Posted by Jim on July 31, 2016
A recently released document marked ‘restricted’ has provided a new
perspective on the British government’s collusion with loyalist
paramilitaries in the north of Ireland.
The document consists of testimony given by Ian Hurst, an operative of
the British Army’s covert military intelligence squad known as the Force
Research Unit (FRU), who went by the cover name Martin Ingram.
It has long been known that the FRU colluded with the loyalist
paramilitaries and infiltrated republican groups to murder nationalist
activists as part of a covert British military strategy.
Hurst’s testimony, which was given in closed session before the official
Bloody Sunday Inquiry, shows that the deadly covert infrastructure run
by the British through the FRU continued to exist long after it was
supposed to have ended, and may never have truly shut down.
Hurst explains that the British Army had pretended to disband the FRU
due to negative publicity and mounting questions about its role in the
conflict, only to continue running the same types of covert operations
under a new name.
He said: “The FRU was disbanded in name only – primarily because of the
bad press that was received via [loyalist double-agent] Brian Nelson but
the following day was reformed under a different name but exactly the
same structure and take it from me the unit that is in operation within
Ebrington Barracks with responsibility for agent handling still has
custody of those documents and they are absolutely priceless.”
In his secret testimony, Hurst also provided details on the extent of
British military intelligence’s penetration of the IRA and Irish police.
According to Hurst’s restricted testimony, over a quarter of Provisional
IRA members were British government agents, and MI5 also had a wide
network of agents within the 26 County Gardai police.
A month ago, families of 200 people murdered in the conflict accused the
British government of continuing to censor files that could throw light
on the circumstances of their deaths. Their efforts have so far been
refused under the new British Prime Minister Theresa May.
This week, her new governor in Ireland, James Brokenshire, met some
families of victims of British state killings. Among those he met was
Tony Brown, whose nephew, Paul Whitters, was 15 years old when he was
shot in the head with a plastic bullet.
Brokenshire said: “Do I want to see people brought to justice as a
consequence of information – I absolutely do” but added his his approach
was about “getting this right in ensuring national security”.
Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness called for the new
Tory regime to permit long-sought legacy inquests to go ahead.
“James Brokenshire has said it is important to instil confidence in all
victims,” he said. “He can do that by changing the policy of his
predecessor and putting the needs of grieving families ahead of bogus
national security concerns by immediately approving the Lord Chief
Justice’s request for funding to enable him to fast-track some 56
inquests involving up to 100 deaths.”
Posted by Jim on
The Great O’Neill — Dead 400 Years in 2016
Posted by Brian O’Doherty on July 22, 2016 at 4:30pm
Last week, in his sleep, in his small palace in Rome, 400 years ago, one of the greatest figures in Irish history passed away, Hugh O’Neill. . With him in his final moments may have been his teenage son, John, whom he had nominated to succeed him as Earl of Tyrone and as The O’Neil. Also there may have been his nephew, who was to become increasingly the de facto leader of the exiled Irish Gaelic Lords in Europe, Owen Roe O’Neill. Undoubtedly senior figures in the Spanish administration and in the Vatican would have attended him in his final days or paid their respects at his funeral, as well as senior Irish clergy living in Rome. The scene at his bedside on his last evening may have been similar to that captured in a painting by an unknown Italian or East European artist, painted a century later, “Farewell at the deathbed.” (left)
O’Neill, O’Donnell and other Gaelic nobility left ireland in the Irish history-transforming event known as the Flight of the Earls, from Rathmullan, Co. Donegal, September 1607. Following the Nine Years War against English rule in Ireland, the last battle of which was the Battle of Kinsale, O’Neill marched his army back to Ulster, in the middle of winter, to continue the fight, before his eventual surrender two years later, in 1603. He had lost 1500-2000 men at Kinsale, but the English had lost over 7000 men, half their exhausted army, which had been the largest army ever assembled by Elizabeth !. O’Donnell had gone to Spain to collect more Spanish support and O’Neill must have felt confident that he could fight on successfully. But, after their Kinsale disaster, the English changed their tactics. They resolved “never to meet this man on the battlefield again”. Instead, they deployed the tactic which Lord Chichester said was “being used with success in the New World”, that is, an attack on the civilian population.
