Posted by Jim on October 13, 2018
A letter to the Irish News, published 4th October, from Sean Bresnahan, calling for the Irish Republic to be mounted as the basis of a future United Ireland.
Today in Ireland, the top 1 percent are not paying their way — that being their rightful contribution to the tax base and public purse. This, notwithstanding the pillaging of the Troika, is fundamental to the financial shortages hollowing out our public services.
Under the Irish Republic, there must and will be a real change in this regard, for the notion of the rich freeloading off the people is an anathema to its fundamental basis: equal rights and equal opportunity, with the ownership of Ireland for the people of Ireland.
A ‘United Ireland’ that fails to uphold, though, the sovereignty and unity of the Irish Republic would stand to continue the counterrevolution, which has held us in its thrall since the days of the Treaty.
As a revised continuum of the current system, which elevates capital over the common wealth, such an arrangement would be outside of Republicanism. It would ensure that the standing order, whose primary function is to shield wealth from its obligations, would have forward status into a ‘new dispensation’.
Only a fresh start mounted on the 1916 Proclamation — which the constitutional process serves to usurp — can establish an Ireland as that now required. While constitutionalism offers the notion of change, it intends on preserving the established order on and into a supposed ‘new Ireland’, this at the expense of the Irish Republic.
There remains, then, no viable route to the Republic through the employ or internalising of established constitutionalism, of its political theory or its political means. There remains no other route to the Republic than to stand by its right to proceed — which is fundamental.
The constitutional process and the constraints it seeks to legitimise — which provide for the façade of change, not the means for its actuation — cannot deliver on equal opportunity in an Ireland belonging to her people, as was intended upon the formation of the Republic.
It cannot make good the grievous reality that the Ireland of today is an Ireland for the powerful, where ordinary people and communities must suffer that the rich and the privileged can go free. It is intended, instead, towards a further bulwark between the Irish Republic and vested power, whose roots lie in British imperialism. We must, thus, resist its allure.
A century forward from the founding of the Republic, there can be no disregarding of its political basis if we are seriously intent upon change — not if the Ireland we are set toward is to differ, in real terms, from that we already reside in.
Posted by Jim on
The Voice of the Irish in America
FREEDOM for ALL IRELAND BULLETIN
October 2018
A chairde:
FFAI ISSUES UPDATE
A-Bradley admits sent to rule with no clue about north- Karen Bradley, picked by Prime Minister Theresa May to administer British rule in the six counties, said she had no understanding of the north when picked for the post. Bradley made her frank admissions to House magazine, a weekly parliamentary magazine giving Westminster MPs puff piece interviews. Bradley confessed she had did not understand basic facts of the north’s politics, elections and deep-rooted issues saying it was all “a very different world from the world I come from.” She said:
“I didn’t understand things like when elections are fought in Northern Ireland people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice-versa… Unionist parties fight the elections in unionist communities and nationalists in nationalist communities… I was slightly scared of Northern Ireland because of my impression and images from 20 years ago…
I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn’t understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues.”
Bradley age 48, never visited the six counties until going to preside as British Secretary. Elected to Westminster in 2010, she learned little from debates, discussions of new laws, or party briefings and conferences in eight years. Like most British secretaries, she apparently views the north as a place to audition for some other post she would rather have in some other place she would rather be.
Bradley will judge the Legacy Consultation. Having admitted she had no understanding how elections are fought in the north, she seems to have no understanding of how British troops fought
there by shooting down civilians in places like Ballymurphy.
B-No deal Brexit and hard border disaster threatened -Due to exit the European Union on March 29,2019, Britain has offered no acceptable deal with the EU to avoid a disastrous hard border across Ireland. The biggest obstacle is Theresa May’s dependence on 10 DUP votes at Westminster. The Irish, British and EU want to avoid a hard border across the island. Without a deal, the six counties becomes an external EU border, requiring customs, immigration and tariff controls. There are 300 border crossings. The EU and Ireland have offered to permit the north to remain in the EU customs union. Customs, immigration controls etc could then begin in the Irish sea, meaning at entry points into England, Scotland or Wales. This would be beneficial for the north. However the DUP fears preferential regulations for the north as a slippery slope towards a united Ireland. They say they will topple Theresa May and veto any deal in which they are not exactly the same as England, Scotland and Wales. The EU will not offer permanent customs union preferences to Britain. Theresa May is now caught with Tory hardliners, led by Boris Johnson, calling for a hard Brexit and the DUP’s “blood red lines” against preferential arrangements for the north. French President Emmanuel Macron summed up the EU’s reaction to May’s latest proposals saying “Brexit is the choice of the British people, pushed by those who predicted easy solutions… Those people are liars.”
