Posted by Jim on August 19, 2014
Eamon Delaney @irishcentral
The United States is presently engaged in a humanitarian military mission in Iraq. Meanwhile, in Gaza, the US has been intensely involved in diplomacy to end conflict, while at the time supporting and arming Israel. It’s a tricky combination. But there is one place where US foreign policy has been entirely uncomplicated and well received and where it doesn’t involve any guns or planes. And that is, Ireland.
From its crucial involvement in the breakthrough IRA ceasefire of 1994, the US has retained a low key, but often intense, involvement in the struggling but generally successful Northern Ireland peace process. And it is a completely bipartisan commitment.
George Bush sent Richard Haass to Ireland as his special envoy and in 2013 Haass returned to chair crucial talks between Unionists and Nationalists in trying to achieve a lasting settlement of the issues that still divide them. The talks ended unsuccessfully in December 2013.
Not only is the Haass process an important part of the political scene, it might be the only show in town. The Irish and British governments are now so hands-off that it is left to the Yanks to try and resolve those crucial ‘final issues.’
The Haass talks process was the first time that neither government got directly involved in such negotiations, and in the end this was probably part of its failing. At the final hurdle, the Unionists rejected a reasonable template for dealing with parading issues and this caused the talks to collapse.
And there was nothing more that Haass could do, especially since the Dublin government is unwilling to put serious pressure on the Unionists and now appears more preoccupied in dealing with Sinn Fein as political threat in the South rather than as the nationalist co-partner of government in the North. Such a complacent and cynical attitude will have dangerous consequences.
Last week, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said that the Northern Ireland peace process is under its greatest threat since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. It is a dramatic claim, but one with very valid points. Apart from the impasses over commemoration of the past, contentious parades and the fudged NI welfare bill (which, in fairness, is Sinn Fein’s doing) there is a serious lack of any empathy from the Unionist side for the entire partnership to actually work or grow. Fearful of their radical fringe, the Unionists have taken a completely minimalist approach to a unique cross-community agreement that is supposed to be organic.
Compounding the problem is the withdrawn attitude of the two governments. David Cameron’s British Government appears sublimely indifferent and even hostile to the Northern peace process and the Irish Government seems to have just switched off, preoccupied as it is with the South’s economic problems.
The mentality in the South is that ‘the two sides are in Stormont together, so we can ignore it.’ But this is the very opposite of what was supposed to happen, after 1998, certainly from a Sinn Fein or even Irish Government perspective – that is, when the latter actually had a view on the situation. And the North hasn’t bedded down. Far from it, and the psychological withdrawal of the two governments, Irish and British, is partly to blame for that. Almost every week now there are new rows about political identity, flags and parades as well as attacks on Orange halls and GAA clubs. Sectarianism is deep-rooted and both sides play to their tribal base.
The unique coalition of SF and the DUP will not work unless there is constant pressure by the two governments acting as guarantors for the post-conflict arrangement. This is especially necessary when the relationship has gone cold and the two partners are barely talking to each other.
But it is hard to see the new Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan tackling the current Unionist stubbornness. Indeed, it is significant how few of the current Irish cabinet have dealt directly with Northern Ireland. Do they even believe in an ‘Irish dimension’ any more or in the constitutional nationalist position which is long held by the Irish State and which has always been distinct from that of Sinn Fein? Or do they think that any such national approach is now ‘outdated’ and will only in fact aid Sinn Fein, which they see as an electoral enemy?
Certainly, it seems odd that, in terms of negotiations, the US government appears to show more involvement, commitment and imagination on Northern Ireland that does the Irish government. Which these days is a rarely trumpeted and uncostly success story for US foreign policy, and one which is to the credit of both Democrats and Republicans alike.
* Eamon Delaney is a Dublin-based journalist and former diplomat.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus
President
Irish National Caucus
P.O. BOX 15128
Capitol Hill
Washington, DC 20003-0849
Tel. 202-544-0568
Fax. 202-488-7537
sean@irishnationalcaucus.org
Posted by Jim on August 14, 2014
DOLORES KELLY STATEMENT ON BALLYMURPHY
It is important again to acknowledge the efforts and the dignity of the Ballymurphy families in your campaign for truth.
