Posted by Jim on October 5, 2012
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The 28th September 2012 will be the centenary of Edward Carson’s Ulster Solemn League and Covenant, signed by northern unionists in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill for Irish self-government. Far less well known is the ‘Alternative Ulster Covenant’, signed in October 1913 by Protestants from County Antrim in support of Home Rule and against partition.
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On the 24th of October 1913, a public meeting titled ‘Protestants against Carsonism’ was held in Ballymoney Town Hall, Co. Antrim. The meeting was called by Rev J. B. Armour, minister of the local Trinity Presbyterian Church and a liberal Home Ruler. Armour was an outspoken critic of the politics of Edward Carson, his Ulster Volunteer Force and the 1912 Ulster Covenant. The town of Ballymoney was chosen as the meeting place because the district had a radical Republican tradition going back to the United Irishmen in the 1790s. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was also the hotbed of tenant rights agitation among the Protestant tenant farmer population.
Over five hundred people attended the meeting, which overflowed from the hall onto the street outside. Mottos on the walls proclaimed ‘Ulster for Ireland and Ireland for Ulster’. Those attending included representatives of all social classes. Rev. Armour wanted to demonstrate the level of strong opposition to partition and sectarian politics that existed among Irish Protestants; for this reason the meeting was a Protestant one and Catholics were specifically asked not to attend.
Two resolutions were passed. The first resolution rejected the claim of Carson to speak for Ulster’s Protestants and it pledged its signatories to lawful resistance to Carson’s activities. The second resolution was put before the meeting by Roger Casement. A British consul from Ballymena, Casement had gained international acclaim for his exposure of the exploitation of native peoples in the Congo and the Putumayo River region in Peru.
Casement’s resolution read:
“That this meeting dispute the narrow claim that differences of creed necessarily separate Irishmen and women into hostile camps, affirms its belief that joint public service is the best means of allaying dissensions and promoting patriotism, and calls upon his Majesty’s Government to pursue the policy of bringing all Irish men together in one common field of national effort.”
This resolution was passed unanimously. Various contributions from the floor expressed anger at the thought of the division of Ulster and the exclusion of three of her nine counties. It was argued that if they accepted Home Rule, Irish Protestants would have at least one quarter of the membership of any Dublin parliament to protect them and to look after their interests. Partition, however, would bring about two sectarian states, where the major denomination in each would have too much power and would dominate religious minorities. Religious division rather than cooperation would become the order of the day. Others at the meeting suggested that partition would have a severe negative impact on the economy of Ulster and of Ireland as a whole. Further industrialisation would become difficult and Ulster’s natural farming communities would be divided from each other.
Casement remarked:
‘I have no wish to add to the tensions of the day. I am seeking only to point a way, not to conflict and further embitterment of feeling, but to a peace with honour; a peace for Ireland as a whole and honour for Ulster as the first province of Ireland.’
He went on:
‘Ulstermen have been sold by political trickery, arming and drilling against the perceived enemy. The enemy they are been led against, is no enemy at all: Catholic Ireland, Nationalist Ireland, desires not triumph over Ulster, they seek only friendship and goodwill.’
Casement appealed to the spirit of 1798, when Irish Catholics and Protestants had fought together for an independent Republic.
Mrs. Alice Stopford Green spoke next. Daughter of the Church of Ireland Archdeacon of Meath and granddaughter of the Bishop of Meath, she declared that she was present for the honour of the Protestant faith.
She reminded the largely Presbyterian audience that both Irish Presbyterians and Catholics had historically been discriminated against by an Anglican, aristocratic ascendancy, and that both had been bond together in the struggle for political and social rights. The future of all Irish Protestants and Catholics lay together, not apart. She touched her audience deeply when she made reference to the Land League:
‘the Protestant farmers of Ulster owe their present prosperity to the legislation obtained by Southern sacrifice’.
Captain Jack White also spoke. White was the son of a British general and himself a soldier, but his experience in the Boer war would turn him into a strong opponent of British imperialism. White declared that their common Christian faith held each man to be a son of God. ‘But let Protestants remember this: the test of their sonship of God is their brotherhood with man, and those Protestants who think and act towards their Catholic fellow-countrymen as though they were their hereditary enemies had better, for their own sakes, leave the name Protestantism and God out of the question’. This declaration was met with cheering and prolonged applause.