The genocide which ensued in Ulster for about a year, led by Lords Mountjoy and Chichester, which I do not remember ever reading in Irish school history books, is described by English historians as the darkest, most atrocious event in English history. Soldiers would raid small villages, when O’Neills army was elsewhere, and slaughter every man, woman, child. By sword, and later by starvations, by destruction of crops. The landscape was littered with human bones, or starving children, their mouths green from eating grass. Some were even taught by fathers and mothers to cannibalise their parents bodies when they died. A very high percentage of the population of Ulster died, especially East Ulster, and most others fled, to Donegal, to the south, even some lucky ones making it as emigrants to London, France, Netherlands and further, in what became the first years of seemingly unending Irish emigration.
These events are probably what (good !) Queen Elizabeth II was referring to when, on her visit to Ireland a few years ago, she “apologised”, saying (I paraphrase) that “there were certain things we did during our rule in Ireland that we would do differently now or even not at all” (Actually it was not only Ulster…There was a similar attack on the civilian population of Munster about twenty years earlier, followed by an attempt to populate the vacated land with English planters.)
This of course brought down O’Neill. He was unable to defend his people or support the junior clan leaders of Ulster. He surrendered, and was later intimidated out of his Earldom by legal, economic and political means, salted with a continuing threat of arrest and execution, so that he decided to move to Catholic Europe and try to rebuild support from there in 1607. But English diplomatic tactics preceded him and he found himself somewhat unwelcomed by the Spanish and their administration in Brussels He was basically shunted on to Rome, where the Pope felt obliged to show him some honours, give him an elevated position in the community in Rome, and awarded him and his family a small (but frugally furnished) palace in which to live out his life. Rome (right) was a place of elegant architecture in those days, though “stinking hot” in summer.
I don’t know if the men of 1916 and their successors in “Free Ireland” of the last 100 years are bothered to read and show respect for the heroics of the Gaelic Order in early modern history of our land. We honour the other side, in Mountjoy Square, and elsewhere. Where is Great O’Neill Avenue? Is there a large monument to him in the Phoenix Park? I think there’s an O’Donnell Avenue in Buenos Aires, or is it Madrid..and a famous O’Reilly Calle in Havana, and O’Higgins pops up in many South American countries. And others. What wrong with us, that we are afraid to give due honour and proper commemoration to real heroes of the past? I suppose history only began in 1916.
Great Hugh O’Neill, we remember you on your 400th anniversary, July 20, 1616, and we Salute You!
For more of my perspective on the Irish experience, visit www.BrianODoherty.ie
Posted by Jim on July 29, 2016
1916 Societies NY Chapter
Meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, August 9th at 7:00 pm
@ O’Lunneys. Times Square 145 W 45th St, New York, NY 10036
All persons looking to know more about the Societies One Ireland One Vote
Proposal should come to meeting and listen to what Society is doing for a United Ireland. You may join if you are so inclined
Posted by Jim on July 28, 2016
Increased interest offers a chance to reflect on Ireland’s expansive citizenship
Christopher Kissane, David Kenny
We live in unpredictable times, but Irish people could be forgiven for thinking recent reports that Ian Paisley jnr was encouraging his constituents to apply for Irish citizenship were a joke. Yet, like many savvy British politicians, Paisley was simply adapting quickly to the uncertainty and upheaval of Brexit. The impending demise of Britons’ rights to travel, live, and work across the EU has sent people across the United Kingdom rummaging through their attics for evidence of entitlement to an EU passport.
The huge Irish diaspora in the UK means Ireland is the biggest focus of these efforts: anyone with a grandparent born in Ireland is entitled to claim Irish citizenship, and the numbers entitled to that status in Britain may exceed the entire population of Ireland. While millions of applications are unlikely, the Irish Embassy in London and the Passport Office have already been deluged, leading the Minister for Foreign Affairs to appeal for calm, the hiring of hundreds of staff, and scarce application forms being sold on eBay.
