This day 134 years ago – 6 November 1887 – a meeting was held in St Mary’s Church Hall in Calton, Glasgow.At it, Brother Walfrid (Andrew Kerins), a native of Ballymote, Co Sligo, founded a football club to help alleviate poverty.It was the Celtic Football and Athletic Club.To read more about the founding of Celtic, pick up a copy of This Day in Irish History, available online and in all good bookshops. Perfect for those with an interest in Ireland’s past.You can order it here: https://www.easons.com/this-day-in-irish-history-padraic…(image source: The Irish Times)
The Irish Great Hunger Museum in Hamden located on the grounds of Quinnipiac University.
The Connecticut Attorney General has commenced an inquiry into the closure of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum in Hamden located on the grounds of Quinnipiac University.
William Tong’s office has an open and ongoing inquiry into Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum’s closure, a spokesperson told the Quinnipiac Chronicle. The office acted after a plea by Irish Americans to the attorney general to investigate the closure.
The letter to Tong “stated that the attorney general should look into the closure because it involves selling or distributing the museum’s collection, which is in the public interest.”
“Furthermore, donors want to know what happens to their gifts of artwork and money to a museum that is now closed,” the letter stated.
Michael McCabe, attorney for the Ad Hoc Irish group, said he was certain the Attorney General is looking into the matter.
“We’re not really considering any other legal options,” McCabe said. “We’re a group of private citizens, we have no real standing to challenge the decisions made by Quinnipiac. That’s why we got the attorney general involved,” McCabe told the Chronicle.
Tong’s office already reached out to Quinnipiac to inquire about the closure. Spokesman John Morgan said the university ”is being cooperative.”
The university “will provide the necessary information requested about Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, including relevant policies about gifts, any donations that were received, and the financial operations of the museum,” Morgan wrote in an email statement.
Morgan has stated the Famine museum raised only 25 percent of the funds needed to keep it operating. Critics have said given the pandemic, that is not surprising. 1,300 Irish have signed on to a protest letter.
In the latest in his series looking at the events which shaped partition 100 years ago, historian Cormac Moore explores the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations
James Craig and other members of the Northern Ireland cabinet in London in November 1921 during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, as recorded in the Sphere
Cormac Moore27 October, 2021 01:00
The artist at the Illustrated London News captured the British and Irish negotiation teams at work
IT is regularly stated that during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, which began 100 years ago in October 1921, Sinn Féin was primarily interested in issues related to sovereignty and the crown, and not on the issue of partition.
Given the amount of time and energy spent on Ulster before and during the negotiations, most of it instigated by Sinn Féin, this stance does not bear up under scrutiny.
It is important to note, though, that while Sinn Féin did care deeply about the essential unity of Ireland, it lacked a coherent policy on Ulster and was unable to press home its advantage on the British government’s reluctance to break on Ulster.
In the talks between British prime minister David Lloyd George and Sinn Féin president Éamon de Valera that began immediately after the Truce of July 1921, de Valera rejected Lloyd George’s offer of dominion rule for Southern Ireland primarily over Ulster, claiming that, “We cannot admit the right of the British government to mutilate our country, either in its own interest, or at the call of any section of our population”.
During the Treaty negotiations from October 11 to December 6, the two primary issues discussed were Ulster and the crown. Even though Northern Ireland had been established under the Government of Ireland Act months earlier, the Irish plenipotentiaries were successful in re-opening the Ulster question, rekindling matters that unionists thought were settled.
On October 17 Arthur Griffith articulated the semblance of an offer on Ulster: “We are prepared to reason with them (Ulster unionists), and can probably come to an agreement with them if you (the British government) will stand aside. But, if they refuse our reasonable proposals, then people must be entitled to choose freely whether they will come with us or remain under the Northern Parliament.”
In a memorandum the Irish delegation sent to the British negotiators on October 24, their policy on Ulster was further crystallised: “Should we fail to come to an agreement (with Ulster unionists), and we are confident we shall not fail, then freedom of choice must be given to electorates within the area.”
With the Irish delegation stating that their allegiance to crown and empire was contingent on Ireland’s “essential unity”, Lloyd George and others within the British government pushed to change Northern Ireland’s status if Sinn Féin would accept allegiance to the crown.
Lloyd George told Griffith and Collins that he “he could carry a six county parliament subordinate to a national Parliament”. He was probably being disingenuous here as the Northern Ireland prime minister James Craig had emphatically rejected similar proposals in July.
Lloyd George also assured Griffith and Collins that he would resign “if Ulster proved unreasonable” rather than use force against Ireland. But, his cabinet secretary Tom Jones added the threatening caveat that the returning Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law would then probably form a government and would introduce Crown Colony government for the south for a couple of months.
Lloyd George met Craig in early November and unsuccessfully tried to squeeze Craig into accepting an all-Ireland parliament. Craig did not budge.