C-AOH Leaders meet Ballymurphy Massacre Campaign Families-
Saying they came “to pledge American support for Ballymurphy in its battle for truth and justice,” National AOH Vice-President Danny O’Connell, and National Secretary Jere Cole met Ballymurphy Massacre families on Sunday September 23rd. The AOH leaders were escorted by family members to the murder scenes and given a moving account of each killing. The fact-finding visit was also attended by Relatives for Justice. Danny O’Connell said:
“Both Jerry Cole and I have visited Ballymurphy before and were familiar with the events, but hearing the deep pain in the voices of family members as they spoke of the murders of their loved ones, while standing in the spots where these murders were committed, was deeply moving. Eleven innocent people including a priest and mother of 8 were murdered. Their families are entitled to truth about the killings of their loved ones”.
D-“Hooded Men” court fight on torture-The “Hooded Men” vowed to win their legal fight to brand Britain guilty of torture in British Courts, even as the European Court of Human Rights declined to review its 1978 judgment holding Britain guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment. The torture case goes back to August 9,1971,and the start of Internment. Men picked up without charge were used as human guinea pigs and subjected to sensory deprivation torture techniques. They were hooded, made to stand in strained positions for hours, deprived of sleep, water and food, alternated with beatings and threats. Some were made to run gauntlets etc. Ireland took a case on their behalf. The European Commission ruled that the British were guilty of torture. The European Court modified the finding to guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment. English tabloids ran headlines “Britain Not Guilty!” omitting that they had been convicted of inhuman treatment.RTE Irish television in June 2014, did a program ‘The Torture Files’ which uncovered proof Britain lied to the European Court and withheld files that Britain approved the torture techniques at the highest level of government. Ireland attempted to have the torture ruling reinstated based on this evidence but the European judges said it was too late. The men are already pursuing a separate legal case in the Belfast High Court and have won legal rulings that Britain subjected them to torture. That case is expected to end with Britain in the dock of its own Supreme Court in London.
BALLYMUPHY MASSACRE TOUR CALL TO ACTION
Carmel Quinn, whose brother John Laverty was a Ballymurphy Massacre victim, is coming to America to the AOH. She will speak on Sunday November 11th at a Philadelphia FFAI event organized by Gerry McHale, and Pearse Kerr; Monday in New Jersey organized by Sean Pender and Malachy McAllister; Babylon AOH Hall on Tuesday; going to Washington DC on the 14th-15th with event by Jim McLaughlin returning Thursday night 15th for event at O’Lunneys in Manhattan; Friday in Albany organized by John Levendosky and Dolores Desch. National VP Danny O’Connell will bring Carmel Quinn to Cleveland Ohio on Saturday before she is honored Sunday in the Bronx together with Congressman Joe Crowley and ECHO Editor Ray O’Hanlon. More events may be announced.
CONGRESSIONAL CALL TO ACTION
Last April sixteen Members of Congress joined a breakthrough bipartisan letter sponsored by the AOH to the British Ambassador about legacy truth.
Both the British Ambassador and colonial British Secretary Karen Bradley had to reply. FFAI is calling upon AOH members across the country to contact your local Senators and Congressmen, and ask will they make time to hear Carmel Quinn in Washington D.C. on November 14th or 15th.
CHRISTMAS APPEAL
The Christmas Appeal mailing will arrive shortly. The need is obvious. Today Britain still denies truth and justice to the families of victims murdered by the crown or loyalist agents in places like Ballymurphy. Brexit threatens catastrophe .They even refuse an Irish Language Act. Instead of opening the door to national freedom, Britain and the DUP want to nail that door shut. America can make a difference, but only if the AOH and LAOH, as the voice of the Irish in America, lead the way. Our donations to carefully chosen charities through monies raised by the FFAI Annual Christmas Appeal, alongside our political and educational campaigns, are a cornerstone of our FFAI initiative.
