Saoirse – Irish Freedom is the voice of the Irish Republican Movement. The monthly newspaper of the Republican Movement, it takes its name from Irish Freedom – Saoirse, a Fenian paper which first appeared in November 1910 and continued as a monthly publication until December 1914 when it was suppressed by the British authorities. Among the contributors to that paper were Bulmer Hobson, PS Hegerty, Terence McSwiney, Pádraig Pearse, Ernest Blythe, Piaras Beaslaí, Pat Devlin, Fred Cogley, JW Good and Roger Casement.
Irish Republicans have always attempted to produce a newspaper, as a means of speaking to the people. As revolutionaries we have had to rely on our own resources to counter-act the status quo message promoted by the Establishment media.
More than 200 years ago, on January 4, 1792, the first number of the Northern Star appeared. The paper, produced by the Belfast Society of United Irishmen, promoted unity among Irish people of all religions. It was a popular target for the opponents of Irish unity and freedom. The proprietors of the Northern Star and its printer, John Rabb, were charged with sedition in January, 1793. Its offices were again raided on September 16, 1796 in a general clamp-down on the United Irishmen in Belfast. The presses of the Northern Star were smashed by a pro-British militia on May 19, 1797.
A new paper, The Press, appeared on September 28, 1797.
In a short article in the first issue of The Republic, on December 13, 1906, produced by the Dungannon Clubs, Bulmer Hobson wrote:
Ireland today claims her place among the free peoples of the earth. She has never surrendered that claim, nor will ever surrender it; and today forces are working in Ireland that will not be still until her claim is acknowledged and her voice heard in the councils of the nations.
To that end The Republic has been started. It has not been brought into existence to make a party among the political parties of Ireland, nor to carry on a party propaganda nor to waste time quarreling with any political party. It has been started to gather together all that is best and greatest, most progressive and far-seeing in Ireland round the Republican banner and to build up, not a Republican party, but an independent Irish Republic.
We stand for an Irish Republic because we see that no compromise with England, no repeal of the Union, no concession of Home Rule or Devolution will satisfy the national aspiration of the Irish people nor allow the unrestricted mental, moral and material development of our country. National independence is our right; we ask no more and we will accept no less.
An independent Irish Republic, then, is our aim – governed by the whole people of Ireland in the interests of the whole people, without let or hindrance, supervision or interference on the part of any other power under heaven. We owe allegiance to no country save Ireland, and we will yield none to any other.
The old hate and the old bigotry that have kept Catholic and Protestant divided – the old grovelling spirit of Toadyism must be killed and forgotten by the people. The ineffective and outward political movements, Unionist and Nationalist, must be superseded and silenced and, in their place, a national movement, virile and militant, that recognises no creed save that of Irishman, and no party save the nation, must be established.
DUP leader in too deep to wiggle out of ‘unpredictable’ rallies
In it together: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (right) with Jim Allister (centre) and Jamie Bryson. Credit: Liam McBurney/PA
April 11 2022 05:55 AM
You’d have to wonder about the mentality of someone who saw fit to put a noose around the neck of an election poster of UUP leader Doug Beattie.
The image of Jeffrey Donaldson and Jim Allister removing the poster is one that perfectly sums up the negativity around this election to date.
It is a depressing picture, and nothing to help their cause, whether that be in relation to the protocol or in terms of preserving the Union.
Instead of talking about the rally, the story of the weekend was the poster and the growing split within unionism.
Since pulling out of the anti-protocol rallies in response to the UVF hoax bomb at a peace event attended by Simon Coveney, Doug Beattie has been the target of negative commentary from some sections of loyalism.
The former soldier isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. He’s not a natural politician, he is not even a typical UUP leader, and I’m pretty sure that’s something he’d agree with.
But he is at least honest about his feelings and at times his failings.
I imagine all the media training in the world wouldn’t be able to soften his edges, but that’s also why so many people have taken to him.
This includes a new team of younger party members who are delighted to be out knocking doors selling his more progressive style of unionism.
The issue with the poster and who was responsible for it is interesting though, in terms of where unionism and loyalism is at — a relevant topic of debate on a weekend that marked the 24th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Anti-protocol rally in Lurgan pleads for ‘Unionist unity’ with ‘noose’ posters of Doug Beattiesource: Ben Tucker, Belfast Telegraph00:0002:38720p720p480p360p high360p lowShare this video
The Sunday Life reported that the poster was the work of the shadowy fringe group, the Orange Volunteers. Last year, members of the group were involved in promoting protests at volatile interfaces using the social media platform Facebook.
At least one of those protests resulted in violence with very young men engaged in disorder at the Lanark Way peace line, with plastic baton rounds being fired by police.
I find myself wondering, if the organisers of the anti-protocol protests want them to be peaceful and unifying for unionism, why are groups such as the Orange Volunteers not being told to stay away? All of this will just reinforce the decision of the Ulster Unionists to abandon the protests ahead of the election as the right move.
