Posted by Jim on May 6, 2017
The Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement
said they have concerns about the detention without trial of republican
Tony Taylor in Maghaberry jail.
The spokesperson for the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) had been
released as part of the Good Friday Agreement, but his release was
revoked based on what was described as “an untested risk assessment” by
the British Crown forces. He was interned in March last year at the
request of British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers.
After a series of delayed parole hearings, his case has again been put
back, this time until May 30th. A judgement is expected a week after
that.
The Dublin parliamentary committee on the 1998 peace deal met his family
recently to discuss his plight.
“The committee will be writing to the British Direct Ruler James
Brokesnhire to request a meeting as soon as possible, said committee
chair, Kathleen Funchion, Sinn Fein TD for Carlow-Kilkenny.
Ms Funchion added: “The Committee wishes to express its concern at the
nature of the arrest and imprisonment of Mr Taylor and his continued
detention without trial.”
Sinn Fein’s National Chairperson, Declan Kearney, has also called for
the immediate release of the Derry republican.
Speaking ahead of the cancelled hearing, Mr Kearney, who had been due to
attend, said: “Tony Taylor was arrested in March 2016 and jailed in
Maghaberry Prison on the word of the British Secretary of State.
“In the time since, no charges have been brought nor evidence produced
to justify Mr Taylor’s imprisonment.
“In these circumstances Sinn Fein has consistently called for Tony
Taylor’s release. I will attend today’s hearing to observe and to
restate our view that Mr Taylor’s imprisonment is unjust and brings the
justice system into disrepute. Tony Taylor should be released
immediately.”
Local People Before Profit Westminster election candidate Shaun Harkin
also called for the RNU man’s release.
He said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Republican activist Tony Taylor was locked-up in Maghaberry Prison 420
days ago on the say-so of the former British Secretary of State Theresa
Villiers…. He should be released immediately
“This is a straightforward matter of defending civil liberties. No
government should have the right to simply lock anyone it chooses up.
“You don’t have to agree with Tony’s politics in order to support his
immediate release. Internment without trial was wrong then and it is
wrong now. They might call it ‘administrative detention’ but it amounts
to the same thing. Everyone who opposes internment without trial and who
believes in defending civil liberty for all should call for justice to
be done and for Tony to be released today.”
Mr Taylor’s wife Lorraine urged people to “keep Tony in your prayers”.
She said the past 12 months had been difficult. “We need everybody to
come out behind us and show solidarity with Tony and show we are all
backing him.”
Posted by Jim on
In a significant political development, the youngest son of murdered
defence lawyer Pat Finucane is to fight the North Belfast Westminster
constituency for Sinn Fein.
John Finucane, now a human rights lawyer, launched his bid to become
North Belfast’s first nationalist MP at a selection convention at the
Lansdowne Hotel on the Antrim Road, just yards from where his father was
gunned down by British agents in front of his family.
The brutal killing, one of the most notorious of the conflict, was
carried out by a loyalist paramilitary death squad under the guidance of
British military intelligence, MI5.
Mr Finucane, a father-of-four, was announced as a candidate in the
British general election by Sinn Fein’s long-standing North Belfast
representative, Gerry Kelly, to a cheering crowd.
Speaking about his father’s death, the renowned campaigner said his
family continue to fight for justice. “I remain as resolute as ever that
some things are worth battling for,” he said.
“That is a conviction that I have taken from my father’s life and death,
and from the strength I have witnessed at first hand in my mother and my
family.
“I am the product of a mixed marriage. Of a Catholic father from west
Belfast, and a Protestant mother from east Belfast. I have relatives who
are Protestant and Catholic, and I have relatives who are unionist and
republican.”
He said he learned about equality from his family.
“I have been brought up and lived my life in an inclusive family
environment where difference and diversity is embraced and celebrated,
and I am proud of that,” he said.
“My upbringing has shown me that everyone deserves to be, and must be,
treated equally.