It is a cause of anger that the families of the victims continue to be denied justice. Just like the Bloody Sunday campaign, the terrible loss of life, the innocence of those killed and the denial of truth makes the Ballymurphy campaign a very important one. Your campaign deserves the support and attention of everyone. All of those shot in Ballymurphy were killed by members of the Parachute Regiment who just five months later murdered innocent people in Derry on Bloody Sunday. The victims’ families deserve redress and compassion and the innocence of their loved ones vindicated.
This year you have campaigned long and hard to get the Irish and British Governments endorsement of your proposals for an independent panel to review the Ballymurphy.
It is welcome the Taoiseach has supported your campaign and readily backed your proposal for an investigation based on the Hillsborough Independent Panel. My party, Sinn Fein and Alliance were with you when you met the Taoiseach. His support was another vindication of your campaign.
The Irish Government has increasingly shown their authority around and commitment to addressing the past in a comprehensive way. That has been clear from the leadership of Eamon Gilmore around the Haass/O’Sullivan talks process.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the British Government. Yet again their treatment of the Ballymurphy has been hurtful.
The Secretary of State is utterly wrong in her decision to state that it is not in the public interest to have a panel investigation. Utterly wrong. This can be done in parallel to the ongoing inquest. As the Secretary of State should know, there was an ongoing criminal investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence at the same time as there was an inquiry into his murder. To suggest that a panel could not be convened because of the ongoing inquest is false. London knows it is false. Shame on those who persist in this falsehood.
The SDLP will continue to call on the British government to issue a statement of innocence, to issue an apology to the families, and to deliver an independent international investigation (based on the Hillsborough Independent Panel) examining the circumstances surrounding these deaths.
Can I also call for the two Governments to gather with the parties, to together talk, to together conclude the challenge of dealing with the Past in a comprehensive and ethical way. Victims and Survivors, you here present and the many others everywhere, those who suffered because of state agencies, those who suffered because of the illegal groups, call out that the Past is addressed now, properly, decisively> You must not be let down again.
Posted by Jim on August 9, 2014
“Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead! Those words from Monty Python’s movie THE HOLY GRAIL came to mind when it was reported that the late Labor Party icon Tony Benn did not support an independent Scotland. This despite the fact that the former member of Parliament never stated as much while alive. His brother David produced a letter to that effect. How desperate the English aristocracy must be to roll out this post-mortem declaration!! Apparently the faint-hearted ‘endorsement’ of United Kingdom unity by President Obama failed to take hold with the Scottish electorate. His press conference remark that “…the US prefers “…a strong, robust and united Britain” was followed by the afterthought disclaimer that this issue, of course was “…a choice for the Scottish people.” These latest political stunts brought to mind British author George Orwell’s description of political language. He claimed it “…is designed to make lies truthful, murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
The forces now mounted against Scotland’s independence emanate from all those who have a preference for the status quo and something to lose if change, however gradual, is undertaken. These are the financial and media institutions and military and intelligence services. All of these are infused with British hereditary privilege, wealth and power. It is less than 100 years since this same array of opposition forces fought against freedom for Ireland. Even back then the British would regularly produce letters, usually forged, claiming something that would serve their political purpose. Even after the colonial ties from 26 counties were severed in 1922, the British manipulated Ireland’s political, social, economic and cultural spheres. To this day it promotes division in Ireland North and South. Their failed attempt in the Boston College tapes affair to smear Gerry Adams and to derail his re-election was but the latest example of their mendacity. Expect London to direct the same tactics at Alex Salmond and other Nationalist leaders prior to the referendum.
England threw their media weight around in 1999 to try and derail Ireland’s conversion to the Euro Zone currency. Catastrophes of biblical proportions were predicted. As long as Ireland’s currency was linked to the British pound, Britain could control or initiate financial and economic actions that were, if not necessarily harmful to Ireland, gave England’ banks and companies advantages. The Irish voters then, like the Scottish voters today, were not sure how the conversion would work. Irish voters were reasonably certain the break from England would bring greater transparency and prosperity. And so it did.
