Posted by Jim on August 26, 2017
A self-confessed IRA informer has been found dead in a swimming pool in
Jamaica.
Sean O’Callaghan, who became a darling of the mainstream media for his
far-fetched accounts of IRA activity and anti-republican political
commentary, was aged 63. His cause of death remains unknown, although
his family have said they believe he drowned after getting into
difficulty while swimming.
O’Callaghan, from County Kerry, joined the Provisional IRA in the
mid-1970s. By 1976, aged 21, he ended his involvement with the
Provisional IRA and moved to London. But by the end of the decade, he
had returned as an informer and started spying for the Irish Garda
police.
In 1985, O’Callaghan murdered another informer in Kerry, John Corcoran,
which he subsequently admitted but later denied. It is thought he used
Corcoran as a scapegoat in order to protect himself and ward off
suspicions that he was the informer.
Apparently haunted by his actions, in 1988 O’Callaghan walked into a
police station in England and confessed to IRA involvement. He was
jailed for life, but was freed by a royal pardon in 1996.
In recent years, he invented increasingly absurd tales of his IRA
involvement for attention and cash. Among these was the claim he
thwarted a plot to assassinate the Prince of Wales and Princess Diana in
the 1980s.
His wilder inventions and commentary on the IRA were given front-page
prominence. More recently, he featured in the British tabloids as a
critic of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow Chancellor John
McDonnell.
All this time, he battled depression and alcoholism. In an interview two
years ago O’Callaghan spoke of the threat he lived under. “I’m sure the
Provos and dissident republicans would shoot me in an instant if they
got the chance, so I keep looking in front of me as well as behind me,”
he said. “That’s just how it is.”
Right-wing extremist Ruth Dudley-Edwards, a friend of Callaghan’s,
explained how he dodged the IRA death sentence for being an informer.
“He always moved around. He had no fixed address or credit card. He left
no trail,” she said.
“He received warnings from the police that he was under threat. After a
certain period, he likely ceased to be a target for the Provos but the
dissidents wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him.”
Former IRA prisoner and writer Anthony McIntyre rejected Callaghan’s
depiction of himself and described him as a “calculating, self-serving
and manipulative man.”
“I don’t buy the line that he had some sort of ‘Road to Damascus’
conversion and was turned because of the horrors of the past. Most
people work for the security services for money or to save their own
skin,” he said.
Posted by Jim on
Five Catholic and mixed families have been forced out of their homes in
Derry amid a pogrom by loyalist paramilitaries in the predominately
Protestant Waterside area of the city.
In one incident, shots were fired into the home of a young Catholic
mother on Saturday night. Her one-year-old daughter was asleep upstairs
when two shots were fired through the living room window.
The woman’s boyfriend, who is also Catholic, said the bullets narrowly
missed him and a friend as they sat watching television. He said his
girlfriend had been “warned” warned about bringing Catholics into the
area after moving there six months ago.
One neighbour said that the gunmen could have easily killed the baby
girl.
“The people who did this fired two shots in the window and could have
killed this child as she lay sleeping,” she said. “It would be very
traumatic for that mother and that baby to have come through this and
some of the neighbours are completely traumatised by this attack.”
Sinn Fein councillor Christopher Jackson said there had beren a clear
attempt to kill.
“I want to get the message out that the vast majority of people in the
Waterside are disgusted by this and there’s a lot of good work going on
to bring the communities together,” he said. “But we need people to step
up to the mark so that these thugs have no hiding place.”
He has already helped to rehouse four Catholic and mixed religion
families since August 11, when a Catholic man and his Protestant wife
and children fled their home after they were given 24 hours to leave.
A further attack took place on Monday, when a pipe bomb was thrown at
the home of a Catholic man living in the Clooney estate. The elderly
man, Andy Logue (62), has been forced to take temporary shelter in a
community centre.
The victim, who is originally from County Donegal, said he reported a
broken window but was then told he had been the target of a failed bomb
attack. He believed those behind the attack intended throwing the device
into his home but it dropped short.
He said: “I was in having a cup of tea with my neighbours and the next
thing the police said you better get up against that wall there because
we found a device. And we’re up here (Lincoln Courts community centre)
since.”
The Irish Republican Socialist Party in Derry City said such attacks
were “nothing new” to the Waterside. Derry City IRSP spokesperson
Danny Morrison said: “These attacks are carried out by mainstream
loyalist elements in either the UDA and UVF, they have become
predictable and normal practice.
