An Phoblacht, September 2015

UN COMFORTABLE CONVERSAT IO N S

MARY LOU McDONALD

Ir ish GLEN BARR Water must go

HUNGER STRIKE & O'DONOVAN ROSSA COMMEMORATIONS

spokesperson for the UDA in 1970s

anphoblacht Sraith Nua Iml 38 Uimhir 9

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

EDITORIAL

The

IRA has gone away,

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2 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

Hunger Strike and the legacy

What are your feelings on a day like today?

Q& A WITH

JOHN HEDGES

Pat Sheehan

5 Republicans from across Ireland commemorate the Hunger Strikers

Many of us here today who were activists in 1980 and 1981 lived through that historic struggle but there are a lot of young people here today who weren’t even born during the Hunger Strikes.

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

It must be emotional with many of the families here today as well.

Absolutely. The families are well represented. I know many of them and in themselves are a great inspiration. I often said it was easier for those of us on hunger strike because we made conscious decisions, we were focused on what we were doing and we had tunnel vision but although our families supported us they didn’t want us to die.

It must have been a terrible experience for them to watch us on hunger strike, wasting away and, in the case of ten men, actually dying.

of Mandela breaking stones. Myself, Gerry Adams and my late wife Siobhán O’Hanlon unveiled a monument to the shared suffering of South African and Irish political prisoners.

I know there’s also a monument in Cuba, and we’ve just heard on the news this weekend (ironically) that the British Embassy has reopened in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Bobby Sands Street.

People throughout the world who have been involved in struggle were and are very much aware of the Hunger Strikes.

The Basque people have a very strong affinity with the Hunger Strikers.

I was in Palestine two or three years ago at a big conference about Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

In the exhibition that accompanied the conference there were actual letters that had been exchanged between Palestinian and Irish political prisoners in the H-Blocks, so there’s strong connections there.

What would you say to people about the importance of these events?

It’s very heartening for people like me to see so many young people here and at events like this who are inspired by the Hunger Strikers and learning about the history of the struggle and the conflict and joining Sinn Féin.

I suppose it’s no surprise really because in the corruption that encircles politics in Ireland, most notably in the brown envelope culture, people look back at these men and see they were men of integrity who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for other people.

Do you find when you’re overseas on Sinn Féin international delegations that the Hunger Strikes still stand out?

Oh, very much so. We were in South Africa, on Robben Island, and in the prison yard where you see the photos

MLA

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

It’s very emotional recalling the events of 34 years ago when I was part of one most famous historical periods in the 20th century not just in Ireland but across the world. Bobby Sands’s election in 1981 was the biggest world news event of the day in a time before the 24-hour news cycle and the Internet and social media.

It’s also very emotional just hearing the names of the lads being read out on the stage and the number of days they were on hunger strike. I’ve always been aware of how close I came to actually dying. Martin Hurson died after 46 days; I was on for 55 days.

When I think back to those dark days, there didn’t seem to be any light on the horizon at all but now we’re standing here today part of the biggest political movement here on the island of Ireland.

So, while there’s sadness thinking about the lads who died, there’s great hope that we’re still on the right road to achieving the objective that they died for and that they continue to be an inspiration to people here in Ireland.

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5 Hunger strikers Jackie McMullan and Pat Sheehan MLA, former MEP Bairbre de Brún, former H-Block O/C Séanna Walsh and Sinn Féin's Jim Gibney at one of the many vigils held in memory of Volunteer Bobby Sands

I’m glad to be here and I have my own 16-year-old son here with me today.

I’m always inspired when I come to the National Hunger Strike Commemoration. It’s a very emotional experience but I’d never miss it.

It’s essential that republicans go out and tell the story of the struggle at events, meetings and talks in their towns and villages, wherever they are. We are still faced with a hostile media and Establishment that wants to portray us as criminals and terrorists 34 years after the failure of criminalisation in the H-Blocks and Armagh.

There are still those who want to criminalise republicans so it’s essential that republicans go out and tell the truth of our struggle.

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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3

WATER CHARGES

One last push and we can win

BY JOHN HEDGES IRISH WATER must go, Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD, unequivocally told An Phoblacht on the eve of the 29 August Right2Water rally in Dublin.

“From start to finish, the whole thing had been a fiasco and the depth of the fiasco is matched only by the Fine Gael/Labour Government’s arrogance and their serious disconnect from people on the ground,” Mary Lou said.

“The Government is unable to accept that people have been pushed too far, that this has been the straw that broke the camel’s back. People will not tolerate the commodification of such a basic human need as domestic water and being commercially charged for it or it being privatised.”

The Dublin TD described the Right2Water campaign as hugely successful so far.

“We need one last push and we can defeat the Government on this issue. It’s been ordinary people up and down the state that have made this possible.”

5 Abolishing Water Charges is a popular democratic demand of the people

Mary Lou reiterated Sinn Féin’s commitment that, in Government, Sinn Féin will abolish Water Charges. “No ifs, no buts, no maybes – domestic Water Charges will be abolished.”

In the same way that Sinn Féin stopped Water Charges in the Six Counties, she said, it will do the same in the South.

Irish Water is now a toxic brand but, she added, whatever criticisms people might have of Irish Water itself: “The ultimate responsibility for the Irish Water debacle rests with the Government – at the feet of Phil Hogan now in Brussels, his replacement Alan Kelly, and their parties, Fine Gael and Labour collectively. And let’s not forget Fianna Fáil, who (when Mícheál Martin was a senior minister) dreamed up domestic Water Charges.”

She rejected Junior Minister Simon Harris’s description of the Water Charges campaign as “populism from the luxury of the Opposition benches”.

Mary Lou retorted: “It’s a popular, democratic demand of the people based on the very fundamental notion of equity and fairness and the simple fact that very many families simply cannot afford the burden of yet another additional bill. And tens of thousands of people have taken a courageous stand to show this.”

The Labour Party’s total junking of its opposition to Water Charges before the last election and enforcing them in Government was “a tornado of a turn”, Mary Lou said.

“Any notion of fairness and decency has been abandoned by Labour. Perversely, Joan Burton and

Mary Lou reiterated Sinn Féin’s commitment that, in Government, Sinn Féin will abolish Water Charges. ‘No ifs, no buts, no maybes – domestic Water Charges will be abolished’

5 (Clockwise) Minister Alan Kelly, Tánaiste Joan Burton, Phil Hogan and Taoiseach Enda Kenny

Labour ministers seem to be taking some joy and pleasure in enforcing Water Charges, swaggering around and ballyragging the protesting public.”

The Government’s “pickpocket legislation allowing the state to put its hand into your pocket and your wages or your welfare payments to grab these unfair charges” is meant to intimidate and frighten people, she said. “It will not work.”

The Sinn Féin deputy leader said she was extremely pleased at news of growing trade union support with the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union joining five other unions in the Right2Water campaign. Pointing out that July’s Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ motion rejecting water charges and calling for a Constitutional referendum ensuring that water remains in public ownership was “a very significant step”, she insisted: “The real might of this campaign is derived from the men and women and communities on the ground who, from the word go, took a stand of opposition and let this Government know, in no uncertain terms, that domestic Water Charges are a step too far.”

Another union joins Right2Water Campaign THE Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, the country’s largest craft union, has joined the Right2Water Campaign and is calling on the Fine Gael/ Labour Government to abolish Water Charges with immediate effect.

Unions already affiliated to the Right2Water Campaign included

the Civil Public and Services Union, the Communication Workers’ Union, Mandate, the Operative Plasterers and Allied Trades Society of Ireland (OPATSI) and Unite the Union.

TEEU General Secretary Eamon Devoy said: “By withdrawing the Water Charges and holding a referendum the Government will clear the way for a considered debate on how best to carry out a

badly-needed overhaul of water services while having regard for the environmental issues involved and the EU laws governing the delivery and protection of water as our most precious and essential commodity.”

4 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 12 & 13

1981 National H-Block/Armagh Committee member Jim Gibney on the bravery of the prisoners and the people during the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes 16 & 17

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

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The war is over – the IRA is gone THE KILLING of Gerard 'Jock' Davison was wrong and was carried out by criminal elements. The killing of Kevin McGuigan was wrong and carried out by criminal elements.

These killings have nothing to do with republicanism.

Those involved must be brought before the courts and justice served.

It is worth repeating – the war is over and the IRA is gone.

It has been more than 10 years since the IRA ended its campaign and put its weapons beyond use.

Speaking about the decision of the IRA, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD told the National Hunger Strike Commemoration in Dundalk on 23 August: “That organisation, undefeated, took the momentous step in 2005 and ordered an end to its armed campaign.

It instructed its representatives to ‘engage with the IICD [Independent International Commission on Decommissioning] to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use’ and ordered its Volunteers to take part only in ‘purely political and democratic programmes’ and no ‘other activities whatsoever’.”

Over the past ten years, former IRA Volunteers have followed that order to promote the republican agenda, others have simply ‘got on with life’.

This fact has been recognised in republican communities across Ireland.

This reality runs contrary to the position advanced by the PSNI Chief Constable. It is a matter of record that Sinn Féin and republicans reject his assertion that the IRA continues to exist.

