection of discredited conspiracy theories relying on claims of an anonymous paid liar and British agent’

BBC Spotlight allegations against Gerry Adams ‘total rubbish’ ALLEGATIONS by a self-confessed, paid agent of British Intelligence that Gerry Adams would have had to sanction the killing of MI5 agent Denis Donaldson in Donegal in 2006 have been dismissed by critics, who point out that BBC Spotlight did not produce one iota of evidence to back up its sensationalist claims.

Gerry Adams has categorically denied all the claims contained in the programme on 20 September and the matter is now being studied by his solicitor.

Donaldson (55), from Belfast, was shot dead at an isolated cottage near Glenties in County Donegal in April 2006.

He had been living there following his exposure as a state agent the previous December, when he appeared at a press conference to confess he had been an informer for MI5 for more than two decades. He had been Sinn Féin’s head of administration at Stormont when his role as an agent for Britain’s Security Service was revealed.

In the wake of the shooting, the IRA immediately denied media speculation that it had shot Donaldson and Gerry Adams condemned the killing.

The so-called ‘Real IRA’ eventually claimed responsibility three years later, in April 2009, in an interview with Suzanne Breen in which a spokesperson revealed details of the murder that hadn’t been publicly revealed by An Garda Síochána.

“To prove the authenticity of their statement,” Breen reported, “the Real IRA had given details of the murder – such as the time of the shooting – which contradicted media reports.”

She added that although the claim was privately dismissed by Garda sources at the time, “detectives now accept it was true”.

The Garda murder investigation has followed that line of enquiry from the outset and has not changed.

BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O’Leary relied heavily on the unsubstantiated hearsay of MI5 agent ‘Martin’ and ex-RUC officers. Relatives for Justice noted that while former Special Branch

‘I specifically and categorically refute these unsubstantiated allegations.

‘I will continue to support the family of Mr Donaldson to achieve truth and justice.’

GERRY ADAMS

5 Denis Donaldson

commanders were happy to cooperate with BBC TV programmes, “they refuse to cooperate with the Police Ombudsman looking at same killings”.

Gerry Adams himself said of the BBC Spotlight claims: “I specifically and categorically refute these unsubstantiated allegations.

“I will continue to support the family of Mr Donaldson to achieve truth and justice.”

Stating that the BBC Spotlight allegations are part of British security agencies’ ongoing attempts to smear republicans and cover-up their own actions, he added: “There is a need for all these agencies to fully cooperate with the Police Ombudsman’s investigation into the role of the police in the events that led to the killing of Denis Donaldson and for the Gardaí to expedite their investigation to bring those responsible to justice.”

Martin McGuinness described the allegations against Gerry Adams as total rubbish.

“The fact is that anti-Peace Process republicans claimed responsibility for the killing of Denis Donaldson and An Garda Síochána have been investigating that line of inquiry for ten years," he said.

“The credibility of a paid agent, the old guard of the RUC who ran the intelligence war during the conflict, together with reliance on ‘sources’, is seriously questionable. For me they have no credibility whatsoever.”

Gerry Kelly MLA dismissed the programme as “a collection of discredited conspiracy theories which relied on the claims of an anonymous paid liar and British agent”.

After all the initial media hysteria, including a front-page splash by the Irish Independent and a regurgitating of the claims on succeeding days, the Belfast Telegraph (the Irish Independent’s sister newspaper) headlined three days after the BBC Spotlight fantasy: “Donaldson murder: Police say Provos not to blame – ‘Genuine surprise’ at BBC allegations.”

It said that gardaí had ruled out any involvement by mainstream republicans in the murder of Denis Donaldson.

The Belfast Telegraph claimed that detectives on both sides of the Border knew within hours that the murder had been “set up and run” by a Real IRA leader in Derry, supported by sympathisers in Donegal.

“Intelligence gathered by the PSNI also ruled out any involvement by the Provisional IRA. “This information was passed to gardaí investigating the case who have always focused their attention on dissidents.

“The repetition of this position yesterday by security sources raised questions about the

One Garda source described it as ‘A pile of c***’ claims of the former IRA man and British agent who told the BBC the IRA killed Donaldson. One Garda source described it as ‘A pile of c***.’

“A reliable security source in Northern Ireland also said there was genuine surprise the BBC Spotlight programme made the allegation.

“No one – and I mean no one – on either side of the Border believes this claim has an ounce of truth in it,” he added.

“The guards say it’s nonsense and the PSNI believe the same. The so-called Real IRA did this.”

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

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Investing in families and infrastructure

SINN FÉIN’S ‘Alternative Budget 2017’ is a costed, realistic programme that could ease the cost of living for families while investing in much-needed infrastructure that has been neglected by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty has told An Phoblacht.

“At the heart of our Alternative Budget is a commitment to fairness, a commitment to ensuring that no community is left behind and no individual is left behind,” Pearse said.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are stuck in a rut, he said, using a “broken model” when it comes to Budgets.

“Fine Gael’s and Fianna Fáil’s idea is still based on the idea that the state

‘At the heart of our alternative budget is a commitment to fairness, a commitment to ensuring that no community is left behind and no individual is left behind’ PEARSE DOHERTY

can do with having tax cuts in the region of €330million at a time when our services are at breaking point,” Pearse said.

“Sinn Féin’s approach is very different.

“It’s about increasing the overall fiscal space that’s available by making sure that those at the top who can pay additional taxes pay their share and by closing tax loopholes. By doing that, we can bring in additional revenue that we can put back into people’s pockets by

IN PICTURES

ALTERNATIVE

BUDGET 2017 reducing the cost of living, by investing in health, childcare, education and a huge capital programme.

“There will be a very clear contrast between the type of proposals that Sinn Féin puts forward and that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael put forward.”

He said how the parties’ Budgets are framed “all boils down to political choices”.

He explained: “Our choice is to ensure that low- and middle-income families are supported, that the services they depend on are strengthened and enhanced and that we invest in our capital infrastructure so that the failures there begin to be rectified.”

The Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson said that all of the measures in the party’s Alternative Budget have been costed in a process that began three or four months ago in a series of engagements that included the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure. “And all of it is within the new fiscal rules that apply to Ireland.”

The Sinn Féin Alternative Budget is based on three pillars.

The first is investing in infrastructure

across the island, Pearse Doherty said.

“That’s to put money into health, schools, repairing roads and building houses as well as ensuring we have a proper water and sewerage infrastructure.

“And we’re putting forward a package in this Budget for addressing the housing crisis, for the fact that we have children going to school in prefabs, and that our secondary roads network, particularly in rural communities, is disintegrating.”

The second part, he said, is about “ensuring that we have the investment in our public services and that we repair some of the damage that was done during the brutal years of austerity

For Sinn Féin, it’s very much about reducing the cost of living for families, investing in services and ensuring that those who can afford to do so pay their fair share by both the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil governments”.

He said that will see a massive investment in health, education and childcare and also direct supports for people such as pensioners, single parents and those dependent on state supports, whether it’s rent supplements or fuel allowance or others like that.

He said the Sinn Féin plan aims to ensure that the most vulnerable in society are protected.

The third pillar is related to tax justice and bringing fairness to the tax code, he said.

5 Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty TD: 'Budgets are about choices'

“It’s about clamping down on tax loopholes that allow very wealthy property funds to pay no tax within Ireland. It’s also about ensuring that people get unjust taxes back into their pocket by abolishing taxes such as the water charges and the tax on family homes, the Local Property Tax. “Alongside that, we’ll be asking that those who can afford to contribute more to do so and pay their fair share.

That’s by looking at areas such as Inheritance Tax and high-earners, those individuals earning over €100,000 a year.”

Pearse Doherty said that the Sinn Féin Budget programme is also different to proposals by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour “and, unfortunately, AAA/ People Before Profit” to get rid of the Universal Social Charge.

“Sinn Féin believes very clearly that is not possible when you look at the crisis we have in homelessness and housing, the amount of people still on hospital trolleys, children going to school hungry, and the lack of investment particularly in the regions. There is no justification for abolishing a tax that will only benefit the wealthiest in society.

“Overall, there will be more taxes raised in the state but those taxes will be shouldered by those who can afford to do it. And the reason that will happen is because we need the investment in other areas.

“For us, it’s very much about reducing the cost of living for families.

“That’s what marks Sinn Féin’s Budget proposals as different from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.”

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5 Members of Sinn Féin Republican Youth on Moore Street in Dublin calling for the preservation and protection of the 1916 Rising battlefield site

5 Launch of Sinn Féin's Neutrality Bill at the Dáil – Roger Cole of the Peace & Neutrality Alliance, Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Edward Horgan of Shannonwatch (see page 12)

4 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

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anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 10

Pearse, St Enda’s and the Hermitage 12

Reinforcing Ireland’s neutrality 14

Unionist politicians drive campaign against republican symbols 15

Fight for workers’ rights central to fight for a better economy 21

Bernard O’Hagan

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht

A Better Ireland – Éire Níos Fearr 2017 must be a year of change. Budget 2017 should reflect a commitment to change.

The days of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments agreeing backroom deals with wealthy corporations on sweetheart tax deals must end.

Things are starting to improve for some people and in some parts of the country and this is welcome.

For hundreds of thousands of others, though, the reality continues to be worries over money, having a roof over their head or paying hospital bills or back to school costs. The high cost of living and poor quality of public services means that many families are working long hours and still cannot make ends meet.

September should be a time of excitement for parents as children continue their school journey, not a time of worry, stress and struggle.

And there are many others who are forced to live and work abroad because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael still think that mass emigration is a necessary safety valve.

Budget 2017 needs to create an Ireland for living in, not for merely getting by in.

Contact

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

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

IN PICTURES

We need to start using money wisely, by investing in the future, reducing the cost of living and providing proper public services.

We need a real plan to bring our young people home and this time ensure that “no longer shall our children, like our cattle, be brought up for export”.

We need to start thinking all-Ireland.

The outcome of the Brexit referendum has brought the absolute necessity of the all-Ireland economy into stark reality.

Brexit is bad for Ireland, North and South.

Brexit will slow economic growth, undermine trade, make our exports more expensive and increase the cost of doing business. It will cost jobs.

The only way to protect against this is to act now to ensure that the North, along with the rest of Ireland, remains in the EU. An All-Ireland Forum needs to be established to look at options that would allow this to happen, regardless of what happens in England and Wales, and we need to work with others across Europe for change.

2017 needs to be a year of change.

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

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25 years after his assassination, collusion questions linger 26 & 27

Bayer/Monsanto merger – ‘The Return of Frankenstein’ 28

Fron Goch – Crash course in revolution

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5Apple Tax - Louise O'Reilly TD, Pearse Doherty TD and Senator Máire Devine with a newly-unveiled billboard criticising the Fine Gael Government's decision (supported by Fianna Fáil and Labour) to appeal the Apple Tax ruling. The new billboard says '13billion reasons why Fine Gael plays for the wrong team'

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

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5

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh Ciorruithe thríd an cúldórais ar sheirbhís thabhachtach poiblí

Leabharlanna féin-fhreastal?

TÁ DUL chun cinn mór dhá dhéanamh ó thaobh na teicneolaíochta de ar shaol daoine a dhéanamh níos simplí agus meaisíní a úsáid chun jabanna a dhéanamh dúinn agus chun daoine a fhágáil saor le rudaí eile taitneamhacha a dheánamh.

Tá caranna nua féin-thiomáint dhá fhorbairt, tá córais slándála uathoibríoch againn aipeanna chun soilse agus teas a lasadh agus a mhúchadh, cláracha teilifíse a thaifeadadh mar sin de. Ach, sílim gur céim ar gcúl atá i bpleananna an rialtais chun leabharlanna ‘féin-fhreastal’ a fhorbairt.

Tá feachtas nua ‘Staff Our Libraries’ tagtha chun cinn atá ag tarraingt aird ar scéim phíolóta atá ar bun ag an nGníomhaireacht Bainistíochta Rialtais Áítiúil in Uíbh Fhailí agus Sligeach. Séard atá i gceist iontu ná go mbíonn deis ag daoine atá cláraithe mar bhall de leabharlann dul isteach ag amanna nach mbeadh sé oscailte go h-iondúil, óna h-ocht a chlog ar maidin go dtí deich a chloig san oíche, seacht lá na seachtaine.

Tá sé ráite nach ndéanfar aon chiorrú ar uaireanta oibre foireann na leabharlanna atá i gceist. Beidh siadsan ag obair an méid céanna uaireanta is atá siad cheana féin, ach leis an leagan amach nua seo go mbeadh daoine in ann iad féin a scaoileadh isteach, na seirbhísí a úsáid agus dul amach nuair atá siad réitithe.

Plean inmholta cheapfá?

Ach, tá amhras ar an dream atá ag plé le ‘Staff Our Libraries’ go bhféadfadh fadhbanna móra a bheith ag baint leis an gcur chuige nua seo agus go bhfuil an tuairisc ar an scéim píolóta ag fágáil eolas diúltach, thábhachtach ar lár.

IN PICTURES

I ráiteas atá eisithe acu, díríonn siad ar roinnt gnéithe den phlean a bhfuil imní orthu futhu.

Ceann acu sin ná nach bhfuil aon duine ag coinneáil súil ar an leabharlann le linn na h-uaireanta breise. Tá baol ann go dtarloidh ‘tailgating’ – go mbeadh duine atá cláraithe ag dul isteach agus go n-éaloidh daoine eile isteach ina ndiaidh sula ndúnfaidh an doras agus go bhféadfadh iompar mhí-shóisialta a bheith mar thoradh air.

Tá ceisteanna eile dhá n-ardú ó thaobh sláinte

Níor mhaith liom go bhfeicfidh muid an tsaineolas, scil agus caidreamh pearsanta ag imeacht as ceann de na seodra is luachmaire atá againn sa gcóras rialtas áitiúil agus sábháilteachta de. Dá mbeadh aon mhí-iompar ar bun, nó aon duine ag baint aimhleas as na h-áiseanna níl aon duine údarásach ann chun deileáil leis. Ní leor, dar leo, córas ‘cctv’ chun monatóireacht leanúnach a dhéanamh ar seo.

Tá sé ráite nach ngearrfar siar ar uaireanta oibre na foirne reatha, ach dar le lucht an fhreasúra tharla seo i gcás na leabharlainne i dTobar

a’Choire, nuair nach raibh foireann ar fáil, gur fágadh oscailte é ar bhonn féin-fhreastal.

Tá ballraíocht sa scéim phíolóta oscailte do dhaoine ó sé bhliana déag suas, rud a d’fhéadfadh ceisteanna dlí ó thaobh sláínte agus sábháilteachta a ardú chomh maith. Ó thaobh an Acht um Chúram Leanaí 2015 de, is leanaí iad faoin dlí duine ar bith faoi bhun ocht mbliana déag d’aois. Is minic go mbionn dream san aicme

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5 Galician, Irish, Scottish and Basque activists join with Catalan nationalists as over 500,000 people take to the streets of Barcelona to celebrate Catalonia National Day

5 Members of the 'Light for Gaza campaign' – Michelle Garrett, Peadar Whelan, Phil McCullough, Anne Boyle, Bríd Keenan and Ann Marie Boyle – at a fundraising event for the group held in the Fort Bar on Belfast's Springfield Road

sin ag úsáid seirbhísí leabharlainne ó thaobh taighde agus staidéar di.

Tá contúirt dóibh seo ó thaobh cúrsaí sábháilteachta de, má tá siad astu féin sna h-ionaid féin-fhreastal. Faoi láthair, tá ról sonrach ag foireann na n-ionaid ó thaobh maorsiú agus faireacháin de.

Tá cáil na maitheasa ar na seirbhísí leabharlainne sa tir seo go bhfuil siad oscailte do chách, nach gá duit ach siúl isteach ann agus tá ról tacaiochta, ciúin, ach fíor-thábhachtach dhá chomhlíonadh sa phroiséas ag an leabharlannaí. Tá amhras ann, má theann muid i dtreo na leabharlanna féin-fhreastal seo, nach mbeidh chuile dhuine compordach leis. Léiríonn an taighde mar shampla, gur céatadán an-bheag de mhná a bhain leas as an deis féin-fhreastal.

Cé go bhfuiltear ag maíomh go bhfuil an cur chuige múnlaithe ar thaithí idirnáisiúnta, deir ‘Staff Our Libraries’ nach raibh aon rogha ag na tíortha sin ach dul an treo a ndeachaigh siad de bharr an ghéarchéim eacnamaiochta agus nach argóint atá ansin go leanfaidh muidne iad.