“It is this message of equality which I have tried to continue in my
professional life in the way I represent my clients as a practicing
solicitor.
“And it is this message of equality and inclusiveness that has made me
decide to put my name forward to stand for Sinn Fein here in North
Belfast.”
Mr Finucane’s family were present for a development which is the biggest
of the campaign so far. But the scale of the challenge — finding
thousands of Sinn Fein votes in a DUP stronghold — cannot be
underestimated.
Mr Finucane said he was confident he could win the seat for the party.
“I have heard some tell me that it would be impossible for me to win the
MP seat for North Belfast. Unfortunately for them I love a challenge,”
Mr Finucane said.
His speech was met with bitterness from the DUP, who described it as an
attempt by Sinn Fein to capitalise on the “victim status” of the the
Finucane family.
Supporting the nomination, Mr Kelly said the election was a contest
between “those who want the north to remain in Europe, who stand for
equality for rights and for Irish unity — and the DUP who support a
hard Brexit, support Tory cuts and who have set their face against
equality and rights.”
He said Sinn Fein was the only party which can take this seat from the
DUP.
“I am confident that in John Finucane we can return a nationalist MP for
the first time in the history of North Belfast and between now and June
8th we will be pulling out all the stops to make this possible.”
He said the momentum from the party’s strong result in the Stormont
Assembly election in March “is still there”.
“John’s decision to run has increased that momentum and it still needs
hard work.”
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein’s Pat Doherty, who has held the West Tyrone seat
for 16 years and a former Vice President of the party, has announced he
will not seek re-election. He is to stand down and will be replaced by
Barry McElduff.
Sinn Fein’s Paul Maskey, the MP for West Belfast, was also selected to
stand again in the constituency, where his biggest rival will be
socialist Gerry Carroll of People Before Profit.
Michelle Gildernew is to stand again in Fermanagh-South Tyrone, bringing
her into direct opposition with Ulster Unionist MP Tom Elliott for the
second time in two years. The constituency has been one of the
closest-fought in the north and is likely to be a top target for Sinn
Fein in the June 8 election.
Other candidates selected for the party in recent days include Chris
Hazzard in South Down; Elisha McCallion in Foyle; Mairtin O Muilleoir
in south Belfast, Mickey Brady in Newry and Armagh; John O’Dowd in Upper
Bann; Mairead O’Donnell in East Belfast and Oliver McMullan in East
Antrim.
Posted by Jim on May 5, 2017
The revolutionary spirit of freedom.
Portions of this article were first published anonymously in ‘Republican News’, December 16th, 1978. The smuggled out article recalls how the spirit of republican defiance grew within him, and is a semi-autobiographical account.
BOBBY SANDS was born in 1954 in Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist district of north Belfast. His twenty-seventh birthday fell on the ninth day of his sixty-six-day hunger strike. His sisters Marcella, one year younger, and Bernadette, were born in April 1955 and November 1958, respectively. All three lived their early years at Abbots Cross in the Newtownabbey area of north Belfast. A second son, John, now nineteen, was born to their parents John and Rosaleen, now both aged 57, in June 1962.
The sectarian realities of ghetto life materialised early in Bobby’s life when at the age of ten his family were forced to move home owing to loyalist intimidation even as early as 1962. Bobby recalled his mother speaking of the troubled times which occurred during her childhood; ‘Although I never really under stood what internment was or who the ‘Specials’ were, I grew to regard them as symbols of evil ‘.
Of this time Bobby himself later wrote: ”I was only a working-class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic. ”
When Bobby was sixteen years old he started work as an apprentice coach builder and joined the National Union of Vehicle Builders and the ATGWU. In an article printed in ‘An Phoblacht/Republican News’ on April 4th, 1981, Bobby recalled: ”Starting work, although frightening at first became alright, especially with the reward at the end of the week. Dances and clothes, girls and a few shillings to spend, opened up a whole new world to me.”