The rallies started to vent anger at what was being called at the time the ‘Boris Betrayal’.
The Prime Minister now barely gets a mention.
They turned from anger at the Withdrawal Agreement to verbal attacks on local politicians who opposed Brexit, to the EU and now the Irish government.
It is a scattergun of anger that is hard to understand or explain given the randomness of the targets.
It then changed to protests about the Good Friday Agreement itself.
People like Jim Allister and Jamie Bryson, who never agreed with the terms of the peace accord, see the changes to the Act of Union as a result of Brexit as a vehicle to start the discussion around the future of the agreement.
Jeffrey Donaldson has been around since those early days, first with the UUP and later the DUP.
This is not his first rodeo; he should be able to step out in the next few weeks to a logical conclusion.
Instead, he has been reduced from being the leader of the largest unionist party, to a supporting actor in the Jim Allister show.
The rallies have morphed yet again into Trump-style election rallies for the TUV, and it’s hard to understand so close to unionism’s most important election in a decade what is still in it for the DUP.
The protocol and any changes to it will not be as a result of a gathering in Lurgan or anywhere else in Northern Ireland, but rather diplomacy and negotiation at an international level.
Jeffrey Donaldson knows this but appears in too deep to wiggle his way out of the large gatherings.
Even after removing a poster of a fellow unionist leader with a noose around the neck, he still couldn’t just walk away and find an alternative and less potentially perilous way to get his point across.
The rallies are increasingly unpredictable, it just takes a handful of people to sway them from peaceful to disorder, and the problem for the DUP is that they have no control over them either way.
Doug Beattie may be the target of some loyalist anger but Jeffrey Donaldson is at the mercy of it, and that it would seem is a much worse place to be.
Bill Feehan and his grandson Connor enjoy a fireboat ride while The World Trade Center stands in the background, July 1998.
When the dust settled on September 11, one of the 343 firefighters listed as missing, later pronounced dead, was Chief Bill Feehan. A firefighter to his core, Feehan was loved by the men and women in the FDNY.
Bill Feehan loved eggs over easy. Every day for the last 20 years at least he stopped at the Northern Cross Diner in Queens and read the Daily News as he had his usual breakfast of two eggs, toast, hash browns and bacon. He also loved Shepherd’s Pie, was a sucker for a good crumb cake and on occasion enjoyed a sip of scotch with the boys in the office unwinding after a hard day. He loved to hear from his sons and daughters throughout the day as they checked in with him on dinner plans. They mothered him since the death of his beloved wife Betty in 1996 and made sure he ate right, did his laundry and stayed on him about paying his bills on time, which is a whole other story. They regaled him with the latest exploits of the grandchildren and sent them along for those precious rides on the fireboat with Grandpa.
You could hear him greeting son Bill with the enthusiastic “Guillermo” every time he called. He loved the fact that son John was in the busy Squad Company 252 in Brooklyn and son-in-law Brian was in Ladder 120, because it gave him direct sources for what was going on in the field. His eyes would light up every time Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kerry Kelly walked in his room, and he waited with a grin as she attempted to argue on behalf of one of her long-term problem cases. It was usually a firefighter with injuries so chronic he should have been retired years ago but couldn’t face leaving the job he loved so much. Dr. Kelly had squirreled him away doing paperwork somewhere and had been found out and now had to make the case to keep him on so he could qualify for his 20-year pension. Bill Feehan would play the tough guy, make her squirm, tell her “No, he has to go,” then undo it the minute she left the office, securing a future for the fire fighter and his family.
As you drove through the City with Bill, the vastness of his experience revealed itself. :This is where we had a big job, three floors of fire,” he’d say as he pointed to a loft in Soho. Hell’s Hundred Acres, he called it. “This is the dead man’s room,” he’d say as he pointed out the front bedroom in a three-story frame in Brooklyn. “No way out.”
“This is where John Grant [his former aide] nearly got me fired. He lost the keys to the car and the Chief told me to take up [leave the scene]. Fifteen minutes later we’re still there looking at our shoes while he has someone bringing in another set of keys, and the Chief for the third time tells me, “Feehan, if you don’t get your sorry ass back in that car you’ll be sitting housewatch in the Bronx.” Bill would laugh as he remembered, “We get in the car and Grant says, `…all-in-all, I thought he was a little extreme.’”
He had a tale or two about his long-time second job, working security for the Helmsleys in their hotels around New York. He’d often be in the lobby when Mrs. Helmsley would breeze through and say in a commanding tone, “Feeny, take care of that.” Bill would do it, whatever it was. She never knew his name. He had the highest regard for her but could go on for hours about the characters that frequented the hotel bars during his overnight shift.
When new Commissioners arrived at the Fire Department Bill had to navigate his way through the sometimes turbulent waters of new experience. He put his ego aside and offered to make the transitions smooth. The Commissioners quickly came to realize they were dead in the water without him on their side.