Bheadh an-amhras ormsa gur bealach é seo le fáil réidh le foireann na leabharlanna.

Sílim gur chóir dúinn a bheith ag tacú agus ag forbairt na seirbhísí, seachas a mhalairt. Níor mhaith liom go bhfeicfidh muid an tsaineolas, scil agus caidreamh pearsanta ag imeacht as ceann de na seodra is luachmaire atá againn sa gcóras rialtas áitiúil.

Is féidir leat nios mó a fháil amach faoin bhfeachtas ar na meáin shóisialta faoi ‘Staff Our Libraries’.

6 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

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5 Sinn Féin activists take part in the 'Rise and Repeal' rally in Dublin demanding that the 8th Amendment to the Constitution be repealed

REPEAL THE 8th

THE 8th Amendment was not fit for purpose when it was inserted into the Constitution and it is long past its sell-by-date today, Sinn Féin Health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly said at the huge “Rise and Repeal” rally in Dublin on 24 September, which attracted tens of thousands of campaigners.

Article 40.3.3, known as the 8th Amendment, was voted into the Irish Constitution by referendum in 1983 and gives equal importance to the respective right to life of the unborn and the mother.

The amendment states: “The state acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan said at the rally: “I believe that the 8th Amendment

‘The Government cannot ignore this any longer. They cannot ignore the will of the people’ prevents doctors from providing proper care to women and it should be repealed.

“The position of Sinn Féin is quite clear – Sinn Féin is opposed to the 8th Amendment.

“We will continue to campaign on behalf of all women for a referendum to have it repealed. Sinn Féin will advocate in any referendum to have the amendment repealed and then it will be up to the people to decide on this matter.”

Deputy Louise O’Reilly said: “Tens of thousands of people have flooded Dublin in support of the Rise and Repeal campaign; a campaign of various parties, groups and

5 Maeve Foreman and Cathy Power – campaigners 33 years ago and now

organisations, including Sinn Féin, united in their call for the repeal of the 8th Amendment.

“What is striking is that women and men of all ages have turned out – from those who have been marching since the early 1980s to those who have never had their chance to have a say on this important issue.

“There is no doubt that the 8th Amendment was not fit for purpose when it was inserted into the Constitution and it is long past its sell-bydate today.

“It is unacceptable that, despite instances of grave, deep personal suffering, tragedy and even fatality, this flawed amendment remains.

“Even more saddening is the reluctance by the Government to take decisive steps to give the people of this state a say on its future.

“At least one million people of voting age have never had the chance to take a decision on the inclusion and retention of the 8th Amendment in the Constitution – that is one quarter of the state's population, many of whom will be directly or indirectly affected by it.

“Sinn Féin has been consistent in the view that the 8th Amendment needs to be repealed in order to protect women and to allow for terminations in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormalities.

“From there, it is the responsibility

of us, as legislators, to work with stakeholders to create an alternative that prioritises a woman’s welfare, a woman’s health, a woman’s well-being.

“Failure to give people a say on the 8th Amendment and to leave it there indefinitely is an abdication of responsibility for women’s health and a blatant disregard for their welfare.

“It is very clear that action on the 8th Amendment cannot wait any longer.

There is a groundswell of support for its repeal and the actions of the public – from public murals to clothing lines and today's march – indicate that they want a say on this issue.

“The Government cannot ignore

this any longer. They cannot put their heads in the sand; they cannot ignore the will of the people. The people on

‘The position of Sinn Féin is quite clear – Sinn Féin is opposed to the 8th Amendment’ the streets of Dublin have risen once more and the message is clear – ‘Repeal the 8th Amendment’.”

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

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5 Crowds pack the Sinn Féin tent to listen to Gerry Adams

5 Matt Carthy MEP, Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, Carol Nolan TD, Liadh Ní Riada MEP, Mary Lou McDonald TD and Martin Kenny TD at the Sinn Féin tent in Screggan

Sinn Féin packs them in at the Ploughing Championships protecting Village and rural

Saol na Sráidbhailte agus na

Sinn Féin is working for: A review of rates and upward only rents Retention of existing schools, doctors’ surgeries and transport services in small towns and villages

life

Tuaithe a chosaint

A rural transport audit to determine the feasibility of taxis and hackneys in local transport plans.

Rural Post Offices

Oifigí Poist faoin tuath

Sinn Fein seeks to maintain and enhance the rural post office Ensuring that Social Protection payments network Ensuring that competition in the by: continue to be processed through the post office network.

Identifying other sources of revenue

for the post office network such as government payments and banking.

Keeping An Post in public ownership.

BY MARK MOLONEY A HUGE CROWD packed out the Sinn Féin tent and was spilling out the door at the annual National Ploughing Championships, held this year in County Offaly, for the party's talk and Q&A on the potential impacts of Brexit – the British withdrawal from the EU – on the whole of Ireland.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams was swamped by well-wishers when he arrived at the event, despite scurrilous and unsubstantiated allegations made against him by paid British informants and parroted by mainstream media.

Sinn Féin had a major presence throughout the three-day event from 20-22 September at Screggan, Tullamore, Europe's largest outdoor exhibition, attracting an estimated 300,000 people.

Thousands of people visited the Sinn Féin stall where they grabbed a cup of tea and the chance to meet elected representatives from all over Ireland and discuss key issues with them on the fringes of the talks on: ‘A National Health Service’, ‘EU trade deals – Bad for farmers’, ‘Brexit, Irish unity and agriculture’, ‘A fair economy for rural Ireland’, ‘Investing in rural Ireland’, ‘Meeting the challenges of price volatility’, and ‘2017 CAP review – Defending the interests of Irish farmers’.

Speaking to An Phoblacht, Offaly Sinn Féin TD

rural policing

Sinn Féin is seeking: A commitment that rural policing

is not dependent on economic scale or population figures.

Restoration of Garda numbers to 14,250, before the financial crisis.

sector does not reduce quality or access to services.

Negotiating a review or derogation from the Postal Services Directive, to increase minimum standards of universal provision and obligations to communities.

tackling flooding

Póilíneacht faoin tuath

as

Reversing the policy of closing Garda A change to rostering to allow an stations. increased

Ag dul i ngleic le tuile Sinn Féin’s is working to: Establish an Agency with overall

presence in rural Garda stations.

A strategy to maximise Garda visibility communities.

in rural

Additional resources to support and expand

Community Text Alert, Neighbourhood Watch and appropriate CCTV schemes, particularly in areas where stations have been closed.

responsibility for the assessment and management of flood risk and flood defences along the River Shannon Co-ordinate the work of key stakeholders in the region Prepare a Strategic Plan for management of the River Shannon.

5 Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams arrives at the annual National Ploughing Championships

Carol Nolan said the event is “invaluable” when it comes to meeting and discussing key issues affecting those living in rural communities.

Dublin Central TD Mary Lou McDonald was keen to outline her own rural credentials, despite being elected for the most urban constituency in Ireland: “Believe it or not, my mother is from Tipperary,

5 The Ploughing Championships attracted an estimated 300,000 people

7

so I actually know how to milk a cow by hand,” she told reporters, to much amusement. “I spent all of my summers on the family farm in the Glen of Aherlow!”

FARM INCOMES Speaking to An Phoblacht in Screggan, Sinn Féin Agriculture spokesperson Martin Kenny TD

A united ireland makes sense tá ciall le hÉirinn Aontaithe

Níl aon chiall le cuid amháin d’Éirinn bheith ag feidhmiú laistigh den Aontas Eorpach agus an chuid eile laistigh de. The British Government insists that it will impose Brexit on the North against the democratic wishes of the people there.

Massive uncertainties have been triggered about the implications for agriculture, business, trade, jobs, social protections, and educational opportunities. With the end of EU subsidies, farmers and rural communities in the North will suffer as CAP accounts for approximately 80% of farm incomes in the North.

There must now be maximum co-operation to uphold the democratic wishes of the people of the North. Ultimately, the only realistic way to ensure this, is through the unity of the island of Ireland.

Tá ciall gheilleagrach, shóisialta agus pholaitiúil le hÉirinn Aontaithe.

Ireland is better served by a single economy rather than two competing economies and an end to the duplication of services North and South. The Good Friday Agreement provides for a referendum on Irish unity.

Sinn Féin is campaigning for a date to be set.

Every party and organisation aspiring to a United Ireland should set out their positions and bring the debate on the future of Ireland to the next level.

www.sinnfein.ie Email: admin@sinnfein.ie

/sinnfein

@sinnfeinireland

StAnding up for rurAl irelAnd

said the issue of farm incomes needs to be Sinn féin rural ireland and Agriculture contacts Teagmhálacha Shinn Féin faoin tuath in Éirinn addressed: An seasamh an fhóid “Farm incomes le haghaidh thuath are the key issue. na hÉireann Farmers put in all the work, take all the risks and they get the least out of their produce.

“Whenever we open the fridge or the press, whatever we take out of it, a farmer had to produce it, yet the farmer is the one who makes the least out of it.

“If you want good food, then you pay a good price for it, but unfortunately, the farmer never gets a reflection of that. That needs to change.”

Meanwhile, the Irish Independent was left red-faced after it leapt to politically censor a participant in its “Farmer’s Makeover” event at the Ploughing Championships.

A shocked crowd watched as an Irish Independent apparatchik snatched a microphone from the hands of one makeover candidate, who took the opportunity to hit back at the newspaper’s distorted coverage of Sinn Féin. His view was silenced almost immediately by Indo technicians, who dramatically shut down the sound to the stage, perhaps reinforcing the point that had been already been well made.

New restrictions on cross-border agricultural trade would be a devastating development for farmers, particularly in border counties.

Martin Kenny TD

Spokesperson on Agriculture, Food & the Marine 01 6183865 martin.kenny@oireachtas.ie

Matt Carthy MEP

Member of EU Parliament Agriculture & Rural Development Committee Constituency Office: 042 967 4001 matt. carthy@europarl.europa.eu

Linda Dillon MLA

Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Northern Assembly) +44 7917 375079

linda.dillon81@gmail.com

Peadar Tóibín TD

Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts & the Gaeltacht 01 6183618 peadar.toibin@oireachtas.ie

Senator Rose Conway Walsh

Spokesperson on Rural Ireland 01 6183664 rose.conwaywalsh@oireachtas.ie

Liadh Ní Riada MEP

European Parliament Committee on Budgets European Parliament Committee on Fisheries

(021) 451 8986 Liadh.niriada@europarl.europa.e u

Senator Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

016101784 padraig.maclochlainn@oireachta s.ie

Martina Anderson MEP

EU Parliament Environment, Public Health & Food Safety Safety Committee Constituency Office: 02871 318683 martina.anderson@europarl.euro pa.eu

JOIN SINN FÉIN

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

8 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Ardoyne parade solution agreed by residents and Orange Order

BY PEADAR WHELAN THE deal brokered between Ardoyne community representatives and the Orange Order to resolve the impasse over loyalist parades at the north Belfast interface has been welcomed by the main participants in the dispute and most observers.

As well as the Crumlin Ardoyne Residents’ Association (CARA) and the Orange Order, Sinn Féin, the DUP and the churches welcomed the deal which was outlined in a statement released

by Reverend Harold Good and Derry businessman Jim Roddy who mediated the resolution.

However, the SDLP’s Nichola Mallon joined the Greater Ardoyne Residents’ Coalition (GARC) in pouring cold water on the agreement which has been lodged with the Parades Commission, the office of the First and deputy First Minster and the PSNI. The news of the deal broke on Friday evening, 23 September, after it emerged that the main Ardoyne residents’ group CARA held a public meeting at which they put terms of the settle- 5 The unionist 'Camp Twaddell' protest base is to be vacated by protesters as part of the agreement ment to the body of the hall.

5 Orange Order parade marches down the Crumlin Road and past the Ardoyne shops

CARA, through its chairperson Joe Marley, endorsed the agreement which was, in turn, accepted by the majority of those attending.

Simultaneously, the members of the three Ligoniel Orange lodges at the heart of the disputed parade also met and approved the arrangements in the agreement.

Key to the agreement is that the Orange parade will conclude with a march along the Crumlin Road on Saturday 1 October. (It was banned from passing Ardoyne in July 2013 and this led to intense rioting on the Woodvale Road when those returning from the Twelfth demonstrations, including Orangemen wearing their Orange regalia, attacked the PSNI.) In return, the loyalist self-styled ‘civil rights camp’ on Twaddell Avenue – or “Camp Twaddell” as it has been dubbed and which has been the source of nightly protests – will be vacated by protesters.

The bill for policing these unionist protests

has run into £20million.

CARA has also committed – “in a spirit of reconciliation” – to ending protests at Orange parades proceeding during morning times in return for a moratorium on return parades.

Both participants have also agreed “to participate in a spirit of co-operation in a community forum which will include representatives of CARA and the loyal orders”.

Welcoming the agreement, Sinn Féin North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly said: “I want to commend the work of the mediators, Reverend Harold Good and Jim Roddy, and the leadership of those local lodges and the Crumlin Ardoyne Residents’ Association who have made this agreement possible.

“I also want to thank everyone else who was involved in this process and in particular local Sinn Féin elected representatives who provided support for the residents and leadership in the community.”

Michael Mansfield QC visits sites of Ballymurphy killing fields

BY PEADAR WHELAN INTERNATIONALLY-RENOWNED English human rights barrister Michael Mansfield travelled to Ballymurphy in west Belfast on Friday 23 September and visited the sites where 11 civilians were shot dead by British paratroopers in 1971 during internment raids by the military.

Mansfield, who was appointed last year to represent the families in court, visited the area to familiarise himself and his legal team with the geography of area and see for themselves the places where killings took place.

They also wanted to locate the British Army's firing positions.

Belfast solicitor Pádraig Ó Muirigh, who represents the Ballymurphy families and relatives of the dead, accompanied the legal team as they made their way through the area.

This latest development in the Ballymurphy families’ struggle for justice came just days after a delegation walked out of a meeting with the British Secretary of State James Brokenshire at Stormont on Monday 19 September.

Representatives of all the North's main parties, except the DUP, accompanied the families' delegation to meet Brokenshire and support their call for the British Government to release funds for inquests.

Support for calls to release the additional funding also comes from no less a figure than the North's Lord Chief Justice, Sir Declan Morgan.

In his address on 5 September at the opening the new legal year, Sir Declan Morgan reiterated his call (first mooted in May of this year) for the British Government to fund a programme to fast-track inquests into some of the most controversial killings of the conflict.

A delegation of Ballymurphy families walked out of a meeting with the British Secretary of State 5 Ballymurphy families' solicitor Pádraig Ó Muirigh with barrister Michael Mansfield QC and John Teggart, whose father Without the funding, Sir Declan says Danny was shot up to 15 times by British Army paratroopers on 9 August 1971 it will take “decades” before the backlog Declan's suggestion by refusing to Basra where he drowned.

Britain’s five most senior defence chiefs is cleared. allow it onto the Executive's order of The soldiers were tried in 2006 to make “every effort” to halt what is Speaking after the walkout at business to be discussed, let alone by a British court and acquitted of being described by the right-wing Stormont John Teggart accused the agreed upon. manslaughter over the death of the media as the ‘hounding’ of British Secretary of State of “refusing to answer Meanwhile, it has emerged that the teenager, 15-year-old Ahmed Jabbar soldiers through charges and proseany of our questions”.

British Army has apologised over an Kareem Ali. cutions in the courts for allegations Teggart was also critical of DUP incident in Iraq when British soldiers It is also being reported that British of ill-treatment, torture and killings leader Arlene Foster, who vetoed Sir forced a teenage boy into a canal at Prime Minister Theresa May has told committed while on active service.

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

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The C&AG’s long record of taxpayers’ lost millions WERE YOU shocked by the revelations in the Comptroller & Auditor General’s Report that NAMA’s Project Eagle asset sell-off lost the Irish taxpayer up to €220million?

After the Apple €13billion tax farce, €220million doesn’t seem like that much money but a sum like that could still fund a lot of hospital beds, social housing schemes, schools, or even a decent pay rise for bus drivers.

The Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) has for decades called the Irish Government to account. It investigates the institutions and agencies that spend people’s taxes. Its officials have, year after year, revealed an ongoing waste of vital funds which we desperately need to invest in so many social projects.