White proposed a counter covenant to that of Carson’s. The counter covenant read:
“Being convinced in our conscience that Home Rule will not be disastrous to the national well-being of Ulster, and that, moreover, the responsibility of self-government would strengthen the popular forces in other provinces, would pave the way to a civil and religious freedom, which we do not now possess, and would give scope for a spirit of citizenship, we, in whose names are underwritten, Irish citizens, Protestants, and loyal supporters of Irish Nationality, relying under God on the proven good feelings and democratic instincts in our fellow-countrymen of other creeds, hereby pledge ourselves to stand by one another and our country in the troubled days that are before us and more especially to help one another when our liberties are threatened by any non-statutory body that may be set up in Ulster or elsewhere. We intend to abide by the just laws of the lawful Parliament of Ireland until such time as it may prove itself hostile to democracy. In sure confidence that God will stand by those who stand by the people, irrespective of class or creed, we hereunto subscribe our names.”
After the meeting the Alternative Covenant was distributed and efforts were made to get a large number of Protestants in the county to sign.
It is claimed that twelve thousand people signed the Alternative Covenant. Copies of the signatories were reported to be among Jack White’s papers when he died. Unfortunately, White’s family, who did not share his views, made a bonfire of his papers immediately after his funeral.
The speeches of the three main speakers were subsequently published in a pamphlet entitled ‘A Protestant Protest.’
After the Ballymoney meeting, a deputation went to meet the British Prime Minister Asquith on the 26th November 1913. The deputation was a mixture of businesspeople, trade unionists and academics, such as Professor Henry of Queens University Belfast, David Campbell of the Belfast Trade Council and Alex Wilson. The deputation emphasised to Asquith that those who were organising the Ulster Volunteer Force, an illegal militia established to resist Home Rule by force, were for the most part landlords, their tenants and their dependants. These paramilitaries did not speak for the Protestants of Ulster.
Rev. JB Armour was quite vocal in dismissing Carson’s ‘Ulster Day’, the day of the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, as ‘Protestant fool’s day’. He publicly denounced Carson, the Unionist leader, as ‘a sheer mountebank’ and ‘the greatest enemy of Protestantism’. He even wrote that Carson ought to be tarred and feathered!
A public platform party against partition was formed. Its forty or so public representatives were distinguished Protestants, such as J.
Goold-Verschoyle, Robert Carson, James Hanna, Rev JB Armour, WD.
Hamilton and JL. Taggart. Also a member was Alec Wilson, the son of one of the directors of the great ship-building firms Harland and Wolff.
Interestingly, Harland and Wolf expressed an indication at the time that they were opposed to partition and that they supported Home Rule.
Unhappily, the Ballymoney meeting was a once-off and any activity that sprung from it failed to turn the tide of Carsonism. Carson and his followers in the Unionist Party and the UVF rose to popular power in Ulster in a wave of anti-catholic sentiment. The result was the British-imposed partition of Ireland. However, the Ballymoney meeting did show that a significant minority of Protestants in North-East Ulster were opposed to partition.
At the Ballymoney meeting Roger Casement emphasised the links between ‘the Catholics of Wexford and the Presbyterians of Antrim who had fought together on the same side little more than a hundred years previously’. He said the ‘Protestant Dissenters of Ulster’ had played a very progressive role in Irish history, and what a wonderful contribution they could make to an all-Ireland state. He hoped that Catholics and Protestants would unite and that they would ‘set the Antrim hills ablaze’.
Unfortunately, this was not to be.
Posted by Jim on October 2, 2012
Independent Republican Councillor Angela Nelson recently visited Gerry McGeough in Maghaberry prison along with Gerry’s wife and their four children.
Speaking after her visit, Councillor Nelson stated;
“As an Independent Republican Councillor, I give my full support to the release of Gerry McGeough and I believe Gerry should be at home with his family in time for Christmas. I have written to British Prime Minister David Cameron and also to the British Secretary of State Theresa Villiers who has confirmed that she will consider and respond shortly to my correspondence.
“Gerry McGeough believes he has been let down by those in power who he feels should have been to the fore in ensuring that when the agreements were signed in 1998 and 2001, what had been promised back then was delivered”.
Councillor Nelson continued by saying;
“I personally believe that Gerry McGeough’s imprisonment is a significant step backwards at the end of which nothing will have been achieved. It defies all logic to inflict such an injustice upon a family in the middle of a peace process. Although he is due for release in early 2013, I would like to add my voice to those who have already called for Gerry’s immediate release and I believe there should be no reluctance in allowing Gerry to be released in time to be at home with his wife and their four children at Christmas”.