Bobby’s background, experiences and ambitions did not differ greatly from that of the average ghetto youth. Then came 1968 and the events which were to change his life. Bobby had served two years of his apprenticeship when he was intimidated out of his job. His sister Bernadette recalls: “Bobby went to work one morning and these fellows were standing there cleaning guns. One fellow said to him, ‘Do you see these here, well if you don’t go you’ll get this’ then Bobby also found a note in his lunch-box telling him to get out.”
In June 1972, the family were intimidated out of their home in Doonbeg Drive, Rathcoole and moved into the newly built Twinbrook estate on the fringe of nationalist West Belfast. Bernadette again recalled: We had suffered intimidation for about eighteen months before we were actually put out. We had always been used to having Protestant friends. Bobby had gone around with Catholics and Protestants, but it ended up when everything erupted, that the friends he went about with for years were the same ones who helped to put his family out of their home.
As well as being intimidated out of his job and his home being under threat Bobby also suffered personal attacks from the loyalists.
At eighteen Bobby joined the Republican Movement. Bernadette says: .. ‘he was just at the age when he was beginning to become aware of things happening around him. He more or less just said right, this is where I’m going to take up. A couple of his cousins had been arrested and interned. Booby felt that he should get involved and start doing something. ‘
Bobby himself wrote. “My life now centered around sleepless nights and stand-bys dodging the Brits and calming nerves to go out on operations. But the people stood by us. The people not only opened the doors of their homes to lend us a hand but they opened their hearts to us. I learned that without the people we could not survive and I knew that I owed them everything.
In October 1972, he was arrested. Four handguns were found in a house he was staying in and he was charged with possession. He spent the next three years in the cages of Long Kesh where he had political prisoner status. During this time Bobby read widely and taught himself Irish which he was later to teach the other blanket men in the H-Blocks.
Released in 1976 Bobby returned to his family in Twinbrook. He reported back to his local unit and straight back into the continuing struggle: ‘Quite a lot of things had changed some parts of the ghettos had completely disappeared and others were in the process of being removed. The war was still forging ahead although tactics and strategy had changed. The British government was now seeking to ‘Ulsterise’ the war which included the attempted criminalisation of the IRA and attempted normalisation of the war situation.’
Bobby set himself to work tackling the social issues which affected the Twinbrook area. Here he became a community activist. According to Bernadette, ‘When he got out of jail that first time our estate had no Green Cross, no Sinn Fein, nor anything like that. He was involved in the Tenants’ Association… He got the black taxis to run to Twinbrook because the bus service at that time was inadequate. It got to the stage where people were coming to the door looking for Bobby to put up ramps on the roads in case cars were going too fast and would knock the children down.’
Within six months Bobby was arrested again. There had been a bomb attack on the Balmoral Furniture Company at Dunmurry, followed by a gun-battle in which two men were wounded. Bobby was in a car near the scene with three other young men. The RUC captured them and found a revolver in the car.
The six men were taken to Castlereagh and were subjected to brutal interrogations for six days. Bobby refused to answer any questions during his interrogation, except his name, age and address.
In a ninety-six verse poem written in 1980, entitled ‘The Crime of Castlereagh’, Bobby tells of his experiences in Castlereagh and his fears and thoughts at the time.
They came and came their job the same
In relays N’er they stopped.
‘Just sign the line!’ They shrieked each time
And beat me ’till I dropped.
They tortured me quite viciously
They threw me through the air.
It got so bad it seemed I had
Been beat beyond repair.
The days expired and no one tired,
Except of course the prey,
And knew they well that time would tell
Each dirty trick they laid on thick
For no one heard or saw,
Who dares to say in Castlereagh
The ‘police’ would break the law!
He was held on remand for eleven months until his trial in September 1977. As at his previous trial he refused to recognise the court.
The judge admitted there was no evidence to link Bobby, or the other three young men with him, to the bombing. So the four of them were sentenced to fourteen years each for possession of the one revolver.