Recent data has shown that the average cost of running a hospital bed in Ireland for a year was €78,000, the average cost of building a social housing unit was €185,000 and the average cost of providing a medical card is €1,026 annually – so that €220million could go a long way if spent properly.

We highlight here some other ‘lost’ millions’ uncovered by the C&AG over the last eight years.

HSE’s unpaid €290million The 2015 C&AG Report found that public hospitals were owed €290million by private health insurance companies.

In 2014, the HSE began to charge privately-insured patients for service received in public hospitals. Up until then, charges had only been levied if patients were in a private or semi-private room.

It was taking private insurance companies an average of 186 days to pay their bills to the cash-strapped HSE, with the Government (i.e. the taxpayer) forced to bridge the gap in funding until the insurance firms coughed up the cash they owed.

Thornton Hall’s €48million loss The 2015 C&AG Report also found

ROBBIE SMYTH €203million and €224million rejected by a Government steering group.

We still don’t know what the extra €187million offered to Treasury got the taxpayer. The conference centre is now owned by the Irish Infrastructure Fund, formerly the National Pensions Reserve Fund.

€52.1million lost on Ringsend site

5Taxpayers weren't smiling like Justice Minister Michael McDowell at the massive loss on Thornton Hall

that the state lost €48million on a site in north County Dublin bought for a new prison. The site was purchased in 2005 when Michael McDowell was Justice Minister but the project was mothballed in the recession. €50.6million had been spent on the Thornton Hall project by the end of 2014 but a valuation that year found the site was worth a relatively paltry €2.4million.

The Government paid €29.9million to buy the site and a further €28.7million upgrading the Mountjoy Prison site it was supposed to replace.

Kelly, who predicted the collapse, to ask him for bit of advice. I can only imagine he would have been cheaper than this. Just saying.

The ‘most expensive proposal’

€152million on consultants in 2008 I still find this astounding but during the banking and economic collapse of 2008 the Irish Government spent €152million on consultants to advise them on dealing with the banking sector.

Surely this was the time for a quick apologetic call to economist Morgan

5HSE, National Convention Centre and Dublin Docklands

5The C&AG's report that the asset sell-off lost the Irish taxpayer up to €220million was no shock

The National Convention Centre in Dublin was built by Treasury Holdings in a 25-year public-private partnership (PPP) with the Irish Government.

The 2009 C&G Report estimated that the project’s cost would outweigh economic benefits by €200million over the life of the contract.

The Irish Government had agreed to pay Treasury €3.9million a month for the first five years and €2million a month for the last 20 years as part of the deal for the construction and running of the centre.

The C&AG concluded that the winning bid was “the most expensive proposal”.

The Treasury bid would cost €390million in 2007. The closest other bidder had three offers between

In 2007, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) became a partner in a venture to develop the Irish Glass Bottle site near the Poolbeg power station. The site was bought for a total cost of €431million but in January 2011 its value was estimated at just over a tenth of that, at €45million.

The Docklands Authority had a potential exposure by 2010 of €81.9million for their share of the venture. The investment is now written off and the site went into NAMA. The final cost to the DDDA was €52.1million.

The C&G found: “There was no evidence that the full scale of the planned outlay on the site acquisition by the joint venture company was made known to the departments at that time.”

HSE wages software costs €220million PPARs, a wages software package for HSE employees, began with an estimated €9million price tag. By the time of the C&AG’s 2009 report, €220million had been spent on a system that still didn’t work!

10 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

St Enda’s and the Hermitage 5 Pearse in his headmaster's robes

BY MARK MOLONEY NESTLED in the foothills of Dublin’s Kilmashogue Mountains, in the village of Rathfarnham, sits ‘The Hermitage’, a grand 18th century house and gardens with a history deeply intertwined with Ireland’s freedom struggle. In the late 1790s, as the finishing touches were being placed on the house which would become home and practice to dentist Edward Hudson, a short distance away the British military was embarking on a construction project of its own.

Despite the defeat of most of the United Irishmen forces following the Battle of Vinegar Hill, the Wicklow Mountains remained a hotbed of Irish rebel resistance. Michael Dwyer, known as “The Wicklow Chief”, and his forces struck repeatedly against isolated British garrisons, local loyalists and allied yeomanry before melting away in a formidable guerrilla campaign that caused deep concern in Britain and tied down thousands of troops. Other rebel leaders (such as Joseph Holt) had taken an amnesty offer from the British. Dwyer’s men included many Irishmen who had deserted from the British Army.

They faced execution for treason if they were captured or surrendered, and therefore formed the strong backbone of his fighters.

British military leaders sitting in Dublin Castle were said to stare out in trepidation at the mountains overlooking the capital, which they believed to be swarming with rebels ready to descend upon the city. This fear prompted the construction of the Military Road in 1800 – which would run along the spine of the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains and allow the British forces to flush out the rebels from the inaccessible interior.

the defeat, despite being wanted by authorities, to reorganise the United Irishmen and launch another uprising.

During this time he frequently visited the Hermitage, staying in a fortified lodge on the outer perimeter wall which is now known as “Emmet’s Fort”. From here he would rendezvous with his sweetheart and fiancée, Sarah Curran, who lived nearby in The Priory.

Emmet and Curran had been engaged in secret as her father (John Philpot Curran, a liberal nationalist) deeply disapproved of Emmet’s political views. Emmet was executed just months later for his leadership of the rebellion of 1803.

Sarah Curran was disowned by her father and had to move to Cork with relatives and later to Sicily, where she died five years later. Her final request was that she be buried in the garden of The Priory, next to the small grave of her sister Gertrude who had died in a falling accident as a child. Her last wish was refused by her father.

The resting place of Robert Emmet has long been a source of speculation. Local rumours have it that his body was smuggled to Rathfarnham

5 The former St Enda's School in Rathfarnham, now the Pearse Museum

shortly after his beheading on Thomas Street and buried beside the body of little Gertrude.

The story of Robert and Sarah inspired Thomas Moore’s poem, ‘Sarah Curran’: She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers around her are sighing: But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, For her heart in his grave is lying.

PEARSE’S SCHOOL It was this connection to Irish history and its idyllic location that prompted Pádraig Pearse

ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN At this time, “The Wicklow Chief” made contact with young revolutionary Robert Emmet – a wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant who deeply sympathised with the Irish Catholic population.

He had worked in France to secure support during the 1798 Rebellion and returned to Ireland after

to relocate his St Enda’s School (Scoil Éanna) – opened in 1908 in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh – to The Hermitage in 1910.

Speaking of his new home, Pearse said: “I live in a place that is very full of heroic memories. In the room in which I work at St Enda’s College, Robert Emmet is said often to have sat; in our garden is a vine which they call Emmet’s Vine and from which he is said to have plucked grapes; through our wood runs a path which is called Emmet’s Walk – they say that he and Sarah Curran walked there; at an angle of our boundary wall is a little fortified lodge called Emmet’s Fort . . . It is easy to imagine his figure coming out along Harold’s Cross Road to Rathfarnham, tapping the ground with his cane, as they say was his habit; a young, slight figure, with how noble a head bent a little upon the breast, with how high a heroism sleeping underneath that quietness and gravity!”

Inside the lobby of the old schoolhouse, beneath a painting of the crucified Jesus Christ, sits a block with a small brass plate bearing the inscription: “Robert Emmet was beheaded on this block – 20th Sept 1803.”

If the block and the old facade and steps of the former schoolhouse are familiar it is because some of the only film footage that exists of Michael Collins was recorded on the steps of the building.

In 1919, the Dáil began selling Republican Loan Bonds to support Ireland’s struggle for independence. The launch of this event took place on the steps of St Enda’s and Collins, as Minister for Finance, signed the Bonds on Emmet’s block.

EDUCATIONAL PIONEER 5 Emmet's Fort on the perimeter of The Hermitage, where Robert Emmet would stay during his secret visits to his fiancée, Sarah Curran

Pádraig Pearse was an educational pioneer. His desire for a new education system was expressed in his 1913 essay ‘The Murder Machine’, in which

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

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5 William Pearse (centre) and some St Enda's pupils performing 'Fionn: A Dramatic Spectacle' in the school grounds

5 The entrance to Pearse's School, featuring the block on which Robert Emmet was beheaded 3 A poster advertises a school play in 1909 6 A portrait of Robert Emmet adorns the wall of Pádraig Pearse's study

5 A group of former St Enda's students known as 'The Dogs' pose for a photo on Easter Sunday 1916 before heading into battle alongside the Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army

5 Specimens of seeds and plants collected by students for study of the natural world

he eviscerated the English system as “the most grotesque and horrible of their English inventions for the debasement of Ireland”.

Pearse’s school was firmly rooted in the Gaelic tradition, the Irish language and the promotion of Irish nationalist thought.

“The story of Joan of Arc or the story of young Napoleon means more for boys and girls than all the algebra in all the books. What the modern world wants more than anything else, what Ireland wants beyond all other modern countries, is a new birth of the heroic spirit,” wrote Pearse.

Inside, the rooms are kept much as they were during Pearse’s time. An impressive collection of weapons from previous rebellions was purchased by the school and put on display. Portraits of Irish patriots and martyrs adorn the walls, while beautiful sculptures by Pádraig’s brother, Willie, are on display.

St Enda’s School won praise from across nationalist Ireland, including from W. B. Yeats, Roger Casement and Constance Markievicz. It even prompted Indian nationalist Rabindranath Tangore to open a similar institution in Bengal.

Speaking at the school in 1914, Douglas Hyde (the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945) said:

“Pearse’s philosophy is the philosophy of all who are concerned with the creation of what might be called an Irish Ireland, as distinct from an imitation English Ireland.” He said schools like St Enda’s are “bringing back again the consciousness of belonging to a nation”.

Pearse fostered a love of everything Irish in his students. He was also a nature-lover, and The Hermitage, set amidst woods, fields and streams, allowed the boys to explore nature with emphasis placed on classes such as horticulture.

Old display cases contain small animals, seeds and plant specimens collected by the students, while Pearse’s notes alongside them explain how students were under “geasa” not to kill wild things and any specimens captured for study were to be released unharmed. Sports, Irish dancing, and drama were core subjects and St Enda’s provided a beautiful backdrop for plays such as ‘Fionn: A Dramatic Spectacle’ – the performance wonderfully captured in photographs at the time.

The Irish Volunteers would frequently drill in the grounds of St Enda’s and, in the lead-up to the 1916 Rising, a group of former students known as “The Dogs” continued to lodge in the building while attending university. In the evenings they would meet in secret in the school

5 Michael Collins, Minister of Finance, and and Diarmuid O'Hegarty sell Republican Loan Bonds on the steps of St Enda's in 1919

basement, which they had transformed into a bomb factory. Fifteen of “The Dogs” would go out to fight during the Easter Rising.

AFTERMATH As the dust settled after the Easter Rising, five of St Enda’s teachers – Pádraig Pearse, Willie Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, Thomas MacDonagh and Con Colbert – were executed by British Army firing squads. The school closed and was occupied by British forces. It was reopened at its old home in Cullenswood House before returning to the Hermitage in 1920.

Margaret Pearse never recovered from the execution of her two sons. Committed to keeping the memory of her sons alive, she and her daughter, Margaret Mary, continued to run the school. In 1921, Margaret Pearse was elected to the Dáil as a Sinn Féin TD for Dublin County. She opposed the Treaty that partitioned Ireland, telling the Dáil: “It has been said here on several occasions that Patrick Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother, I deny it, and on his account I will not accept it.”

She added that if she voted to support it: “I feel in my heart – and I would not say it only I feel it – that the ghosts of my sons would haunt me.”

Mrs Pearse died in 1932 and St Enda’s closed three years later. In 1968, in accordance with her mother’s wishes, Margaret Mary left it to the state to be used as a memorial to the Pearse brothers on condition that it opened every day and entry be free.

In contrast to the carefully-maintained house and grounds in what is now St Enda’s Park and the Pearse Museum, Sarah Curran’s home at The Priory suffered a very different fate.

The deaths of his two daughters left John Philpot Curran a broken man. A news report recounted how the once well-maintained grounds deteriorated and locals would observe “a lonely grave over which an old man lies sobbing . . . every day the same sad sight would have met our gaze: the broken figure of John Curran crying like a child for his youngest and favourite daughter”.

The ruins of The Priory now sit overgrown in a small green at the centre of a nearby housing estate with no markers or plaque to remember its historic importance. Gertrude’s (and if rumour is to be believed, Robert Emmet’s) grave has been lost to time and in the construction of the housing estate in the 1970s.

• The Pearse Museum and St Enda’s Park are now managed by the Office of Public Works.

They are open every day and entry is free.

12 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

BY GAVIN GALLAGHER & JOHN HEDGES A DÁIL BILL co-sponsored by Sinn Féin TDs Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Seán Crowe seeks to “enhance the state’s neutrality” and “focus on working with countries to implement global targets on issues such as land rights, climate change, citizen participation, economic equality and government accountability so that the world can become a safer place”.

The move has been made necessary again by the continued use of Shannon as a hub for foreign military interventions around the world and ongoing moves to draw the Irish Defence Forces deeper into EU military structures dominated by countries whose foreign policies are rooted in their imperial and colonial pasts, the TDs say.

“Some of these countries’ interests include their arms industries and they have an eye on possible resource wars in the future,” Aengus Ó Snodaigh said.

Seán Crowe said that foreign militaries use Shannon Airport and Irish airspace to transport troops, weapons and supplies and fly secret rendition flights. “That’s why this legislation needs to be enacted without delay,” he said.

“We also need to protect our neutrality from those within Government who want to collude with some within the EU who are determined to enhance the continent’s military capacity under the guise of peace building.”

The Sinn Féin Bill’s purpose is to enhance Irish neutrality by seeking to insert neutrality into the Constitution and to ensure that Ireland

Sinn Féin Bill to end Shannon military ‘warport’ and halt plans to enlist us in EU battles

REINFORCING IRELAND’S NEUTRALITY

‘We should be building on Ireland’s UN, humanitarian and Peace Process reputations rather than be drawn into alliances with militarily aggressive nations with imperialist pasts’ is prohibited from aiding foreign powers in waging war.

The Bill seeks to amend the Constitution to ensure that Ireland will not and could not aid foreign powers in any way in preparation for a war save with the assent of the Dáil.

The Bill also affirms that Ireland is a neutral state with a policy of non-membership of military alliances.

Ultimately, this Bill gives power to the Irish people, as it would mandate a referendum to decide if Irish citizens want the state to be a neutral country.

Sinn Féin says it has sought to introduce this Bill to ensure that this Government cannot and will not continue to undermine Irish neutrality.

“A referendum would bring clarity to this state’s neutrality policy, which has become blurred, distorted and riddled with double-speak as successive governments say one thing but actually do the opposite,” Aengus Ó Snodaigh told An Phoblacht.

Seán Crowe said: “The continued use of Shannon Airport by foreign militaries to facilitate their ongoing wars, coupled with the increased militarisation of the EU, and this state’s deeper integration in the EU’s military system, ensures this Bill is timely.

“Sinn Féin believes that if Ireland followed

5 NATO is a Cold War relic

5 SInn Féin TDs have brought forward a new Bill to support Irish Neutrality

a policy of ‘positive neutrality’ the state could make a highly significant contribution towards the long-held global objective of international peace with justice.”

Launching an online petition and postcard campaign at the Dáil on World Peace Day (21 September), Aengus Ó Snodaigh told An Phoblacht

that Ireland should be building on a reputation, enhanced by the Irish Peace Process and through peacekeeping missions with the United Nations and the work of Irish aid agencies in the world’s trouble spots: “We should be building on that rather than allowing ourselves to be drawn into alliances

5 The Bill opposes moves to draw the Irish Defence Forces deeper into EU military structures

with militarily aggressive nations with imperialist pasts.”

This is the third time in over a decade that Sinn Féin has tabled a Neutrality Bill,” Aengus Ó Snodaigh reminded people.

“In the past, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have opposed our attempts to enhance the state’s neutrality, which is hardly surprising considering the way they have allowed foreign militaries, particularly the United States, to exploit Shannon Airport as a stopover to and from conflict zones.”

And he accused Labour of “flip-flopping” on the issue, voting in favour of the Bill in 2003 only to then reject it in 2013 when they were in government with Fine Gael.

“I hope that when this Bill comes before the Dáil they revert to supporting our legislation as it will hopefully affect a progressive change to the state’s constitution.”

