PLAQUE DEDICATION
On Monday, April 15, 2019, at 1100 hours, a Plaque Dedication will be held honoring the memory of Firefighter Ronald P. Svec, L-82, who died on February 2, 2018. The dedication will take place in the quarters of E-162 and L-82, 256 Nelson Avenue, Staten Island, NY. All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
PLAQUE DEDICATION
On Monday, April 22, 2019, at 1100 hours, a Plaque Dedication will be held honoring the memory of Marine Engineer John L. Buhler, M-6, who died on March 24, 2018. The dedication will take place in the quarters of Marine 6, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Building #292, Brooklyn, NY. All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
2019 GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY PARADE
Permission is granted for off-duty members to participate in the 2019 Greek Independence Day Parade on Sunday, April 14, 2019. The FDNY Hellenic Society requests that participating members assemble on W. 63rd Street between Park and 5th Avenue, New York, NY, at 1230 hours. Dress uniform shall be worn. For more information, contact Peter Constantine at FdnyGreeks@gmail.com or call 914-760-9968.
MATT’S RACE 5K RUN
On Sunday, April 28, at 10:00 AM, in Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island, a 5K Run presented by Engine 161/Ladder 81 & Engine 211/Ladder 119, together with the Staten Island Athletic Club, will be held in memory of Lt. Gordon “Matt” Ambelas, who died in the line of duty on July 5, 2014. The 1st Leg of FF James Halverson Award will be presented to the top FDNY finisher based on combined times from Matt’s Race, Marty Egan Run & The Celic Run. Entry Fees are as follows: Pre-entry fee: $20; Race Day: $25; Kids 14 and under $15; Race day: $20. Running awards will go to: Overall Top 3 Male & Female. Age groups: Top 3 in each of the following age groups (male & female): 14 & under, 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80+, FD individual, FD team, Clydesdale & Athena. Pre-race pick up at The Local (formerly Pepper Jack Grill), 316 Manor Road, on Thursday, April 25, from 7:00-9:00 PM. Post-Race Party will be held at Marine Corps. League, 46 Ontario Ave, SI. There is a $10.00 post-race party fee for non-runners. Register here: http://www.completerace.com/site/event/matts-race/.
2019 FUN CITY BOWL
The annual FDNY vs NYPD football game will be held on Saturday, June 1, at 5:00 PM, at MCU Park in Brooklyn. Tickets cost $20, and a free Cyclones ticket is included with purchase. Deadline to purchase tickets is May 16. Checks should be made payable to Bravest Football. Payment can be mailed to 101 Bevy Court, Brooklyn, NY 11229. To send payments electronically, Venmo @John-Mooney-FDNYL154. For questions or more information, contact John Mooney at JEMFDNY74@gmail.com.
Sean Maguire with a poem from a published collection of his work.
Finally, the eyelids grow heavy, the fear overcome by exhaustion as we journey into darkness forever, to await who knows what in frustration. To dream would be ever so pleasing, of summer youth and love, and lie and gaze at the sky above. To recall some moments of laughter, to smile at our feelings of fear. Wondering about justice, whilst shedding one more tear.
Tumbling, falling, headlong, the earth is yearning, although, upright we sit, clammy, pale. Fervently screaming and bleeding inside, in search of the truth, to no avail.
➽Seán Maguire has been writing poetry, song lyrics, short stories and non-fiction for over thirty years and has had a considerable amount of his work published in magazines, newspapers, anthologies and online blogs. The above poem is taken from his collection For Those Left Behind.
WTC Retired Lieutenant Timothy P. O’Neill Ladder Company 5 FUNERAL Friday, April 12, 2019 11:00 AM Sacred Heart Church 981 Castleton Avenue Staten Island, NY 10310
All Off-Duty Members should attend in Class A Uniform.
The British government has provoked anger after it said Irish citizens born in the north of Ireland cannot vote in a unity border poll or any other referendum under British law, and cannot have the same rights as other EU citizens.
