Eamon Daly looking for a few good people for the Omagh County Tyrone Cross Community Basketball League
Posted by Jim on August 28, 2014
Timeshare for Sale or Rent 10 mins. from Disney and Universal in Celebration Florida
Posted by Jim on August 25, 2014
AOH member has advised us that their timeshare is for sale or rent in Mystic Dune 5 Star Resort. The two bedroom condo sits on PGA alternate Golf course with screened in porch opening on course. The Resort is 10 mins. away from Disney Gate and Universal. Condo can sleep 8, has full Kitchen, washer/dryer, dinning room, huge living room with big screen TV, Master Suite has separate bath with whirlpool tub. Resort has 5 pools, offers miniature golf, basketball, tennis and fitness center. Country Club has fully stocked Pro-Shop, light snacks and sandwiches, full Restaurant offering 5 Star menu and Conference and Banquet Hall. The cost to buy Deeded Condo is $11,000.00 per Unit. The cost to rent is $1,000.00 per Unit per week. Anyone wishing more information on these properties contact Jim@BrooklynIrish for forwarding info.
Martin Galvin’s letter to the Irish News concerning Internment
Posted by Jim on
MARTIN GALVIN
ATTORNEY AT LAW
BRONX, NEW YORK, 10451
August 12, 2014
EDITOR
IRISH NEWS
113-117 Donegal Street
Belfast, Northern Ireland
BTI 2GE
RE: Fionnuala O’Connor-12 August
INTERNMENT RALLY IN BELFAST
The thousands who ignored rain and loyalist protests to march on Internment Day, had far better reasons than those ascribed by Fionnuala O’Connor (Sorrow of internment lost in 21st century.)
Internment went deeper than imprisonment without charge or trial beginning on August 9, 1971. British forces shot down those who got in the way in Ballymurphy, picked victims to be hooded and tortured, and then answered Internment protests with “Bloody Sunday.” Compton and Widgery were enlisted to whitewash British injustice.
Internment symbolized Britain’s willingness to use and cover-up injustice when it served British interests. Had ‘the sorrow of Internment’ ended there, or even in 1975 with the release of remaining internees, few would take to the streets today.
Instead Britain replaced one injustice, Internment, with another injustice, Diplock Courts, forced confessions and a thinly veiled conveyor belt to the H-Blocks or Armagh. British strategists saw ending Internment as their chance to bin special category political status and masquerade political prisoners as criminals.
Internment Day marches became launching pads for new campaigns against new British injustices. At the huge 1979 Internment rally at Casement Park, we speakers were briefed that the event must be a major show of support for the Blanketmen, in the battle to move Thatcher to resolve the impending crisis short of a hunger strike.
Later Internment Day rallies would be devoted to the Hunger Strikers, then Supergrass trials, then other successive wrongs that showed the same British determination to impose and justify injustice represented by Internment.
Internment required impunity for those who carried it out. British forces could not be expected to shoot down unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy, torture selected victims or fire on protesters in Derry without knowing they had immunity for it all. Theresa Villiers’ denial of an inquiry to the Ballymurphy families was more of the same impunity.
Brenda Downes stood for hundreds of families whose relatives and friends were murdered with impunity by British forces, acting alone or in collusion with loyalists. In 1971, the British sent “armoured cars, and tanks and guns.” In 1984, the British sent RUC armoured cars and land-rovers and plastic bullet guns against peaceful marchers for a ban that the Thatcher regime would later admit in writing was a mistake.
The RUC member who fired the plastic bullet which killed John Downes was acquitted in a trial which seemed to many of us the same British justice we got from Widgery and Compton. Brenda Downes like so many others is still being stonewalled in the fight for truth.
Those who marched should be commended for understanding the true meaning of all Internment represents, and for knowing that the sorrow cannot be lost while British injustices continue.
Slan
MARTIN GALVIN
Irish-American Concern About Failed Dublin Leadership
Posted by Jim on August 21, 2014
There is mounting concern among Irish-Americans that the Irish Government is turning its back on the good work of previous Irish Governments on the Irish peace-process.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus, President of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, has been alerting Members of Congress to the serious danger of Dublin’s neglect .
Fr. Mc Manus said: ” Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and John Bruton all were engaged, thereby helping to make the peace-process possible. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has demonstrated consistently, and quite blatantly, that he has no interest in the peace-process. Indeed, his persistent refusal to show interest indicates he may even have distain for the Irish peace-process — the most important and hopeful development since the partition of Ireland.”
Fr. Mc Manus added: ” This is not only the growing opinion among Irish-Americans, but also of serious commentators like Brian Feeney of the Irish News, Belfast, and former Irish diplomat Eamon Delaney “United States doing more for Irish peace than Irish or British ” (Eamon Delaney @irishcentral August 18,2014).
Fr. Mc Manus continued: ” Over the years we have had Congress put a lot of pressure on the British Government. Now it seems we have to get Congress put pressure on the Irish Government. How sad is that? Can anyone explain Taoiseach Kenny’s irresponsible neglect? It reminds me of what British Prime Minister Robert Cecil (Lord Salisbury) said of his nephew Arthur J. Balfour on appointing him in 1887 to be Irish Chief Secretary. Explaining Balfour’s unique qualification for the job, Cecil said it was Balfour’s ‘perfect indifference to what is said of him.’
Fr. Mc Manus concluded: ” Taoiseach Kenny’s perfect indifference to the Irish peace-process must be tolerated no longer.”
Fr. Sean Mc Manus President
Irish National Caucus
God Rest Albert Reynolds
Posted by Jim on
CAPITOL HILL. Thursday, August 21, 2014 — The president of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus has paid tribute to former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds who died on August 21, 2014.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus said : ” God rest the noble Irish soul of Albert Reynolds. Just when one had given up hope that the Dublin Government would ever do the right thing on The North, Albert came along like a breath of fresh air and helped to make the Irish peace -process possible. As I document in my Memoirs, My American Struggle for Justice in Northern Ireland, I knew Albert was a different type of Taoiseach by the way he responded to the meeting a group of us had with presidential candidate Bill Clinton in New York city on April 5, 1992. Clinton promised to support our main demands. Albert immediately welcomed Clinton’s expressed interest … and the rest is history.
Contrast that with the way Garret Fitz Gerald reacted to the meeting I had arranged with presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in Pittsburgh, PA, October 27, 1976 : Carter give us an excellent statement on the Irish issue, and just six days before he was elected President. Instead of welcoming it, Fitz Gerald set out to sabotage Carter’s interest, demanding Carter prove he was not supporting violence, thereby assisting the British Government in forcing Carter to back off. As I say in my Memoirs, ‘ I am haunted by this thought: had Fitz Gerald welcomed Carter’s statement, how much sooner the peace-process could have started, how many lives could have been saved and how much suffering could have been spared.’ (Page128).
Fr. Mc Manus concluded with: ” And now it appears that Taoiseach Enda Kenny — by his studied indifference to The North — is determined to undo the good work of Albert Reynolds, and repeat the bad work of Garret Fitz Gerald.”
Fr. Sean Mc Manus
President Irish National Caucus