Brian Murphy is confronted by Canadian ambassador Kevin Vickers at Grangegorman cemetery
Connla Young
A REPUBLICAN protester has described how he was tackled by the diplomat who shot dead a Canadian parliament gunman during a ceremony remembering British soldiers killed in the Easter Rising.
Dubliner Brian Murphy was wrestled by Canadian ambassador Kevin Vickers on Thursday as he disrupted the commemoration at Grangegorman Military Cemetery in the city.
The event was also attended by British ambassador Dominick Chilcott and Irish foreign affairs minister Charlie Flanagan as well as members of the British and Irish armed forces.
Mr Vickers made worldwide headlines when he killed Michael Zehaf-Bibeau during a shoot-out in the Canadian parliament, where he was sergeant at arms, in 2014.
The dead man had earlier stormed the building with a rifle.
Mr Vickers, who has family connections with Ireland, was later appointed as Canadian ambassador to Ireland.
Mr Murphy, who is a member of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association, said he rose to his feet during the commemoration and described it as an “insult”, making reference to the case of the ‘Craigavon Two’.
Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton are both serving lengthy sentences after being convicted of the Continuity IRA sniper attack that claimed the life of PSNI man Stephen Carroll in Craigavon in March 2009.
Both men have denied any part in the attack.
Mr Murphy’s grandfather Charles Murphy took part in the Easter Rising and served as a Sinn Féin TD in the second Dail before becoming party president in the 1930s.
His great-grandfather, a British soldier who served during the Boer War, is buried in Grangegorman graveyard.
Speaking to the Irish News, the 46-year-old community worker said he staged the one-man protest to highlight the Justice for the Craigavon Two campaign and concerns over the Irish government’s handling of Easter Rising commemorations.
He described Thursday’s event and the recent inclusion of British soldiers’ names on a 1916 memorial in Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin as “reprehensible”.
Mr Murphy said he was invited to the event after submitting an application to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
He said that while he expected to be challenged by officials, the reaction of Mr Vickers came out of the blue.
“I took my seat and then I stood up and started to say a few words and yer man came thundering at me,” he said.
The Crumlin man said “it is important people are aware and at least read the facts” about the Craigavon case.
“It is thanks to the Canadian ambassador I got coverage.”
The Justice for the Craigavon Two campaign described his actions as “an act of solidarity”.
Mr Murphy said he was charged with a public order offence before being released from custody.
Brooklyn’s own St. Saviour’s High School has just won the CHSAA City Championship by beating Bronx/Westchester Champs Aquinas 17-0. Grace Sullivan pitched a 2 hitter and had 4 hits and 4 RBIs. The pitching and hitting star will be attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she will be studying Bio-Med Engineering. She was also the Colleen Queen last September at the Great Irish Fair of New York. Congrats Grace and all of your team mates on winning the Championship. Next year her sister Mary will be leading St. Saviour to a repeat of this years Championship.
Kings County Board of the Ancient Order of Hibernians
Brian Feeney.Irish News (Belfast). Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Suppose, as Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness confidently predict, everything goes to plan today and ministers are chosen and an executive meets tomorrow, how will the new format with an opposition work?
You’ve heard supporters of the plan lining up to rejoice that, ‘it normalises politics’ here. At first that was only unionists who yearn for something like Westminster. That’s why Nesbitt was out of the traps immediately asking for the seating arrangements to be changed to look like a mini-Westminster.
For unionists, ‘normal politics’ is Westminster with its famous adversarial, confrontational House of Commons. Is that a good model for here?
For some reason, despite the structures for the north pointedly arranged to suit its unique politico-ethnic problem, confirmed again by the election results, it seems impossible to convince the protagonists for opposition that the British political system is not the only ‘normal’. Secondly, what’s normal in Britain can’t apply here.
There’s no opposition in Switzerland but Switzerland seems to work quite well. There’s opposition in Belgium but it’s carefully arranged within the two compulsory language groups in parliament which have equal powers. Unlike Britain virtually every other assembly sits in a hemicycle.
It might be worth contemplating that in Belgium the opposition for all practical purposes is a permanent opposition. That will be the case here. In Britain, which our ‘normalisers’ aspire to imitate, the opposition hopes one day to be the government. Here there’s no hope.
