Posted by Jim on January 15, 2014
The prominent Irish republican, Martin Corey, has been released after almost four years in prison without trial.
He had been held in Maghaberry jail since April 2010 without any charges being brought against him, after he was deemed to be a risk to the public.
The Republican Sinn Féin member is a convicted double murderer.
Corey was originally sentenced to life in prison in 1973 for his part in the IRA murders of two police officers, but was released on licence in 1992.
He was re-arrested at his home in Lurgan, County Armagh, on 16 April 2010 and had been in custody since that date.
‘Unspecified allegations’
He was told he was being sent back to jail because he was considered a risk to the public, but at the time neither Corey, or his legal team, were told why the authorities believed he posed a threat.
Former Northern Ireland Secretary of State Shaun Woodward had ordered his prison recall on the basis of “closed material” and unspecified allegations of involvement with dissident republicans.
Corey’s supporters claimed he was being interned without trial and launched a campaign to secure his release.
Last May, his lawyers said they would challenge his detention in the European court.
Corey was released from custody on Wednesday evening on the instructions of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Theresa Villiers.
‘Political embarrassment’
He left Maghaberry prison via a back entrance in an unmarked van.
It is understood the conditions of his release include a ban on speaking to the media.
Members of the Free Martin Corey Campaign have told the BBC they had concerns about the manner of his release.
A campaign spokesperson, Cait Trainor, said: “It is clear the continued imprisonment of Martin Corey was a political embarrassment to the Northern Ireland Office and he was released in a way that would ensure minimum publicity.”
BBC News Northern Ireland
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Sandy Boyer
Posted by Jim on January 10, 2014
The Need to Secede
December 1995
By Gerry McGeough
Futurologists, those sober-minded individuals who analyze current trends in politics, finance, commerce, demographics, sociology and so forth in order to predict future developments in society, must find themselves in the realm of the opaque where the six counties are concerned. Such is the mixed cauldron of variables there right now that standard procedures of divination are unlikely to yield much in the way of enlightenment.
Indeed, futurologists might as well abandon their regular modus operandi and just haul out the chicken entrails for all the foresight they’re liable to receive. One gut feeling’s as good as the next in the current context.
That said, and in spite of all the contradictions, strains, backtracking, posturing and confusion so evidently inherent in the peace process, a broadly discernible albeit ostensibly unfocused development is emerging. At its most rudimentary, this would seem to imply the concept of an Assembly eventually evolving from a series of protracted talks. Talks, of course, being a euphemism for negotiations of labyrinthine complexity; not forgetting a liberal dash of the histrionics and temper tantrums so beloved by unionist politicians.
Participants to such an Assembly – Lord preserve us lest anyone should refer to it as being “Stormont-like” – would, presumably be elected representatives drawn from the various hues of nationalist and unionist opinion within the six counties. Like all practical politicians, the need to ply their trade would override any inhibitions about violating those ever-irksome earlier stances on this and that. Besides, wasn’t “Principle” a book by Machiavelli or something?! By Assembly time, most of the holy cattle would have been already packed off to the abattoir in any case.
The main thing would be that politicians could do what they do best, namely: obfuscate, legislate (to some devolved extent at least), debate, speechify, pretend whatever needs to be pretended at all and any given times and, of course, express outrage at the behaviour of opponents while masking relief at not being on the skewer themselves. Now, what else was there? . . . Oh yes, serve constituents, naturally.
Added to this would be the lure of being in a position to appropriate slices of the lucrative flow of international funds towards the dreams and schemes of needy, deserving, and, above all, loyal voters. Such an Assembly, under British auspices with perhaps some joint authority input from Dublin, all within the European context, could roll along nicely for several political lifetimes, thank you very much indeed. Hey. If it leads to a united Ireland, then fine! Since we’re all presumed utilitarian at heart, I’m sure everyone could accommodate themselves to whatever arrangement might be necessary in the interim.
