anphoblacht BY GERRY ADAMS Congratulations to everyone who was ever involved in any aspect of producing or distributing An Phoblacht over the last fifty years. And all our readers. Others more learned than me may chronicle the history of the first An Phoblacht, founded away back at the beginning of the last century, and its illustrious contributors including Liam Mellows, Peadar O Donnell, and Frank Ryan. Former editors may vie with one another to give us the inside story of their stewardship of this fine publication in our own time. Me? I want to extol all their virtues. All the An Phoblacht team. All the proof readers, typists, lay outers, graphic designers, managers, papersellers, photographers, van drivers, columnists, and Cormac and his cartoons. And those who managed the accounts or collected the paper money. The van drivers deserve special mention. They literally took their lives in their hands, especially the ones who distributed the paper throughout the North. Printers also should have honourable mention. Special Branch harassment in the South or worse in the North was their lot. So • Jimmy Steele too with papersellers. Back in the day, selling the paper around the doors or at the weekends around the pubs was a Shinner’s duty. Censorship was widespread. These were presocial media days. The paper was the only reliable way to get out the republican message. The late Eddie Fullerton was a legendary paper seller up in North East Donegal. So was Florrie French in the county of Meath. And Eddie Caughey and others in Britland. The first time I was arrested was for selling a republican newspaper. In this case, The United Irishman. It was banned in the North, like Sinn Féin. So, in 1967, the ban was broken in organised public protests. In Belfast, this involved publicly selling the paper downtown, in Castle Street. The aim was to get charged with selling the paper so as to open up publicity and legal opportunities. Myself and Malachy McNally were the chosen ones. We were both quickly arrested by a cohort of RUC officers, bundled into a land rover, and deposited in Queen Street Barracks. Malachy proceeded to engage the posse of peelers in fisticuffs and, as he was escorted to the cells, I walked out of the Barracks and joined the picket outside. I was eighteen. Neither Malachy or I were • Prionsais Mac Airt charged with selling the paper, although he 22
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ended up in court and was fined for assaulting the peelers. The law of unintended consequences. Or the consequences of unintended protest. Some three years after, in February 1970, a pogrom and a split later, I read the first edition of An Phoblacht. Its front page contained, if I recall properly, the mission statement of what became known as The Provisionals, a term I never liked. Later that year, Republican News was published in Belfast to deal with northern matters. Veteran activist Jimmy Steele was the first editor and it was produced mostly in the home of Prionsais Mac Airt in Kane Street in the Clonard area. I recall being in a flying column of young Republican News sellers who descended on Free Derry on an evangelical mission. Jimmy Steele was not long dead and there was a tribute to him and a postage stamp sized photo on the front page of that particular edition. In Rossville Flats, an old lady exclaimed when she saw his image. ‘Awh’, she said to me as she bought the paper, ‘Poor Jimmy Steele is gone’. We also sold the paper in the Upper Springfield in West Belfast, around the doors in Ballymurphy and the Whiterock. For some time, we had a stall at The Top of The Rock, selling both An Phoblacht and Rep News, alongside books and other publications from 1916 and Mount St Bridge Ambush veteran old Joe Clarke’s Book Bureau. We had our own local newsletter The Tattler which we gave away, free gratis and for nothing. Oh the joys of Gestetner printing in back
The first time I was arrested was for selling a republican newspaper. In this case The United Irishman. It was banned in the North, like Sinn Féin
ISSUE NUMBER 4 – 2020 - UIMHIR EISIÚNA 4 anphoblacht