Deputy Ó Snodaigh said that, considering Fianna Fáil’s past track record, he does not expect them to support the Bill, a backing that would guarantee its passage. “It was, after all,” he explained, “a Fianna Fáil government that signed Ireland up to NATO’s misnamed Partnership for Peace (PfP), which in reality is a stepping stone to full NATO membership.

“NATO is a Cold War relic that should have long since been disbanded. Instead, we have seen its continued expansion and increasing military aggression in many countries but particularly in the Middle East, where its interference has contributed to death and destruction in places like Libya Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Ireland has a dedicated NATO PfP office in Brussels.

You can sign the petition on Change.org under 'Support Sinn Féin's Neutrality Bill'

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

BEYOND THE ALTERNATIVE BUDGET

ENDA KENNY and Mícheál Martin’s staunch opposition to the European Commission’s Apple tax ruling is not about protecting their reputations. Nor it it about defending the state’s 12.5% Corporation Tax rate.

The decision to reject a possible €13billion in additional tax revenues has nothing to do with protecting jobs in Cork or ensuring future foreign direct investment.

It is about defending the integrity of the model of economic development that has been advocated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for decades.

Apple’s legal tax avoidance is an integral part of that model and the Commission’s judgement has finally exposed its real social cost.

Since the 1980s, successive governments have implemented a very simple economic policy – keep corporate and wealth taxes low to attract

Saying we want fair taxes is not enough – we have to be straight with people and outline where the money will come from

Eoin Ó Broin TD If we want people to trust Sinn Féin enough to put us in Government we will have to convince them that we have a model of economic development that can create (and support others to create) secure and well-paid jobs.

That model will have to outline how we intend to raise sufficient tax revenue to invest in a fair social and economic recovery for all.

How will we fund our ten-year plans for health, housing, education, childcare, water and local government?

How will we ensure that jobs and growth are not just confined to the Dublin commuter belt?

How will we reverse decades of under-investment in deprived workingclass and isolated rural communities?

Saying we want fair taxes is not enough. We have to be straight with people and outline where the money

5 Apple's legal tax avoidance – part of a model of economic development advocated by FF and FG for decades

5 This unfair economic model results in underinvestment in deprived working-class and isolated rural communities

economic development for the chimera of economic modernisation.

To date, the response of the Opposition has been to criticise aggressive tax practices and unfair competition and to demand that Apple pay their fair share. So far so good but something more is needed.

While a majority of people find Apple’s

13

corporate greed distasteful, the opinion polls suggest that many have still not abandoned their faith in the economic model that underpins it.

The simple reason for this is that the Opposition has not outlined a coherent alternative model of social and economic development.

Yes, we in Sinn Féin have our

foreign direct investment to drive job growth.

The trade-off from this model has been a low tax take and a low level of state investment in social and economic development.

The consequence of this model has been the creation of a two-tier economy and society – secure well-paid jobs for some and low-paid precarious employment or unemployment for others. The former can afford private healthcare, childcare and education; the rest are left to depend on underfunded and overstretched public services.

Before the crash, a majority believed that they did (or could) benefit from this model. But their pursuit of the Celtic Tiger dream was built on the sand of cheap credit. When the crash came, it exposed the inequality at the heart of the model.

Now a majority are left with low-paid jobs or no jobs at all. They are reliant on public services that, savaged by cuts since 2008, are unable to cope with the increased demand.

Apple’s €13billion in unpaid taxes is a corporate logo for an economic model that sacrificed socially just and regionally balanced social and 5 There are better and fairer choices than those made by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil

Alternative Budget, but a collection of fully-costed, progressive tax-and-spend alternatives is not an alternative model of social and economic development.

It is a tool – and a good one at that – to show that there are better and fairer choices than those made by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, but it is time to move beyond the Alternative Budget.

Brexit, just like the EU’s fiscal rules, will act as a brake on the development of the full potential of the people of Ireland will come from and what services and economic supports people will get in return.

None of this can be done within the existing EU fiscal rules. They are designed to act as a brake on the kind of society and economy that Sinn Féin believes is necessary to give every person living in Ireland the chance of a bigger and better life.

Equally, none of this can be done if the Tory Right at Westminster get their way and reintroduce a social and economic border across our country.

Brexit, just like the EU’s fiscal rules, will act as a brake on the development of the full potential of the people of Ireland.

So what must be done? How can we convince a majority of people, North and South, that Sinn Féin has an alternative model of social and economic development that can and will make their lives better?

We have to start by detailing what that model is. Then we have to convince a majority of people that our alternative meets their hopes and aspirations for a better Ireland.

That’s the job we are getting to grips with now.

14 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Unionist politicians drive campaign against republican symbols

BY PEADAR WHELAN

“If our society is to be based on mutual respect, then everyone must feel that their own cultural identity is respected by the society in which we live.” ­PROGRAMME FOR GOVERNMENT

DID the North’s largest unionist party, the DUP, have their fingers crossed behind their backs when they signed up to this bit in the Programme for Government with Sinn Féin?

On the ground, it seems, DUP elected representatives are intent in denying republicans and nationalists that very equality and mutual respect not only that they signed up to but which they demand for themselves.

A clear example of this was when a GAA club in north Antrim was compelled to remove the gates to its grounds in order to obtain council funding for a community centre.

In June, a committee of the Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council agreed a grant of £180,000 to the Friends of Glenarriffe to part-fund a community centre on the grounds of the Oisín Hurling Club in Glenariffe in the Glens of Antrim.

The DUP intervened, however, and threatened to block the funding at the full council meeting on 23 August. The DUP focused on the fact that the Oisíns’ park, opened in 1947, is named after Pat McVeigh and Charlie McAllister, two IRA Volunteers killed in 1922 by the RUC B-Specials close to the playing field. Its entrance gates bear their names.

To secure the funding, a majority of Oisín members, a week before the council met, voted to remove the gates, resulting in the club’s chairperson and a number of key coaches resigning.

When nationalists object to UVF bands and colour parties, unionist politicians ­dismiss complaints on the grounds that it’s about ‘the old UVF’ of 1912/1913

5 The entrance gates with the names of IRA VolunteersPat McVeigh and Charlie McAllister

5 Unionist parties deny republican culture the respect they demand for all aspects of unionism

The B-Specials, the notorious police auxiliary force made of up of Ulster Volunteer Force members demobilised from the British Army after World War One and renowned for their sectarianism, killed the two men on Carneil Mountain, near Carnlough.

The circumstances of their killings points to the B-Specials summarily executing the pair as McVeigh was shot in the head, seemingly at close range, while McAllister was bayoneted to death. His only bullet wound was a shot to the wrist.

An angry DUP Councillor Trevor Clarke, speaking after the funding was granted on a vote of 19 to 18, let the cat out of the bag by saying he opposed the scheme on the grounds that the park is “named after IRA terrorists”.

5 DUP MP Nigel Dodds standing with UVF veteran Billy Hutchinson and the Orange Order

Yet when nationalists object to UVF bands marching behind UVF colour parties, unionist politicians ­– including those from the DUP – dismiss complaints on the grounds that it’s about ‘the old UVF’ of 1912/1913 and nothing to do with the death squad resurrected by unionist leaders in 1966, bearing the same flag and badges, and which was responsible for up to 400 deaths during the conflict.

The controversy over the funding for the Glenariffe community centre came hard on the heels of the destruction of a monument erected by republicans to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Rising.

Unionists in the neighbouring Mid & East Antrim Council had called in contractors in June to destroy the memorial in the predominantly nationalist village of Carnlough, saying the stone was “provocative”.

Why unionists regard the development of GAA grounds and indeed the growth of the Irish language as “provocative” is because they see a confident nationalist and republican population of the North asserting its identity.

So when Newry, Mourne & Down Council Ulster Unionist Councillor David Taylor attacked the council’s Irish language strategy as “a petty political, ideological crusade” he was ‘outing’ unionism and its attitude to republicans and nationalists.

Unionists are fighting an ideological war ,attacking any expression of nationalism and republicanism as it demonstrates how nationalists and republicans are standing up and refusing to be bowed.

The long battle over the old Newry & Mourne Council’s decision to name a park in Newry after H-Blocks Hunger Striker Raymond McCreesh is a case in point.

McCreesh and the other hunger strikers and prisoners showed by their sacrifices that they had the courage of their convictions.

Their bravery is a touchstone for nationalists, and unionists resent that in the way they resent any display of nationalist and republican culture.

Meanwhile, DUP and UUP politicians refuse to confront the sectarian supremacist ideology that is the bedrock of Orangeism, unionist ‘Kick the Pope’ bands and the notorious Eleventh Night bonfires.

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ ONE of the key consequences of the economic crisis (but one that had no direct relation to the financial problems confronting the state) was the depreciation of workers’ rights in terms of pay and conditions of employment.

Employers took advantage of the financial pressure on workers to reduce wages but, more importantly, to make employment less secure: zero-hours contracts, uncertain hours, and false sub-contracts for the employers to avoid holiday or sick pay.

And the Government of the day – in which the Labour Party played a central role – made no move to protect workers’ rights, instead using the economic crisis as a cover for a direct worsening of employment conditions.

The excuse was the argument that the state’s coffers were bare and that we had to pay our way out of the crisis. But, in simplest terms, it made no difference to the state’s finances if workers were guaranteed their traditional protections.

Labour are now prancing around, raising issues of workers’ rights but pointedly ignoring their role in Government and refusing to apologise for it or acknowledge that it was wrong.

Of course the avowedly pro-capitalist parties saw nothing wrong with this, though they now pretend to be concerned and open to suggestions as to how to improve matters.

But this is all talk.

When Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly raised these issues in the Dáil she was met with a barrage of abuse from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, united to defend employers’ ‘rights’ to exploit their workforce.

This stance shows not only the contempt that the Establishment parties have for workers but a shallow short-sightedness as to the economic and political impact of this assault.

Let us take, for example, the situation of teachers, traditionally a lower-middle-class bastion of moderate conservatism. It is recognised on all sides that one of the key achievements was

THE FIGHT FOR WORKERS’ RIGHTS IS CENTRAL TO THE FIGHT FOR A BETTER ECONOMY

the fact that we had a well-educated workforce.

Even in emigration, young Irish men and women are no longer at the bottom of the pile, and their qualifications and skills are well-recognised. These same

skills and qualifications are the building blocks of any sustainable economic situation for the future.

But teaching, notwithstanding its crucial importance for the economic future of the country, has been made

one of the most precarious occupations in the state.

A newly-qualified teacher can expect at best a series of one-year contracts in different locations – different so that they will not build up the automatic

Dunnes workers won widespread public support for their fightback against attacks on their conditions

15

entitlement to a full-time contract after three years of full employment in one job.

Even worse, young teachers are frequently being offered half-hours or less, the point being that if they work less than 18 teaching hours week they are not entitled to pension or holiday entitlements.

This saves money for school managers and for the Department of Education (which is driving this process) but leaves the teachers with no job security and with significantly deflated wages.

Of course, one of the consequences of that is that they cannot get a mortgage to buy somewhere to live and are forced into the grasping hands of the business landlords whom both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil protect.

No one in their right mind would aim to enter the teaching profession with such insecurity and poor remuneration.

The consequence of that in the long run will be that teaching will become a last resort for those who can’t find anything else and then the standard of education must inevitably fall with a deleterious impact on the economy.

But such is the commitment of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to keeping workers in a dependent position (and such was the commitment of Labour too when it was in government) that this impact is just ignored.

Instead, Fianna Fáil offer ignorant jibes about workers’ rights in the North, oppose defending workers’ rights in the South, and go so far as to lie blatantly that their refusal to back workers’ rights is publicly exposed by the trade union movement.

This issue is a central one for the economy because it clearly acts as a brake on improving the conditions and purchasing power of workers and that, in turn, slows consumer spending in the economy.

Socially and politically, the Irish Establishment is not on its own. This assault on workers’ rights is a direct consequence of EU regulations and policies.

In France, the assault has been met by a series of popular demonstrations and strikes.

What will we in Ireland do to protect ourselves?

16 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

28 October 1976:

www.anphoblacht.com

Sinn Féin Vice-President shot dead in her Belfast hospital bed by unionist gunmen dressed as doctors Máire Drumm and her friend Marie Moore (far right) protest about British Army patrol in republican neighbourhoods of Belfast, early 1971

BY FIONA JOHNSTON MÁIRE DRUMM might be best known to younger generations for the way in which she died but it is more important to remember how she lived – as a leader of women, a leader of men, a revolutionary, a wife, a mother and a grandmother. She was a formidable force.

MÁIRE DRUMM

Máire was born Máire McAteer on 22 October 1919 in the townland of Killean in south Armagh, just past where the Carrickdale Hotel is now and not far from where the Edentubber Martyrs met their end. She was a pupil at Our Lady’s school in Newry before going to Liverpool to look for work in 1939 and then on to Dublin the following year, where she worked as a shop assistant. It was at this time that she joined Sinn Féin.

Two years later, in 1942, Máire moved to Belfast, where she became involved with the Camogie Association of Ireland, a sport that was dear to her heart for the rest of her life. Although still in her early 20s, she went on to become the Antrim Secretary and later Chairperson of the Ulster Council of the Camogie Association and All-Ireland Vice-Chair. Máire had a great love of Irish culture and was involved in the McAleer School of Irish Dancing, even going so far as to hold Irish classes for local people in her own home.

Máire had great empathy for the republican prisoners and was very involved with the Green Cross and the National Graves Association. It’s

The unionist sectarian pogroms of 1969 were a testing time for everyone, not least the Drumm family just as well she was fond of POWs, because it was when she went to visit her former camogie teacher in jail that she met the love of her life, IRA Volunteer Jimmy Drumm. Jimmy was in Crumlin Road Gaol, having a visit with his mother, when Máire came to visit her teacher. They met in the visiting room. Jimmy wasted no time and introduced himself. He asked who she was there to see, then asked to have a visit arranged with her.

They were engaged before Jimmy was released.

Máire and Jimmy were married in 1946 and settled in Andersonstown in west Belfast, where they had five children. It must have been hard on Máire as Jimmy was interned again from 1957 to 1961. Jimmy holds the dubious honour of “Most Interned Man in Ireland”, so Máire basically reared their five children and reared them well.

Even with all this on her plate it didn’t stop Máire in 1958 leading a protest to Crumlin Road Gaol after the men’s letters and parcels were stopped.

In those days they didn’t have crèches, so babies were usually brought along in the huge, carriagetype prams. The women rushed the gates, using the prams to clear the way. Although the mothers were batoned by the prison warders, they got inside and delivered the letters and parcels. As always, Máire led from the front.

The unionist sectarian pogroms of 1969 were a testing time for everyone, not least the Drumm family. Máire was actively involved in trying to rehouse those who had been burned out of their homes.

5 Jimmy and Máire Drumm on their wedding day, 16 July 1946

A formidable force Her eldest son, Seamus, tells of how there was a field across from their house in Andersonstown that was filled with caravans and people who had nowhere else to live. He recalls how they would come into the house to watch the TV, “so you could never get to watch what you wanted”, he says with a smile.

And it wasn’t just the telly that was shared.

“You would go to the bathroom and there would be a queue of people that you didn’t recognise, but that was normal in our house with my mother.

She even had a rota system for the families to have a bath. In those days you didn’t have instant hot water so it was basically one family per night had baths.”

He adds: “If I ever dared to complain I would be told that at least we had a home and how lucky we were.

My mother taught me and all of us the practice of being a socialist, not just the theory of it. Our house was an open house for those who needed it and I am very proud of my mother for that.”

Breaking the “Lower Falls Curfew” in 1970, Máire led the ‘pram invasion’ of women as they filled their prams with food and medicines and headed to the lower Falls, picking up more and more women along the way. They defied the armed British soldiers and pulled the barbed wire apart with their bare hands to deliver the supplies to families imprisoned in their homes.

On 7 January 1973, Máire led 500 women and girls to the Busy Bee in Andersonstown in protest

against the internment of Liz McKee, the first female internee. At one stage during the internment campaign, Máire organised a planeload of wives and mothers of internees to fly to England to protest outside Downing Street.

Maíre Drumm was a living example of the slogan “A woman’s place is in the revolution”.

In August 1975, she displayed her oratorical skills as she addressed a mass anti-internment rally in Dunville Park: “On 9th August 1971, we had a Republican Army; after the 9th August we had what was more important – we had a risen people.