Beyond finding logistical ways to deal with the surge of interest, it is also important for us to ask what implications the situation has for our views of Irish citizenship and nationhood. Some may bristle that the intention of including those of Irish descent in our citizenship was to accept the scattered and partitioned nature of our nation, not to offer a badge of convenience for self-identifying Britons whose EU rights have been forfeited by British voters. Many will be even more uncomfortable with hardline unionists in Ulster taking up Irish citizenship despite longstanding hostility towards the State.
Such concerns misunderstand the expansive nature and history of Irish nationhood. Citizenship is at the heart of our independence, a foundational idea for the 1916 Proclamation, the 1922 Free State Constitution and our current Constitution. Irish citizenship was a radical idea for a British empire that did not possess such a republican concept and, even after independence, its status was disputed. For many years, the UK continued to insist Irish “citizens” were actually “British subjects”, and lobbied for Irish passports to be rejected so Irish people would have to travel on British passports. In 1939, Britain opposed references to king and commonwealth being removed from a new Irish passport design. The status “citizen of Ireland”, and the document which bears it, are symbols of our freedom and nationhood
Cultural heritage
The Constitution has a broad notion of that nation, including in its membership those born in Northern Ireland, and cherishing a close and special link with those of Irish ancestry living abroad who share our “cultural identity and heritage”. Our inclusive citizenship helps us reach across the Border and overseas to embrace those who wish to feel part of our nation even though they do not dwell in the State. It seeks to foster a sense of community and belonging between all members of the Irish “family”, wherever they may be. This openness is vitally important to a state plagued by emigration and division, often as much the homeland of a scattered and partitioned nation as the citizens’ republic of our grandparents’ dreams.
At home, too, there have been imperfections and inequalities. Until 1986m our citizenship laws were heavily gendered, reflecting the deeply patriarchal nature of our state and society.
A surge in those wanting to “become Irish” (as one soon-to-be-Irish New York Times journalist put it recently) presents an opportunity to move beyond past imperfections towards the broad citizenship we have always promised.
Many of those seeking a Brexit passport share a major part of contemporary Irish identity: they wish to be European citizens. Ireland has sewn the EU into its fabric, and its future lies in Europe. We should be happy to welcome those who, as well as sharing part of this country’s past, aspire to be a part of that shared future.
We must also rediscover that citizenship is a combination of what the Free State Constitution called “privileges” and “obligations”. This is true both for individual citizens – who have a duty to actively contribute to their nation – and for the State, which has clear post-Brexit responsibilities to citizens outside the State. The constitutional status of Northern Ireland is being changed against the democratic wishes of its people, and we must lead European opposition to a “hard” border being reimposed on this island.
We must also finally find a way to give voice to citizens who have previously lived in the State but now live abroad. Votes in presidential elections would be an important “first step”, but some degree of Oireachtas representation is vital. Our European partners offer many viable models to follow, from Poland’s postal voting to France and Italy’s overseas constituencies. Citizenship cannot be a dead letter.
The awakening of “hibernating” citizenship among those with Irish grandparents must also spur action on the rights of EU nationals living in Ireland. Despite being our fellow citizens in the broader European project, their political rights remain limited, while the too-often limited rights of other immigrants living and working in the State also require attention. Despite growth, our population still lags other small European states, and immigration is key to our future: we already have one of the highest rates of naturalisation in the world. We need a broad conversation of what we want Irish nationhood to be, alongside, not in opposition to, ancestral claims of citizenship.
Brexit brings great risks for Ireland, as our nearest neighbour seemingly turns away from openness and the wider world, but it can be an opportunity for us to embrace an expansive, inclusive Irish citizenship. As we reach a century of independence, it is time to discuss what membership in our nation is to mean.
Dr Christopher Kissane is a historian of citizenship at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr David Kenny is assistant professor of constitutional law at Trinity College Dublin
Posted by Jim on
Sean Bres