He was aware of Lloyd George’s cunning and duplicity and also of Northern Ireland’s vulnerability. Even though Northern Ireland had been established in the summer of 1921, it was in a vulnerable position.
Powers had not been transferred to the new political entity. It had no control over policing, local government, education, in reality all powers needed for it to function as a viable government. Instead of Craig agreeing to compromise, he ended up winning concessions from Lloyd George, which calls into question Lloyd George’s commitment to securing Irish unity.
On November 5, Lloyd George agreed to transfer government services to the north without the existence of a government in the south, with services scheduled to be transferred to the north from November 22 1921 to February 1 1922.
The Irish delegation were aware that the northern jurisdiction was not fully functioning when the conference began in October, services being withheld by the British demonstrated that partition could be negotiable, but they appeared unaware on how to use this to their advantage. The significance of services being transferred to the north seemed lost on almost all back in Dublin too.
With the avenue of reaching a settlement by pressurising Craig now closed, Lloyd George looked to squeeze the Sinn Féin delegation instead. Tom Jones dangled the idea of a boundary commission to Griffith and Collins.
Collins was eventually convinced by Lloyd George on December 5 (just hours before the Treaty was signed) that the boundary commission would save “Tyrone and Fermanagh, parts of Derry, Armagh and Down” for the Free State. Griffith also believed that the boundary commission “would give us most of Tyrone, Fermanagh, and part of Armagh, Down, etc.”.
He naively interpreted his assurances on the boundary commission as a ploy to help Lloyd George secure Irish unity. Instead, his assurances resulted in an animated Lloyd George using them against him as the negotiations reached their conclusion, leading to Griffith and the rest of the Irish delegation signing the Anglo-Irish Treaty on the morning of December 6.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty’s main provision relating to Ulster was Article 12. It stipulated that if Northern Ireland opted not to join the Irish Free State, as was its right under the Treaty, a boundary commission would determine the border “in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions”.
Central to the problem with the boundary commission was its ambiguity. No timetable was mentioned or method outlined to ascertain these wishes; how exactly economic and geographic conditions would relate to popular opinion, and which would prove most important.
No plebiscite was asked for, the clause was open to a number of different interpretations, and no time was specified for the convening of the commission.
The ambiguity suited Lloyd George perfectly. On the one hand, he could give the impression to Sinn Féin that large tracts of Northern Ireland would be transferred to the south, and on the other, to Craig, that it would just rationalise the cumbersome border, with perhaps the inclusion of Protestant strongholds to the north.
The Sinn Féin delegation clearly blundered greatly in acceding to such a vague and indefinable clause.
Nationalist leaders in the six and 26 counties were overly optimistic, as it would transpire, on the outcomes that would be achieved from this boundary commission, believing many areas in Northern Ireland would be transferred to the Irish Free State.
They were lulled into a false sense of security, believing they could continue to ignore the northern jurisdiction and its institutions. Their hopes would soon prove illusory.
Although the boundary commission provided for under the Treaty subsequently resulted in no change to the border, at the time of the signing of the Treaty, it was seen by most nationalists as a satisfactory method to end, or at least limit, partition.
And while Sinn Féin can justifiably be criticised for agreeing to such an ambiguous boundary commission clause and for not having a coherent strategy on Ulster, it is clear that Sinn Féin was responsible for making Ulster and partition a central component of the Treaty negotiations and that it cared deeply about the division of Ireland.
::Cormac Moore is author of Birth of the Border: The Impact of Partition in Ireland (Merrion Press, 2019).
Geraldine Finucane with her son John, the MP for North Belfast.
Finucane Case Put Back Until Next Year
October 25, 2021 by By Anthony Neeson
The British government has been accused of “stalling for time” after a legal action against its failure to hold a public inquiry into the 1989 assassination of human rights solicitor Pat Finucane was put back to next year.
A challenge by the murdered lawyer’s widow, Geraldine Finucane, was scheduled for a five-day hearing at the High Court in Belfast next month.
The case has been delayed by British Secretary of State Brandon Lewis, who has not lodged all necessary documents for the defence. The NIO has said it will need more time to prepare for the case.
Father-of-three Pat Finucane (39) was shot dead by the UDA in February 1989 in one of the most high profile cases of British state collusion during the Troubles. His wife Geraldine was wounded in the attack on their North Belfast home.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that there had never been an “effective” human rights compliant investigation into his murder. In November last year the British government said that it would not hold a full public inquiry into Mr. Finucane’s murder. At the time, the Secretary of State said the government would instead wait on the outcome of reviews by the PSNI’s Legacy Investigations Branch and the Police Ombudsman.
Geraldine Finucane, who in recent days was the recipient of the Ancient Order of Hibernians Dr. Sean MacBride Award, mounted a legal challenge against the decision, with the case due to be heard in November.
Sinn Féin North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly has called on the British government to end their “stalling tactics”.