It’s just as well Máire was fond of POWs – she met the love of her life, IRA Volunteer Jimmy Drumm, in Crumlin Road Gaol “[Stormont Prime Minister] Faulkner with internment used it rather crudely: he grabbed everyone, opened Long Kesh and pushed them in. [Taoiseach] Cosgrave does it differently: he takes republicans to court and locks them up.”

Máire was no stranger to arrest and detention.

Sinn Féin in the early 1970s was being reorganised and Máire, who was emerging as a very gifted and natural leader was elected as Vice-President and

5 Máire at the 10th Anniversary of the death of IRA Volunteer Tom Williams, September 1952

5 Protest against the internment of Liz McKee in 1973

5 At the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown, June 1974

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

17

‘My mother taught me and all of us the practice of being a socialist, not just the theory of it’ Seamus Drumm

5 At the banned Easter commemoration in Dublin in 1976, shortly before her death

this identified her as a leader via the media in the days long before Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or social media of any kind.

In February 1971, Maire was sentenced to six months for inciting people to join the IRA at a meeting in Turf Lodge the previous July.

While she was locked up, the British Government brought the same charges against her again, claiming she had promoted the objectives of the IRA at a meeting in Derry. She got another six months in jail.

In November 1972, Máire appeared at the Special Court in Dublin, charged with inciting people to possess arms at Navan and of being a member of the IRA. She refused to recognise the court and was sentenced to 22 days.

In August 1976 she was arrested at her home and charged with taking part in an anti-internment rally. She retorted that the previous Saturday’s British-backed ‘peace rally’ was illegal as the organisers could not have given the required statutory five days’ notice. The authorities had to admit the ‘peace rally’ was in fact illegal and, rather than prosecute the organisers, they released Máire.

Throughout all these campaigns and periods of imprisonment, it’s important to remember that

Breaking the “Lower Falls Curfew” in 1970, Máire led the ‘pram invasion’ of women as they filled their prams with food and medicines for families imprisoned in their homes Máire was a mother to five children. She reared them, fed them, clothed them and did the ‘ordinary’ things like getting them off to school and making them their dinner.

The last speech given by Máire was in her home area of south Armagh, in Cullyhanna in September 1976.

“What is peace? The kind that the Republican Movement has been fighting for is peace with justice. Peace that our people can live, peace that our people can work and have houses, and that our people can walk free through the streets of their own towns, their own cities and their own country.

“It will be the peace that will be restored to the nation after 800 years when British imperialism leaves our shores.”

Máire was then admitted to the Mater Hospital in Belfast for cataract surgery. It was while she was recovering from the operation that unionist gunmen entered her room and murdered her as she lay defenceless. Máire was a huge threat to the British Establishment as a vocal, fearless leader of the resistance. That’s why they killed her.

She was years ahead of her time regarding women’s rights and the equality of women. She has inspired new generations of women, as Constance Markievicz did before her and Mairéad Farrell has done after her.

In north Louth, a Sinn Féin cumann has recently been set up bearing her name, just down the road from where she was born. The Maíre Drumm Sinn Féin Cumann will proudly carry on her work towards the Republic. Her eldest son, Séamus, is a member. He says: “I am so very proud to be a member of the Maíre Drumm Cumann. It has been 40 years since she passed and I know that she will never be forgotten.

“Ten years ago we unveiled a plaque to her just below her home place in Killean and now the work we do in the north Louth area will carry my mother’s name and that means a lot to me.”

18 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

One-way streets and cul-de-sacs SÍLE DARRAGH Former IRA O/C in Armagh Gaol

FOR the past few years, a number of Sinn Féin members have been involved in what has become known as ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ – outreach and dialogue with members of the unionist community alongside outreach to other sectors of society, including politicians and members of church and civic society, mainly here in the North.

This has been coupled with initiatives for reconciliation at the highest political levels from within the party, including Gerry Adams, Declan Kearney, Mary Lou McDonald, Martin McGuinness and other senior party figures.

While not centrally involved in any of this, as a republican I accept the need to have such interactions and to reach out – both on a human and on a political level – to Irish unionism, and to try to heal the divisions of the past.

But I can’t help feeling that, up to now, this has all been one-way traffic.

Unionism seems to have no problem pocketing all aspects of republican outreach while continuing to deny any responsibility for anything that has happened in the past or what is happening today.

This ranges from the attitudes of their Orange Order brethren forcing unwanted Orange marches through and past Catholic/nationalist communities (and the seething sectarianism of many of the associated loyalist bandsmen) to blatantly racist attacks on the Irish-language community. And it extends to the denigration of republican dead from the 1916 Rising to now.

I’ve met with people from the unionist community in different capacities over a number of years, and in different areas of work and life – from ex-combatants to church people, and from business people to the ordinary person on the street. Many are just like the people I meet in my own and the wider republican/nationalist community – decent, hardworking, caring people. But then there are those within unionism who seemingly enjoy being both controversial and confrontational.

There seems to be a consistent mantra from many strands of unionism to republicans of “What are you going to do?” It’s as if republicans are singularly responsible for anything and everything that has happened, and continues to happen, in these Six Counties since partition and the practices of the ‘Orange State’.

In my small part of east Belfast (the Short Strand/Ballymacarrett) pogroms against the nationalist community were always a way of life.

The sectarian attacks, burning of homes, citizens shot and beaten to death, are there in black and white in the history books. It would be undeniable and unacceptable in any other society. Unfortunately, our history is but a microcosm of the story of this state, and the sectarianism visited on my community didn’t suddenly end in the 1920s.

5 Unionist 'culture' – from bonfires to parades and The Twelfth – is robustly defended and promoted while nationalist history and the Irish language is denigrated by the likes of DUP MP Gregory Campbell

Up to now, I’ve seen scant reciprocation for anything republicans have done on reconciliation and outreach 6 Attacks on the Short Strand often occur with no condemnation from unionism

On 27 June 1970, following a loyalist ‘Mini Twelfth’ parade, we were subjected to a sustained armed attack by loyalist paramilitaries. In an attempt to burn down St Matthew’s Church, the church sexton’s house was set alight with his wife and children inside it. A number of Catholic families were burned out of their homes in Bryson Street, Austin Street, Duke Street and throughout east Belfast.

No unionist voices were raised in condemnation.

In 2002, a ferocious, sustained and vicious eightmonth-long siege ensued against our community.

Pickets were placed outside the doctor’s surgery and chemist on the Newtownards Road, denying access to people from our area. Catholic students were driven out of a further education college in Tower Street.

A funeral taking place in St Matthew’s Church was attacked. Signs were erected on the Newtownards, Ravenhill, Castlereagh and Albertbridge Roads stating “No Fenians on our road”.

No unionist voices condemned any of that.

In 2011, at the height of the ‘flag protests’, we were subjected to nightly marches past the area and attacks on an almost daily basis.

I heard no words of condemnation from unionism.

In the midst of all of this, I and other republicans were on the streets trying to make our neighbours

Unionism seems to have no problem pocketing all aspects of republican outreach while continuing to deny any responsibility for anything that has happened in the past or what is happening today safe while keeping our young people away from the interfaces and stop them from being drawn into reacting to the sectarian hatred being hurled at them and their community.

We faced down armed, so-called ‘republican’ groupings who came into the area intent on fomenting sectarian strife through attempts to engage in armed conflict with the PSNI, with no regard whatsoever for the consequences my community faced from their reckless actions.

I heard no public words of support for Sinn Féin’s work on the ground from members of the unionist community.

Up to now, I’ve seen scant reciprocation for anything republicans have done on reconciliation and outreach from mainstream political unionism Maybe it’s time for us to start asking the leaders of unionism: “What are you going to do?”

Síle Darragh was the IRA O/C in Armagh Gaol during the hunger strike in 1980 and until her release in 1981. She is now Political Administrator in the office of Sinn Féin Chairperson Declan Kearney.

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.

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

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

19

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

Time will see more people open their minds SEÁN OLIVER AS Sinn Féin continues with the pursuit of ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ on the issue of reconciliation, there is a sense of frustration from some within the broad republican family at the lack of – or maybe better to say, absence – of any reciprocation or even acknowledgement from political unionism of the efforts republicans see themselves as making.

For many republicans, seeing their leaders meeting with the British queen or touring the battlefields of World War One strikes them as hugely significant gestures.

Almost all understand the politics of what is being done and the need for it to be done but for many these things still sit uncomfortably. Uncomfortable conversations are not just with those of other beliefs, faiths and political persuasions – they are happening with republican friends and comrades too.

But back to the ‘no reciprocation’ cry we hear from within our ranks.

It reflects a sense of a lack of quid pro quo – that because we are making big gestures then unionism should surely do the same in pursuit of the common goal of reconciliation.

And yet there is scant evidence that they will.

Should we be surprised? Or are we being naive?

This thought struck me as I recalled a discussion with a group of progressive church people when the ‘no reciprocation’ issue was raised. We complained that unionism had not made any effort to congratulate Martin on his meetings with Queen Elizabeth. One of the assembled clergy hit the nail squarely on the head: “Why do they not congratulate him? Easy – because they don’t like it.”

And there is the nub of the matter. Seeing republicans reaching out does not give unionism a warm glow – it gives them a cold chill.

“Her Majesty” – “their majesty” – is shaking hands with the type of person many of them can barely bring themselves to acknowledge in the corridors, lifts and canteen of a supposedly power-sharing institution such as Stormont.

I was reminded of this conversation as I read a recent Irish Times interview with republican ex-prisoner Laurence McKeown: “He [McKeown] says that a Protestant acquaintance once told him that some unionists won’t engage with republicans because “they are afraid that they might actually get to like them".

McKeown continued: “I have said to unionists – some of whom still won’t even shake hands with Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness – 'And yet the person you give so-called loyalty to, the Queen, she comes over, meets Martin McGuinness, looks him straight in the eye, smiles, puts her hand out and says, ‘Hallo, Martin’.'

“It’s almost as if she is saying, ‘Look, watch me. This is how you do it.’

“It is common courtesy and humanity. Martin is not going to become a monarchist. She is not going to become an Irish republican, but at least they are saying, ‘I respect where you are coming from'.

“It amazes me sometimes that people are so afraid of meeting the other. To me it says more about their own insecurity.”

So, given all of that, what are republicans to do?

Do we slow down until others catch up?

5 Martin McGuinness shakes hands with the British queen

Why do unionists not congratulate Martin McGuinness for meeting the monarch they swear allegiance to? Easy – because they don’t like it

4 Martin McGuinness visits a World War One cemetery in Flanders

Do we give up on reconciliation as a waste of time and effort?

Absolutely not.

Some of our leadership figures have recently described the pursuit of reconciliation as an imperative. And it absolutely is. We are striving to build a new country and to do that we must become friends with our neighbours on this island.

They may take to this at varying speeds but it is incremental. As time progresses, more and more will involve themselves in dialogue and the naysayers will gradually see their numbers reduced.

We must be patient and we must stay focused.

We know where are we are going and what we must do.

From a Presbyterian background in north Belfast, Seán Oliver has been a Sinn Féin activist since the later 1980s. He has held a range of roles at both local and national

A Protestant acquaintance once told ex-Hunger Striker Laurence McKeown that some unionists won’t engage with republicans because they are afraid that they might actually get to like them level in the party and is currently involved in the ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ initiative.

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.

20 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

CLASS INTEREST DETERMINES OUR NATIONAL STRUGGLE

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ WHEN James Connolly warned that partition would produce a carnival of reaction, North and South, he knew that the class forces involved in the Irish fight for freedom would assert their own interests at all crisis points.

And it was in that context that he also warned that the Irish working class – which had no material wealth to protect – was the only incorruptible inheritor of that fight.

The key word here is ‘incorruptible’.

In 1916 there was a broad basis to the demand for freedom but, as the fight developed, different elements hived off.

It is commonplace (and I’ve done it myself) to decry the traitors who sold out the fight but, in reality, these different forces just gave priority to their class interests.

As a famous republican, George Gilmore – a prominent ‘gunman’ in the Tan War and a prominent Left ideologist in the 1920s and 1930s – once told me: in real life there are very few traitors as most people follow their own class interest. The point is to know what that class interest is.

(Interestingly, Gilmore came from the Protestant tradition in County Down, a tradition that included the United Irishmen and the Orange Order.)

Gilmore was a consistent campaigner for the unity of the republican and labour movements, recognising that each one was critically weakened without the other.

When we look at the state of politics today, we can see that there can’t be any serious debate about the fact that the Southern state, and its major political components – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour – have abandoned the ideas of national unity and independence.

But the real question, as Gilmore and Connolly would have put it, is why?

From Proinsias De Rossa’s lofty claim that the national question has been completed, to the total inactivity of the Fine Gael/Labour Government on implementing the Good Friday and St Andrew’s agreements, and Fianna Fáil’s inability to comment on the North without an attack on Sinn Féin and a deluded hope

that the SDLP can be brought back as the main political voice of Northern nationalists, there is a coherent pattern of disengagement.

The problem goes back a long way.

The Free State conceded significant rights to Britain in 1921, primarily to protect the interests of the retail

Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour have abandoned the ideas of national unity and independence businesses and big farmers whose livelihoods were tied up with trade with Britain.

Collins may have genuinely seen the Treaty as something which could be used but, as history has shown us, it was the class forces that supported the Treaty who used Collins instead.

Even worse, after Fianna Fáil came to power and as its initial spurt of industrialisation ran its course, with the new industrialists anxious to shake off the

5 “In real life there are very few traitors as most people follow their own class interest”

state hand which guided them, the entire Southern middle class came to the view that independence had failed.

The mass unemployment and emigrations of the 1950s showed that Ireland lacked the reserves of private capital necessary to create an independent

George Gilmore was a consistent campaigner for the unity of the republican and labour movements, recognising that each one was critically weakened without the other

non-state economy, and so they surrendered.

When Whitaker warned that independence had failed, the state turned instead to foreign direct investment as the only way forward.

A n d w i th

that surrender of the idea of an independent economy went all the other trappings of national independence – the language revival and any real desire to confront partition.

So, when Northern society was shattered by the democratic demand for civil rights, the South could only stand idly by. Its aims now are limited to removing the obvious discriminations of the Northern state and developing peaceful co-existence between the two parts of Ireland.

The point is that this isn’t an act of treason. It is the logical outcome of putting their personal financial interests ahead of the aspirations of the mass of the people.

This is not just the stance of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael (there are indeed minor differences between the two on these issues).

It is the stance of the entire state Establishment because real independence – which is the aim of Irish unity – can only be achieved by harnessing all our resources in a struggle for a democratic transformation of Irish society – a transformation that will put the interests of the mass of our people – Catholic and Protestant, Irish speaker and English speaker – ahead of the profits of the bankers, builders, speculators and parasites of Irish capitalism and its imperialist masters.

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

21

25th anniversary of UDA/UFF assassination of Sinn Féin councillor at South Derry College

BERNARD O’HAGAN

Collusion questions still linger

ON THE MORNING of Monday, 16 September 1991, four days after his 38th birthday, Belfastborn Bernard O'Hagan drove into the car park at Magherafelt College. It was the start of the day, with many students and staff around. As Bernard got out of his car, a man walked up to him and fired multiple shots at him. He fell to the ground beside his car and it is thought he died almost immediately. The killer – unmasked – left the college grounds and walked in the direction of Magherafelt town centre.

The UDA/UFF later claimed it had carried out the killing of the Sinn Féin councillor for The Sperrin Ward.

No one has been arrested or charged in connection with the killing.

Bernard’s wife, Fiona, said he had been targeted because “he was successful and articulate”.

At Bernard’s funeral, Belfast City Councillor Joe Austin said that the cold, calculated assassination was part of a renewed counter-insurgency strategy by the state: “It was British Military Intelligence who set up our friend and comrade for assassination and who provided information and direction to his killers.”

In his photographic anthology, Family, Friends and Neighbours, Oistín MacBride writes of Bernard O’Hagan’s death: “The killer, young and unmasked, fired eight shots and apparently walked out of the front gates of the college and wasn’t seen by another witness. No getaway car was spotted or abandoned. No disguises or overalls

‘It was British Military Intelligence who set up our friend and comrade for assassination and who provided information and direction to his killers’ dumped. No weapons ever recovered and no one ever charged with any aspect of the killing. Bernard’s killer made it look easy, and it probably was.”