This year our National Officers have begun new FFAI education and information programs about British injustices in the six counties. They are implementing many of your ideas to enhance the Appeal. Our National Officers are asking for a commitment from everyone to participate and support FFAI with a donation or fundraising event. Please donate and help the AOH and LAOH make the difference. Help make Freedom for all Ireland, not an aspiration or endeavor but the reality for those Irish people still denied it!
FFAI MONTHLY BULLETIN
The monthly FFAI Bulletin is now available on the New York State and National AOH web site by clicking Reports and FFAI. We want to give you monthly updates on key events in the north with short analysis and explanation.
REMEMBERING IRISH PATRIOTS WITH PRIDE
Ruan O’Donnell, of Limerick University gave the Hibernian Lecture at Notre Dame: “America and the Irish Revolution 1916-22”.Professor O’Donnell says that our work for FFAI is part of a long history and without America no part of Ireland would be free! You can see this great Hibernian Lecture by going to the National AOH web site and clicking on it.
Please contact me at MGALVINESQ@AOL.COM.
Slan
Martin Galvin
Posted by Jim on
by Jude Collins (judecollins.com)
Where do people get their ideas on contemporary matters? From their own
experience, from friends and from the media. The first two have clear
limitations. Space and time restrict the number of personal experiences
you can have, and how much you can learn from them. Likewise, you may be
popular but you can have only a limited number of friends from whom
you’ll pick up ideas or opinions.
Which leaves the media. There’s a change occurring, with newspapers,
radio and TV on the wane and social media on the rise, but it’s not
there yet. An op-ed in a major newspaper carries a lot more muscle than
the vast majority of bloggers or tweeters.
And that’s why I feel irritated by the Irish Times. A day or two ago
they had an editorial highlighting “Sinn Fein’s evasions”. The Shinners,
it seems, have had the gall to describe the British government as the
main protagonist in the years of conflict. The IT lambasts them for
this, quoting the casualty figures over the years: ” The IRA killed
1,696 people, the British army 299 and the RUC 56.”
Viewed in terms of people killed, clearly the IRA was the main
protagonist. But armed conflict doesn’t work exactly like that. If I
were to shoot dead two Muslims, and Muslims were to respond by killing
me and six of my friends, you could, using the IT criterion, position
Muslims as the main protagonist. But as the source of the killing, the
central cause, I could be classified as the main protagonist.
Likewise the British government. They bore ultimate responsibility for
letting the Stormont government gerrymander and discriminate at will for
fifty years. Bernadette Devlin’s maiden speech in the House of Commons
touched on this, reminding MPs that the state of the north was
“Britain’s shame”.
The British government also bears responsibility for sending in the
British army: tens of thousands of heavily-armed men, occupying
buildings, sports grounds and numerous barracks; building watch-towers
and establishing check-points, sallying forth to raid house, beat
suspects, sometimes kill them. In terms of the number of protagonists
and their sometimes brutal presence, the British army – answerable to
the British government – did what the British army has always done in
Ireland: it intimidated the natives.
So in its inaction before the armed conflict, allowing an Orange state
to act as it pleased for decades, and its sanction of repressive and
frequently lethal actions, the British government used the British army
to do what it could to cow the natives. When all disputes and diversions
have been explored, we come back to one core awkward fact: the British
government has, for the past hundred years, claimed jurisdiction over a
part of Ireland, and has used armed men to maintain that jurisdiction.
Call me an optimist, but I still think the Irish people should be
allowed to exercise control of their own country, not the next-door
neighbour. It’s because successive British governments have failed to
observe this basic democratic aspiration that our Troubles have been so
bloody. And to rub vinegar into the wound, we were forced to pay the
armed forces who travelled to Ireland and killed members of our
community, sometimes in broad daylight.
The British government was the main reason we’re in the present Brexit
mess. Similarly, the British government was and is the main reason we
have a divided country and a precarious peace.
Posted by Jim on
By Lily Murphy (for Counterpunch)
In the Ireland of 1922, a civil war tore through the land and in its
path it ripped apart families and friendships. It also created a deeper
wedge in an unstable society where the church grappled for top position
in an emerging new state.