Can anyone identify which 17 Sinn Féin seats the SDLP expects to win? Can anyone identify which 22 DUP seats the UUP expects to win? Of course not. Sinn Féin has more seats than the UUP and SDLP together. The DUP has a third more again.
Churchill, who knew a thing or two about opposition, said being shot would be ‘a kindness’ compared to being in opposition and he had hopes of being in government. Neil Kinnock said opposition was ‘purgatory’ and he hoped to be prime minister one day. It’s generally accepted that in the British system the leader of the opposition is the worst job in politics.
At least here you can see some reasons why Nesbitt might go for it. It gives him the opportunity for grandstanding. He can also take the chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) if he wants. He can try to fence off the DUP into the same box as Sinn Féin so the UUP isn’t tainted with sharing power with republicans. Don’t assume for a minute Nesbitt opted for opposition to join with the SDLP in a cross-community arrangement.
Now can you see any reason for the SDLP to forgo a ministerial position? While Nesbitt is leader of the opposition and probably chair of the PAC, Eastwood is…ahm…what? If he turned down a role as minister because the DUP and Sinn Féin were bad to the SDLP – aw diddums – how much time do you think Nesbitt will make available to the SDLP? Maybe Eastwood will chair a committee? Otherwise there he is in a powerless assembly which meets maybe three days a week.
Churchill also advised that an opposition should be a lighthouse rather than a shop window. What he meant was you should try to point a direction or warn of hazards if anyone was listening but if you thought up good plans or policies and displayed them, the government would steal all your best stuff. Sinn Féin and the DUP would be delighted to help themselves to anything attractive in the opposition’s shop window because they’re in a position to implement good ideas unlike people who opted out of power, however minimal it might be.
Acting like a lighthouse on the other hand is difficult. You have to devise ways to attract attention. Create stunts. Beat your chest. Does Eastwood have the personality and brains to outshine Jim Allister or Eamonn McCann? Not on the existing evidence.
So far he hasn’t been able to present coherent plans for what he’ll do in opposition. Will he agree a common policy? Of course not. What will he do when matters like flags, emblems, parades, the past come up? Oppose the leader of the opposition?
That piece of cloth is sacred
Hold it gently in your hand
It’s a symbol of our struggle
Of a gallant, noble stand
It was worn on the hillsides
And the rocky glens below
In every street and alley
And bushy green hedge row
It was placed on many a coffin
Of some poor old mother’s son
Or a father’s only daughter
Who fell at home or on the run
It is frayed and it is singed
And it smells of sour cordite
It is shredded at the sides
For it saw action in the fight
Let no coward’s eye behold it
Let no traitor know it’s there
Keep it hidden in the shadows
Where none can stand and stare
Show it only in the twilight
At the setting of the sun
And only to those brave young hearts
Who know what must be done
It is proud and still defiant
Unreconstructed
Full of rage
Just biding time in peace…for now
At the edges of the stage
Clutch it never to your bosom
Let no tear upon it fall
It is not a cloth of sorrow
Nor defeat
No, not at all
It will rise again in freedom
Then we’ll put it on display
That old symbol of our struggle
The Volunteer’s Beret.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, chairperson of Sinn Féin National 1916 Commemoration Committee has welcomed news that at long last the order giving effect to March’s High Court’s judgement in relation to Moore Street is effective from yesterday.
Speaking today Deputy Ó Snodaigh said;
“The onus is now on the State, aided by campaigners and hopefully Dublin City Council, to work towards the full preservation of the1916 battlefield site.
“The State now needs to look at how the full potential of this most important site, described by An Taoiseach as the ‘lanes of history’, is achieved for the Irish Nation.
“While mindful that the Minister for Arts Heather Humphries could still appeal the order up to June 16th, I am asking that common sense and an appreciation of our heritage prevails and that she embraces the preservation of Moore Street and its lanes and does not appeal the judgement.
“Instead she should work towards protecting this National Monument and a restoration project as a lasting legacy in which future generations can appreciate the events of 1916.
“The continuing uncertainty concerning its future is deeply insulting to the memory of the men and women of 1916 and their descendants on this the centenary of The Rising.”