Writing in An Phoblacht in September 2001, Laura Friel noted that the killing of Bernard O’Hagan bore all the hallmarks of crown forces collusion. The pattern was all too familiar in republican circles as Bernard had become a target of heightened RUC and British Army harassment.

Three months before the shooting, the RUC informed Bernard that British Army Intelligence files containing his personal details were in the hands of loyalists. “The stage had been set,” Friel wrote.

Numerous revelations have since emerged of how the British Army undercover Force Research Unit death squad and others that operated in collusion with loyalist death squads had the authority to order all other crown forces personnel out of any area and routinely did so prior to an operation.

“The demeanour of the gunman suggested he had been freed from the normal fear of capture,” Laura Friel reported. “He made no effort to disguise his appearance

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Bernard O’Hagan, was shot dead by a lone gunman as he arrived for work; (left) Bernard's body lies covered at Magherafelt College

evidence and take statements from people living or working on the route along which the killer made his escape; • No appeal for witnesses to come forward was made; • ‘Photofit’ evidence was collated but not published; • The area of the shooting was not secured and there was no sign of it being searched thoroughly for forensic evidence; • Was there a record kept of those who authorised and carried out the disposal of the documents?

• Why was there no recorded disciplinary action taken against those intelligence officers who allowed files to fall into the hands of Bernard’s UDA/UFF killers?

Bernard O’Hagan’s family told An Phoblacht: “Bernard would be the first to let people know that there are over 3,000 families in Ireland who have had

and showed no particular haste to escape after the shooting.

“The killer displayed a confidence inappropriate to the crime – a confidence most easily understood within the mechanisms of collusion that ensured he’d never be brought to account.”

The expressed belief of leaders of the nationalist community was that Bernard’s killing was a political assassination directed by government forces. This was denied but there were disturbing facts surrounding Bernard’s killing: • Bernard was warned that his security records had been disposed of ‘on a dump’ and were in the hands of loyalist paramilitary groups; • Bernard said he was being followed continually

by RUC officers in the weeks before he was killed; • Bernard was targeted by a lone gunman who was not masked and is said to have made his escape through the main gates of the college, going in the direction of the town centre; • A major building contractor for the British Army and RUC had its headquarters nearby and it was usual for a heavy security presence to be operating in the area but, on the morning of the killing, there were no RUC or military patrols to be seen in the area, including the usually manned road checkpoints; • Many staff and students witnessed the killing – only two witness statements were presented at the inquest provided in the coroner’s report; 5 Bernard O'Hagan’s wife, Fiona • No attempt seems to have been made to discover

‘The killer made no effort to disguise his appearance and showed no particular haste to escape after the shooting’ to deal with the death of a loved one and that, no matter what the political view, the grief is the same.

“In a civilised, democratic society justice should be equal for all. In the case of Bernard O’Hagan – and many other victims – justice and the rule of law has been and is continuing to be subverted by the British state. This is a wrong which needs to be righted without delay.”

22 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016 ONLY the tattered pieces of tarpaulin and broken planks of wood hint at the destruction, protruding from mounds of earth and appearing incongruous with the landscape, as though placed by a giant.

‘M’ shows us the buried remains of one of the homes in Al-Araqib.

“Each of the mounds was one of our homes. They use bulldozers to bury them. The sticks and cloth are all that’s left,” ‘M’ tells us.

Aside from a cemetery and a few makeshift tents, this is all that remains of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, demolished by the Israeli authorities for the 102nd time that Sunday. Situated in the north-east of the Negev desert, Al-Araqib is at the forefront of the Israeli state’s long-running campaign to drive the Bedouin, a semi-nomadic people, from their lands.

“Negev land is reserved for Jewish citizens, whenever and wherever they want,” former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion explained to his son, Amos, in 1937. “We must expel Arabs and take their places . . . and if we have to use force, then we have force at our disposal – not in order to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan but in order to guarantee our own right to settle in those places.”

An opportunity to ‘de-Arabise’ the land arose with the outbreak of war in 1948, when the majority of the Negev’s population of 110,000 were expelled by the nascent Israeli Army. Most fled out of fear but many were forcibly deported on trucks to nearby Egypt and Jordan, a policy that continued in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Their ethnic cleansing, along with 650,000 other Palestinians, was instrumental in creating a state with a large Jewish majority, the core aim of political Zionism.

Those Bedouin that remained in the Negev, some 11,000, were seen as an ‘internal enemy’. Despite being granted Israeli citizenship, between 1948 and 1966 they were subjected to draconian military rule, their rights and movements heavily curtailed.

During this period, the Bedouin were herded into the Negev’s north-eastern tip, an area known as “The Siyag”. Many, including the residents of Al-Araqib, were assured this would be a temporary measure and that they would be allowed to return to their lands in time, but the promise was never kept. Their exile became permanent.

Bedouin population growth sparked fierce debate in the 1960s. A plan was devised by the Israeli Government

An opportunity to ‘de-Arabise’ the land arose with the outbreak war of 1948 to concentrate the Bedouin in seven “government-recognised” villages (or ‘townships’) within the Siyag, thereby further limiting the Bedouins’ encroachment on land “reserved for Jewish citizens”.

Typically, the plan was given a benevolent sheen.

The Bedouins, the Government declared, had to be brought into the 21st century. The new towns, it was claimed, would provide access to “proper schools and medical care”.

In reality, the townships were built with minimal investment. High levels of unemployment, poverty, disease and crime naturally followed, recalling, in all too uncomfortable ways, the conditions found on the Aboriginal reserves in northern Australia. According to a State Comptroller report from 2002, the infrastructure in the seven townships had not improved much over the course of three decades.

Most of Al-Araqib’s residents ended up in Rahat, a township close to their lands. Throughout this period, they petitioned the courts several times to have their ownership rights formally recognised but their case was ignored. The village land remained vacant until, in 1998, the Jewish National Fund expressed an interest in using it for forestry. Fearing permanent loss, the residents decided to return. Since then, the state has been waging an unremitting campaign to dislodge them.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Israeli Lands Authority (ILA) began aerially spraying the villagers’ crops with a toxic herbicide. Crops died but so did animals: some 1,500 sheep and 16 horses were poisoned. Many of Al-Araqib’s residents also complained of illness. In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court deemed the practice

www.anphoblacht.com

EYEWITNESS PALESTINE

Alan Short spent nearly six months in the West Bank, where he worked with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

AL-ARAQIB

The village that refuses to be consigned to oblivion

illegal following a petition by Adalah, an Israeli human rights group. Since then, Adalah notes: “The state has resorted to annually ploughing up the crops with reports of the fields being poisoned in order to threaten the villagers’ livelihoods.”

The ILA escalated its efforts in July 2010 when, together with 1,500 police officers, it demolished the entire village – 46 structures, including 30 homes, were razed, leaving the villagers, half of them children, without shelter.

Following the demolition, many of the villagers were

The Israeli Lands Authority began aerially spraying the villagers’ crops with a toxic herbicide

5 Most Bedouin were expelled from their Negev home in 1948

displaced, ending up back in Rahat, but a handful of families remained, vowing to rebuild in spite of the government’s best efforts to expel them.

Over the next two years they faced a further 45 demolitions. On one occasion, the ILA uprooted 4,500 olive tree saplings. Many were replanted on neighbouring Jewish settlements, evoking widespread condemnation, at least within the Palestinian Arab community.

“We went to the ILA and asked them about the trees,”

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

23

5 Sheikh Siyakh al-Turi

5 The buried remains of one of the homes in Al-Araqib

5 Al-Araqib demolitions and evictions, including the cemetery with graves dating back to the 1900s

recalls Sheikh Siyakh al-Turi, the village figurehead.

“We asked how they were allowed to replant them on settlements. They simply responded by saying that the land was theirs so they could do what they wanted with the trees.”

“They behave like a mafia,” he says, “only they are much more organised.”

In March 2012, after six years of deliberation, a district court ruled against the villagers, claiming they did not possess sufficient documentation – dating back to the

The Israeli Lands Authority escalated its efforts in July 2010 when, together with 1,500 police officers, it demolished the entire village Ottoman and British Mandate period – to prove ownership of the land. The judge presiding over the case ignored the intricate historical reasons why the Bedouin chose not register their land with the authorities. Chief among these was a desire to avoid crippling taxes, which the Ottomans were particularly inclined towards.

Remarking on the absurdity of the ruling, Oren Yiftachel, a key witness for the plaintiffs and one of Israel’s foremost geographers and social scientists, noted the fact that “most researchers agree that two to three million dunam [a dunam is roughly quarter of an acre] were cultivated by the Bedouin in the early 20th century, which gives them land rights. Yet the court claimed that no Bedouin settlement and rights existed then.

“Where did the Bedouin farmers live?’ he asked, rhetorically. “In mid-air?

“If they want evidence they should come here and check

‘Negev land is reserved for Jewish citizens, whenever and wherever they want’ Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion

the bones in the village cemetery,” says Sheikh Siyakh.

“My grandfather is buried here, a fact no one can deny.

Where is [Israeli Defence Minister] Lieberman’s grandfather buried? That’s right, somewhere in the Ukraine!”

But the ILA was only emboldened by the court ruling, promising to do all in its power “to keep state land from trespassers”, a veiled reference to the residents of

Al-Araqib who, despite losing the case, resolved to stay.

In the last four years, Al-Araqib has been demolished a further 55 times. The ILA has also slapped the villagers with multiple fines – some amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars – and many have faced jail time.

So why do they stay?

“This is our land. Our ancestors were here. We have lived on this land for 500 years. If we leave, if we are forced into the townships, we will lose our whole identity,” says Sheikh Siyakh.

It is a sentiment echoed by the other 45 ‘unrecognised’ Bedouin villages in the Negev. They too are resisting the Israeli state’s efforts to ‘relocate’ them in government townships, articulated most recently in the Prawer Plan, which seeks to cleanse 30,000 to 40,000 Bedouins from their ancestral lands.

Some Israelis, however, are pointing out the dangers inherent in such an uncompromising approach. By

In the last four years, Al-Araqib has been demolished a further 55 times marginalising the Bedouin and by excluding them from decision-making regarding their future, the state, Ami Ayalon (former head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet) argues, “will create a process in which they [the Bedouin] will become a [security] threat”.

To avert disaster, Israel must, he argues, change its behaviour towards the state’s minority populations.

However, given the dominance of the political Right and their continued commitment to Jewish settlement in the Negev, the likelihood of such a change is not in the offing. Violence may possibly feature in the Negev over the coming years – a prospect that doesn’t bear thinking about.

24 October / Deireadh Fómhair 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

Legal advice confirms water charges can be scrapped DUBLIN MEP Lynn Boylan has published a summary of legal advice she has received which contradicts the latest view of the European Commission that water charges cannot be scrapped.

Lynn says her legal advice clearly shows that charges can be scrapped: “The legal opinion that I have received has confirmed what we have been saying all along – that the abolition of water charges would not contravene the Water Framework Directive, provided that Ireland can meet the objectives of the directive, which is about the conservation and protection of water.

“I welcome Fianna Fáil’s new-found commitment to scrap water charges.

“The majority of TDs elected to the Dáil in February were elected on anti-water charges mandates. Now that Fianna Fáil have accepted

5 Lynn Boylan MEP addresses September's massive Right2Water demonstration in Dublin

this, there is a clear majority in favour of scrapping water charges.

“The expert commission [on water charges] is now redundant. It should be scrapped and the issue should be dealt with by the Dáil.”

5 Liadh Ní Riada MEP met with Mark Wheatley of the European Union of the Deaf ahead of the conference

Liadh Ní Riada promotes role of sign languages in EU LIADH NÍ RIADA MEP and Belgian MEP Helga Stevens are hosting a conference as An Phoblacht goes to press to show how our rich linguistic heritage plays an important role in achieving equal rights for all.

Speaking ahead of the conference on 28 September, Liadh Ní Riada said: “It will be the first event ever to be accessible through 24 EU spoken languages as well as all 31 EU sign languages. The conference will promote multilingualism and set up a stage for social cohesion on an international platform.

“The conference complements the work I have been doing on rights for speakers of lesser-used languages and follows on from a European-wide conference that I hosted last June.

“With speakers from the European Union of the Deaf, the World Federation of the Deaf, to the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, throughout the day we will be focusing on ‘Sign languages in the EU’, ‘(Sign)

Language Interpreting in the EU’, and ‘Paving the Way Forward’.

“In co-operation with disability organisations and the European Parliament services, every effort has been made to make this conference as accessible as possible to a diverse range of participants.”

She said these services include:» Sign language interpretation » Spoken language interpretation; » Speech-to-text; » Easy-to-read programme; » Accessibility cards; » Documentation printed in Braille; » Hearing loop access; and » Facilitated wheelchair access.

Looking forward to the event and its outcomes, Liadh said: “It will bring us one step closer to understanding the needs of the deaf and of achieving equal rights for all linguistics”.

Young people in Brussels ahead of Brexit MARTINA ANDERSON MEP is to host a delegation at the European Parliament of 40 students, student leaders and young people from across Ireland to discuss the impact of Brexit.

The Derry-based Irish MEP said: “The uncertainties of Brexit as a whole are overwhelming but for our young people the implications could be abysmal.”

She reminded observers that, for decades, our young people have enjoyed the freedom of Europe, the ability to work, study and travel freely on the continent and to enjoy other privileges while they do so.

“We cannot afford to starve their future of these prospects,” she said.

“Bringing this back to home, at least 5,200

students and 18,000 workers cross the Border daily. The implications for students and young people have, once again, been forgotten.”

During the two-day visit, the Irish contingent is meeting with representatives from the European Youth Forum, Erasmus International and the European Commission.

“This is the perfect opportunity for delegates to ensure their concerns are heard and the implications of Brexit on their future is well and truly on the table of any forthcoming negotiations.

“David Cameron, Theresa May and the British Government might be willing to gamble with their futures but we will provide numerous avenues to ensure they are protected.”

5 MEPs Martina Anderson, Lynn Boylan, Liadh Ní Riada and Matt Carthy support the Women's Boat to Gaza

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

Liadh Ní Riada

Lynn Boylan

25

www.guengl.eu

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

5 Protests in Brussels against transatlantic TTIP and CETA

GUE/NGL MEPs worried by impact of CETA

5 Martina Anderson MEP

MARTINA ANDERSON addressed the GUE/NGL group’s ‘study days’ in Bratislava, where MEPs heard testimonies from local experts and activists on the dangers facing the Slovakian and Czech economies in the battle against CETA and TTIP. MEPs were astonished to learn that only 11 activists are currently directly involved in civic movements against the two European Commission-led trade agreements – eight in the Czech Republic and three in Slovakia.

Local experts warned that should CETA and/ or TTIP be ratified, no companies in Slovakia or the Czech Republic would be in a financial position to either challenge or defeat North American multinationals in a legal fight.

Portuguese MEP and substitute on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in the European Parliament, Miguel Viegas, was adamant that TTIP and CETA pose a big threat to the continent and to Slovakia’s

agricultural sector and food safety standards: “I have nothing against international trade which can be a positive thing as long as it comes from mutually beneficial agreements,” he said.

“But if it’s based exclusively on competition then we should put forward a counter model that would be in the mutual interests of both sides in the EU and North America or we’d end up with the law of the jungle that is CETA and TTIP – agreements done at the behest of the multinationals.”

Irish MEP Martina Anderson, meanwhile, saw the movement against CETA and TTIP as reminiscent of the doomed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which the European Parliament rejected back in 2012: “ACTA was the most successful campaign that people and parliamentarians were involved in.

Potentially, we could do the same with CETA but my concern is that multinationals have already started to implement it.

“You’ll then see legal challenges through the ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement)/ICS (Investment Court System) against national, sovereign governments whose hands will be tied just because the Commission is looking after the multinationals’ influence in policy development.”

“Even after the Brexit vote, the Commission has learned nothing,” Martina Anderson said.

Cypriot MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis also expressed concern about the impact of ISDS/ICS: “Although TTIP and the possible loopholes in it now look dead, the social democrats are still pushing CETA through the back door.

“If we have a treaty with Canada, it’s a worry that everything rejected through TTIP will just come through CETA. The ISDS/ICS is an instrument for these big companies to try to get round any kind of sovereignty and de facto privatisation.”

Apple tax appeal ‘morally wrong and economically stupid’ ADDRESSING the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a debate on the Apple tax furore, Midlands North West MEP Matt Carthy described the decision of the Irish Government to appeal the EU Commission’s ruling regarding Apple’s unpaid taxes in Ireland as “morally wrong, politically dishonest and economically stupid”.