“Gun and bomb attacks carried out with impunity, under the cover of
darkness, terrorising families and pushing a sectarian, right-wing and
racist agenda.”
“Going back to 2014, and long before that, there was racist pipe bomb
attacks on Romanian families, racist graffiti, sectarian gun and pipe
bomb attacks all done to ethnically cleanse PUL [loyalist] areas.
Mr Morrison concluded: “The IRSP are calling on those responsible for
these sectarian and racist attacks to immediately cease their
activities before someone gets killed.”
Posted by Jim on August 25, 2017
RADIO FREE EIREANN will broadcast this Saturday August 26th on WBAI 99.5 FM radio or wbai.org at 12noon New York time or 5 pm-6pm Irish time or listen any time after the broadcast on wbai.org/archives.
Award winning Belfast journalist, will discuss the life and death of Informer Sean O’Callaghan,a one time IRA Volunteer now reviled by many Republicans as a traitor, and lamented by British state supporters.
With the fate of statues of controversial historical figures being a hot topic, author Dermot McAvoy will take an iconic look how the Irish have dealt with the issue.
John McDonagh and Martin Galvin co- host.
Radio Free Eireann is heard Saturdays at 12 Noon-1pm New York time on WBAI 99,5 FM and wbai.org
It can be heard at wbai.org in Ireland from 5pm to 6pm or anytime after the program concludes on WBAI.ORG/ARCHIVES
Posted by Jim on
Date: Friday, September 8th, 7pm-12am
Where: Terrace on the Park – 52-11 111th Street, Flushing
Cost: $200 per person
Performing: Shilelagh Law and The Sporting Paddies
Make Checks Payable: FDNY Pipes and Drums
Mail Checks to: FDNY Pipes and Drums, c/o Dan Saalfrank, 145 Park Place Apt. 2B, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Credit Card Sales: www.fdnypipesanddrums.net/55thAds.html
Question: 347-622-3761
Posted by Jim on August 24, 2017
All U.S. senators have been alerted by the Irish National Caucus about a threat to the MacBride Principles contained in the Financial Choice Act
By Irish Echo Staff. New York City. August 24, 2017
The MacBride Principles are under threat from a section of an act that has been approved by the House of Representatives and is now before the U.S. Senate.
And Irish Americans are deeply concerned with the section in the Financial Choice Act that would, in effect, “most shamefully sabotage shareholder proposals by over 99% of the American people.”
This contention is being made by Fr. Sean McManus, founder and president of the Irish National Caucus, the lead advocacy group for the fair employment guidelines for Northern Ireland.
In a letter to all the one hundred U.S. senators, the INC states: “That section of the act would destroy the SEC Shareholder Proposal – Rule (14a-8) replacing it with a requirement of 1% ownership of the company over a three-year period (instead 1% or $2000 for one year) in order to be able to submit a proposal.”
The letter states: “So, for example, this would mean that to submit a shareholder proposal to Apple, one would have to own $7.5 billion in shares —and to submit a shareholder proposal to Wells Fargo, one would have to own $2.5 billion in shares —whereas at present one only needs to have owned $2,000 worth of shares for one year.”
Fr. McManus, who crafted the letter, said by way of elaboration: “This would amount to a flagrant attack on America’s founding principle, ‘We the people.’
“It would outrageously eliminate millions of citizens and the average American from having a say on the conduct of publicly held companies.
“The ordinary citizen, investor, consumer, and stakeholder are dismissed, leaving only the super-rich with any say. What American can possibly condone this? And what member of the U.S. Senate would vote for it— to take away the voice of the ordinary citizen, franchising only the mega rich? It is undemocratic, un-American, and would further lend credence to the all too common charge that the U.S. Congress is controlled by the 1% mega rich.”
With regard to specific implications for the MacBride Principles – which are enshrined in federal law – Fr. McManus continued: “From a specifically Irish-American perspective, 116 companies have agreed to implement the MacBride Principles. The principles have been signed into law by 18 states and numerous cities and towns.
“And the principles were twice passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by Democratic President Clinton in 1998.
“Therefore, this terrible initiative is not only an attack on basic American values, but it will be seen as an attempt to sabotage the MacBride Principles, which have played a key role in promoting equality and non-discrimination in employment in Northern Ireland, thereby making a vital contribution to the Irish peace process.”
The Fermanagh-born McManus stated in his letter that he was “totally confident in saying that the Irish National Caucus is reflecting the opinion of the majority of concerned Irish Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – when I respectfully ask you take a strong stand against this un-American attempt to silence the voices of ordinary American citizens.”