While we disagree with the PSNI Chief Constable on this matter we will continue to stand with the PSNI to ensure

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that the criminals responsible for killing Jock Davison and Kevin McGuigan are brought to justice.

It comes as no surprise that those in the media and politics opposed to Sinn Féin have sought to use the tragedy of these killings to progress their own agenda. The only place where the IRA is active is in their heads.

Elements within unionism have sought to use the issue to stall progress. Their words echo with hypocrisy when the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party stands shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of unionist paramilitary groups which are still active, organised and armed.

We also have the parties in the South, so keen to deflect from their own failures that they will jeopardise years of political progress for a cheap headline.

Let us remind those who are seeking to exploit these deaths for party political ends. It is the people who support Sinn Féin and it is the people who elect Sinn Féin representatives into office across Ireland. The rights of these citizens and Sinn Féin's growing mandate for change cannot be undermined by other political parties.

Let An Phoblacht restate what Sinn Féin leaders have publicly said: • The killings of Jock Davison and Kevin McGuigan are the actions of criminals and not republicans; • Sinn Féin has called for the community to support the PSNI in bringing those responsible to justice; • Sinn Féin is in the institutions on the basis of its mandate and, like all other parties, that democratic mandate must be respected; • It is up to the people to determine Sinn Féin's role in government – not other political parties or bodies.

AN PHOBLACHT is published monthly by Sinn Féin. The views in An Phoblacht are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sinn Féin. We welcome articles, opinions and photographs from new contributors but contact the Editor first.

An Phoblacht, Kevin Barry House, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone: (+353 1) 872 6 100. Email: editor@anphoblacht.com

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FG/Labour Government creating barriers to education SINN FÉIN Senator David Cullinane has criticised the Fine Gael/Labour Government’s attitude to education, saying that this government has consistently created barriers to developing an adequate education service through short-sighted measures of austerity.

Government policies, the Waterford senator said, will have a detrimental effect on young people and harm both their future advancement and Ireland's economy in the future.

“Sinn Féin believes that education is a basic and fundamental human right,” Senator Cullinane said.

“Every child should have access to an equitable and high standard of education that will give them the very best of starts for the rest of their lives.

“Sinn Féin believes that making the process of going back to school as affordable as possible should be a priority for any government, especially in an economic climate where basic requirements have become harder to afford.”

He said that Sinn Féin also feels that the year-on-year increase in

the higher education student contribution has a detrimental effect on families who are placed in great financial difficulties, particularly if they are sending more than one child to college. Those who would return to education have been similarly impacted by government cuts to allowances, he said.

“In our pre-Budget submission last year, Sinn Féin presented modest proposals that would benefit families and schools enormously.

He said these measures include:-

Sinn Féin believes that making the process of going back to school as affordable as possible should be a priority for any government

» Restoring the Back to Education allowance to €188; » Increasing resource teaching hours; » Increasing the capitation grant (which covers the basic operating costs of schools) by 1%; » Making the pre-school year accessible to children with disabilities; » Increasing the Back to School clothing and footwear allowance by €50.

David Cullinane described these as “modest proposals that will heal

Senator David Cullinane

a lot of the damage caused by this government and its penny wise, pound foolish approach to governance to date”.

He said that this government has consistently created barriers to education and that process must be reversed.

“Education is the key to a productive and vibrant economy. If we do not start as early as possible with our young people, we risk losing far more than we would ever save through austere short-sightedness.”

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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5

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh Tuilleadh infheistíochta molta ag Sinn Féin

Éigeandáil Otharchairr faoin dTuath TÁ FRUSTRACHAS ar phobail tuaithe ar fud na hÉireann maidir leis na seirbhísí otharchairr a bhíonn ar fáil in am práinne agus an easpa áird atá dhá fhail ón Rialtas ina leith seo.

Ní eisceacht ar bith fararor iad pobal an Lionán i dTuaisceart Chonamara, atá tar éis a bheith ag feachtasaíocht le roinnt blianta anuas maidir leis an am a bhíonn daoine ag fanacht ar otharcharr ag teacht chuig cásanna práinne, nó timpistí éigeandála sa gceantar. Tá sé deacair a chruthú, ach measann muintir na h-áite gur bhásaigh daoine i gcúpla cás mar nach raibh an t-otharcharr tagtha chomh fada leo sách sciopaí. Ach, mothaionn pobail ar fud na tíre go mbionn moill rófhada ar sheirbhísí éigeandála tré chéile, go h-áirithe pobail atá scoite amach ó láithreacha a bhfuil dlús daonra ard iontu.

Is gá a aithint áfach, go bhfuil na foirne a bhíonn ag obair sna seirbhísí thar barr ar fad i mbun na gcúram, ach gurb é a laghad acu an locht is mó atá ar an gcóras. Tá siadsan ag deileáil le líon nios airde glaonna agus na cásanna sin ag fáil níos deacra agus níos casta le h-imeacht aimsire.

I 2013, níor éirigh leis na seirbhisí otharchairr na spriocanna glaoch amach atá acu a shroichint i gcás as chuile thrí cinn. Laghdaigh Feidhmeannacht na Seirbhíse Sláinte na spriocanna i 2012 agus arís i 2013, ach fós tá ag teip orthu iad a bhaint amach. Sna figiúir is déanai atá ar fáil theip ar gach réigiúin, seachas Tuaisceart Laighean, a gcuid spriocanna a bhaint amach do na cásanna is tromchúisí.

Leagann HIQA síos spriocanna glaoch amach inar chóir go mbeadh otharcharr ag láthair ina bhfuil baol báis ann lastigh d’ocht nóiméad.

duine níl ach 1,600 d’fhoireann ann, trasna 87 ionad, le buiséad de €137m.

Tá Sinn Féin ag iarraidh ar an Rialtas dhá otharcharr breise a chuir ar fáil sna cheithre réigiúin feidhme atá ann. Cosnaíonn na feithiclí thart ar €35,00 sa bhliain. Íoctar tuairim €53,000 sa bhliain le Paraimhíochaineoir agus €66,000 le hArd-Pharamhíochaineoir. Bíonn gá le thart ar 11 oibrí do gach otharcharr.

Dá bhrí sin, bheadh Sinn Féin ag lorg ocht n-otharcharr breise , le 88 oibrí breise, ar chostas de thuairim €6.6m sa bhliain,mar thús chun

Measann muintir na h-áite gur bhásaigh daoine i gcúpla cás mar nach raibh an t-otharcharr tagtha chomh fada leo sách sciopaí Anuraidh, níor sroicheadh seo ach i 26% de chásanna ar fud na tíre. Sna ceantair tuaithe áfach, bhí an figiúr sin thios ag 6.6%. Is léir mar sin, go bhfuil fadhbanna ollmhóra sa chóras ar fad.

Tá cleachtas ag an tSeirbhís Náisiúnta Otharchairr gach othar a thabhairt chuig seomraí éigeandála sna príomh ospidéil. Tá Sinn Féin ag moladh córas nua a thriail amach ‘Féach agus Cóirigh’, mar a dhéantar i dtíortha eile. Sé sin go dtugtar cóir leighis d’othair in ionaid eile nó ar an láthair agus laghdaíonn seo tranglam na h-ionaid éigeandála agus an méid taisteal a

IN PICTURES

5 Sinn Féin representatives at the opening of Ionad Teaghlaigh Family Centre in Crumlin, Antrim

bhionn le déanamh ag an otharcharr. Meastar go bhféadfaí déileáil le suas le 50% de chásanna ar an mbealach seo.

Freisin, ba mhaith linn deireadh a fheiceáil leis an gcleachtas go mbíonn oibrithe ag fanacht ‘ar aire’ sa mbaile nó go bhfaighfidh siad glaoch eigeandála.

Ach, bun agus barr an scéil ná go bhfuil gá le breis fóirne agus feithiclí. I gcomparáid le hAlban agus an tuaisceart tá muid ar an ngannchuid.

Sna sé chontae, le daonra de 1.7m duine, tá 1200 d’fhoireann agus 300 feithicil acu ag 57 ionad, le buiséad de €78m. Ó dheas, le daonra de 4.6m

cinntiú go bhféadfaí clúdach níos fearr a thabhairt ó thaobh na réigiúin de.

Tá amhras orainn chomh maith go bhféadfaí príobháidiú a dhéanamh ar an tSeirbhís Otharchairr Aeir, mar nach bhfuil an tAire Varadkar sásta sin a chur as an áireamh agus ni bheadh aon ghlacadh againn leis sin.

Is gá tacaíocht a thabhairt do na pobail tuaithe freisin, maidir le scéimeanna ‘céad freagróra’, ach ní chóir go mbeadh siad dhá n-úsáid mar leithscéal gan seirbhís cuimsitheach, gairmiúil otharchairr a bheith ar fáil a bheadh in ann a bheith ag láthair éigeandála in am sách sciopaí, le beatha daoine a shábháil.