Bobby spent the first twenty-two days of his sentence in solitary confinement, ‘on the boards’ in Crumlin Road jail. For fifteen of those days he was completely naked. He was moved to the H-Blocks and joined the blanket protest. He began to write for Republican News and then after February 1979 for the newly-merged An Phobhacht/Republican News under the pen-name, ‘Marcella’, his sister’s name. His articles and letters, in minute handwriting, like all communications from the H-Blocks, were smuggled out on tiny pieces of toilet paper.
He wrote: ‘The days were long and lonely. The sudden and total deprivation of such basic human necessities as exercise and fresh air, association with other people, my own clothes and things like newspapers, radio, cigarettes books and a host of other things, made my life very hard.’
Bobby became PRO for the blanket men and was in constant confrontation with the prison authorities which resulted in several spells of solitary confinement. In the H-Blocks, beatings, long periods in the punishment cells, starvation diets and torture were commonplace as the prison authorities, with the full knowledge and consent of the British administration, imposed a harsh and brutal regime on the prisoners in their attempts to break the prisoners’ resistance to criminalisation.
An aerial view of the H-Blocks where political status was to be denied.
An aerial view of the H-Blocks where political status was to be denied.
The H-Blocks became the battlefield in which the republican spirit of resistance met head-on all the inhumanities that the British could perpetrate. The republican spirit prevailed and in April 1978 in protest against systematic ill-treatment when they went to the toilets or got showered, the H-Block prisoners refused to wash or slop-out. They were joined in this no-wash protest by the women in Armagh jail in February 1980 when they were subjected to similar harassment.
On October 27th, 1980, following the breakdown of talks between British direct ruler in the North, Humphrey Atkins, and Cardinal O Fiaich, the Irish Catholic primate, seven prisoners in the H-Blocks began a hunger strike. Bobby volunteered for the fast but instead he succeeded, as O/C, Brendan Hughes, who went on hunger-strike.
During the hunger-strike he was given political recognition by the prison authorities. The day after a senior British official visited the hunger-strikers, Bobby was brought half a mile in a prison van from H3 to the prison hospital to visit them. Subsequently he was allowed several meetings with Brendan Hughes. He was not involved in the decision to end the hunger-strike which was taken by the seven men alone. But later that night he was taken to meet them and was allowed to visit republican prison leaders in H-Blocks 4, 5 and 6.
On December 19th, 1980, Bobby issued a statement that the prisoners would not wear prison-issue clothing nor do prison work. He then began negotiations with the prison governor, Stanley Hilditch, for a step-by-step de-escalation of the protest.
But the prisoners’ efforts were rebuffed by the authorities: ‘We discovered that our good will and flexibility were in vain,’ wrote Bobby. It was made abundantly clear during one of my co-operation’ meetings with prison officials that strict conformity was required. which in essence meant acceptance of criminal status.
In the H-Blocks the British saw the opportunity to defeat the IRA by criminalising Irish freedom fighters but the blanketmen, perhaps more than those on the outside, appreciated before anyone else the grave repercussions, and so they fought.
Bobby volunteered to lead the new hunger strike. He saw it as a microcosm of the way the Brits were treating Ireland historically and presently, Bobby realised that someone would have to die to win political status.
He insisted on starting two weeks in front of the others so that perhaps his death could secure the five demands and save their lives. For the first seventeen days of the hunger strike Bobby kept a secret diary in which he wrote his thoughts and views, mostly in English but occasionally breaking into Gaelic. He had no fear of death and saw the hunger-strike as something much larger than the five demands and as having major repercussions for British rule in Ireland. The diary was written on toilet paper in biro pen and had to be hidden, mostly carried inside Bobby’s own body. During those first seventeen days Bobby lost a total of sixteen pounds weight and on Monday, March 23rd, he was moved to the prison hospital.
On March 30th, he was nominated as candidate for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election caused by the sudden death of Frank Maguire, an independent MP who supported the prisoners’ cause.
In spite of his election to the British parliament, Thatcher was to let him die.