A few years from now, though, committed Irish nationalists might want to explore the merits of the secession factor. “Secession” isn’t quite the term when referring to areas of Ireland under British occupation, but it’ll suffice for now. This would entail the overwhelmingly nationalist areas of occupied Ulster simply declaring their independence from Britain. These areas would include all of Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh, DerryCity, most of CountyDerry, North Antrim, West Belfast, South Down, South Armagh and considerable chunks of Mid-and North Armagh. In short, most of the six-county land area! Since the British hacked up our country on a county-by-county basis during Partition, what’s to stop us taking it back bit by bit, unpalatable as that may be for most of us, if all else fails?
In the wake of a carefully conducted, efficient political campaign on the issue, a Westminster general election could provide the opportunity for putting the secession program into effect. Secessionist candidates standing in constituencies covering each of the areas mentioned, would make it clear that once elected they would fulfil the wishes of their voters by withdrawing their districts from the so-called United Kingdom – having an obvious mandate to do so.
At that point, they could register their independent status at the United Nations and apply to join the rest of Ireland to form a single political unit. This, of course, would be a mere formality provided Dublin retains Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution. Either way, the newly independent areas of Ulster would be entitled to raise a standing army to defend themselves against British aggression.
Britain, of course, would never tolerate or permit such a state of affairs and would undoubtedly clamp down on subsequent civil disobedience from the self-liberated denizens of Ulster. So be it! The Irish nationalist cause would be back on the agenda once more and the freedom struggle a burning issue again; this time for a new generation of Irish patriots and our overseas Diaspora. Could the secession issue become a challenge for courageous visionaries in years to come? A new test for the famed stamina, tenacity and ingenuity of our people perhaps? Don’t bother to ask the futurologists – just read Irish history! Meantime, back to Stormont! Éireann go brách!
Posted by Jim on
CAPITOL HILL. Sunday, December 5, 2014 — Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Liberman, has shocked and outraged Irish-Americans by his cruel and brutal statement that Maggie Thatcher was right to let Bobby Sands “commit suicide.”
” This is an appalling attack on an Irish patriot and hero, ” said Fr. Sean Mc Manus, President of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus and Holy Land Principles, Inc. ” It is also an outrageous insult to Irish-Americans. I have written to the Israeli Ambassador to Washington demanding an apology and that the Israeli Governments repudiates this awful racist and anti-Irish-Catholic venom.”
Fr. Mc Manus went on to explain that at the time of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike – in which Bobby Sands and nine other young Irish patriots died — Jewish-American Members of Congress were the greatest defenders of the Hunger Strikers: ” I did a twelve- day hunger-strike outside the British Embassy. The great Congressman Ben Gilman (R-NY) — later Chairman of the House International Relations Committee — came and joined me in front of the British Embassy, proudly standing with me in solidarity with Bobby Sands.”
Fr. Mc Manus concluded: ” I hope that Ambassador Ron Dormer will see the seriousness of this dreadful development and that he will get his Government to withdraw his Foreign Minister’s deplorable rant.”
END
Fr. Sean Mc Manus
President
Irish National Caucus
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Posted by Jim on
Happy New Year Everyone:
The apparent collapse of the Haass Initiative once again shows that the Unionists have a very effective veto over all and any developments in the Six-Counties that might smack of progress for the Nationalist community.
Over the past year or so they have managed to block or otherwise undermine a long list of projects that may have been of benefit to Nationalists. These include a motorway from the Monaghan/Tyrone border to Derry City, a bridge linking counties Louth and Down and the Long Kesh development to name but some.
Towards the end of December, meanwhile, the DUP Stormont Finance Minister, Simon Hamilton, managed to outmaneuver the Stormont Agriculture Minister, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, and prevent the transfer of £110 million in funds to cash starved, largely Nationalist community projects. Ironically, Hamilton used a Catholic Diplock Court judge to get his way. In typical timid-style Sinn Féin’s O’Neill did not challenge the ruling.
Part of the problem facing Nationalists, who are now the majority in the Six-Counties, lies in the fact that they have pathetically poor political leadership. Those supposedly protecting Nationalist interests have come to resemble a huddle of dazed, dopey sheep standing petrified while vicious Unionist dogs run rings around them.