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5 Basque Senator Urko Aiartza, Reverend Harold Good, commentator Jude Collins and Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly at the Féile an Phobail debate calling for the release of all Basque political prisoners

6 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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10,000 THRONG DUBLIN TO REMEMBER UNREPENTANT FENIAN BOMBER CENTENARIES

Ireland remembers O’Donovan Rossa earlier state-run event. Actor Edward Cosgrove delivered Pádraig Pearse’s famous graveside oration and a volley of shots over the coffin followed.

In a brief address, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD praised the life and legacy of the veteran Fenian.

“Rossa’s funeral mobilised and galvanised all sides of progressive opinion.

The funeral committee included 11 of the leaders of the Rising who were executed 10 months later. They stood where we are standing today,” he told the hundreds inside the cemetery, with the speech relayed on large screens to the many still outside the gates.

Gerry Adams also referenced O’Donovan Rossa’s “dynamite campaign” of bombings across Britain, underlining the hypocrisy of the mainstream parties in their attitudes to republicans of various generations. He said: “Isn’t it great that this morning the Irish Government celebrated this old Fenian and his activities? He was, in many ways, a very active republican.

BY MARK MOLONEY THOUSANDS of people lined the streets of Dublin on 1 August as Sinn Féin marked the 100th anniversary of the legendary 1915 funeral of unrepentant Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa – an event widely seen as the call to arms for the Easter Rising of 1916.

Originally from Rosscarbery in County Cork, Rossa was one of the first recruits to the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Arrested and charged with “high treason” and plotting a Fenian uprising in Ireland, he was sentenced to penal servitude for life in prison.

In 1869 he was elected to Parliament as MP for Tipperary but this was declared void as he was imprisoned in England.

Released under a general amnesty in 1870 and exiled to America, he joined the Fenian Brotherhood and masterminded a bombing campaign in Britain in the 1880s. He remained one of the

Hundreds in the crowd got into the spirit of the event, donning period dress as mourners most prominent and vocal supporters of Irish freedom amongst the Irish exile community for the rest of his life.

As well as republicans from right across Ireland, O’Donovan Rossa’s great-grandsons, Williams Rossa Cole and Rossa Williams Cole, travelled from the United States to be at the full-scale re-enactment.

Williams told reporters inside Dublin City Hall: “It’s pretty amazing to be here in this space, 100 years later.

“In the old footage from the time you can see the coffin right here, lying in state, surrounded by Volunteers. And you can see our great-grandmother in the old footage.”

Inside City Hall, actor Allan Keating passionately delivered the speech by radical Sligo priest and republican Fr Michael O’Flanagan, who proclaimed that the return of the remains of O’Donovan Rossa “may be the starting-point of a new epoch in the history of Ireland”.

5 Volunteers stand guard over O'Donovan Rossa's coffin in Dublin City Hall

5 Mounted Volunteers accompany the hearse while (right) attendees get into the spirit of the re-enactment While he spoke, the Volunteers who had provided a guard of honour to the Triclour-draped coffin throughout the morning bowed their heads.

As the doors of City Hall swung open, leading to the cobblestones outside Dublin Castle, hundreds in period costume removed their hats and caps as a show of respect. Volunteers bore the coffin on their shoulders and placed it in the traditional horse-drawn hearse to make its way to Glasnevin Cemetery.

The weather was even on key. Leaden

skies in the morning made way for stone-splitting sunshine in the afternoon as the cortege left City Hall – just as it had 100 years ago.

The huge funeral procession (accompanied by the O’Neill/Allsopp, South Derry Martyrs, Carrick on Suir and Éire Nua bands) was watched by countless onlookers and tourists as it made its way along the original route through the city centre, past Trinity College, along O’Connell Street and past the GPO, and on to Glasnevin Cemetery.

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Arriving at Glasnevin Cemetery, the Sinn Féin commemoration dwarfed the earlier state-run event

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Hundreds in the crowd got into the spirit of the event, donning period dress as mourners. Led by the Cabra Historical Society in Irish Volunteer and Irish Citizen Army uniforms and carrying rifles – along with the Claíomh living history group resplendent as leading republican figures such as Constance Markievicz – the entire spectacle was an eye-catching event in Dublin’s bustling city centre on a Saturday afternoon.

Arriving at Glasnevin Cemetery, the Sinn Féin commemoration dwarfed the

“Today, almost a century later, we have many, like O’Donovan Rossa, who spent years as political prisoners or were on the run or were forced into exile. We remember also all those who suffered and died in the most recent conflict, including our patriot dead, some of whom are laid to rest in this cemetery.”

Noting the large number of young people there, Adams said they would not know the terrible reality of armed conflict in our country.

“Let us be very clear that the Peace Process and the political progress we have achieved were made possible because of the sacrifices of countless republicans over the generations.

“It is hugely positive and progressive that we today can pursue the complete unity and freedom of the Irish people by peaceful means. And we are pursuing that cause.”

The O’Donovan Rossa event and future 1916 centenary initiatives are made possible through money raised by the Sinn Féin National Draw

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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5 Thousands depart from Dublin City Hall along the original funeral route

5 Markievicz, Citizen Army and Volunteers

5 Re-enactors fire a volley of shots over the coffin in Glasnevin Cemetery

5 Members of the public watch the event at the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery

Please help make these occasions similar successes by purchasing or selling your National Draw tickets now

5 The horse-drawn hearse arrives at the Republican Plot in Glasnevin

5 O'Donovan Rossa's great-grandsons

5 Gerry Adams TD speaks to the crowd at Glasnevin Cemetery Draw will take place on Saturday 17 October 2015 Crannchur ar an Satharn 17 Deireadh Fómhair 2015 TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM:

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8 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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Farming needs support to be sustainable

The future sustainability of the Irish farm is dependent on farmers receiving a fair and equitable return for their produce

BY LIAM LAPPIN PROTESTS by dairy farmers at supermarkets in the North and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) predicting an average milk price of 24c per litre for the rest of the year in the South has captured news headlines across the island.

In the North, the return that farmers have been receiving has dropped to 19p per litre, with a further drop anticipated. This is well below the cost of production at approximately 24p per litre.

The dairy crisis is impacted by a global market which is contending with an over-supply of produce and a weakening demand, further compounded by the Russian import ban on EU products, exchange rates and the decline in Chinese trade. The scrapping of the EU dairy quotas earlier this year has also encouraged a greater milk production across EU regions.

Sinn Féin representatives – including the North’s Agriculture Minister, Michelle O’Neill, Martin Ferris TD and our MEPs –have been consistent in calling for emergency intervention

by EU Commissioner Phil Hogan, who seems to fail to recognise that there is a genuine crisis.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael/Labour Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney should be following Michelle O’Neill’s example by talking to the banks about offering leniency to those farmers who were encouraged to invest in stock and facilities prior to the end of quotas last March and who now find themselves unable to make repayments between plummeting prices and, in some cases, payment of a super levy.

While the dairy industry crisis is estimated to take €1billion from the economy in the South, other sectors are struggling too.

Farmers in sectors such as beef, lamb, pork and arable have also fallen victim to market volatility across the island. Despite this variety of competing external factors, there is still much we can do locally to assist farmers.

The future sustainability of the Irish farm is dependent on farmers receiving a fair and equitable return for their produce. This is a message which Sinn Féin representatives in the Assembly, Leinster House and the European Parliament have been championing. Central to this is ensuring robust communication between all elements of the food chain. This means putting greater focus on all-island branding by taking advantage of the worldwide renowned quality and standard of Irish produce, as opposed the two parts of our island competing against each other for new markets.

To help alleviate the pressures of dairy farmers during the current crisis, Minister Michelle O’Neill has also taken a number of initiatives, including: · Meeting with local banks to encourage flexibility and leniency while dealing with farmers in financial distress;

5 The North’s Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill MLA speaks to farmers at Stormont

· Engaging other Farm Ministers, including Minister Simon Coveney and the British Minister Liz Truss for support in calling for EU intervention; · Providing resources through her department to assist farmers with advice on efficiency, benchmarking and managing cash flow; and · Developing a Farm Business Improvement Scheme which will allow local farmers to make necessary investments and upgrades to their farms.

The imposition of partition in Ireland is adding to the seriousness of this crisis. The weakness of

the euro against the sterling is making exports from the North less attractive, while a potential British exit from the European Union is also putting into jeopardy the future of European subsidies for Northern farmers.

Sinn Féin engages closely with farming bodies, discussing and assisting with a variety of issues which impact on the industry such as cross-border trade, animal health, CAP reform, etc.

There is recognition that as well as farmers being the primary producers of agri-food produce in what is one of our largest export markets on the island, they are also the environmental custodians of our countryside and the backbone of rural Ireland who need our support.

EU Commissioner Phil Hogan

Sinn Féin representatives – including the North’s Agriculture Minister, Michelle O’Neill, Martin Ferris TD and our MEPs – have been consistent in calling for emergency intervention by EU Commissioner Phil Hogan

5 Long-term economic predictions forecast a positive future for the dairy market but short-term support is required during the current crisis to cushion the financial loss to farmers

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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9

With youth unemployment still running at 20% and with many thousands living abroad in emigration, people here crushed by personal debt, mortgage arrears, job losses, lower wages and higher taxes, it is hard for many to take this nonsense of ‘economic recovery’ seriously

5 The price of austerity and of the recession was not paid by those most able to afford it

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ OVER-THE-TOP and self-congratulatory statements from Government ministers are a sure sign that the general election campaign is already underway.