Gerry McGeough, a 54 year old teacher and published author is married with four young children, Gerry returned to Ireland in 1996. He then graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an Honours Degree in History and attained a Higher Diploma in Education from University College Dublin.
As a former Ard Chomlairle member of Sinn Féin, Gerry was an architect of the peace process and continues to support a peaceful and political solution to achieving a United Ireland.
Gerry however, for a number of reasons, became disenchanted with the political direction of Sinn Féin at that time, in particular because of the stance taken by Sinn Féin in their support of abortion and he left the party in 2001.
On 7th March 2007 he stood as an Independent Republican MLA candidate in the Stormont Assembly elections. The following day as he left the count centre in Omagh, he was surrounded by police officers and arrested. His arrest was a direct result of the withdrawal of the legislation required to implement paragraph 20 of the Weston Park Accord (2001) which dealt with the issues of OTR’s. Gerry, who was classified as an OTR has been incarcerated in Maghaberry since 18th February 2011 on alleged conflict related activities dating back to 1975 and 1981. However, despite the fact that the legislation for paragraph 20 was never passed through Westminster, recent negotiations with former British Secretary of State Owen Paterson have resolved a number of OTR cases and it is believed only about twenty people now need to be given clearance to return home without fear of prosecution.
Posted by Jim on September 14, 2012
by Damian Herron on Thursday, September 13, 2012 Northern Chair of the Free Gerry McGeough Campaign
Thirty-six years after the Blanket Protest began the psychological and physical impact on the lives of those political prisoners and their families who were involved is to be examined at a conference in Belfast on September 15th. That protest took place during a time of conflict.
Thirty-six years later during what is termed a time of peace and a time for moving on, Gerry McGeough and his family are experiencing the psychological and physical impact of political incarceration on alleged activities thirty-seven years ago.
Martin Corey and his family experience the impact of internment without trial and one hour after the conference closes, people will take to the streets of Dublin in protest against the psychological and physical impact of British injustice against Marian Price and her family.
Thirty-six years later in 2012 the protests and strip searching continue, this time in Maghaberry prison.
What is happening against Irish Republicans is a result of a Dissident Unionist initiative to dismantle the Good Friday Agreement in conjunction with an almost obsessive need to appease rather than hold to account the anti-peace process Unionists.
The arrest of Gerry McGeough in 2007 should have brought Sinn Féin out of what was soon to become their power sharing political comfort zone “to ensure pain and suffering never again become the experience of any Republican, Unionist and English or Irish citizen”.
The attitude in 2007 of a muzzled tolerance towards one of the finest examples of political policing against a political opponent was a step back into our period of conflict which ended with a verdict of twenty years imprisonment.
Five years later and Martin McGuinness is “allowed” to shake the hand of a British Queen while the incarceration of Gerry McGeough, the internment of Martin Corey and Marian Price and the dirty protest within Maghaberry have been “allowed” as examples of how the Dissident Unionists are willing to compromise and work towards peace and reconciliation.
Thirty-six years from now, on September 15th 2048, will our own children suffer British injustice and Unionist persecution because of their political opinion? Will those who suffer today find themselves dealing with the psychological and physical impact of a muzzled tolerance towards British injustice and Unionist persecution? Will our grandchildren be forced onto the street of Dublin in protest against the British policy of internment while the future leadership of Sinn Féin “allow” a handshake with the British King Charles as he approaches his 100th birthday?
Posted by Jim on September 7, 2012
A chairde, comraidithe is a comh-phoblachtainigh,
Is mor an onoir dum a beith anseo ar a ocaid seo. Tamid anseo cun cuimhniu ar na n-daoine a fuair bas ar na stailc ocrais.
It is indeed a great honor to be addressing this, the 31st Annual Hunger Strike commemoration here in Bundoran. We commemorate not just those who died in the concentration camp of Long Kesh in 1981 but also Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan who died in the 1970’s in England and Sean McCaughy, Sean McNella and Tony Darcy who died in the 1940’s in Free State jails.
Andrew Sullivan, Denis Barry, Joseph Whitty, who died under Free State rule in the 1920’s; Terrance Mc Swiney, Joseph Murphy and Michael Fitzgerald who also died in the 1920’s under British rule and finally Thomas Ashe who died in 1917 in Mountjoy jail while being force fed. All these men fought and died for their belief in a 32 County Irish Republic. Let us remember too the many who died young as a result of hunger strikes and conditions in many jails in Ireland and England.