All of the fears being stoked by media pundits like Bagehot of the ECONOMIST magazine claiming if there is a YES vote “…a cataclysmic secession “…, have precedents in Britain’s efforts to inflame anti-Irish and anti-Catholic hatred amongst the unionist/loyalist population. After all a united Ireland would be a greater competitive threat than one afflicted with partition. A Bradford University Professor named Gallagher did his part to spread the fear and smears by referring to the Scottish National Party “…and its Radical allies.” You know those people who advocate for a new structure of government, a Bill of Rights or a more equitable distribution of resources.
One newspaper quoted a publican in Portpatrick , Scotland as fearful of the loss of the British Army as if the sleepy village was under some imminent invasion! An English editorial, claiming to speak for America, stated that the U. S. would take revenge if nuclear silos were ordered removed from an independent Scotland. At stake was nothing less than the vanity of the British political establishment and their “major world power” delusions. If the Scottish voters were to address that issue, I hope they would recommend to London that a missile silo might be more appropriate for Margaret …May her memory be blessed… Thatcher’s constituency of Finchley!!
While an independent Scotland may present challenges, in the end it will be Scotland in the 21st century determining what is best for them, and not Whitehall and England’s fossilized colonial bureaucracy. Think of the possible revelations as the transfer of records begins! I mean, of course, those records that the British have not destroyed or found ‘missing.’ This has been the case with police and MI-5 records in N. I. ever since devolution there. England may be spying on the Scottish people the way they have been spying and eavesdropping on the Irish people. The PRISM system used under contract for the U. S. National Security Agency to spy on Americans, may well be used domestically. Remember British Subjects of the Queen have no rights to privacy as do American citizens. Lastly, Scotland might learn it was illegally deprived of financial aid from London. Bishop Cahal Daly in N. I. learned the Catholic schools had been deliberately cheated out of aid payments for decades. The same might be true of tax receipts. There is a reason London has been reluctant to fully disclose corporate tax receipts emanating from Northern Ireland and that very same reason may apply to those tax dollars from Scotland.
Mark well these words. The final push to keep Scotland under the Royal lash will include –in addition to the dirty tricks and media scams… the appeal to patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel. At a time of World War I memorials it is worth remembering the words of Alan Brydon’s song Calling Doon the Line. Remembering those who lost their lives in that slaughter is as important as remembering why they did so. Scotland’s brave did indeed “rally roon the pipers tune” but “the victory claimed would disguise the shame.” This is one American’s wish that the Scottish people will vote in this referendum to dance to their own tune!!
Michael J. Cummings
12 Marion Ave
Albany, New York 12203-1814
518-650-6049
castlecomer@gmail.com
Michael J. Cummings, a native of Springfield, Mass., is a graduate of St. Anselm’s
College (B. A., 1968) and New York University (M. P. A., 1970). A member of the National Boards of the Irish American Unity Conference (IAUC,1996-2013), the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH,2001-2008), and the Irish Northern Aid Committee (INAC, 1988-1996), he served six National Presidents of the AOH, 5 National Presidents of the IAUC and two National Chairman of INA primarily in public relations capacities. He is the only person to serve on the national policymaking bodies of all three major Irish American organizations. He also served on the Commission on Peace and Justice of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
Cummings has appeared on American, English and Irish television and radio and his commentary and letters and those of the Presidents have appeared in major American, Irish-American, Catholic print media. He is a frequent columnist for the weekly IRISH ECHO newspaper. He has been married to Nuala Hogan, a nurse and native of Ireland, for 40 years and resides in Albany, New York . They are the parents of five children and two grandchildren.
Posted by Jim on
Former taoiseach John Bruton is on a crusade to revive Redmondism in
Irish politics and to denigrate the men and women who gave us the
Proclamation of the Irish Republic and the 1916 Rising.