While Labour is recovering from its long slumber and is busy trying to create a (don’t laugh) “workers’ agenda”, the main thrust of the Government parties’ strategy is to claim credit for the “economic recovery” we are supposed to be enjoying.

With youth unemployment still running at 20% and with many thousands living abroad in emigration, it is hard to take this nonsense, but the Government gaily quote statistics that they imagine support their claims.

The figures indeed do show that there is a recovery in economic growth.

But this recovery is export-led, particularly in the technological sector. It is the result NOT of Government policy (as they would claim) but of the decline of the euro vis-a-vis the dollar and sterling which is the result of the disastrous austerity policies that have devastated Europe.

In other words, our exports are cheaper and therefore more competitive.

This result could have been achieved, with much less social pain, if we had just quit the Eurozone and devalued our currency while refusing to pay back the debts of banks which should never

have been accepted as national debts.

The second point is that capitalism is always a cycle of boom and bust, and (given the depth of the recession inflicted on us by Labour and Fine Gael, and before them Fianna Fáil) it was inevitable that there would be some recovery, even if the working people will be the last to experience it.

But the most important point is that the price of austerity and of the recession associated with it was not paid by

It was not those who were the cause of the crash who paid for it, but those who had benefitted only marginally from the boom preceding it.

And Labour expect the electorate to be grateful now that the cycle is beginning to turn. They believe that we will forget the hardship, forget the shameful treatment of people with disabilities, of people needing hospital care, of our old age pensioners, and of our young people forced to work on the JobBridge

banking system and the reckless (and ruthless) German lenders behind it, and to prepare the ground to get the old system back on track.

Real recovery would mean the creation of real jobs at decent wages.

And if private enterprise can’t do it, then – no matter what the EU says – the Irish state should do it.

That’s what national freedom is about, and why the struggle to end austerity and give people a decent

RECOVERY? MAYBE

BUT WHO PAID THE PRICE? those most able to pay – the rich, the bankers, the speculators, and Labour’s friends in big business. It was paid by the ordinary working people of Ireland, urban and rural, who have been crushed by personal debt, mortgage arrears, job losses, lower wages and higher taxes.

Yes, higher taxes. Despite all the Government blather, the Property Tax and the Water Charges are taxes even if they give them different names.

scam and other wheezes designed to make people work for nothing or next to nothing.

A ‘Boss’s Charter’ if ever there was one.

Opinion polls, however, suggest that people are not forgetting.

People know that this hardship, endured by the great majority, was unnecessary; know that it was imposed to keep the rich safe, to defend Europe’s

livelihood is bound up with the struggle to reassert our national sovereignty and unite our country.

They are two sides of the same coin, as James Connolly – a man whose name is frequently taken in vain by the disgraced Labour Party – often told us.

And as the media commentators panic over who will be in the next election, and as the political establishment twists and turns in its efforts

to avoid real change, these real issues come to the fore despite all the hype and special pleading.

Every Irish citizen – and indeed every person resident in our country – has a right to a job and a home, a right to health care and education for their children, a right to be free to revive our national culture and be secure in our own land.

Whether it’s Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee, Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil

The ‘recovery’ is export-led, the result NOT of Government policy but of the decline of the euro vis-a-vis the dollar and sterling which is the result of the disastrous austerity policies that have devastated Europe have shown that they are all unfit for office – not because of their names but because of their policies.

Because they all rely on the policies that got us into the mess to get us out when what we need is a change of policy that will put the ordinary people ahead of the grabbers and the speculators.

We need a change.

10 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Sinn Féin President and Louth TD Gerry Adams addresses National Hunger Strike Commemoration

BY JOHN HEDGES TORRENTIAL RAIN over Dundalk, County Louth, on the day of the National Hunger Strike Commemoration eased just enough for the thousands upon thousands of marchers from the four corners of Ireland and beyond (accompanied by many bands from Ireland and Scotland) to parade their long way up the Newry Road, snaking through the Border town centre to rally close to The Square before the heavens opened up again.

Stoically, the marchers withstood the downpours to respectfully listen to a moving programme of tributes to the Hunger Strikers, their families and the communities throughout Ireland who supported the prisoners’ struggle for the restoration of political status in Long Kesh, Armagh and England in the 1970s and 1980s, and in the decades previously.

The crowd included many Hunger Strike families in a special reserved and covered area, former Hunger Strikers and ex-POWS (I was standing in alongside Assembly Member Pat Sheehan, who spent 55 days on the 1981 Hunger Strike, and Séanna Walsh, former O/C of the republican POWs who read out the 2005 statement from

‘Let me be very clear.

The killings of Jock Davison and of Kevin McGuigan were wrong.

Those involved do not represent republicanism. They are not the IRA. The IRA has gone away’ GERRY ADAMS

‘We won’t be lectured to by those who have repeatedly failed to honour their obligations’ and their families as he offered personal insights into his meetings with the prisoners inside the Kesh during the Hunger Strike. It was also one of added importance in the light of the political crisis created by comments from the PSNI investigating the killings of Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison and Kevin McGuigan, statements eagerly seized upon by unscrupulous journalists and unionist leaders to pursue their own agendas.

The Sinn Féin leader spoke of the courage and selflessness of the Hunger Strikers and of their families.“Their indomitable spirit and selflessness stand out as an inspiration to us all,” he said as he declared this to be a “special celebration” of the lives of the Hunger Strikers and what they stood for and fought for “in desperate circumstances”.

They hold a very special place in the hearts and minds of Irish republicans, he said.

“The Hunger Strikers are exceptional. Perhaps it’s because of the very public way that they died; perhaps it’s because, as human beings, we are drawn to and inspired by those who are willing to sacrifice their lives in desperate circumstances to save the lives of others and in pursuit of a noble goal. Or perhaps it’s because we shared in the trauma of the families who demonstrated enormous endurance and tenacity through those long, difficult months.

Their indomitable spirit and selflessness stand out as an inspiration.

“The generosity and self-sacrifice of the Hunger Strikers, and the hard work and support

the IRA Army Council announcing the end to its armed campaign.)

Louth County Councillor Tomás Sharkey welcomed everyone to Dundalk before handing over to Councillor Imelda Munster from Drogheda in the south of County Louth who was MC for the day.

The event opened with Bobby Sands’s poem Modern Times being read by Donna Lawless.

Imelda Munster’s tribute to the Hunger Strikers was followed by the reading of the Hunger Strikers Roll of Honour by Niamh Morrow and Shauna McKee. The Last Post was played by Harry Bellew Senior, and a lament was played by Patrick Martin.

Forever In My Mind (written by Christy Moore based on a poem by Pierce McLoughlin about the Hunger Strikers) was sung by Ellen Maguire, and Aoife Archibald read another of Bobby Sands’s poems, Weeping Winds.

Acknowledging the incessant rain, local TD Gerry Adams quipped that he had never addressed so many umbrellas in his political career and “ahead of my 75-minute speech”. His speech, though, was not 75 minutes long but it was laden with emotion in remembering the sacrifices of the prisoners 5 Flute bands from across Ireland and Scotland led the procession

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of thousands of people across this island and across the world, inflicted a historic defeat on the Thatcher Government.

“The Easter Rising of 1916 was a watershed in Ireland’s long struggle for freedom and against British rule. The momentous election of Bobby Sands gave the lie to the claim that the political prisoners did not enjoy popular support.”

The election of Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew to the Dáil dealt another blow to the criminalisation of the British Government, a policy enthusiastically supported by the Irish

‘The Easter Rising of 1916 was a watershed in Ireland’s long struggle for freedom and against British rule. The momentous election of Bobby Sands gave the lie to the claim that the political prisoners did not enjoy popular support’ Government, Gerry Adams said. Joe McDonnell came close to winning a seat in Sligo/Leitrim and Mairéad Farrell and other prisoner candidates won very creditable votes in a campaign with little real organisation or great electoral experience.

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

Gerry Adams called Dundalk man Paddy Agnew to the front of the stage. As the two men raised their fists together in solidarity, Gerry said that

The National Hunger Strike Commemoration and associated events are made possible through money raised by the Sinn Féin National Draw.

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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11

‘It is clear that the sacrifices and the electoral successes of the prisoners have transformed the struggle’

5During the Hunger Strikes, the banging of bin lids was often used in nationalist communities to announce the death of a Hunger Striker

Paddy had blazed the trail for Arthur Morgan as Sinn Féin TD for Louth “and me here, Johnny Come Lately”, he laughed.

Gerry Adams attacked “the shallow politics” of the conservative parties in Dublin.

“It is clear that the sacrifices and the electoral successes of the prisoners have transformed the struggle,” the former MP for West Belfast said in the county of Louth for which he is now a TD in the Dáil. He continued: “Fine Gael and Labour can rightly be blamed for the implementation of austerity policies and the dire social and economic consequences they have created.