At the European Parliament in Strasbourg during the debate on Apple with Commissioner Vestager, Matt Carthy said: “I have stood in this chamber on countless occasions to defend the rights of national parliaments to set their own tax rates. Sinn Féin will always defend Ireland’s sovereignty, as we have on every occasion it has been attacked by the European Commission, including on taxation matters.

“But this ruling is not one of those occasions.

“I am sure there are federalists in this room scratching their heads wondering what’s happened to their best friends in the Irish political establishment – the people the EU could always depend on.

“When the Commission said ‘jump’ to a savage austerity agenda, they simply asked ‘how harsh?’. When the EU said €64billion in private bank debt should be placed on the shoulders of the Irish people, or when you’ve demanded new water and property taxes, your friends in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil quickly capitulated.

“When you propose trade deals with investment courts that would do more to undermine sovereignty than any commission ruling, your Irish friends proudly say ‘We’ll champion that for you'.

“But today, the Commission’s buddies in Ireland are biting back – not in the interests of

the Irish people or the Irish economy but in the interests of the wealthiest corporations in the world and their global web of tax avoidance.

“This ruling has no effect whatsoever on our tax rate or our ability to attract investment or create jobs. Any investors seeking to remain or come to Ireland can be assured of a talented workforce and a 12.5% corporate tax rate that we will protect. They just won’t be assured of sweetheart deals that will allow them to dodge billions in tax.”

A member of the Panama Papers Inquiry and the Economic & Monetary Affairs Committee, Matt declared: “The appeal is morally wrong, politically dishonest and economically stupid.”

He continued: “We have a housing and health crisis in Ireland, many of our public services are savagely

5 Midlands North West MEP Matt Carthy

underfunded – €13billion or even a fraction of it could help solve these problems.

“Rather than spending Irish taxpayers’ money on this appeal, our government should be restoring our international reputation by ensuring that Ireland will never again be part of the international tax avoidance racket.”

26 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

The

f o n r u t e R

n i e t s n e Frank ROBERT ALLEN A CURIOUS SILENCE greeted the news on 15 September that two of the world’s largest chemical giants, Bayer AG of Germany and Monsanto of the USA, are to integrate their “chemistry, biological and data science technology platforms” in a bid to feed the ten billion people expected to need this expertise to deliver abundant crops in 2050.

The reaction to the proposed merger (Bayer has acquired all of Monsanto’s shares at an unusually

5 Corporate giants Bayer and Monsanto are pooling their agro-chemical resources, to the dismay of environmentalists

to global forces which don’t relate to their local ecosystems or communities.”

In America, as separate companies, Bayer and Monsanto already have a lock on food production. The majority of corn and soy seeds are genetically engineered by Monsanto, primarily to allow the use of its glyphosate herbicide, which Monsanto claims increases yield. Most corn seeds are coated with a pesticide manufactured by Bayer to make sure of that yield. The concern now is that a similar arrangement for other crops will become de rigueur in Europe, especially in countries such as Ireland, where Bayer is a major player in crop science education.

It is this that concerns Fergal Anderson more than anything.

“The only way to meet these challenges and confront the kind of unholy union that the Bayern-Monsanto deal represents is to engage

Reaction to the proposed Bayer-Monsanto merger has been strongest in America and Germany high premium) has been strongest in America and Germany. Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth Europe called it “a marriage made in Hell”.

Everyone opposed to the deal agrees that it will be bad news for bees and biodiversity – also for the EU which, it is claimed, will not be able to withstand lobbying and political pressure from this new GMO Frankenstein. German group Campact said the merger would give the new corporate too much power over the food supply.

In Ireland, the reaction was muted. None of the ‘greens’ had anything to say that I can see and the social injustice groups also seemed silent. Only Fergal Anderson of Food Sovereignty Ireland responded and he repeated what was being heard in America and Germany.

“This move to further consolidate an already consolidated area is bad news for farmers, consumers and the environment,” he said.

“The reality is that the kind of corporate, industrial agriculture promoted by these corporations turns farmers into producers of cheap raw materials and subjects them

all citizens, not just farmers, in a conversation about what kind of food system we want to support and what kind of legacy we want to leave to future generations.

“It must be the people, not the corporations, who define our future.

“The only socially acceptable form of farming is one which is embedded in the communities and ecosystems where it occurs. Farming should be undertaken within the environmental limits of a place and not depend on imported GM soya to sustain an export dumping market which undercuts small producers in other parts of the world.

“We need to move towards building quality and not quantity in agricultural production, build strong movements to protect people’s food sovereignty, and develop international links based on solidarity, not competition with other farming communities.”

Jan Pehrke, whose Coalition Against Bayer Dangers (CBG) opposed the merger, said the two giants employ ruthless business models: “They damage the health of farmers and consumers, they destroy the global climate and biodiversity, and they jeopardise the basis of life and nutrition for all future generations.”

The greater danger, one that is already being realised in Ireland, is that Bayer-Monsanto will dictate the future of farming, which Bayer admit is their aim. Farmers will plant their seeds and use their pesticides globally. And no one will be able to stop Bayer-Monsanto because they will, in the words of one environmentalist, “use unprecedented

Against Jan Pehrke, whose Coalition d the Bayer Dangers (CBG) oppose ploy merger, said the two giants em ruthless business models

resources to squeeze competitors, spin science, buy credibility and bully regulators”.

Pehrke expects the EU ban on neonicotinoids (pesticides that have been implicated in the decline of pollinator populations) to be among the first order of business for the new corporation.

Bayer accused the US Environmental Protection Agency of over-estimating the harm caused to bees by one of its pesticides. Bee colonies in

‘Bayer’s buy-out of Monsanto threatens to further lock in industrialised agriculture at the expense of nature, farmers and the wider public’ the US were halved in 2015 and pesticides have been blamed for the loss.

“The company is very concerned about honey bee health, but we do not think that further restricting certain uses of neonicotinoids will make any meaningful contribution to improving the situation,” Bayer’s Utz Klages said.

In January, the US Centre for Food Safety issued a legal challenge against the US Environmental Protection Agency for allowing the planting of neonicotinoid-coated seeds without environmental impact assessments. The case will be heard in California on 3 November.

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Monsanto make most of their money from genetically-engineered seeds

“Bayer’s buy-out of Monsanto,” said the senior food and farming campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, “threatens to further lock in industrialised agriculture at the expense of nature, farmers and the wider public.

“While public support for local and greener food continues to boom, this mega corporation will be doing its best to force damaging pesticides and GM seeds into our countryside.”

Bob Young, Chief Economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, said farmers are interested in how these deals would affect agricul-

‘It must be the people, not the corporations, who define our future’ tural innovation and hinted that the merger was a sign that control of farming and food was passing out of the hands of national regulators.

“This deal between Monsanto and Bayer comes close on the heels of the proposed Dow-DuPont merger," he said.

“Farm Bureau believes the [US] Department of Justice should undertake a close review of the overall business climate that has encouraged these combinations rather than evaluating them in isolation.

“Consumers must continue to have fair access to the best technologies and innovation.”

Bayer and Monsanto insist that opposition to their activities has always been historically misplaced. Monsanto’s Brandon Mitchener said the agro-chemical industry attracts criticism from people opposed to agricultural innovation.

Dubliner Liam Condon, head of Bayer’s Crop Science Division, prefers the word “solutions” and was clear about the intentions of Bayer-Monsanto.

“We will have the ability to offer farmers a broader variety of seeds and crop protection products, and by using Bayer and Monsanto’s sales forces and infrastructure we can reach

27

5 Borage, gradually being eradicated from the countryside, is one of the wild plants bees depend on for their survival

farmers in more places with more products and services.

“The combined company plans to provide growers with integrated solutions based on the smart combination and optimised usage of products, agronomic advice through digital agriculture solutions. In the future we plan to develop integrated systems based on technologies optimally designed to work together.

“We already have a blueprint for how our combined and complementary product portfolio of solutions will be advantageous for farmers.

“These all result in significant and lasting benefits for farmers: from improved sourcing and increased convenience in the short-term, to improved yield with optimised inputs in the mid- to long-term. And, importantly, they support farming in a more efficient and sustainable manner.

“Together, Bayer and Monsanto will have the capabilities and resources to offer farmers truly integrated solutions by combining three areas

of expertise: seeds and traits, crop protection (including biologics), and digital farming.”

Yield is the mantra coming from Bayer-Monsanto.

“Ten billion people require a solution. Bayer’s answer is sustainable agriculture.”

Bayer, who employ 116,800 worldwide, make most of their money from pesticides. Monsanto, who employ a more modest 22,500, make theirs from genetically-engineered seeds.

Bayer is valued at €70.4billion, Monsanto at €47billion.

Both Bayer and Monsanto have bad reputations.

As IG Farben, the conglomerate of German chemical companies formed in 1925, Bayer commissioned the Zyklon-B gas used in the death camps. Monsanto, before it was embroiled in the GMO controversy, manufactured Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed on the jungle during the U.S. war in Vietnam.

It is this mania for money that really scares those who believe that food sovereignty is being

5 Bayer admit it is their aim to dictate the future of farming

given, carte blanche, to the corporates. The European Forum on Food Sovereignty, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, met in Cluj-Napoca to discuss (among many issues) the threat Bayer-Monsanto now poses to agriculture and food production in Europe.

Others are more concerned about the power that Bayer, in particular, has over the next gener-

‘We need to develop international links based on solidarity, not competition with other farming communities’ ation of farmers, not least in Ireland, where it operates bio-science, crop protection and environmental science units.

It is an integral aspect of Bayer’s public profile.

“We believe in engaging in a constructive, forward-looking dialogue about the opportunities of modern agriculture and food production,” said Beth Roden, Head of Communications at Bayer’s Crop Science Division.

“We commit to help the next generation of young thought leaders learn and grow themselves as we strive to drive a sustainable intensification of agriculture.

“A new generation of scientists and business leaders have to carry on this essential work. And we looking forward to cultivating this learning.”

Dubliner Condon, CEO of Bayer CropScience, is succinct about this.

“To help secure the future of food, we want to engage the leaders of the future. That is why we want to inspire young people to learn about food and farming with an ‘Agricultural Education Programme’.”

It is no wonder there is silence about this merger. No one really expects any resistance.

This new monster will be all-consuming.

28 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

THIS ARTICLE is based on a talk given by Mícheál Mac Donncha in Mullaghdun Community Hall in County Fermanagh on 10 September 2016.

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FRON GOCH

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Remembering the Past

IT IS ESTIMATED that some 3,500 people were rounded up by the British Government after the 1916 Rising.

About 1,500 were released shortly afterwards, leaving around 2,000. Of these, 160 were court-martialled; 90 were sentenced to death and 75 of these sentences were commuted to prison terms ranging from two years to life.

Fifteen republicans were executed by firing squad after courts martial – 14 in Dublin and one in Cork, and Roger Casement was hanged in London.

The sentenced prisoners were sent to various jails in England. This left over 1,800 men who were not court-martialled but were interned without trial.

Five women were held separately in English jails.

The internment camp was Fron Goch, near the town of Bala in north Wales, roughly halfway between Holyhead and Liverpool. The camp had been used to house so-called “enemy aliens” and German prisoners of war. It consisted of two camps. One

It was the first time Irish political prisoners were held together in such numbers in one place was a former whiskey distillery and the other was a purpose-built compound with wooden huts.

Over the period from June to December 1916, 1,863 men were interned in Fron Goch. The men were sent across the Irish Sea in cattle boats or by train from prisons in England. Most had been held in Richmond Barracks and Kilmainham Gaol. Some had already seen their Easter Week leaders and comrades marched off to courts martial and executed. Many had played no part in the Rising.

The prisoners were taken by train to Fron Goch, which had its own railway station, previously associated with the whiskey distillery. They were divided between the two sections – the South or Number 1 Camp, which was the former distillery, and the North or Number 2 Camp, which consisted of wooden huts and service buildings.

The prisoners organised themselves along military lines with elected officers.

The prison regime had a strict timetable for meals, inspections, counts of prisoners twice a day and lights out but the men were allowed much latitude.

They had free association, wore their own clothes, received parcels and visitors and were even allowed out of

Crash course in revolution the camp on route marches through the countryside accompanied by armed guards.

One of the best accounts of Fron Goch is by Frank Robbins of the Irish

Citizen Army in his book ‘Under the Starry Plough’ (Academy Press, 1977).

He recalled that on one route march the officer commanding the British armed guard was marching ahead and

5 Sinn Féin MLA and former H-Block prisoner Seán Lynch (who spoke on Long Kesh 1976-2000) with Dublin City Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha (who spoke on Fron Goch) at Mullaghdun, County Fermanagh

suddenly realised that he was at the head of the Irish prisoners instead of his armed patrol. While the majority of the Irish were fairly fit young men, the British soldiers were mostly elderly members of the Home Guard. It was a case of Dad’s Army guarding the Croppy Boys! The British camp commandant was known as “Buckshot” because he kept reminding the prisoners that the guards at the perimeter were armed with guns firing buckshot.

The prisoners organised classes in Irish history, the Irish language and other subjects. Fron Goch was in a Welsh-speaking area and many prisoners afterwards said that hearing the locals speaking Welsh so proudly gave the Irish an added incentive to make the effort to learn their own language.

Robbins says that they had concerts practically every night and football matches during the mornings and afternoons. Rebel songs sung at those concerts by the Dublin men were eagerly learned by those from outside the capital and thus became popular and widespread during the Black and Tan period.

A football tournament for the Wolfe Tone Cup was played in Fron Goch that summer of 1916 in which Kerry had a one-point victory over Louth. Earlier this year, the GAA commemorated that match with a game between Hertfordshire and Yorkshire. It was played in the same field as in 1916, a field known to this day by locals as Croke Park.

Fron Goch brought together most of those who had taken part in the

Rising as well as many who had not taken part but were in or associated with the Volunteers and Citizen Army.

1916 was unusual in that, unlike previous and subsequent armed campaigns, there was a general surrender of hundreds of insurgents to the British. In Fron Goch they were back together to share their experiences of before and during the Rising, while those from outside Dublin had the benefit of hearing first-hand about both the military and political aspects of Easter 1916. Networks and contacts were established, most notably by Michael Collins, and Fron Goch helped to rebuild the Irish Republican Army.

It was indeed a “University of Revolution”, although it was of such short duration it could probably better be called a 'Crash Course in Revolution'.

It was only open for six months but in that time more than 1,800 men went through it.

The Fron Goch experience was very important in setting the agenda for

Fron Goch helped to rebuild the IRA republican prisoners ever afterwards.

It was the first time that Irish political prisoners were held together in such numbers in one place and were so well organised. It was hugely significant in that it hardened resistance to attempted criminalisation or to any form of victimisation or isolation.

Robbins describes the prisoners’ organisation of themselves as: “A blessing when efforts were being made by the prison authorities to select some of our colleagues for punishment or for conscription into the British Army. We made their efforts impossible by hunger strike and by refusal to answer roll call. It was our united action under our own leaders’ orders that convinced our captors that they were wasting their time and we were not to be coerced.”

Then, as later, when it suited the British Government they treated republicans as prisoners of war or as criminals or as political pawns. The new British Prime Minister Lloyd George took office in December 1916, and in 1917 he released the remaining Irish prisoners before reverting to criminalisation later that year.

The Fron Goch experience was probably among the least harsh and among the shortest duration for Irish political prisoners but it had a long-term effect in consolidating the republican prisoners’ sense of themselves as prisoners of war who would not be criminalised.