The Irish Republican Army had fought a War of Independence against
British rule for over three years and led by the young enigmatic Michael
Collins, it managed to push the British government to the negotiating
table.
Hopes of achieving a free and united Irish republic were dashed when
negotiations resulted in six counties of the northern part of the island
staying with Britain and the remaining 26 counties of the south gaining
home rule under the guise of an Irish Free State.
It split the Irish republican movement in two halves between those who
favoured an Irish Free State and those who wanted to continue the fight
for an Irish Republic. What followed was the most unsavoury of wars; a
civil war.
It was a short lived campaign but a bitter and bloody one. It was a war
that saw brothers fighting against brothers and comrades who had fought
together during the War of Independence now on opposing sides.
The Irish Free State won the Civil War and as it came to an official end
in May 1923, republican prisoners remained incarcerated. To protest at
their continued imprisonment, IRA prisoners carried out a hunger strike.
The act of Irish republican prisoners going on hunger strike had been
used during the War of Independence and continued to be used during the
Civil War when twenty three members of the women’s wing of the IRA,
Cumann na mBan, who were imprisoned in Dublin’s Mountjoy jail, conducted
a hunger strike in February 1923. After 34 days the women were released,
including Nellie Ryan who was a sister-in-law of the Free State Minister
of Defence Richard Mulcahy.
Although hostilities had come to an end in Spring 1923, internment
without trial became a common aspect of Free State tactics against
republicans and this led to IRA prisoners taking to another hunger
strike in late 1923.
The Free State government used various tactics to break this hunger
strike, including supplying prisoners with forged orders from IRA
headquarters to call off the strike. The government also had the
overwhelming support of the Catholic church which was also used as a
tool to break the strike.
The Catholic hierarchy had a keen interest in the formation of the new
Irish Free state thus becoming a staunch supporter of its government.
The church established a strong opposition to the IRA and this can be
clearly seen in its attitude to the republican hunger strikers of 1923.
Large numbers of IRA prisoners went on hunger strike in the early Winter
of 1923, but it did not stir the government into action. Neither did the
church flinch, they saw the republican movement as subversives and
instead it solidified its full support for the Irish Free State with its
bourgeoisie interests and stern opposition to left wing politics.
The church had mildly supported the IRA during the War of Independence
but, during the Civil War it had changed its outlook.
From the start of the Civil War in 1922, IRA volunteers were instantly
condemned from the pulpit while some priests even refused family members
of hunger strikers to enter a church or even light a candle for their
loved one. Such tactics would increase as the year went on.
Without any release in sight for the many IRA prisoners still
incarcerated after the end of the war in 1923, 300 republicans prisoners
in Mountjoy jail started a hunger strike in October. The hunger strike
soon spread to other institutions of incarceration resulting in over
7,000 prisoners going on hunger strike across Ireland.
Days before the hunger strike began, the Catholic hierarchy released a
statement declaring their opposition to the IRA. The statement called on
excommunication for IRA members who partook in the war against the Free
State. This attitude of the church hardened as the IRA hunger strike
began.
The total tally of hunger strikers in Mountjoy was 462 while in Cork
jail they numbered at 70. The Curragh prison camp had the highest
proportion of hunger strikers with 3,390 while in the Newbridge camp
they totalled at 1,700. In Kilkenny jail there were 350 hunger strikers
while 711 prisoners went on strike in Gormanstown camp. In Dundalk jail
there were 200 hunger strikers and in Harepark camp there were 100.
Members of Cumann na mBan also joined the strike and had 50 of its
members on hunger strike in the North Dublin union.
Conditions in these places were appalling while the treatment handed out
to the hunger strikers was calculated to break the strike and most
importantly their morale. Medical attention was nil regarding the
prisoners while simple things such as clothing and bedding were denied
to many. Lice, fleas and rats infested the jails and conditions worsened
as the Winter wore on.
The hunger strike of 1923 lasted for 41 days and tragedy rather than
victory was to be the outcome.
Two IRA memembers from Cork died on hunger strike just days apart. The
first was Denis ‘Dinny’ Barry from Riverstick who died on November 20
while Andrew O’ Sullivan from Mallow died two days later and even though
death had occurred, the stance of both the government and church did not
soften towards the prisoners.