Last month Mr Bruton said in London that the Rising damaged the Irish
psyche. The other day he said it was “completely unnecessary” and that
any State commemorations of the Rising should not “retrospectively
justify violence”.
The basis for Mr Bruton’s argument is his claim that the placing of Home
Rule “on the statute book” by the British government in September 1914
was enough to make the Rising and the struggle for Irish independence
superfluous.
If only our ancestors had the wisdom and insight of Mr Bruton; if only
he had been there to tell them the error of their ways. Mar eadh.
Mr Bruton thinks Home Rule “on the statute book” was so great an event
that the Irish Government should commemorate it next month. So let us
examine exactly what happened in Westminster in September 1914.
The Home Rule Bill, providing for an extremely limited form of
devolution for Ireland, within the UK and British Empire, was at its
final stage.
Against this bill, the British opposition Conservative and Unionist
Party waged an unrelenting campaign.
The Tories had seized on the issue of Home Rule as the most effective
weapon to use against the Liberals.
Leading members of the British landed aristocracy and senior military
figures avidly supported threats of civil war if Home Rule was
implemented. This culminated in the arming of the Ulster Volunteer Force
and the anti-Home Rule mutiny by British army officers at the Curragh.
Under that pressure, the Liberal government and John Redmond agreed in
principle that Ireland should be partitioned rather than have North-East
Ulster included under Home Rule.
In September 1914, with the war just weeks old, the Liberal government
pulled one of the greatest strokes ever attempted by a British
government. It enacted the Home Rule Bill but suspended it until the end
of the war when an amending bill would be passed to provide for
partition.
In return for this, John Redmond pledged the lives of tens of thousands
of young Irishmen to the British war effort and embarked on a recruiting
campaign for the army.
Roger Casement described Home Rule “on the statute book” as “a
promissory note payable only after death”.
James Connolly called it “a carefully staged pantomime to fool
nationalist Ireland” and said that, in return, Redmond’s party would
“send forth more thousands of Irish men and boys to manure with their
corpses the soil of a foreign country”.
And in a phrase that still echoes today, Connolly declared: “Yes, ruling
by fooling is a great British art — with great Irish fools to practice
on.”
Connolly and Casement were correct in their prediction. It is estimated
that well over 30,000 Irishmen died in the First World War. The exact
number will never be known. A great number of them were induced to join
up by Redmond’s promise of Home Rule for Ireland and by Edward Carson’s
promise of no Home Rule for Ulster.
Isn’t it strange then that Mr Bruton is so worried that honouring the
men and women of Easter 1916 would retrospectively justify violence when
he has nothing to say about the role of Redmond and his party in sending
tens of thousands of Irishmen to fight Germans and Austrians and Turks
with whom Ireland had no quarrel? Was John Redmond not a man of
violence? It is hugely important that we remember these events as a
nation on our own terms.
It is right that those Irish people who died in the First World War and
those who survived it should be remembered. Their families have every
right to honour their courage.
But this does not mean ignoring the fact that Ireland, as a submerged
nation within the UK, was carried into the war without any say in the
matter.
We should look at the war from an Irish point of view. It was a war of
empires ruled by privileged elites who cared little for the lives of the
millions they threw into battle.
The Irish experience of the war up to 1916 was one of the factors that
led to the Easter Rising. And after the Rising and the executions and
repression that followed, many Irishmen who had fought in the British
army rejected that army for good. Some of them joined the IRA.
The notion that Britain had fought “for the freedom of small nations”
was exposed as hypocrisy when Britain refused to recognise the First
Dail Eireann.
Mr Bruton does no service to the memory of the Irish dead of World War
One by denigrating the men and women of Easter 1916.
I suspect that behind Mr Bruton’s Redmondite crusade is a fear, not of
violence, but of the Proclamation.
You see, the Proclamation enshrines principles and commitments to
equality and Irish sovereignty that still challenge the privileged in
our society. It is a commitment to a rights-based society in Ireland
with equality for all our citizens.