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

I nDíl Chuimhne

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

1 October 1977: Seán Ó CONAILL, Sinn Féin (Parkhurst Prison) 1 October 1996: Pat McGEOWN, Sinn Féin 2 October 1971: Volunteer Terence McDERMOTT, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 2 October 1978: Volunteer Pat HARKIN, Derry Brigade 6 October 1972: Volunteer Daniel McAREAVEY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 9 October 1976: Noel JENKINSON, Sinn Féin (Leicester Prison) 9 October 1990: Volunteer Dessie GREW, Martin McCAUGHEY, Tyrone Brigade 10 October 1972: Volunteer John DONAGHY, Volunteer Patrick

PÁDRAIG PEARSE

MAGUIRE, Volunteer Joseph McKINNEY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 16 October 1972: Volunteer Hugh HERON, Volunteer John Patrick MULLAN, Tyrone Brigade 16 October 1976: Volunteer Paul MARLOWE, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion; Volunteer Frank FITZSIMMONS, Volunteer Joseph SURGENOR, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion 16 October 1992: Sheena CAMPBELL, Sinn Féin

18 October 1974: Volunteer Michael HUGHES, Newry Brigade 23 October 1971: Volunteer Dorothy MAGUIRE, Volunteer Maura MEEHAN, Cumann na mBan, Belfast 23 October 1979: Volunteer Martin McKENNA, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion 23 October 1993: Volunteer Thomas BEGLEY, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion 24 October 1971: Volunteer Martin FORSYTHE, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion

25 October 1982: Peter CORRIGAN, Sinn Féin 26 October 1990: Tommy CASEY, Sinn Féin 27 October 1970: Volunteer Peter BLAKE, Volunteer Tom McGOLDRICK, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 28 October 1976: Máire DRUMM, Sinn Féin 28 October 1987: Volunteer Paddy DEERY, Volunteer Eddie McSHEFFREY, Derry Brigade 30 October 1974: Volunteer Michael MEENAN, Derry Brigade 31 October 1975: Volunteer Seamus McCUSKER, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

29

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

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I appeal to all our par ty members and suppor ters to ensure that this year’s draw is our mos t successful ever.

2016 has already been a hugely . Let’s for Sinn FéinNÁISIÚNTA successful yearCRANNCHUR build on that success.

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PRIZE POOL OF

5 Sinn Féin's representative in the United States, Rita O'Hare (pictured centre), with LiUNA trade union members

New York’s Labor Day Parade shows strength

BY RITA O'HARE ALL the side streets off 5th Avenue, from the 40s up to 63rd, were lined with trade union banners, trucks, floats, food stalls and (most importantly on a day when temperatures hit 98) huge barrels of ice holding bottles of water and soft drinks .

It was New York’s Labor Day Parade, held on the Saturday after Labor Day, 5 September, the US equivalent to May Day. As the different unions lined up to join the event all along 5th Avenue

they were accompanied by colourful floats and buses filled with members and their friends and families on this big, vocal, upbeat parade.

The marchers chanted their union slogans as more and more contingents poured out of the side streets to join in.

There were the labourers of LiUNA in their bright orange T-shirts with the message “Feel The Power”, and the electricians, IBEW, headed by the Local 3 Sword of Light Band, all wearing pink baseball caps to honour “The Year of the Woman”.

The plumbers, carpenters, ironworkers, Teamsters and the Transportion

MÁIRE DRUMM COMMEMORATION SOUTH ARMAGH

Saturday 29 October

Workers’ Union Quill/Connolly Local 100, sheet-metal workers, pipe insulators, steamfitters, painters and others were there too, all represented with banners and placards, slogans and T-shirts.

This year’s Grand Marshal was James Callahan, General President of the International Union of Operating Engineers, who proudly led the parade.

This was a loud, proud, energetic march and quite moving in the clear commitment of these union members.

These men and women and children, young and old, all had a place and were involved in celebrating Labor Day and the rights of workers.

€/£30,000 PRIZE POOL OF NATIONAL €/£30,000 DRAW

TICKETS NATIONAL ON DRAW SALE HERE TICKETS

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ON SALE HERE €/£15,000 FIRST PRIZE OF

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€/£15,000

'The Life of Máire Drumm'

Tickets €/£10 each

6pm at Kelly's Road Monument, Killeen

8pm Tí Chulainn, Mullaghbawn SPEAKERS:

Seamus Drumm, Celine McGuigan, Paddy Quinn, Cllr Roisín Mulgrew SPECIAL GUEST:

Mary Lou McDonald TD

ILL DRAW W E ON C A L P TAKE

ay Saturd er b 22 Octo 6 1 0 2

Tickets €/£10 each

To sell tickets or for more information contact Brian Dowling:

briandowling@sinnfein.ie 00 353 872 6100 00 353 87 230 1882 To sell tickets or for more information contact Brian Dowling: National Finance Committee, briandowling@sinnfein.ie 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 00 353 872 6100 00 353 87 230 1882 National Finance Committee, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1

30 October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

5 Pic-Luí na Gréine ar abhann Zambezi

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5 Victoria Falls mar a cuireann na Brits air, deir na daoine áitiúla Mosi-oa-Tunya (Water That Thunders)

5 Ag tógáil cnó na gcearc i Mazabuka

Chuaigh Gaeil Óga as Béal Feirste chun na Afraice le linn an tsamhraidh. Tugann duine acu, Conall Ó Corra, cuntas ar an turas.

Gaeil san Afraic LE CONALL Ó CORRA

BA GHEARR don am seo anuraidh gur chuir mé tús le mo chuid airgid a thiomsú dár dturas chun na hAfraice, nuair a dúradh linn go mbeadh muid ag dul chun na Saimbia. Thosaigh muid láithreach bonn ar an tiomsú.

Bhí réimse de mhodhanna againn, ba é an ceann is éifeachtaí dár liom ná an ‘Bonus Ball’ - a rinne mé féin gach áit a ndeachaigh mé. Chuir duine amháin £250 ar a laghad isteach ann ach ní bhfuair sé faic ar ais. D’éirigh liom go fiú roinnt ticéidí a dhíol le Mike Nesbitt nuair a thug sé cuairt ar an scoil s’againn – Coláiste Feirste níor bhain sé ach an oiread.

Bhain mé díom mo chuid gruaige uilig fosta mar chuid den tiomsú. Rinne mé an t-éacht um Nollaig áfach, rud nár shásaigh mo mháthair mórán. Cibé, tháinig an lá agus d’imigh muid linn chuig an Aetóip.

Díreach sular imigh muid, áfach, thug O’Neills (cumann CLG i mBéal Feirste) deonú iontach flaithiúil ar fad.

Thug siad dhá mhála lán de gheansaithe peile dom chun glacadh liom, mórchuid acu ba gheansaithe mo scoile féin iad.

I ndiaidh eitilt fhada chuig an Aetóip, bhí eitilt eile againn chuig Luzaka sa tSaimbia. Turas bus a bhí i ndán dúinn ina dhiaidh sin, aontas na n-aontas.

Faoi dheireadh, agus beagnach lá iomlán taistil caite againn, bhí muid i Mazabukan na Saimbia, baile beag 3 uair an chloig an taobh ó dheas den phríomhchathair.

Taispeánadh dúinn ár lóistín don chéad seachtain go leith eile; dílleachtlann.

Ní féidir liom scríobh faoi gach uile eispéireas a bhí agam nó faoi gach uile duine ar chuir mé aithne orthu ansin, mar sin féin tabharfaidh mé breac-chuntas ar na daoine a chuaigh is mó i bhfeidhm orm agus ar na heispéiris is mó atá go foill ag imirt tionchair orm.

Chuir muid aithne ar na lads sa dílleachtlann mar sin, chuir mé féin aithne mhaith ar Moses.

Ní Moses an fíor-ainm s’aige ach tír iontach cráifeach atá ann agus mar aon le gach tír eile inár ndearnadh coilíniú air tá saghas náire orthu faoi na fíor-ainmneacha s’acu féin.

Bhí Moses ina uncail ar an teach, is é sin le rá gurb

eisean a bhí i gceannas ar na lads eile, a bheag nó a mhór. Bhí cónaí air sa teach céanna lá den tsaol ach oibríonn sé ann anois agus é cúig bliana is fiche d’aois.

Tá Moses críochnaithe ar an scoil le blianta anuas ach níl an t-airgead aige fós le freastal ar an ollscoil. Tá sé fós ag fanacht le maoiniú ón Eoraip, agus ag fanacht le choir a bheith cúig bliana anuas.

Ní eisean amháin atá ann sa teach, tá cineál cócaire ann agus thar aon rud eile tá an príomhdhuine ann i bhfoirm Bah Mama – bean aosta a dhéanann cinnte go dtarlaíonn rudaí mar ba cheart ar bhonn laethúil.

Ach Moses atá i gceannas go príomhúil agus eisean a bhfuil an dualgas air cinnte a dhéanamh de go dtéann na páistí ar scoil.

Caithfidh mé a rá go ndeachaigh dhá rud i bhfeidhm orm thar aon rud eile agus mé ansin.

Tá sé luaite agam thuas faoi na geansaithe peile agus an dóigh ar dheonaigh O’Neills na geansaithe dúinn.

B’iomaí uair ba cheart dúinn iad a bhronnadh, na mílte páiste leis an ghá, páistí nach raibh léinte acu go fiú.

Chuige sin, dúradh linn gan iad a bhronnadh ar dhuine ar bith ar eagla go mbeadh círéib ann ar na sráideanna.

Dúradh linn bheith cúramach agus an bronnadh a dhéanamh ar dhóigh cliste.

Dá bharr sin, bhí muid ag staonadh óna dtabhairt amach, rud a bhí ag briseadh mo chroí. Ach ansin, shroich muid an áit cheart dár liom féin; thug muid cuairt ar ‘The Flamboyant School for Special Children’ – scoil ina bhfuil páistí le riachtanais speisialta.

Thuig muid ansin nach mbeadh páistí chomh tuillteanach choíche. Thug muid beagnach 50 geansaí do na daltaí an lá sin. Ní fhaca mé agus tá mé cinnte de nach bhféicfidh mé arís, daoine chomh sásta sin. Fanfaidh an lá sin i mo chroí liom go deo na ndeor. Níor mhothaigh mé chomh beag sin sa domhan riamh ach oiread, muidne ag gearán faoi rudaí amaideacha inár saoil féin.

Agus mé thall, bhí leabhar á léamh agam a chuaigh go mór i bhfeidhm orm fosta.

As siocair gur i mbliana comóradh 35 bliana ó na

5 Ag feirm faoin tuath le daoine áitiúila

Ní Moses an fíor-ainm s’aige ach tír iontach cráifeach atá ann agus mar aon le gach tír eile inár ndearnadh coilíniú air tá saghas náire orthu faoi na fíor-ainmneacha s’acu féin

stailceanna ocrais, chinn mé ‘Ten Men Dead’ a léamh, leabhar a dhéanann cur síos iontach ar an tréimhse ina iomlán agus ar na fáthanna taobh thiar de n stailceanna.

Níl mé féin ag déanamh aon chomparáid idir mo chuid oibre féin san Afraic agus íobairt an deichniúir a fuair bás ach d’aithin mé rud sa stailc nár aithin mé riamh.

Ardaíodh mo mheas níos mó arís don deichniúir a fuair bás i 1981, bhí na fir toillteanach a mbeatha a dhíbirt ar son leas an phobail agus ar son leas na tíre. Thuig siad rudaí dar liom nár thuig mórán daoine riamh. Ba é an Afraic an áit is fearr le léamh faoina leithéid. Tá neart bochtanais ann sa tír sin agus cluintear go minic faoi na daoine atá sásta gan a dhath ar bith acu ach atá beo ar an ghannchuid. Níl aon saol eile acu, áfach, agus níl an dara rogha acu.

Chuaigh an eispéireas dochreidte seo i bhfeidhm go mór orm, ní amháin ar mo chorp. Inseoidh mé duit gur chaill mé neart meáchain ach chuaigh sé i bhfeidhm ar mo dhearcadh ar an domhan agus cad é atá ionainn.

Is féidir linn grá agus daonnacht a léiriú agus is féidir le gach aon duine, is cuma cé iad, difear dearfach agus fiúntach a dhéanamh sa domhan seo. Is féidir linn domhan a chruthú ina gcuireann muid béim ar dhaoine agus béim ar ghrá.

October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

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Sport and politics do mix

31

NIAMH ARCHIBALD

5 Celtic fans display Palestine flags SPORT AND POLITICS don’t mix, according to some, but, given the fact that sports stars are often presented as role models, where do we draw the line?

In the United States, San Francisco 49ers American football quarterback Colin Kapernick is protesting against racial inequality and oppression by kneeling during the US anthem before games.

Kaepernick said he has been encouraged by the support he has received from other athletes and people throughout the USA. He says it is important to open the conversation to ensure that the issue is addressed and that it was his duty to use the platform given to him to raise awareness to issues affecting minorities in the USA. There is no doubt that Kaepernick’s national anthem protests are fueling a debate about privilege, pride and patriotism and he has received multiple death threats since he began his protest.

“I have to stand up for people that are

oppressed . . . If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that

disguised as patriotism in this country and people don’t like to address that . . .

They don’t like to address the issue that is people of colour being oppressed and treated unjustly. I don’t know

‘I have to stand up for people that are oppressed. To me, this is bigger than football’

5 Tennis great Billie Jean King campaigned for equality

oppresses black people and people of colour. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the s t re e t a n d people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

He added: “There’s a lot of racism

why that is and what they’re scared of but it’s something that needs to be addressed.”

Other African-American sports stars have taken a public stand to draw attention to the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin and there were protests and riots in Ferguson after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer.

The National Basketball Association decided to pull the NBA All-Stars Game out of Charlotte next year after the North Carolina legislature passed a transgender law. Many feel that the whole North Carolina situation began because Charlotte passed an ordnance banning discrimination against trans- 5 The famous 1968 'Black Power' salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos In 1995, the Swiss national side were (previously a symbol of apartheid South gender people.

To them it is somewhat ironic that cautioned by UEFA when they protested Africa) to present Francois Pienaar with the NBA has pulled the game from against France’s policy on the testing the Rugby World Cup Final trophy, a Charlotte given that they both have the of nuclear weapons by wearing small move often universally hailed a step same stance when it comes to equality. badges saying “Stop Jacques Chirac”. towards uniting the nation.

In recent weeks, Glasgow Celtic fans Of course, this is not the first time Women’s rights are also intrinsithat sport has been used as a platform raised more than £130,000 for Pales- cally linked to sport, such as with tinian charities in response to their 1960s/1970s World Number One to express political opinion.

At the 1968 Olympics, gold and club facing disciplinary charges over tennis player Billie Jean King and bronze medal-winners Tommie Smith the waving of Palestinian flags during her push for equality, as are LGBT+ and John Carlos famously raised their their game with Israeli side Hapoel rights. Many women’s soccer clubs fists in the “Black Power” salute at the Be’er Sheva. in the USA have games dedicated UEFA cited a rule that forbids the use to Pride. Leading sports stars like 200m medal ceremony during the of “gestures, words, objects or any other Robbie Rodgers, Tom Daley and playing of the US national anthem.

In 1980, the USA boycotted the means to transmit any message that is Casey Stoney have all ‘come out’ to Summer Olympics in protest at the not fit for a sports event, particularly help overcome the prejudices faced Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. messages that are of a political, ideolog- by many in society.

Soccer has often been used as a ical, religious, offensive or provocative Award-winning sportswriter and political platform. In 1997, Robbie Fowler nature”. (This isn’t applied to displays best-selling author Alan Abrahamson was fined by UEFA for displaying a by the British armed forces at rivals once wrote about sport and politics: T-shirt saying “500 Liverpool dockers Glasgow Rangers or English clubs.)

“Of course they mix. The world is full In 1995, Nelson Mandela showed that of politics. We all live in the real world.” sacked since 1995”, showing his support for Merseyside workers during the sport can be used a political force for Including sportspeople – and their good when he wore a Springbok jersey fans.

European Cup Winners’ Cup.

NEXT ISSUE OUT Thursday 27 October 2016

anphoblacht

32

IN PICTURES

Sraith Nua Iml 39 Uimhir 10 – October / Deireadh Fómhair 2016

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Prisoners' Day in the Felons Club, Belfast. Seanadóir Niall Ó Donnghaile; Carál Ni Chuilín, Joe Austin, who chaired proceedings, 5 The Eddie Fullerton Memorial Lecture 2016, Buncrana, County Donegal. and Ballymurphy activist Maureen McGuinness. Pictured right: former Armagh POWs Anne Marie Quinn and Sinead Moore Pictured are some of the participants and members of Eddie's family

5 Another massive crowd attended September's Right2Water protest in Dublin city centre

5 Francie Molloy was the main speaker at the Volunteer Diarmuid 5 Sinn Féin elected reps meet the media at the party's O'Neill 20th anniversary commemoration in West Cork, which was 5 Campaigners call for clemency for Native American activist Leonard Peltier at Belfast’s famous International Wall September 'Parliamentary Think In' in County Meath attended by a Basque delegation