A more significant problem is that under British-controlled Stormont Nationalists will forever be kept “in their place”. The time has now come to think outside the box.
I recently came across an old article which I found very interesting, considering that the Sinn Féin strategy to bring about a United Ireland has now collapsed into a hopeless mess. It was written by Gerry McGeough in December, 1995 when he was an Irish Republican political prisoner here in the United States. The article was one of Gerry’s very popular Éireann go Brách columns, which he wrote for The Irish People during his time in the States.
I asked Gerry if I could reproduce it and he agreed. Re-reading it he noted that most of it still holds true even after almost twenty years. This was long before the Good Friday Agreement and he admits that he didn’t think then that the Irish people would have abandoned Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution so easily, even though they were mostly symbolic in nature.
He also said that the proposed new Super-Councils would provide a better vehicle for Secession than the Westminster constituencies outlined in the original. He emphasized that it could be achieved through peaceful political action and that there would be no need for standing armies in the current context. Otherwise, he feels that the idea still has merit.
I think so too and hope that it will spark some kind of debate and much-needed new thinking on Irish independence.
Helen McClafferty
Posted by Jim on December 23, 2013
In the face of life’s everyday challenges, it’s too easy to be bad humored. Pope Francis reminds us to have faith that ‘all will work out for the good for those who believe’ at this joyful time of year.
By Timothy Cardinal Dolan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
What’s the Latin word for “sourpuss”? You got me. But that’s the expression Pope Francis uses in his recent letter on The Joy of the Gospel. It has to be the first time that word’s been used in a papal document!
Crabby, whining, frowning people — sourpusses! — according to Pope Francis, are in contradiction to belief.
If we have faith that all is in God’s loving, providential hands; that, as the Bible teaches, “all will work out for the good for those who believe,” a sense of quiet joy would then characterize our days. As Stephen Colbert remarked at Fordham University, “My sense of humor comes from my hope, because I believe God’s in charge, and all will work out. So, I can laugh!” Sure, there will be concerns, trials, and heartaches, at times nonstop, and these can cause tears, worry and questioning.
But, faith and hope keep us going. And smiles replace sourpusses.
That’s the meaning of both Chanukah and Christmas. At the dreariest time of the year, when the sun is at its lowest point, and the winds, dead earth, ice and darkness of winter are at their start, we celebrate the triumph of light over darkness, faith over doubt, hope over despair, life over death, as the sun begins its slow ascent. Winter does not have the final word in God’s design for us.
For Christians, as the sun begins its ascent, God the Son is born in Bethlehem.
And the result was “joy to the world.”
We need a little Christmas, don’t we? Murders, wars, violence, death, sickness, struggle can get us way down. We can’t give up. God sure didn’t give up on us: into all of this, on that “silent night,” His Son was born to show us the way back.
So we all become kids again, full of good cheer and warm thoughts. Those who aren’t are for once in the minority, today’s Scrooges, the “sourpusses” the Holy Father spoke of.
If we people of faith wonder why folks are leaving our churches and synagogues, we might recall that nobody likes being with a group of crabs. People want happiness, now, and in eternity. You’d think they’d find it in religion.
As the Jesuit scholar Pierre Teilhard de Chardin observed, “Joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence.”
The joy we relish now — from love, family, friendship, beauty, sharing, art, food, song, and drink — is but an antipasto of what God has in store for us for all eternity.
Pope Francis also reminds us that joy comes, not from what we have or even what we do, but from who we are: a child of God, made in His image, destined for an eternity with Him!
Listen to the Bible: “Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again, rejoice!”
It’s time for sugarplums, not sourpusses!
As the great theologian Karl Rahner, remarked, “It’s Christmas! Light the candles! They have more right to exist than the darkness. At Christmas, God says, ‘I am there! I am with you! I am your life! Do not be afraid to be happy!’”
A blessed, joyful Christmas!