In spite of his election to the British parliament, Thatcher was to let him die.
The next morning, day thirty-one, of his hunger-strike, he was visited by Owen Carron who acted as his election agent. Owen told of that first visit ‘Instead of meeting that young man of the poster with long hair and a fresh face, even at that time when Bobby wasn’t too bad he was radically changed. He was very thin and bony and his hair was cut short.’
Bobby had no illusions with regard to his election victory. His reaction was not one of over-optimism. After the result was announced Owen visited Bobby. “He had already heard the result on the radio. He was in good form alright but he always used to keep saying, ‘In my position you can’t afford to be optimistic.’ In other words, he didn’t take it that because he’d won an election that his life would be saved. He thought that the Brits would need their pound of flesh. I think he was always working on the premise that he would have to die.”
At 1.17 a.m. on Tuesday, May 5th, having completed sixty-five days on hunger-strike, Bobby Sands MP, died in the H-Block prison hospital at Long Kesh. Bobby was a truly unique person whose loss is great and immeasurable. He never gave himself a moment to spare. He lived his life energetically, dedicated to his people and to the republican cause, eventually offering up his life in a conscious effort to further that cause and the cause of those with whom he had shared almost eight years of his adult life. In his own words: “of course can be murdered but I remain what I am, a political POW and no-one, not even the British, can change that.”
Posted by Jim on May 4, 2017
Via the 1916 Societies, a commemorative event this Sunday in honour of those who died at Loughall thirty years ago.
Loughgall Martyrs 30th Anniversary This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Loughgall ambush when 9 Irishmen were killed by British Crown Forces. Volunteers Declan Arthurs, Seamus Donnelly, Tony Gormley, Eugene Kelly, Paddy Kelly, Jim Lynagh, Padraig McKearney and Gerard O’Callaghan were members of the East Tyrone Brigade IRA. Civilian Anthony Hughes was also killed that evening.
The attack was part of a British murder campaign in East Tyrone/North Armagh in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s when the full might of the British war machine including SAS, British Army, RUC, UVF, UDR were unleashed on the people of East Tyrone. These nine men were husbands, fathers, sons and brothers to their loved ones whose only crime was that they were Irish in British Occupied Ireland. They were killed by faceless, nameless paid SAS assassins who were in Ireland to carry out Britain’s war of terror against the democratic rights of the Irish people.
The main commemoration this year is the Independent Republican March and Commemoration on Sunday 7th May assembling at Galbally Community Centre at 3pm organised by the P.H. Pearse Society Galbally/Cappagh. The event is non-party political and everyone is welcome. Sunday 23rd April @2pm 5 mile Sponsored walk, Assemble Republican Monument Aughnagar Chapel.
The James Connolly 1916 Society Monaghan will be holding a day of events to mark the 30th Anniversary of The Loughall Massacre. This will be in conjuction with other independent republican commemorations in Tyrone and Monaghan. On Sunday April 30th we will embark on a sponsored walk from the Jim lynagh, Padraig McKearney, Loughgall monument in Drumfurrer, Carrickroe Co. Monaghan to the Seamus McElwaine monument Knockatallon, Scotstown, Co. Monaghan.
A short lecture will take place after the walk in the Sliabh Beagh Hotel with refreshments served . That night we will be hosting a social night in Moyna’s Bar, Scotstown @9. A Prominent speaker will be in attendance on the night.
The annual mass organised by the families will be on Friday 5th May in Altmore at 7.30pm with refreshments afterwards in Galbally Community Centre. There will be a Tour of the Graves assisted by local 1916 Societies on Sat 6th May starting at 10.30am in Altmore and continuing on then to Galbally, Aughnagar, Monaghan, Caledon, Tullysarron, Moy and finishing at Edendork. On Sunday 7th May the main commemoration and march assembles at Galbally Community Centre at 3pm and will make its way to Cappagh. This commemoration gives all Republicans, young and old, a chance to remember these fine Irishmen who died thirty years ago that evening in Loughgall. Their story is one that the people of Ireland will always remember with sadness, anger, love and pride.