The hunger strike of ’81 was a seminal point in the prison struggle and the struggle for a 32 County Irish Republic. For years the POWs in both Long Kesh and Armagh women’s prison were refusing to be treated a criminals and had been refusing to wash or slop out or wear prison uniforms. While the British did engage in talks with the POWs it became clear that this engagement was not genuine and in 1981 a decision was made to undertake a hunger strike. The goal of being recognized as political prisoners was attained but at a high cost, ten men died in Long Kesh and many more men and women had their health ruined due to either the hunger strike or the barbaric act of force feeding. Sadly the hard won victory of political status was sold out by a minority of greedy former comrades later. These men and women couldn’t wait to get their grubby hands on the reigns of power and so for some short term political gain and wads of money they decided to administer British rule in the Occupied Six Counties.
We now have Republican prisoners in the Occupied Six Counties and in the
26 Counties because of their political beliefs. They would never have seen the inside of a prison cell had it not been for British occupation in our country and their resistance to that occupation. In the Occupied Six Counties the POW are once again on dirty protest fighting for political status in filthy squalid cells without the most basic of needs. They are locked up approx 23 hours a day, denied education, free association and all the rights associated with political satus. The screws have an interest in the continuation of this protest as it keeps them in high paid jobs. An agreement was reached in August 2010 between the POWs and the prison administration, facilitated by independent people, but this was subsequently subverted by the screws. I call on this agreement to be implemented in full now.
Internment has once again raised its ugly head. Martin Corry was released from jail in 1992 having served 19 years and was arrested once again in April 2010 and held without trial since. In July this year his release was ordered by a highly renowned human rights judge in the high court in Belfast, Seamus Treacy, who found the Martin’s human rights had been infringed under Article 5 of the Human Rights Act 1998. But this was not to lead to his freedom. Owen Paterson (British secretary of
state) overruled this judgment and martin remains in Magaberry jail. The ruling by Paterson shows that it is the British government that runs the Occupied Six Counties, the Stormont administration is no more than a puppet administration with no REAL powers.
During his hearing it transpired that the so called evidence against Martin was so secret that not even Justice Treacy could see it; the book of evidence given to him was an empty book with the words “the secretary of state states this evidence exists”. To date Martin still has not been given a reason for his arrest, he has not been charged with anything.
Marian Price is another high profile internee. She has been interned for over a year and a half on a spurious charge. She is now gravely ill in hospital, suffering from pneumonia. There is the real possibility of Marion dying while interned, another innocent victim of British injustice in the Occupied Six Counties. There are of course other internees, some having their licences revoked and some interned by remand. I call on everyone here to do their utmost to highlight this abuse of peoples’ human rights. The British can not be allowed to condemn perceived human rights abuses by others while at the same time abusing the human rights of the Irish.
In Lithuania Michael Campbell is incarcerated in a jail that was an actual concentration camp in the Second World War, his toilet a hole in the ground. Communication is almost impossible due to the language barrier. Michael’s sentence of 12 years was appealed by the prosecution.
This it seems orchestrated by MI5 so as to impede and effort to have him repatriated to Ireland. His brother Liam is in jail in Maghaberry awaiting extradition to the same jail and the same conditions.
In June this year the queen of England visited Belfast. Much media attention was made of a handshake between herself and Martin McGuinness, this handshake should not surprise anyone who follows Irish politics.
The fact is this was just a photo of a minister of the crown shaking hands with his commander-in-chief; no more no less. Martin’s insistence as he got in his car – after following the “duke” around trying to shake his hand but the old duke was having none of it – that he was ‘still a Republican’ rang hollow indeed. He certainly is not a Republican in the style of Plunkett, Pearse, Tone, Sands or O’Hara; maybe he is modelling himself on those who sold out in ’21 and then borrowed English guns and turned them on Republicans, or maybe he models himself on de Valera who, once he decided that HIS war was over, happily shot, hanged or interned members of the Republican movement. Indeed I would put it to you that even those who abandoned the Republic in the past did not stoop as low as the Provos have now
The Six-County state and the 26 County-State solution that was imposed on the Irish people over 90 years ago has obviously failed. The 26 Counties is now administered by the descendants of those who sold out in
’21 – families who now have accumulated huge personal wealth, while ordinary people worry on a daily basis how they will manage to pay for food, clothing and the basics to survive. This year in Cork a young girl collapsed while in school and when taken to hospital it was found that she was malnourished. This seems to be the choice for the people, to pay the bills or to eat, while the so-called representatives in Leinster house send billions of Euro in taxes to faceless/nameless people around the world.