“But there is no difference in policy between Fine Gael and Labour, and Fianna Fáil. They will

‘The election of Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew to the Dáil dealt another blow to the criminalisation of the British Government, a policy enthusiastically supported by the Irish Government’ not deliver a fair recovery but more of the same old cronyism and clienteles.

“A general election is only months, perhaps weeks, away. The Government says that a recovery is underway. If it is, it isn’t a fair recovery. It is a two-tier recovery that benefits them and their friends at the top, not the majority of hard-working, fair-minded Irish citizens.”

He said that Fine Gael and Labour will make one last desperate effort in the October Budget to buy the next election.

“We cannot and should never take the electorate for granted but I am confident that citizens will not be fooled.

“Sinn Féin offers a different way, a better way, to build a fair recovery. It is our responsibility to

5 Street theatre along the route told the story of the various stages of the struggle PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

win the largest mandate possible for our party and for a fair recovery.

“The reality is that the leaderships of Fine Gael and Labour and Fianna Fáil long ago abandoned any real belief in the principles of equality and of rights contained in the Proclamation, or any commitment to a united, free and independent Ireland.

“Partitionism dominates and defines their politics.

For them the struggle for Irish freedom ended with the Treaty and the Civil War. It ended with partition. But Ireland divided never can be free.

So for us the struggle continues. And Sinn Féin is in the vanguard.

“For that reason, our enemies seek at every opportunity to attack our mandate, to undermine the rights and entitlements of our electorate, and

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

to undermine the Peace Process. Like the men and women of Armagh and the H-Blocks, they seek to criminalise us. They didn’t succeed in 1981 and they won’t succeed today,” the republican leader said to loud applause and cheers.

Gerry Adams also criticised those who have “opportunistically and cynically” sought to use the recent killings of Jock Davison and Kevin McGuigan to attack Sinn Féin.

“Let me be very clear. The killings of Jock Davison and of Kevin McGuigan were wrong.

Those involved do not represent republicanism. They are not the IRA. The IRA has gone away .

“That organisation, undefeated, took the momentous step in 2005 and ordered an end to its armed campaign; instructed its representatives to ‘engage with the IICD [Independent International Commission on Decommissioning] to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use’ and ordered its Volunteers to take part only in ‘purely political and democratic programmes’ and no ‘other activities whatsoever’.

“None of the many alphabet groups that now claim the proud name of the Irish Republican Army have a right to that title. They have no connection whatsoever with the men and women who bravely resisted British militarism in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and who defeated Thatcher in Armagh women’s prison and the H-Blocks of Long Kesh.

“As we approach the centenary of 1916 there is no need, rationale or reason for any armed groups whatsoever. It’s time they called an end to their sham campaigns.

“I have a similar blunt message for those who engage in a sham fight at Stormont on this issue in order to slow down or dilute the necessary process of change. Those who threaten to take action against Sinn Féin in the political institutions have no basis whatsoever for this.

“Sinn Féin’s mandate and the rights and entitlements of our electorate deserve exactly the same respect and protection as anyone else’s. And Sinn Féin will defend that assertively and robustly.

“We will not be lectured to by those who have failed to honour their obligations time and again.

For our part, Sinn Féin has kept every commitment we have made.”

PHOTOS: AIDAN McFAUL

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12 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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JIM GIBNEY, who was on the National H-Block/Armagh Committee in 1981, looks back at the prison struggle

THE

BRAVERY OF THE PRISONERS AND

THE PEOPLE

THE ASSASSINATION of activists involved in the anti-H- Block/ Armagh campaign was a clear indication that Britain’s criminalisation policy and its importance to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s attempts to destroy republicanism was being undermined by the mass mobilisations in support of the prisoners.

The unionist Ulster Defence Association, associated most with the British policy of collusion, was responsible for the killings of John Turnly (a member of the Irish Independence Party) and Miriam Daly (of the Irish Republican Socialist Party) in June 1980. They also killed IRSP members Ronnie Bunting and Noel Lyttle in October that year.

On 16 January 1981, in a high-profile attack one of the most prominent of the H-Block campaigners, Bernadette McAliskey, and her husband, Michael, suffered multiple gunshot wounds in their County Tyrone home and left for dead.

The gunmen were arrested on the spot by British paratroopers who were helicoptered into the area on 15 January and, it is believed, simultaneously had the McAliskey home under surveillance.

The suspicion at the time was that the British knew of the attack but were content to allow it to happen then arrest the assassins as some sort of propaganda coup.

Jim Gibney has no doubt the British directed this campaign of assassinations, “But, like their use of thousands of plastic bullets aimed at suppressing the resistance and defiance of our communities, it didn’t work.

“To paraphrase Bik McFarlane’s tribute to Bobby Sands in Song for Marcella ‘We’re stronger now, you showed us how freedom’s fight can be won’.”

5 H-Blocks/Armagh protesters march in County Tyrone: Miriam Daly (front left) and John Turnly (second row, with dark glasses) were assassinated by loyalists while Bernadette McAliskey (front, second from right) was shot and left for dead along with her husband

“THE BRAVERY of the people on the streets matched that of the prisoners in the H-Blocks during the Hunger Strike year of 1981,” Jim Gibney told An Phoblacht’s Peadar Whelan on Thursday 20 August, the 34th anniversary of Michael Devine’s death and just days before the annual Hunger Strike Commemoration in Dundalk, County Louth.

An INLA Volunteer, Devine – or “Red Micky” – was the last of 10 republican prisoners to die during that epic year of 1981 in a prison struggle that marked a turning point in the struggle in Ireland and defined the direction republicanism would take in the next decade.

“The British Army and RUC fired over 30,000 plastic bullets during 1981, with a substantial number fired in May when Bobby, Francie, Raymond and Patsy died,” he said, referring to Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond (McCreesh) and Patsy O’Hara.

“Seven people were killed as well as hundreds badly wounded. Yet the people kept coming on to the streets in support of the prisoners.”

To emphasise his point, Gibney recalled how

Jim Gibney

people attending protests and pickets protected their children with cycling helmets.

“But despite their fear, and the real danger they faced, the people stayed on the streets.”

An Phoblacht was interviewing Gibney, one of the key republican activists at the heart of the struggle for political status, about his role in the National H-Block/Armagh Committee and the dynamic of a campaign that grew from being the proverbial acorn that became the mighty oak that Britain’s criminalisation policy couldn’t deal with..

“One of the ironies of how things evolved in that mid-1970s period was that people like Fergus O’Hare and John McNulty of People’s Democracy were handing out leaflets at Clonard Monastery warning about the threat of ‘political status’ being removed.”

Gibney maintained that republicans were trying to get to grips with the politically confusing situation created by the 1974/75 “ceasefire” and also the ending of internment, which many interpreted as a positive move by the then British Labour Government.

In his book Gangsters or Guerrillas? Representations of Irish Republicans in ‘Troubles’

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

5 A National H Block/Armagh Committee press conference with Bernadette McAliskey, Jim Gibney, Fr Piaras Ó Dúill and Fergus O'Hare

5 As more prisoners were sentenced, Relatives Action Committees were created in many areas

5 Support for the political prisoners and their demands came from all across Ireland in mass rallies

5 Rallies in support of the prisoners took place across the globe

Fiction, former POW Patrick Magee (convicted of the 1984 IRA bomb attack on Margaret Thatcher and the Tory Party conference in Brighton) saw things differently.

“To those of us in Long Kesh who witnessed the construction of the H-Blocks at the very same time as internees were being released, it seemed that Britain had merely changed tack.

“To republicans, every British political initiative had its hidden military agenda. The British state embarked on a policy designed to politically isolate Irish republicanism.”

Criminalisation – linked in a three-pronged strategy with ‘normalisation’ and ‘Ulsterisation’ and built on the torture of republicans in the various RUC interrogation centres – was the key element in Britain’s political and military offensive.

“In reality,” Jim Gibney said, “at the end of 1975, we didn’t know what we were facing. It was an unreal situation.”

brought her energy to the campaign.

“In reality, the relatives dragged republicans along.”

TROUBLE ERUPTED In 1976, the new prison regime saw the end of segregation in Belfast’s remand prison, Crumlin Road.

Trouble erupted as republicans and loyalists fought to be separated.

It was against this background, according to Gibney, that a public meeting was held in the Ballymurphy Tenants’ Association premises on the Whiterock Road with local women Maura McCrory and Lily Fitzsimmons (whose sons would end up on the Blanket Protest), Mary McDermott (whose Seán was killed on active service in 1976), Fergus O’Hare of People’s Democracy, and Miriam Daly (see info box) to the fore.

“This was basically the meeting of the Relatives Action Committee (RAC) which would, as time went on and more and more prisoners were sentenced, be replicated throughout the country.”

Another indication of the confusion republicans faced was when Lower Falls man Kieran Nugent was sentenced in September 1976 to become the first republican to challenge the new criminal regime in the newly-built H-Blocks.

Gibney told how Tom Hartley, based in Sinn Féin’s old headquarters at 174 Falls Road, recounted how Nugent’s family arrived at the offices in a stressedout state because they couldn’t find out where Nugent had been brought after his conviction.

“It took two weeks for us to locate him,” Gibney remembers.