Denis Barry was a member of the first Cork brigade and had been
politically active in Sinn Fein. In 1917 he became election agent for
W.T Cosgrave in the Kilkenny by-election, one in which Cosgrave was
successfully elected but just six years later Barry would find himself
imprisoned by the government Cosgrave was in charge of.
In 1922 Barry was imprisoned in Newbridge camp in Kildare and took part
in the hunger strike of 1923. After 34 days protesting against the harsh
regime and undignified conditions, Barry died but even in death he was
still refused dignity.
The body of Denis Barry was not released to his family and was instead,
on the orders of Minister of Defence Richard Mulcahy, buried in the
grounds of Newbridge prison camp. The Barry family took legal action
against this and eventually achieved the body of their loved one but
their stress did not end there.
Upon returning back to Cork with the body of the dead hunger striker,
the Bishop of Cork Daniel Cohalan, instructed his priests not to allow
Barry’s funeral in any church. Ironically just a few short years before,
Bishop Cohalan had been a strong vocal supporter of Terrence McSwiney
the Sinn Fein lord mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike in Brixton
prison, but shortly after McSwiney’s death bishop Cohalan’s attitude
towards the IRA changed.
Not long after MacSwiney’s death, Bishop Cohalan issued a decree
condemning the IRA in which he stated that: ‘Anyone who shall within the
diocese of Cork organise or take part in an ambush or in kidnapping or
otherwise shall be guilty of murder or attempted murder and shall incur
by the very fact the censure of excommunication.’
Bishop Cohalan was the perfect example of Catholic hierarchy hostility
towards the Republican movement. It was a hostility based on the
interests of the church which wanted a strong grasp on an emerging new
country, one which would be conservative and Catholic both socially and
politically.
On December 10 1922 the bishop had preached publicly his support for the
Anglo Irish treaty which set up the Irish Free State and he urged his
flock to do the same. This led to an even greater wedge between the
Catholic church and many IRA members, yet it would be the incident with
Denis Barry that would seriously taint the Bishop of Cork and the
Catholic church in republican eyes.
Because of Bishop Cohalan’s stern objection to Barry’s body being let
into a Catholic church, the dead hunger striker had to lay in state in
the Cork Sinn Fein headquarters on the Grand Parade in Cork city. Barry
was then taken in a funeral procession to St.Finbarr’s cemetery where he
was buried in the Republican plot next to Terrence MacSwiney whose
funeral Bishop Cohalan presided over three years previously.
In place of a priest was David Kent, Sinn Fein TD for Cork and brother
of Thomas Kent who was executed for his part in the 1916 Rising. Kent
gave an oration, recited the rosary and sprinkled holy water on the
grave.
On November 28th 1923, the day Barry was buried, Cohalan sent an open
letter to the Cork Examiner newspaper publicly denying a Christian
burial for Denis Barry and urging all men of the cloth to stay away from
any such attempts for a funeral for the dead hunger striker. Bishop
Cohalan went so far as to write to the Bishop of Kildare Dr. Patrick
Foley to enquire about Barry getting the last sacraments. Denis Barry
did indeed receive the last rites from a Fr Doyle who was serving as
prison chaplain and this did not impress the Bishop of Cork.
Two days after Barry’s death another IRA prisoner from Cork died. Andrew
O’ Sullivan died on November 22nd and the strike was called off the day
after.
The attitude of the Catholic church towards the IRA and those imprisoned
and on hunger strike during the Civil War sums up the position the
church took in the aftermath of the conflict.
Once the Free State was established the Church saw an opportunity to
position itself in a seat of power. Although many priests and some
bishops continued to sympathise with the Republican movement post War of
Independence, the majority followed the middle class patterns the
provisional government were knitting out.
When the hunger strike came to an end, only women prisoners were
released. The men remained in prison until the following year which
would see some of them granted their freedom in drips and drabs. By then
the Irish Free State was fully set up through a bedrock of conservative
Catholicism.
The church hierarchy decided to support those who represented the haves
rather than the have nots and the total disregard for anyone who opposed
them can be summed up in incidents such as Bishop Cohalan’s opposition
to a Christian burial for Denis Barry in Cork.