Posted by Jim on May 3, 2017
Stop fighting a war that is over, Michelle O’Neill responds to unionist complaint about her commemoration of the eight IRA-men the SAS killed, the Loughgall Martyrs of republican legend.
Everyone, O’Neill says, has a right to ‘remember their dead without being demonised’.
The softly-spoken, current incarnation of Arlene Foster, kicking off encounters with Irish-speakers as O’Neill’s commemoration became news, said her Loughgall pitch was ‘wrong and backward looking’; disappointing when she, Foster, was ‘trying to make this a shared place for everybody in Northern Ireland.’
Hmmm. After a year’s worth of crude ignorance, it is a bit soon to want credit for starting to show civility, a bit rich for Foster to be disappointed by someone else’s behaviour.
Good that she can meet schoolgirls and language activists and say go raibh maith agat without flinching.
A signal of rethinking, if this prefigures acceptance not just of Irish the language but Irish the identity, as cherished by the north’s Irish. Nobody misses the main point, that the DUP leader plus at least some of those around her belatedly recognise how she electrified the Sinn Féin vote by her own bad behaviour.
She won’t be doing that again. But ‘backward looking’, from someone who describes her own culture as ‘British Orange’?
As for O’Neill, thirty years after Loughgall and with ‘the war’ over now for at least twenty years according to republicans, it is past time to make the words real for republicans as well as unionists.
Over should mean over. The SAS opened up as the Loughgall eight crashed through the gates of the barracks with a bomb in a digger, which now makes them the patriot dead to O’Neill. The best republican rewrite-teams can do with that is not mention the bomb.
No matter how many martyrs’ memorials she addresses Michelle won’t look any more like Martin, the human bridge between wartime IRA and peacetime Sinn Féin.
Or is the plan to be still memorialising the republican version of the Troubles 300 years down the line – as Orangemen remember Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne and the humiliation of the Catholic Irish that followed King Billy’s triumph?
Now there would be a fine act of simultaneous reciprocation, and reconciliation. Republicans proclaim an end to commemorations, and the Orange Order declares itself redundant for the good of society.
Foster will not have the Troubles rewritten, no sirree, but with traditional unionist insistence on one law for security forces and another for everyone else she will not stand for prosecution of soldiers and police. Still, there she was at the weekend telling Glaswegians there is a plan to make a plan to … make the case for the union, in time for the centenary of the state’s foundation.
Starting now, or last week, unionists have to be proactive and positive to ‘make unionism more appealing to everyone within our society.’ The majority has gone. If only across the water and at one remove from her party faithful, Foster faced it, said the words, preached a remedy.
We have been here before. Behold the recurring search for the unicorn, the Catholic unionist, the creature who can make up the numbers. But if the search imposes better manners and makes civility and ‘reaching out’ consistent, won’t that be good?
An essay in the Irish News has had Foster pitching Brexit less as victory, more as challenge to be flexible.
Thanks to that displaced majority in the last election, a DUP leadership – whoever it consists of – is well into presentation of Foster Mark 2. Sir Jeffrey and the Conservative lobby for a security forces amnesty will keep on raising hackles.
But if we’ve heard the last of a rasp-tongued Arlene, if Gregory Campbell can manage to keep on voicing respect for Irish and lets his monoglot parody fade from mind, a better time to ask for reciprocation might still arrive.
And will Sinn Féin begin to make headway meanwhile with the Protestant republican, the mythical individual who in crowd formation will follow up applying for Irish passports by calling for a border poll?
That’s decades away unless Brexit truly does tear up the Union and shake economies apart; though pragmatic, unromantic decisions to go for the full Irish might just come sooner.
At any rate, next month’s first past the post poll won’t reveal shifting allegiances. The two main camps will go out on polling day still clinging to the dream United Ireland or the damaged United Kingdom. Calling the contest sectarian changes neither minds nor hearts.