Direct Ruler Karen Bradley blankly told the London parliament this week that Irish citizens living in the North of Ireland could not vote in any referendum.
Under current British legislation, voting rights of Irish and British people living in each other’s jurisdiction are reciprocal. Bradley claimed this only extends to local and parliamentary elections.
Her comments were apparently designed to address continuing confusion over the rights of EU citizens living in British jurisdiction, but only served to increase it. They followed a statement from the British government’s Home Office that Irish citizens born in the Six Counties will always be considered British, and therefore their rights as EU citizens would not be recognised.
The combination made for a shocking one-two punch to northern nationalists and their perceived status under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Michelle O’Neill said: “Once again, the British Secretary of State has betrayed a staggering ignorance of the Good Friday Agreement which guarantees the rights of citizens, whether they identify as Irish, British or both.”
“The agreement clearly recognises ‘that it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland’.
“For Karen Bradley to suggest that Irish citizens would not be entitled to vote in a unity referendum is patently ridiculous.”
Ms O’Neill pointed out that thousands of Irish citizens voted in the Brexit referendum in the North, in 2016.
“Is she now saying that they did so illegally?” asked Ms O’Neill. “Her comments may be laughable but they are also typical of a wider disdain within her government for the Good Friday Agreement and the protections contained within it.
“At every stage of the Brexit process, they have sought to undermine the Good Friday Agreement and have recently declared their intention to treat everyone in the North as British citizens.
“That is entirely unacceptable. The British Government cannot and will not be allowed to redefine Irish citizenship or rewrite the Good Friday Agreement.”
Deputy Director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice Daniel Holder said: “The lack of any understanding of the GFA among the current government is getting beyond a joke.”
He said that the changes are not only incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement, but also Theresa May’s own Withdrawal Agreement with the EU>
This week’s statements have increased concerns that the weakened hull of the Good Friday Agreement will not withstand the pressures being exerted by Brexit. The political crisis is exposing the London government’s failure to take the GFA seriously, a legal expert has said.
Colin Harvey, a Queen’s University Belfast law professor, said that Irish citizens who are also considered British citizens will not be entitled to EU “settled status” after Brexit, and therefore could lose the right to be considered an EU citizen.
“There is little evidence thus far, including in the latest immigration rules, that the birthright provisions of the Good Friday agreement are being taken seriously,” said Prof Harvey.
“These latest rules confirm what we already know about the implementation gap that predates Brexit, but that Brexit is exposing.”
Emma DeSouza, a County Derry woman and Irish citizen fighting a labyrinthine appeals process for residency for her US-born husband, has argued that British citizenship is being imposed on the people of the north of Ireland.
She says they two tiers of Irish citizens are being created, those who can retain their EU rights and those who cannot. She questioned how London could justify opening the ‘settled status’ scheme for EU citizens differentially to Irish people based on their birthplace [south or north of the border].
“To me, that is the definition of second-class citizenship,” she said. She found it “extremely distressing” to see that she no longer met the definition of EU national, which has been used to deny her the right to live with her husband in the north of Ireland, a matter which is the subject of an ongoing court battle.
Una Boyd, a lawyer at the Committee on the Administration of Justice who previously represented Ms DeSouza, said the change in the definition underpinning eligibility in the EU settlement scheme was “not surprising” but that it was “disappointing”.
“There was an opportunity here for change to ensure the UK government fulfil the commitments under the withdrawal agreement and the Good Friday Agreement,” said Ms Boyd.
In Brussels, Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson described it as another “breach” of the Good Friday Agreement due to Brexit.
Ms O’Neill said the crude attempts by London to undermine or redefine the rights of Irish citizens were “reckless” would be rigorously opposed.
“The Good Friday Agreement, and the rights afforded by it, are international obligations,” said said. “They cannot be ignored or set aside.