“The Finucane family has campaigned with courage and dignity for decades,” he said. “They simply want the truth behind the murder of their father, husband and brother.
“The British government’s refusal to honour its promises has frustrated the families of victims who are searching for the truth about the killings of their loved ones.
“It beggars belief that the British government claim that it needs more time to make its case to the courts, 32 years on from the killing of Pat Finucane. More than three decades on a full and properly human rights compliant investigation into Pat Finucane’s killing has yet to be carried out.
“The British Government need to end their stalling tactics and fulfill the promise it made many years ago and hold a full and independent public inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane.
“People would be forgiven in thinking this is the latest attempt by the British government at running down the clock to bring in their amnesty proposals recently outlined in its Command Paper which would prevent any family getting truth and justice.”
Restrictions on non-US citizens were first imposed on air travellers from China in January 2020 by then-President Donald Trump
Statue of Liberty New York. Photo: Deposit
David Shepardson
October 16 2021 07:17 AM
The White House said it will lift Covid-19 travel restrictions for fully vaccinated international visitors starting November 8, ending historic restrictions that had barred much of the world from entering the United States for as long as 21 months.
The unprecedented travel restrictions kept millions of visitors out of the United States from Ireland, the UK, China, Canada, Mexico, India, Brazil, much of Europe and elsewhere.
They have also shrunk US tourism; and hurt border community economies. They prevented many loved ones and foreign workers from reuniting with families.
The new policy was announced last month, but it was not previously known when in November it would be implemented.
White House spokesman Kevin Munoz confirmed the November 8 date on Twitter, adding the policy “is guided by public health, stringent, and consistent.”
Non-US air travellers will need to show proof of vaccination before boarding a flight, and will need to show proof of a recent negative Covid-19 test, under the new rules.
Restrictions on non-US citizens were first imposed on air travellers from China in January 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and then extended to dozens of other countries, without any clear metrics for how and when to lift them.
Curbs on non-essential travellers at land borders with Mexico and Canada have been in place since March 2020 to address the Covid-19 pandemic.
Airlines have seen an increase in international ticket sales in recent weeks after the White House announced plans to lift the restrictions, Nick Calio, chief executive of the Airlines for America industry trade group, said in a statement.
“The lifting of travel restrictions into the US from November 8 means that we can once again connect families, friends and businesses with the US,” said Susanne Carberry, Chief Customer Officer at Aer Lingus.
The airline used the occasion to announce the re-launch of its Dublin to San Francisco route from December 12.
Aer Lingus had flown over a dozen transatlantic routes before the pandemic. It is now back to seven, having welcomed back Newark, Orlando, Washington and Toronto Canada over the past weeks.
The United States had lagged many other countries in lifting such restrictions.
In January, Trump issued an order to lift travel restrictions on people in Europe and Brazil. But the order was reversed by President Joe Biden before it took effect.
The Biden administration, which repeatedly has said it does endorse so-called “vaccine passports,” grappled for months over whether to mandate vaccinations as a condition of lifting country-specific restrictions, officials told Reuters.
On Tuesday, the White House announced it would lift restrictions at its land borders and ferry crossings with Canada and Mexico for fully vaccinated foreign nationals in early November. They are similar but not identical to requirements announced last month for international air travellers.
Foreign visitors crossing a land border will not need to show proof of a recent negative test.
Unvaccinated visitors will still be barred from entering the United States from Canada or Mexico at land borders.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Reuters last week the United States will accept the use by international visitors of Covid-19 vaccines authorised by US regulators or the World Health Organisation.
The White House, which held a meeting late Thursday to finalise the November 8 date, faces some remaining questions, including how and what exemptions the Biden administration will grant to the vaccine requirements.
Children under 18, for example, are largely expected to be exempt from the requirements, an official said.
The new rules do not require foreign visitors or Americans entering the country to go into quarantine.
US Travel Association Chief Executive Roger Dow said declines in international visits since the pandemic started resulted in more than $250 billion in lost income.
Dow said in a statement that the November 8 date “is critically important for planning – for airlines, for travel-supported businesses, and for millions of travellers worldwide who will now advance plans to visit the United States once again.”
Starting Nov. 8, the United States will admit fully vaccinated foreign air travellers from the 26 so-called Schengen countries in Europe, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Greece, as well as Britain, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.
The unprecedented US restrictions have barred non-US citizens who were in those countries within the past 14 days.
The United States has allowed foreign air travellers from more than 150 countries throughout the pandemic, a policy that critics said made little sense because some countries with high infection rates were not on the restricted list, while some on the list had the pandemic more under control.
The White House said last month it would apply vaccine requirements to foreign nationals traveling from all other countries.
Americans traveling overseas must still show proof of a recent negative Covid-19 test, and unvaccinated Americans will face stricter testing requirements. They will also be subject to restrictions in countries they plan to visit, which may include quarantines.
The CDC plans to issue new rules soon on contact tracing for international air travellers.