That is why the Proclamation should be at the centre of all our
celebrations and commemorations of the great national and international
event that was the 1916 Easter Rising.
Posted by Jim on
From The Irish Times
Thu, Aug 7, 2014, 12:01
It’s more than a pity John Bruton has never been much of a one for mischief. He might have contributed to the gaiety of the nation if he’d ended his contribution to a debate in the Irish Embassy in London last month on the significance for Ireland of the first World War by bursting into a sardonic rendition of that most rousing of republican ballads: “Take it down from the mast, Irish traitors/That’s the flag we Republicans claim/It can never belong to Free Staters/You have brought on it nothing but shame.”
Leave aside for a moment the competing analyses of the 1916 Rising and speculation about the trajectory events might have taken had the Rising never happened. The point is, there’s a rough overlap there between the perspective long held by Bruton and the viewpoint now of the cheerleaders for the IRA’s 1971-1998 campaign in that both believe that the 1921 partition settlement fell so far short of the aims of the Rising as to reduce the event to an exercise in futility.
The shift in the official republican position has since smoothed some of this roughness away.
Blandishments of the British
Bruton’s conclusion is that the partition settlement was as much as was achievable at the time and could have been secured without an uprising. On the other hand, the tradition which the Provos set out to revive on the back on the civil rights campaign held that much more could have been won had Griffith and Collins not fallen for the blandishments of the British: the task now was to take up arms to save honour and complete the job.
“Leave it to those who are willing/To uphold it in war or in peace/To the men who intend to do killing/Until England’s tyrannies cease.” Used to raise the rafters at closing time, that.
Bruton leaves a lot out of his account. Insofar as useless waste of life is at issue, he might have mentioned – although no surprise that he didn’t – that the tens of thousands of Irish who died in the first World War died for no good reason. Indeed, he appears to believe that the unspeakable bloodletting of 1914-1918 was rather a splendid affair.
Given the ideology he espouses, Bruton cannot acknowledge either that the Rising was a genuine strike against imperialism, whereas the Great War was a clash between rival robber gangs, with the proles as expendable fodder. (The Oh, What a Lovely War account remains the most accurate of the narratives.)
Nevertheless, specifically within the context of Irish history, the common ground between the Redmondite ex- taoiseach and modernising Sinn Féin is considerable – and more considerable now than in the days when only songs of struggle sufficed.
All respectable heads now bow in remembrance of the fallen of the Great War. No longer the shout of rage against those who bribed and bewildered them into service of king and another country.
The dead of 1914-1918 should, of course, be remembered, but never without anger against the recruiting sergeants, political and military, who gladly dispatched them to their dreadful end in cloying trenches. But to show disrespect for the Last Post and Chorus would now be seen as reprehensible disruption of peace.
It’s said the Irish soldiers who fought for Britain were ignored and insulted when they – some of them anyway – straggled home. There is truth in this, but not all of the truth. Some of us can remember being taught, literally at our father’s knee, of the Catholics who went over the top in hopes of a united Ireland and the Protestants who died to preserve the union and the contempt for working-class lives which this signified. The fallen were not forgotten on our street.
We hear none of that bitter disillusionment from John Bruton, and rarely hear it any longer from official republicanism. In the interests of peace, it seems, we must eschew or at least moderate condemnation of war.
Ireland wasn’t alone in averting its eyes from the maimed who made it home. Legless veterans begged on the streets of England, then saw their suffering sentimentalised in a ubiquity of poppies. Same as ever. Kipling’s thin red line of ’eroes earned their place in history and literature at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 in Crimea. “It’s Tommy this, and Tommy that, and ‘chuck ’im out, the brute’/ But it’s ‘Saviour of his country’ when the guns begin to shoot.” (Crimea. There’s another place we sorted out.)
Those who railed against the traitors who’d brought nothing but shame to the cause have now accepted partition until such times as peaceful efforts can usher in unity – Collins was a bit more belligerent than that – which surely brings them and Bruton by circuitous route to agreement at last. Meanwhile, the anti-war tradition can be said to be more needed and relevant as ever.