Nugent had been transferred to the H-Blocks where he refused to wear the prison uniform or carry out menial prison work.”

Stripped naked, he donned a blanket and so began a prison struggle that would send out shockwaves that would shake the political establishments throughout Ireland and Britain.

In a twist of fate, Jim Gibney would spend most of the next year on remand in Crumlin Road Prison.

It was while in prison then that Gibney gained a sense of the significance of what was happening in the prisons and an insight that many republicans at this early stage of the protest didn’t grasp.

“The military struggle was all-encompassing and the Movement saw the prison issue as a side issue,” Jim Gibney admitted. “You could argue that

1979, and “The 5 Demands” which were the nuts and bolts of political status.

RELATIVES ACTION COMMITTEES

ALL-IRELAND CAMPAIGN

After Bloody Sunday in Derry, which a lot of people see as the death of the civil rights movement, street politics all but disappeared, Jim Gibney suggested.

“What the RACs did was to mobilise people and bring people back onto the streets in what was, effectively, a challenge to the authority of the state over the treatment of the prisoners in both Armagh Women’s Prison and Long Kesh.

“The women symbolised what needed to be done as they marched and protested wearing blankets. Their determination saw the revival of street protest.

“As the protest in the H-Blocks escalated into the “No-Wash Protest”, forced upon the prisoners by the

The broad-based committee included people from both north and south of the Border and set out to raise awareness of the prison protest across the whole country.

“Quite simply we needed to broaden support for the prisoners, put pressure on the Dublin government and mobilise around the five demands.”

With the beginning of a first hunger strike in 1980 by seven H-Block prisoners who were joined by three Armagh POWs, the street campaign became more urgent and mass rallies took place throughout the country, indicating that people weren’t prepared to stand by and allow prisoners to die.

The confusing end to the first hunger strike was a demoralising blow that the British interpreted as a defeat for the prisoners and their supporters and encouraged their intransigence.

“By refusing to negotiate a settlement, the British created the conditions for the second hunger strike,” said Gibney.

During that second hunger strike, Jim Gibney said: “Bobby’s election as a Westminster MP was the catalyst for profound political change across the country.

“Bobby was elected on 9 April. Two days later, at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, Taoiseach Charlie Haughey, in his Presidential Address, did not even mention the H-Blocks or the hunger strikes yet in the general election of June that year Hunger Striker Kieran Doherty in Cavan/Monaghan and Blanketman Paddy Agnew in Louth won Dáil seats and brought down the Haughey Government.

“Fianna Fáil has never been in power on its own since and look where it is now – looking over its shoulder at Sinn Féin.”

Wrapping up our look back at that time, Jim said: “That period was one of those moments in history when the people stretched themselves both inside and outside the prisons.

“Sinn Féin emerged as the party that could and would deliver for the people of Ireland. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have emerged as the most formidable leaders of Irish republicanism since Collins and De Valera and they have brought us to the point where a united Ireland is achievable, despite what our political enemies say.”

‘The British state embarked on a policy designed to politically isolate Irish republicanism.

Criminalisation – linked in a three-pronged strategy with ‘normalisation’ and ‘Ulsterisation’ and built on the torture of republicans in the various RUC interrogation centres – was the key element in Britain’s political and military offensive’ the British Government had made the prison issue and criminalisation a central plank of their strategy and initially republicans didn’t catch on.”

As more and more prisoners were sentenced and “went on the Blanket” in protest against wearing prison uniform, the more their families, mostly the mothers, banded together to form local committees. These would soon amalgamate into a broad front under the umbrella of the Relatives Action Committee and took to the streets to highlight the plight of the prisoners.

“Women like Maura McCrory and Lily Fitzsimmons from Belfast as well as Mary Nelis and Kathleen Gallagher in Derry were incredible. They had enormous energy and courage and were not afraid to take their protests anywhere they could to expose the brutality of the regime.

“Bernadette McAliskey was formidable when she

13

regime’s reaction, conflict became more intense.

“The incidents of physical and mental abuse were increasing as the British, the NIO and prison authorities tried to break the protesters. And the more reports of ill-treatment and abuse that emerged, the more the street protests intensified.”

As the prison protest dragged on and a stalemate ensued, the debate turned to the next challenge.

Jim Gibney (at this point a key link between the prisoners, the RAC and Sinn Féin) recounted how the Guardian newspaper’s David Beresford asked him in an interview what political status would mean in practice.

“I couldn’t answer him,” Gibney confessed.

As debates took place around the direction of the campaign and the actual meaning of political status, what emerged was the formation of the National H-Block Armagh Committee, formed in

14 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

If the principle of citizenship by birth, jus soli, had not been taken away in a referendum in 2004, he would have been Irish

SUE CONLAN CEO, Irish Refugee Council

The human rights elephant in our nation’s room

5 For reasons that are difficult to understand, not even modest proposals for reform of Direct Provision have received a response from Government ministers

ON 10 AUGUST, a young boy celebrated his eighth birthday with his family in a Direct Provision accommodation centre for asylum seekers. It is the only home that he has ever known since he was born in Ireland eight years ago.

Thankfully, for him and his family, it will be the last birthday that he spends in the institutionalised setting that is Direct Provision. Whilst preparing for his birthday, his mum got the call from her solicitor which brought their nightmare experience of the Irish asylum system to an end.

She learnt that, after nearly ten years, she had been given permission to stay in Ireland. The birthday party turned into a family celebration.

The sad thing is that it didn’t have to be that way for this Irish-born child.

To begin with, if the principle of citizenship by birth, jus soli, had not been taken away in a referendum in 2004, he would have been Irish, with the rights, opportunities, hopes, fears and frustrations that face ordinary citizens. Ironically, in extending Irish citizenship to people born in the North of Ireland in response to the Good Friday Agreement, it was taken away from children born to asylum seekers.

Instead of learning to become part of Ireland’s rich heritage, this young boy has instead been forced to endure the indignity of being a ‘hostel kid’, made to feel different in a system where people (mostly from Africa, Asia and the Middle East) are separated from mainstream Irish society.

Yes, he has had the right to go to school. But without the means to fully participate in all that a school community can offer, it is a begrudging concession to an innocent child.

Even without citizenship, his parents’ applications for refugee status could have been met with an open mind and a willingness to consider the

possibility that they were indeed at risk in their home country. But at the time that they went through the asylum system, the mind-set was very much one of refusal as the Irish Refugee Council has shown in Difficult to Believe, a report which looked at the asylum decision-making process in Ireland. So they remained and used whatever opportunities were available to them to challenge the culture of disbelief and fight for the right to be protected.

During all of this time, this boy and his family

lived in Direct Provision, criticised by so many national and international organisations and actors as being unfit for purpose, described, for example, as “the human rights elephant in our nation’s room” by EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly.

For reasons that are difficult to understand, not even modest proposals for reform of Direct Provision have yet received a response by Government ministers, let alone acted upon. In fact, the call by the Government-appointed Working Group

5 Some children have spent most of their lives in Direct Provision centres

on the Protection Process, which reported in June 2015, has been blind-sided by the Department of Justice extending the Direct Provision system, advertising for “expressions of interest” from owners of hotels, hostels and guesthouses.

At the same time, two proposals have yet to be implemented.

So the modest weekly allowance of €19.10 per adult – the same amount paid for more than 15 years – continues to be used to pay prescription charges for essential medication.

And many young people with Leaving Cert results that could get them a place at university received their results without knowing if they could proceed with their education.

The decisions of the Irish Government to take part in the search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean, leading to so many lives being saved, and to opt-in to the EU proposal to resettle Syrian refugees and relocate asylum seekers from Italy and Greece must not be forgotten.

But it is hard not be concerned about the type of Irish welcome that they will receive if they will be placed into Direct Provision centres.

And when that is set alongside the struggle of many Irish people for decent, affordable housing, and jobs that pay a living wage, then you begin to wonder what the future will hold for anyone trying to make or keep Ireland their home.

What we need now is to see the similarities between people, people trying to keep their heads above water – quite literally sometimes – people who strive to do the best for their families.

The worst thing that could happen is to let further divisions creep in.

We need to build solidarity and work together to ensure that Ireland is a fair and equal place that protects and safeguards the rights of all people residing in it, now and into the future.

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

15

‘Every person has a right to protect their good name and reputation.

This protection includes taking legal action’ DENIS O’BRIEN, 2012

SUE THE PEOPLE!

BY ROBBIE SMYTH WORRIED you can’t keep up with the litigation trail of billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien? Well so are we at An Phoblacht as we try and track a growing list of legal letters, “cease and desist” requests, actual court cases and a lot of appeals.

It is a list of journalists, newspapers, politicians, public inquiries, the Revenue Commissioners, Dáil committees, the Dáil itself, the odd multinational and now – in the form of Ross O’Carroll Kelly in the Irish Times — we have a fictitious threat of legal action by a caricature Denis O’Brien.

O’Brien’s legal actions fall into four groups.

There are those against media opinion writers, targeting specific journalists.

Then there are at the least four challenges to the Moriarty Tribunal.

Next are issues around O’Brien’s business interests, an example of which would be the 2010 Cable and Wireless case and an attempted 2013 injunction against The Sunday Times from printing details of a loan from the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC).