The administration in the Occupied Six County in openly and nakedly sectarian. It is allegedly run by the two biggest parties – the Provos and the DUP. While they have divided up the ministerial portfolios between them they think they have control over their own little fiefdoms
– and perhaps they do in a little way. But the truth is the British are their paymasters, Westminster is the real seat of power – and the Stormont ministers will happily do as they are bid. The Unionist veto is alive and well and operating as usual. While Stormont ministers impose cuts on the people they increases allowances to themselves, just like capitalist administrations all over the world. The gap between rich and poor ever widens and until socialist policies like Eire Nua and Saol Nua pertain, that gap will continue to widen and sectarian policies will prevail in Occupied Ireland..
I will leave with a quote from Paul Johnson, who was a friend of MargaretThatcher:
“In Ireland we [the British government] have tried every possible formula; direct rule, indirect rule, genocide, apartheid, puppet parliaments, real parliaments, martial law, civil law, colonisation, lane reform and partition. Nothing has worked. The only solution we have not tried is absolute and unconditional withdrawal”.
Well a chairde, it is time for this solution – the obvious solution to try. I call on the British government to commit to withdraw from Ireland now and leave the running of Ireland to the people of Ireland.”
Posted by Jim on
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has condemned so-called ‘dissidents’ in Dublin despite a rally in the city last weekend which saw several hundred republicans of all hues unite to march in support of interned political activist Marian Price.
The march and rally, organised by the Free Marian Price Dublin Committee, also attracted the support of socialists, trade unionists and human rights advocates. Among those who took part in the rally were a number of members of the Dublin parliament, including Independent TD Thomas Pringle, who spoke at the rally, Sinn Fein’s Dessie Ellis and Socialist TD Clare Daly.
Marian Price, a former prisoner, was originally arrested for holding up a piece of paper while a member of the breakaway ‘Real IRA’ read from it at an Easter commemoration some 18 months ago. She has now fallen seriously ill and is currently being held under armed guard in a Belfast hospital.
The ‘Real IRA’ organisation has since merged with other breakaway groups, and is showing signs of increased activity after two small explosive devices were found in Derry today [Friday].
While Sinn Fein has supported Price’s release as a human and civil rights issue, it has repeated its opposition to the ‘new IRA’. Earlier this month, a military funeral was organised in Dublin for Alan Ryan, who was a senior member. Masked men fired shots over the coffin.
A Garda crackdown against republicans in Dublin since that funeral, which was attended by over a thousand people, has led to charges against Ryan’s brother and two others for IRA membership.
Mr Adams made it clear this week that the [Provisional] IRA has gone for good. But he dismissed the remaining armed republican groups as “mavericks”.
“The IRA is gone,” he said on Tuesday. “We should not confuse those little maverick groups who paraded around this city recently. We should not confuse them with the IRA.
“At the time there was war, the IRA fought the war. The war was over.
The IRA took that opportunity for peace.”
The Louth TD was speaking just hours before a special debate in Stormont, where the DUP put forward a motion which called on the Dublin government to apologise for the emergence of the IRA in the 1970s.
DUP leader Mr Robinson has insisted in recent weeks that there was a “clear connection” between the 26-County government and the Official IRA, which ended its armed struggle in 1972, and the Provisional IRA, which declared a ceasefire in 1994.
Robinson said: “I think the Irish Republic would do well to look at its role and recognise that it was not the way it should have behaved in those days, and apologise for it because massive death and destruction followed.”
The motion has baffled nationalists, but it was nevertheless passed by the unionist-dominated Assembly in Belfast by a single vote, 47 to 46, despite the opposition of Sinn Fein and the SDLP.
Mr Adams insisted there was no connection between the government in Dublin and the IRA. He pointed to the history of repression and violence which republicans in the 26 Counties have long endured at the hands of the police, including the torture techniques practised by the Garda ‘heavy gang’.
“The IRA is not the creation of any Dublin government,” said Mr Adams.
“Whatever the Irish Government may have to apologise for — whether it’s the heavy gang, whether it’s the brutality of prisoners in Portlaoise, whether it’s the failure of successive governments attacking the British in the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and other collusion – I don’t think it has any apologies to make.”