He had dealt for Tommy Von Essen for years as a union delegate and then as union president and after assuming the Commissioner’s job for a few months, stepped aside gracefully when Mayor Giuliani appointed the brash Von Essen to the top spot. The Mayor’s one dictate, urged by outgoing Commissioner (later Police Commissioner) Howard Safir, was to keep Bill Feehan.
Feehan and Von Essen became fast friends, tackling problems that had never been addressed; fundamental issues of leadership, accountability and the critical push to increase firefighter safety. Keeping firefighters safe and well-trained was a passion for both of them and their resolve was firm.
A bit more firm than when it came to dealing with the men one on one.
Facing the flames – Bill Feehan assesses the scene at a water and gas main break in Manhattan in January, 1998. On the left is Chief Ray Downey who also lost his life at the World Trade Center on September 11.
They played good guy, bad guy when it came to discipline. Bill was famous for calling people in from the field for disciplinary action and having them cool their heels in the reception area for an hour or more while he and his executive officer, Henry McDonald, pumped each other up. They assured each other they were right, the guy didn’t deserve another chance, the difficult choice to let the offender go was the right thing to do and that they had to remain strong in their resolve. More often than not, the guy would come in and explain he had a sick wife at home, was working three jobs and promised he’d never, ever do it again. Bill would capitulate and there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house. Henry McDonald always said that Bill knew more about what was in the minds of firefighters than they did. “There wasn’t a thought, a dream or a regret that he hadn’t had himself,” Chief McDonald said. “Even when they drove him crazy, he loved them to the core.”
As the Giuliani years drew to an end and retirement loomed on the horizon, the talk and nervous laughter turned to possible new careers. Bill practiced his concierge techniques in hopes of serving as a greeter at Home Depot. One of the great mysteries was how to get a MetroCard to take a bus or a subway after 20 years of having a Department car with lights and sirens.
On September 11, Bill is recorded on film doing what he did best. Being calm under fire, bringing order out of chaos, not without a little charm and humor. He is seen taking the elbow of a very frightened young lady in the lobby of tower number one and calmly pulling her close and walking her through just like it’s dinnertime in one of Mrs. Helmsley’s hotels. He smiles, takes her to safety and resumes command of the most horrific situation he’s ever been confronted with. He left the tower of One World Trade Center scouting a new command post for the Fire Department. He cleared everyone out of the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center, gave an evacuation order for those towers and proceeded to West Street where he joined Commissioner Tom Von Essen, Chief Pete Ganci and Chief Ray Downey to manage the horror unfolding before them. He winked at one of his Deputy Commissioners who didn’t want to believe what she saw and questioned him about how the incidents unfolded. Was it a mid-air collision? Could it have been an accident? He said with his usual Bill Feehan subtlety, “Are you a knucklehead? It’s terrorism.”
Then came the sickening roar, the realization that something was coming down, the dash for the garage and shelter. He worked his way through the darkness and out to the light. He sent everyone he saw north and he moved south to help those who were injured. He was with Chief Ganci and they did what they had promised to do on the day they were sworn in so many years ago; put themselves in harm’s way to help people in trouble. When the second tower came down, it came their way.
Bill Feehan at work.
When the dust settled, and they knew he was gone, Bill’s Executive Chief Henry McDonald, his friend Ray Goldbach, John McLaughlin, and so many others clawed at the steel and concrete until they got him. Michael Regan, the young Deputy Commissioner who had learned at his feet and who would finish out his last few months with the Department in Bill’s job, helped to put him in the ambulance to bring him up to Bellevue. Later that night they brought his son Bill down to the site to show him where his Dad died.
On Saturday, September 16, in a light rain and cold wind, a crowd gathered at St. Mel’s in Queens to share their grief and shock and pay tribute to the Chief. To capture the essence of this man, father, grandfather, historian, mentor, leader, hero in the truest sense of the word, but above all a loving human being, was impossible in a eulogy. Maybe Bill himself said it best in words he wrote to remember another firefighter:
“The truest form of love is to lay down your life for another but the purest form of love is to cherish each other every day. Never leave a moment’s doubt that you love with your whole heart and soul. It’s a great legacy”
Bill Feehan left no doubt that he loved and was loved by all who knew him. ♦
Saoirse – Irish Freedom is the voice of the Irish Republican Movement. The monthly newspaper of the Republican Movement, it takes its name from Irish Freedom – Saoirse, a Fenian paper which first appeared in November 1910 and continued as a monthly publication until December 1914 when it was suppressed by the British authorities. Among the contributors to that paper were Bulmer Hobson, PS Hegerty, Terence McSwiney, Pádraig Pearse, Ernest Blythe, Piaras Beaslaí, Pat Devlin, Fred Cogley, JW Good and Roger Casement.