Finally, there is the O’Brien challenge to our political representatives citing the European Convention on Human Rights!

A DOZEN, TWO DOZEN – MORE? So how many O’Brien legal actions are there? Twenty-four said a recent Sunday Times article, citing a trail that began in 1998 but didn’t name them all.

A 2013 Village magazine article quoted former Sunday Independent Editor Anne Harris as stating: “Seventeen journalists have received legal letters from Denis O’Brien in the last ten years.”

Journalists we know who have received letters from Denis O’Brien include Vincent Browne, Eamon Dunphy, Sam Smyth and Elaine Byrne.

In 2012, O’Brien threatened the Irish Times and Transparency International (TI) Ireland over a reported statement by TI CEO John Devitt to a UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur.

Devitt had informed her of O’Brien’s legal threats against a number of journalists and columnists. Devitt’s statement repeated findings of the Moriarty Tribunal, specifically that the granting of the second mobile phone licence had been influenced by the then Fine Gael Communications Minister, Michael Lowry.

O’Brien’s legal cases are not limited to Ireland.

5 Satirical website Waterford Whispers was threatened with legal action by Denis O'Brien

5 Journalists Vincent Browne, Eamon Dunphy, Sam Smyth and Elaine Byrne all received legal letters

In 2012, he began legal action in a Californian court against what news media claimed was his cousin Donald McAllister. O’Brien accused McAllister of a deliberate “pattern of misconduct” the aim of which was to “expose Denis O’Brien to hatred, contempt, ridicule and disgrace”.

In 2010, O’Brien lost a three-year case against Cable & Wireless who had accused of impeding Digicel’s entry into Caribbean markets. The Guardian estimated that O’Brien faced a £25million legal bill.

The first O’Brien media libel case that went to court was in 2000 against the Mirror Group. O’Brien won €317,000. Then Mirror journalist Karl Brophy had written an article, based

Pearse Doherty TD

Catherine Murphy TD

on anonymous sources, claiming that, in 1989, O’Brien had given IR£30,000 to then Fianna Fáil Communications Minister Ray Burke.

The Mirror libel case wasn’t finished yet. The Supreme Court set aside the original €317,000 award as excessive and the case went back to the High Court – where a new jury awarded O’Brien €750,000.

In 2013, the Daily Mail and journalist Paul Drury lost a defamation case to O’Brien. The jury found a Mail opinion column by Drury had misrepresented the charitable work of O’Brien in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. O’Brien was awarded €150,000. It was the first judgment given under the 2009 Defamation Act.

5 Denis O'Brien with Fine Gael former Communications Minister Michael Lowry and (right) Fianna Fáil's Ray Burke

BY ROBBIE SMYTH In 2014, O’Brien won an appeal in a long-running case against the Revenue Commissioners who had been pursuing him for Capital Gains Tax of €57million following the sale of his share in ESAT Digifone to BT in 1999. This case is ongoing.

In 2015, Denis O’Brien has taken a series of cases to the High Court and Supreme Court, all relating to his attempts to stop either media discussion or political comment under privilege on his banking relationships with IBRC. (The Irish Bank Resolution Corporation was the name given to the entity formed in 2011 by the court-mandated merger of the state-owned banking institutions Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society.) Initially it was an RTÉ report that O’Brien attempted to halt.

BILLIONAIRE SUES PARLIAMENT O’Brien is now threatening to sue the Dáil Committee on Procedure and Privileges on the ground that it failed to properly investigate complaints against Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty and Independent TD Catherine Murphy.

O’Brien has also started legal action against the Irish state and the Houses of the Oireachtas!

In August, O’Brien turned his attention to the online satirical Waterford Whispers and Broadsheet.ie, threatening “all necessary steps to vindicate our client’s good name and reputation” if a spoof about “20-Year Jail Sentence for Mobile Phone Licence Bribe in Parallel Universe” wasn’t taken down.

All that’s left now is a Denis O’Brien legal action against his fictional character in the Ross O’Carroll Kelly column.

Would he really sue over a storyline involving someone wearing a Denis O’Brien wig?

Time will tell.

16 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

DUBLIN’S NEW MAYOR

Críona Ní Dhálaigh

‘I’m a republican and I don’t make any apologies for that. It’s part of who I am. I wasn’t indoctrinated – it came to me naturally.

Republicansm and equality are inextricably linked – you can’t be one without the other’

BY MARK MOLONEY & JOHN HEDGES ON 30 JUNE, Críona Ní Dhálaigh became the first-ever Sinn Féin ‘Lord Mayor’ of Dublin City to take office (Tom Kelly was the first for Sinn Féin, elected on 30 January 1920, but he was interned in England). However, Críona won’t be using that title.

“I am much more comfortable using the title ‘Ard Mhéara’ rather than ‘Lord Mayor’. For one thing, Ard Mhéara has no gender; Lord Mayor does because when the title was created they never envisaged a woman would hold the position. In fact, out of more than 300 mayors of the city in its history, I’m only the eighth woman to hold the post.”

Críona grew up in a working-class family in the area known as the ‘lower end’ of Crumlin, near Dolphin’s Barn, in the south inner city.

“It was a fantastic childhood,” she tells An Phoblacht.

“As a child you were kind of oblivious to what was going on. There was a lot of poverty there but in the 1980s,

‘A century after the Great Lockout and the Easter Rising there is just no way we can stand over the homeless and housing crisis in Dublin’ doing my Leaving Cert, I became very aware of the drugs epidemic. My father, Seán, would’ve patrolled the top end of our street with other neighbours to try and stop drug dealers coming into the area.”

She also became aware of the huge social divisions that existed in Dublin.

“Because I spoke Irish I went to a Gaelscoil. There weren’t many around at that time so I had to go all the way over to Booterstown. It was like a different planet.

I remember getting dropped home by one of my classmate’s fathers and when we got to the top of my street he saw the barricade by the anti-drugs pickets. The men

were there with braziers going to keep them warm and he started having a conversation with my father, asking what was going on. That was probably the closest he got to the scourge of drugs as it really was concentrated in working-class neighbourhoods.”

Críona says her father had an enormous influence on her: “He was one of the most honest, principled, decent heroes going. He always strove to ensure we knew right from wrong. He told me that when I was born he worried much more about me than my brother because he automatically knew that as a woman I was going to be discriminated against; being an Irish-speaking family we’d be discriminated against; being Irish republicans we’d be discriminated against; and being working-class we’d be discriminated against.”

Looking back she says the annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown was something she looked forward to every year. She also remembers attending the funerals of Hunger Strikers (although she couldn’t go to them all as her school complained that she was missing too many days from classes) and Easter commemorations.

“I’m a republican and I don’t make any apologies for that. It’s part of who I am. I wasn’t indoctrinated – it 6 Críona Ní Dhálaigh with came to me naturally. Republicansm and equality are family and colleagues on inextricably linked – you can’t be one without the other.” her election as Ard Mhéara

“My father knew republicanism wasn’t just about the Six Counties. It was about supporting the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. It was about marching to protect Viking Dublin at Wood Quay – which is ironic as now I’m in there more than ever [the new Dublin City Council offices were built on the site]. I don’t know if he’d have been too happy with me about that,” she laughs.

“It was about campaigning for Irish-language rights and involvement in trade unionism, rights for workers and supporting the striking miners in England and Wales.”

Another reason she is using the title Ard Mhéara is because she wants to popularise and normalise the use of the Irish language in Dublin.

‘What is important to me is that 1916 is celebrated in a fitting and respectful manner. I’m hoping every citizen of Dublin and Ireland will take part. It is open to everyone and it must be celebrated in a fitting way’ “I want to make the language more visible and more normal in everyday Dubliners’ lives.

“I’m really supportive of a proposal by Conradh na Gaeilge to have a Gaeltacht Quarter based around Harcourt Street that would facilitate Irish speakers, those trying to learn or relearn the language.

“Growing up as an Irish speaker in a working-class community at that time was very lonely. It’s completely changed now – and there is at least ten kids on my street going to Gaelscoileanna. Many of them are the children or grandchildren of my friends who admired the fact that I went to an Irish-language school and were upset they never got that opportunity. They were determined their children would get the opportunity that they didn’t.

I want to see a time when kids leave a Gaelscoil that Irish won’t stop at the school gate but will be visible all around them in the city.”

Pointing to places like Bilbao and Barcelona, where the Basque and Catalan languages are widely spoken,

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

17

5 Sinn Féin activists protest on Dublin's O'Connell Street demanding immediate Government action to tackle the housing crisis in the capital

Críona says she’d love to see a time when Dublin was like that too.

“I know it’s not going to happen by the end of my year as Ard Mhéara but if I could use my term to get the ball rolling and support for the Irish-language organisations then I’ll be very happy.”

When Críona was elected, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – with the willing compliance of the Irish Independent group – tried to create controversy by claiming Sinn Féin would use her position as Mayor in 2016 to “hijack” the commemorations for the centenary of the Easter Rising.

“I’m blue in the face telling them that we’ve no intention of doing that. We don’t need to. We in Sinn Féin have actualy marked and commemorated the Easter Rising every year – so how could we ‘hijack’ it?

