Posted by Jim on October 8, 2015
by Frances Mulraney (Irish Central)
Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny this week revealed his concerns that the J-1 visa could be drastically affected if US authorities decide to tighten the rules surrounding the work and travel exchange program, with a potental reduction in the number of Irish students taking of up to 60% – 80%.
When questioned by TD Denis Naughten in the Dáil (Irish parliament) on Monday, Kenny declared that “issues have arisen” that could change the way in which the program currently works.
The J-1 Summer Work Travel Program has long been a rite of passage for Irish college students who travel to the US during the summer months to work, mainly, in the retail and hospitality industries.
Of the 300,000 worldwide participants on the program in 2014, 8,000 were Irish students and more than 150,000 have traveled from Ireland over the past 50 years.
Students are not currently required to have a guaranteed job before traveling to the US, but this could change in the future, drastically affecting the manner in which the program works and creating further difficulties for Irish students wishing to travel to America to work for the summer.
“Because of a series of issues that have arisen, the authorities that issue J-1 visas seem to be bent on introducing a requirement for pre-employment for young people before they go,” Kenny said, something he feels would lead to “an abrupt ending to the J-1 system as we know it.”
It is unclear what “series of issues” Kenny was referring to, but it is believed to be a reference to a number of high-profile cases in which Irish students are said to have damaged property while staying in the US.
Irish students participating in the program have been the subject of a number of negative stories in the American media in recent years. One such story was the New York Times article following the Berkeley balcony collapse tragedy that suggested Irish students had become an embarrassment to their country while in the US, for which the newspaper later apologized.
The Taoiseach believes that a move by American authorities to require students to have an offer of employment before leaving Ireland could result in a 60%-80% drop in the number of Irish students traveling on the J-1. This would serve to encourage those wishing to work in America for the summer to do so illegally on a three-month holiday visa.
Posted by Jim on October 6, 2015
British and Irish Governments need to live up to Responsibilities -Murphy
Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy has said the British and Irish governments need to live up to their responsibilities during the current negotiations at Stormont.
Mr Murphy said; “The British government need to accept they have created the current political difficulties with their austerity cuts agenda.
“They cannot evade that responsibility and present themselves as some sort of honest broker between the parties. They are clearly a player in this process.
“The Irish government too has a role to play as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement.
“It is now time for both governments to step and work to ensure that the Executive has a workable and sustainable budget.
“The reality is that Tory austerity remains the biggest threat to the political institutions and we need a united voice from all political parties and wider civic society challenging that agenda.”
Posted by Jim on October 3, 2015
The sister of a Catholic woman murdered by the Glennane Gang has spoken
out in search of justice for Peggy Hale, 40 years after her death.
The mother of five was just 32 when she died 18 days after two gunmen
stormed the pub in which she was sitting with family near Loughgall –
before throwing a bomb through the door on September 4, 1975.
Peggy was just 32 when she died as a result of injuries from a loyalist
attack against a Loughgall bar. Left with serious internal injuries,
Peggy never returned to consciousness before passing away on September
22.
She was visiting from her home in England, where she moved with her
Protestant husband Walter in 1964.
Describing the events of that fateful night, Kathy said: “The door was
kicked open and two gunmen came in. They finally finished shooting, but
then one came back and threw a green duffle bag in… [and] the bomb
went off.
“There was 12 taken to hospital that night… and seemly whenever they
were in Craigavon Hospital, Craigavon is supposed to have had a call to
find out ‘how many Fenians did we get?’
“When we realised that this was the Glennane Gang, nothing was
off-limits.”
The gang, the deadliest in the conflict, united members of the British
Army, RUC police, and loyalist paramilitaries in a long series of
sectarian and political killings.
To this day no-one has ever been held to account for the murder of Peggy
Hale – although the family is hopeful of answers.
“We were told a short time afterwards that it was this Glennane Gang
that murdered her,” her sister Kathy told this paper, “but we were
afraid to talk about it.
“The thing that sickened us more was that these were people that were
paid, that wore uniforms, to protect us.
“My father was a Scotsman and he was in British Army,” Kathy added, “but
the way we were brought up everybody was the same and religion was never
talked about at home.
“It’s the collusion part that I am so angry about. Whenever we got the
HET report there was no evidence – the people you thought protected
everyone had blood on their hands.
“Your only crime is that you’re Catholic.”
Posted by Jim on
Brian Friel, who has died aged 86, was the best-known Irish playwright
of his generation. Translations, about the low-level repression of Irish
culture in the 19th century, remains his most celebrated, while Dancing
at Lughnasa was his most successful, winning three Tony Awards in 1992.
Friel was also an accomplished short-story writer and in 1980 was a
founder of Field Day Theatre Company.
Born in County Tyrone, in January 1929, ten years later he moved with
his family to Derry. Trained as a teacher at St Joseph’s College,
Belfast, he began teaching in 1950.
In all Friel wrote 24 published plays, many dealing with the erratic
workings of memory, and with the family, using Ballybeg, the archetypal
small town, as a backdrop.
Three of his most critically acclaimed plays were premiered over a
period of 18 months, beginning in 1979.
Aristocrats chronicles the disintegration of a once wealthy Irish
family. Faith Healer, from 1979, emphasises the uncertainty of personal
history.