She urged the Dublin government to defend the rights of Irish citizens as a co-guarantor of the peace deal. “This is not the first time London has sought to undermine the Good Friday Agreement to suit its own needs.”
Forty-five years ago, three men and one woman became mired in a notorious miscarriage of justice that continues to tarnish the name of British justice.
In January this year, it was announced that the inquest into the 1974 Guildford Pub bombings that killed five people would be resumed.
The inquest had been suspended in 1975. At the time there wasn’t any question over who was guilty of the bombings. Three Irishmen, Gerry Conlon, Paul Hill and Gerry Armstrong, and Gerry’s English girlfriend, Carole Richardson, all signed confessions stating they carried out the attacks.
For many of the public, and for the judge who presided over their trial, the only contentious issue was that the three men could not be hanged for their crimes.
In 1974, the IRA’s bombing campaign in mainland Britain was causing panic. The people and the press were angry. There were repeated calls, inside and outside parliament, for the return of capital punishment.
Irish people in England hid their accents in public; they were spat at in the streets, beaten up outside pubs. There were attacks on Irish homes.
A panicked Labour Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, introduced the temporary Prevention of Terrorism Act which allowed police to hold suspects without charge for a week.
The first man held under the new powers was a young Belfast lad called Paul Michael Hill.
Paul had come to London to pick up casual work and escape the Troubles back home.
After a week in the cells of Guildford Police Station, he had confessed to his part in eight murders and three pub bombings and he implicated every person he knew in London.
Paul remembers his rationale back in the interrogation room. His confession and the list of people he implicated were so ridiculous and absurd the police would soon dismiss it.
Instead, his testimony set a ball rolling that would led to more arrests, more interrogations and more confessions that would decimate the lives of the other members of the Guildford Four.
The confessions Paul and the others signed had been beaten out of them. Paul underwent mock executions, was beaten and thrown down metal stairs along with sleep, water and food deprivation and threats made against his family and his pregnant girlfriend.
Evidence that would have helped clear the suspects, including forensic data and witnesses who could provide alibis when the bombs went planted, was not revealed at the original trial.
Equally compelling was the 1977 trial of the so-called Balcombe Street gang, genuine IRA bombers who confessed in court to carrying out the bombings. They exonerated the Guildford Four.
Despite all this it would take 15 years and a lengthy, frustrating campaign that garnered support from former Law Lords and Home Secretaries, including Roy Jenkins, US Senators, Archbishops and even Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev, before the Four had their convictions quashed and they were released.
Paul Hill sent letters to his family across those stolen years. The letters are, at turns, poignant, angry, philosophical and funny, but always articulate and filled with the rage of an unjustly accused man.
After his release, Paul donated the letters to the Irish archive of the London Metropolitan University.
When I contacted Paul, who now lives quietly in Washington DC, to ask permission to use them he told me what he hoped people would learn from the letters.
“I took some comfort from the thought that at least my misfortune would lessen the possibility of it happening to others.
“It would appear that nothing has been gleaned from the many miscarriages of justice, especially those with political overtones.
“We live in an age in which you can disappear into a black hole, be held without charge indefinitely and be subject to torture, whilst Ivy League educated politicians play verbal gymnastics with the meaning of the word.”
It feels like Paul is right.
The Guildford Four, Maguire Seven, Birmingham Six. These notorious miscarriages of justice are a stain on the name of British justice.
They occurred because the authorities, fearing to the mob in the streets, withheld basic tenets of our criminal system to suspects and turned a blind eye to police brutality and torture.
Today, there’s a President in the White House who repeatedly praises torture.
Closer to home, we see a UK and Europe where an ugly strain of angry, popularist politics is on the rise, and a climate of nationalist swagger and intolerance are becoming increasingly normalised.
The mob are being listened to again.
Fifteen is a short film that tells the story of the Guildford Four and has been selected to be part of the Belfast Film Festival, which runs from 11 to 20 April.
