Statement on Sinn Fein and PSNI by families of republicans murdered by UVF, with police help, in Cappagh, March, 1991

On March 3, 1991, pro-British terrorists of the Ulster Volunteer Force attacked people drinking at Boyle’s Bar in the village of Cappagh in the six counties (“Northern Ireland”).    They shot dead four people, three of whom were IRA members (Cappagh is a staunchly republican village).  Tommy O’Sullivan (51) was the civilian and was in the bar; John Quinn (23), Malcolm Nugent (20) and Dwayne O’Donnell (17) were the IRA Volunteers, who were shot in a car arriving in the car park.  Local IRA leader Brian Arthurs survived as patrons barricaded the doors when they heard shooting outside.  This was one of the many occasions in which loyalist killers collaborated with state forces.  Representatives of the families of the Cappagh Victims have released this statement, as Sinn Fein has been embracing the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which is riddled with people involved in collaboration with loyalist killers, collaboration that is integral to the whole repressive apparatus of the British state in the occupied part of Ireland. – P.F.

Statement by Representatives of Families of Cappagh Victims

“On Sunday 3rd March 1991, our sons and brothers were stole from us, brutally murdered by agents of the state.

“Like many families out there who have lost their loved ones to state agents, the past can never be the past until we have the truth, until we have vindication that these deaths were wrong. We deserve recognition that these horrible acts were perpetrated upon us and that it should never have happened. We, as families have a right to the truth and any denial of this truth is a further act of vengeance on us.

“Any attempts to investigate the murders of our loved ones are faced with obstruction. The government fails to disclose material it holds that would allow us the truth to be established, inquests, ombudsman’s inquiries, litigation and police reviews that have been dragged on for decades for the sole purpose of delaying the process.

“The initial inquest was a whitewash! The forensics were

“They or we must quit this island” – Fintan Lalor on the landlord class (June 1848)

From the republican newspaper The Irish Felon, June 24, 1848.  This appeared in the original as one paragraph, but I have broken it up into several paras to assist 21st century readers.

Although written 170 years ago as a condemnation of the main property-owning class in Ireland then (the landlords) it sounds very modern, like a condemnation of the main property-owning class in Ireland today (the capitalists).  It is not hard to see why Connolly – and Pearse – admired Lalor so much.  The article represents a step forward in republican political thinking from the time of Tone and Emmet, as over four decades of class development and conflict had taken place and Ireland was in the midst of the horrors of a massive famine created by the capitalist property system.

The bit about “strangers” is also apt as a description of the Dublin4 and WestBrit set of today.

by James Fintan Lalor

They or we must quit this island

They or we must quit this island.  It is a people to be saved or lost; it is the island to be kept or surrendered.  They have served us with a general writ of ejectment.  Wherefore I say, let them get a notice to quit at once; or we shall oust possession under the law of nature.

There are men who claim protection for them, and for all their tyrannous rights and powers, being “as one class of the Irish people”.  I deny the claim.  They form no class of the Irish people, or any other people.  Strangers they are in this land they call theirs – strangers here and strangers

Derry’s ‘March of the British Death Squads’ a calculated insult to Bloody Sunday dead

The following was written before the Brits decided to call off their grubby imperialist parade: 

Éirígí has branded a planned march through Derry on Saturday, March 4 as “deliberately provocative” and a “calculated insult”. It is estimated that 100 serving and former members of Britain’s military forces will take part in the march.  The event is one of a series which will take place across Britain and occupied Ireland in opposition to any prosecution of British soldiers who have committed serious crimes in Ireland.

Commenting on the contentious march, Éirígí spokesperson Pól Torbóid said, “It is absolutely no coincidence that this event on the streets of Derry was announced just days after another very successful march commemorating the deaths of 14 innocent civilians on those same streets.”

“There is no doubt that the organisers of the March of the British Death Squads are being deliberately provocative to generate publicity for their event. This is nothing less than a calculated insult to the dead of Bloody Sunday and their families, as well as all the other victims of British brutality in Ireland.”

He continued, “Let us not forget that the British Army killed 14 civilians and injured another 12 in one afternoon in Derry. Many more have been killed and injured in Derry City and the surrounding areas by Britain’s official and unofficial death squads.  Éirígí is totally opposed to the March of the British Death Squads going ahead and is now consulting its members and others to identify the best way to oppose it.”

Very good Suzanne Breen article on Stormont

Very good piece in the Belfast Telegraph on Tuesday by Suzanne Breen on the demise of Stormont.  It’s rightly headed “Such is the cynicism, most couldn’t care less if lights never go back on at Stormont”: see here.

History it ain’t – the attempt to stitch up Cork IRA of independence war as ‘sectarian’

The following is a letter sent to the Sunday Times in Dublin on October 13:

Sir,

There appears to be a small-scale effort to undermine the UCC project attempting to document those executed by the IRA during the War of Independence. Kevin Myers, Tom Carew  (both 2 October) and now Gerard Murphy (9 October) have had a go. Murphy in particular questions the professional standards applied. UCC historian Andy Bielenberg answered convincingly on the project’s behalf last week, 9 October.