Translations, which followed in 1980, is about the mapping of Ireland by
the British Ordnance Survey in the 1830s. Focusing on the translation of
Irish place names into English, thereby providing a dramatic metaphor
for imperialism, it fuelled debates about the identity confusion and
historical revisionism that remains a feature of Irish culture. Praising
its depiction of colonialism, the critic James Fenton welcomed it as a
“vigorous example of corrective propaganda”.
Friel insisted he had not written a play only about the Irish people
being suppressed by English soldiers. “The play has to do with language
and only language. And if it becomes overwhelmed by that political
element, it is lost.”
A former member of the now-defunct Nationalist Party in Northern
Ireland, Friel maintained a nationalist outlook throughout his life. “I
do think that the problem will always be exacerbated as long as England
is in the country,” he said in 1991. “But if England were to go tomorrow
morning, that wouldn’t solve it. We still have got to find a modus
vivendi for ourselves within the country.”
Aosdána, an Irish association of artists, said Friel probed the great
national, political and cultural dilemmas of our time with “intense
passion” and tenderness.
“His colleagues in Aosdána recognised his stature as a giant of Irish
literature by electing him to be a Saoi in 2006, an honour limited to
only seven artists in the country,” it said.
“His legacy to the Irish people is immense,” said the President, adding
that Friel would be remembered as a great Irishman.
“His is a body of work that will endure. He was familiar to generations
of Irish people and others across the globe,” said President Higgins.
“After Brian Friel’s work, no one could offer amnesia as an alternative
to history. In great works like Translations with Field Day [theatre
company] and The Great O’Neill [in Making History] he addressed the
major contradictions in Irish identity and history.”
Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams said much of Friel’s work “dealt with societal
change in Ireland, culture, language and Irish identity.
“A humble man, he was also a national treasure and a truly unique
individual. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.”
Posted by Jim on
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has warned there are elements within the
PSNI police in the North who are working against his party after it was
confirmed he will not be prosecuted in connection with the IRA execution
of an alleged informer 43 years ago.
Mr Adams, Sinn Fein’s northern chairman, Bobby Storey and five others
arrested in connection with the death of Belfast woman Jean McConville
will not be prosecuted over the 1972 killing, it was announced this
week.
Mr Adams said the timing of his arrest last year — weeks before
European elections — exposed anti-Sinn Fein motives within the force.
He said the decision was “long overdue”.
“There was never any real basis for questioning me in respect of this
case. I played no act or part in Jean McConville’s death,” he said on
Tuesday afternoon.
“I support the PSNI. But the timing of my arrest showed there remain
elements within the PSNI who are against Sinn Féin. But they will not
succeed.”
Mr Adams voluntarily went to the PSNI last year after a series of leaks
claiming that he was about to be arrested.
The alleged evidence against him includes content supplied by American
authorities from the Boston College Belfast Project. The tapes from the
project were a collection of recorded testimonies from Provisional IRA
veterans, interviewed so as to create a historic archive of the conflict
on the basis that each participant’s interview would not be made public
until the participant’s death.
The PSNI gained access to the tapes via the US court system after Boston
College agreed to hand them over. Prosecutors claimed the case was
abandoned chiefly because the taped interviews would legally be classed
as hearsay and therefore too weak to be used as evidence.
In one notable exception, veteran republican Ivor Bell, who in recent
years has opposed Sinn Fein’s political direction, remains charged in
connection with the McConville killing. He is the only person to date
to be charged on the strength of alleged evidence contained on the
tapes.
Mr Adams said Sinn Fein had been the target of a “sustained and
malicious campaign”.
“These claims have also been seized upon and repeated by my political
opponents, including the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil leader, to score
political points against Sinn Féin and me.
“I want to encourage anyone with information to assist in the return of
the bodies of those people killed and secretly buried by the IRA. I have
worked with others towards this and I will continue to do so. I want to
thank those who have come forward with such information.
“I am also very conscious of the huge hurt inflicted on the McConville
family. The abduction, killing and secret burial of Jean McConville was
wrong.
“Sinn Féin has agreed with others, through the Stormont House Agreement,
processes for addressing the legacy of the past. We are committed to
implementing them.”
PSNI chief George Hamilton said Mr Adams should go to the Police
Ombudsman with any complaint about his treatment.
“That’s the right place, that’s the accountability mechanism and we
welcome that,” he said.
At the time, Mr Adams made a formal complaint about specific aspects of
his four-day detention at Antrim police station, after which he was
released without charge. His arrest and interrogation generated a wave
of renewed attention to the political deadlock in the North of Ireland.
His remarks this week echo allegations by Deputy First Minister Martin
McGuinness about a “dark side” of policing in the region after the
Provisional IRA was blamed for involvement in a recent killing of east
Belfast man Kevin McGiugan.
Over a dozen ‘mainstream’ republicans were arrested and later released
in connection with the death of Mr McGuigan, himself a former republican
prisoner. It was alleged the killing was carried out in retaliation for
the murder of a former IRA commander, ‘Jock’ Davison, in May.
Mr Hamilton suggested Mr Storey also go to the Police Ombudsman.
“Let’s see where the evidence takes us, that’s what we’ve been doing and
what we will continue to do,” he said.
“I am confident in our decision making all around this investigation so
far.”