Given the standards applied in Murphy’s much-panned The Year of Disappearances (2010), his allegation is surprising. To give one example: in chapter 50 (of 58) Murphy alleged that six unnamed, untraceable, though, paradoxically, ‘well known and prominent’, Cork Protestants were disappeared by the IRA on St Patrick’s Day, 1922. No hard evidence was advanced. Instead the Peter Hart-inspired author cited Cork Protestants in business soon afterwards condemning attacks on Catholics in Northern Ireland, and ‘deny[ing] that they have been subject to any form of oppression or injustice by their Catholic fellow citizens’. Murphy then speculatively observed, ‘for southern Protestants in general, suppression was the price of survival’. To borrow a phrase from Professor Paul Bew in another context, ‘history it ain’t’.

Murphy’s research was not reliable. He should refrain from throwing stones at others.

Yours etc.,

Niall Meehan

 

Free Dónal Ó Coisdealbha, oppose internment

“Freedom for Donal” protest outside Leinster House, Thursday, May 12

Last Thursday (May 12) saw a protest outside Leinster House against what is, in effect, the internment of republican activist Dónal Ó Coisdealbha.

This case is particularly appalling since he will be tried by a non-jury court (the Special Criminal Court) where the three judges can accept secret evidence.

Although three TDs (Clare Daly, Maureen O’Sullivan and Mick Wallace) have offered to put up bail and Dónal has agreed to house arrest and electronic tagging, he has been denied bail.

It’s in the interests of everyone concerned with basic civil liberties to oppose what amounts to the internment of this young activist.

 

 

 

Know Your Rights public meeting, Belfast, Dec 5

Look who owes Ireland. . .

Apple is estimated to owe seventeen billion (yes BILLION) euro in unpaid corporation back-taxes to the Twenty-Six County exchequer.

And looking to the future, if this one US corporation actually paid the full 12.5% rate of corporation tax the state could receive an estimated FOUR BILLION in tax revenue from just this one company each year.

For comparison the state currently takes an average of just €4bn in corporation tax from every domestic and international company combined. Yes, COMBINED.

Do you find it hard to believe these figures? Do you think éirígí has made them up? Or perhaps you think we used the Anglo-Irish Bank approach and ‘picked them out of my arse’?

The actual source of these figures is that well-known hot-bed of revolutionary socialist republicanism – J.P Morgan.

Back in May J.P Morgan issued a

PSF Paint Over the Miriam Daly Mural Yet Eulogise Arch Bigot Paisley

The piece below is reprinted from The Plough and the Stars blog, here; all I can add is my disgust that the Miriam Daly mural has been painted out of existence

No doubt the anti-revisionist message of the iconic Vol Miriam Daly memorial mural now painted over on Oakman Street, West Belfast today was lost on Provisional Sinn Fein on the very day they publicly eulogised arch-bigot Paisley, yet appear to be attempting to revise out the the role and memory of British death-squad victim, Irish Republican Socialist activist, Miriam Daly.

A local IRSP member approached those responsible asking why they were painting over the mural and was given the rather spurious excuse that there was ‘graffiti’ at the street level area of the mural.  The IRSP member stated that this hardly warranted the total erasing of the entire mural!

The eyesore that has hastily replaced the Miriam Daly memorial mural. Not surprisingly, its message seems to reinforce individualism, alienation and powerlessness.

Miriam Daly, a respected academic, a leading co-founder of the then nascent RACs/H-Block/Armagh Committees was slain by an undercover British death-squad on the 26th June 1980, in the most horrific of circumstances.  The death-squad gunmen who callously murdered Miriam Daly, bound the mother of three and then waited at her home in Andersonstown, hoping to also murder her fellow IRSP and H-Blocks’ activist husband, Jim, who they were expecting to return from work. However, on that tragic day, June 26th 1980, Jim was in Dublin attending a German language course and it is assumed that when the British death-squad realised that he would not be returning, they shot Miriam dead before making good their escape.  The Daly children discovered their murdered mother when they

Special Branch thugs assault éirígí election workers in Ballyfermot

éirígí press statement:

On Thursday evening (February 6) two éirígí election workers were assaulted by a member of the Garda Special Detective Unit – more commonly known as the ‘Special Branch’.  The assaults mark a significant escalation in the ongoing campaign of harassment of éirígí activists by the Dublin government’s political police.

The incident occurred at 20.50 on Claddagh Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin as three éirígí activists finished up delivering local election material to homes in the area.  As the trio, Scott Masterson, Daithí O’Riain and Dónall Ó Ceallaigh were walking along Claddagh Road a Red Ford Mondeo, registration number 04 D 1915, approached the footpath at speed before coming to a dramatic halt.

As the vehicle came to a halt the passenger shouted at the three activists through his open window.  As the passenger did not identify himself the three activists sensibly continued to walk onwards.The passenger then attempted to exit the Mondeo, again shouting as he did so. It was at this point that the individual first identified himself as a Garda. In his haste to exit the vehicle the as yet unidentified individual tripped and stumbled. 

Having recovered his footing the individual then proceeded to firmly grab Scott Masterson by his two biceps and forcibly attempted to push him backwards, an effort which Masterson peacefully resisted.

During this unprovoked assault the individual was continuously shouting and demanding Masterson’s name in a very aggressive manner.  When asked by Masterson to produce identification to confirm that he was a Garda, as all plain-clothes Gardai are required to do, the individual said that he would not.  Masterson then informed the individual that he would not reveal his name until