“What is important to me is that 1916 is celebrated in a fitting and respectful manner. I’m hoping every citizen of Dublin and Ireland will take part. It is open to everyone and it must be celebrated in a fitting way.

‘I want to make the language more visible and more normal in everyday Dubliners’ lives’ “We have the relatives of 1916 veterans organising events, community groups, local historical societies and youth clubs have all been getting involved and the council has provided funding for it.”

She says cities across the world where there is an Irish diaspora will celebrate the centenary.

Moving on to other key issues, Críona tells An Phoblacht that tackling the housing crisis facing the city is of the utmost importance.

The issue of homelesseess in Dublin is now at crisis levels with 564 families (which includes 1,185 children) homeless every night in Dublin. Three quarters of these are staying in hotels with the rest in emergency homeless accommodation or shelters.

“It’s just totally unacceptable,” says Críona. “A century after the Great Lockout and the Easter Rising there is just no way we can stand over this. The people in the placement services and the staff in the Council are completely overstretched and under-resourced. We cannot blame them – the system is what is at fault. The staff are doing their best.”

In August, Taoiseach Enda Kenny rejected any

suggestion that the Fine Gael/Labour Government needed to do more, claiming adequate funding had already been provided to local authorities to deal with the issue.

“The Government has not addressed the homeless crisis at all,” Críona says, clearly angry. “This did not happen overnight. Government ministers were repeatedly warned about this for years by councillors here in Dublin because of the consistent under-funding of local authorities when it comes to housing.

“We have been saying all along that this would turn into an emergency and that is exactly what has happened in Dublin City.

“In the council we have an €18million deficit in the homeless funding. We need to fund local authorities adequately so we can start building social housing again.”

She says the funding gap is down to a lack of political will. Críona is critical of Environment Minister Alan Kelly for his apparent disinterest in dealing with the issue. She says that despite asking him since her inauguration in June for an urgent meeting to deal with the crisis, he only confirmed at the end of August that he would meet the council’s all-party housing group in September.

“I’ve been asking week-in, week-out and I was fobbed off for months,” she tells An Phoblacht.

“The solution is to provide housing, to boost homelessness funding, and to tackle unaffordable rents. The Government refuses to do any of these things and that is why we have this crisis on our hands, and why it’s getting worse by the day.

“There are 22,000 people waiting to be housed in Dublin City alone – and many more in Dublin’s other three council areas. Consecutive Government’s exacerbated the crisis.”

She asks how Dublin can portray itself as a leading global city if it cannot even house its own people.

“What’s different with the housing crisis now is that it’s whole families who are presenting as homeless; before this it was mainly single men, many with addiction problems or mental health issuess, and occasionally women facing domestic violence. Now it is entire families where the parent or parents have jobs but cannot pay the exorbitant rents being demanded in Dublin.”

She says there is no quick-fix solution to the problem.

“Supply of social housing is going to take time. So in the short-term we need to look at other options to mitigate the crisis. We need rent certainty. If we don’t address it then rents will continue to rise. Something has to be done.”

18 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Irish teenager’s trial postponed for 10th time

Two years in an Egyptian prison

BY MARK MOLONEY IT IS NOW TWO YEARS since Tallaght teenager Ibrahim Halawa was arrested by Egyptian security forces in the aftermath of the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in a military coup. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

This August, the 19-year-old was able to hug his sister Khadija for the first time since 2013 during a visit in which she was accompanied by Dublin Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan and solicitor Darragh Mackin.

“He hugged his big sister for a very, very long time. It was the first human, physical contact Ibrahim has had with family relatives for almost two years. So it was a very emotional visit, it would break your heart,” Lynn Boylan told An Phoblacht.

On her return to Ireland from Cairo, the MEP criticised the conditions in which the Irish citizen is being held while Ibrahim told how he had been beaten by prison officers with rods.

“He has been refused outside medical treatment, though he still suffers from injuries sustained during his arrest and has developed breathing difficulties and chest pains due to mistreatment while in captivity,” Lynn said.

The Dubliner has been held for two years alongside 493 other protesters who are facing various charges in relation to a protest in August 2013.

Ibrahim had travelled to Egypt with his sisters and mother for their annual family holiday several weeks before President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown by the Egyptian Army in July 2013.

While there, they took part in rallies against the military coup.

More than 800 demonstrators and 43 police officers were killed in the protests that August in Cairo. In the Ramisis area, where Ibrahim and his sisters were, 97 people died in violence while the Halawa siblings and others barricaded themselves in the Al-Fateh mosque to escape the chaos.

Eventually, the mosque was stormed and those inside arrested. During this incident Ibrahim was shot in the hand by security forces.

Amnesty International has since listed Halawa

as a ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ and says he has been detained “solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly”.

Police claim protesters had fired from the grounds near the mosque but Amnesty International observers who were on the scene say “there is no way” those who were subsequently arrested could have been involved as “they were all locked inside the inner part of the mosque” when the attack occurred.

In August, Ibrahim was told his trial was suspended for the tenth time and is now due to

Amnesty International has listed Ibrahim Halawa as a ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ and says he has been detained ‘solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly’

take place on 4 October. Lynn Boylan says it is her opinion that Ibrahim will never receive a fair trial in Egypt.

“During court appearances, Ibrahim is tried alongside 490 other prisoners and may not hear the evidence presented against him or make representations for his own case. He has never met the solicitor for his defence.”

While the Irish Government insists it is doing

IN PICTURES

5 Relatives of those killed in the Ballymurphy Massacre at the scene where the killings took place during the annual 'March for Truth'. Relatives called on the British Government to allow a proper and thorough investigation into the killings of 11 people by the British Army in Ballymurphy in August 1971

‘Ibrahim has been mentally destroyed and is gradually being physically destroyed’ HALAWA FAMILY STATEMENT

everything it can to secure his release, Lynn Boylan has questioned their strategy.

“I think a more public approach to this would be more helpful, especially given the fact that Ibrahim was a juvenile when arrested and has been in arbitrary detention for such a long period of time. The Government’s behind-the-scenes strategy is clearly not working.”

In a statement, the Halawa family praised the work of Lynn Boylan and others and called on the Irish Government to intervene immediately: “Our family wouldn’t have held hope for this long if it wasn’t for the great support received from those we know and others such as solicitor Darragh Mackin, Lynn Boylan MEP and Senator Mark Daly, who all did their ultimate best to make a difference in Ibrahim’s case.

“Darragh and Lynn stood in 44 degrees celsisus heat out of humanity. Although they were unable to attend the hearing they witnessed the mockery of the judicial system of Egypt and how family members were not allowed to enter the hearing.”

The family said the Government needs to intervene.

“Ibrahim has been mentally destroyed and is gradually being physically destroyed.

“At what point will our government realise that no judiciary system exists under military rule and what more does the Government expect from a military coup?”

Lynn Boylan says the ongoing campaign for his release back in Ireland has “meant the world to him” and she called on citizens to get involved in the campaign and to write to him to show he is not forgotten.

WRITE TO:-

Ibrahim Halawa Wadi el-Natrun Prison Mansheya El-Masry Qesm Torah Beheira Governorate Egypt

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Flowers in a doorway on Molesworth Street, just metres away from Leinster House, mark the spot where homeless man Jonathan Corrie was found dead last year. His death sparked widespread outrage at the growing homeless crisis across Ireland

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

19

Activist group exposing JobBridge exploitation is expanding

Unpaid work should not be allowed to become the norm

BY OISÍN Ó DUBHLÁIN

WORK MUST PAY CAMPAIGN IN FEBRUARY of this year, a collection of activists from different trade unions, Sinn Féin, the Connolly Youth Movement and the Unite Youth Activist Group formed ‘Work Must Pay’ in response to the JobBridge scheme.

The group set out to not just condemn the Government for implementing such an exploitative scheme but to hold businesses who sought to take part to account. This would be done by a very public naming and shaming of businesses that used JobBridge and it has met with some success already.

Established initially in Dublin, it has seen the organic growth of the movement in Cork, Limerick and Kerry.

An attack on work The rising prevalence of mandatory internship schemes being foisted on the unemployed both in Ireland and across the world is nothing less than an attack on the pay and conditions of exisiting workers.

In Ireland we have the JobBridge and Gateway schemes proposed (depressingly) by a Labour Party minister, Tánaiste Joan Burton. These schemes are supposed to provide crucial experience and a foot in the door for young people stuck in unemployment but the reality is one of forced free labour which leaves many young people feeling exploited and hopeless without any benefit to their search for employment.

This is not just anecdotal or subjective commentary. Research into the JobBridge scheme shows clearly that it is a faulty scheme which does not benefit most involved, and this is before you consider the injustice of forced free labour.

Only 27% of JobBridge interns get full-time work within a year of the placement. 61% of those were highly placed to re-enter the jobs market anyway.

The Government claims a much greater success rate but (as with all Government claims on employment) the devil is in the detail. Most people who gain employment within a year

5 The Work Must Pay group not only condemns the Government for the exploitative JobBridge scheme, but holds businesses who seek to take part to account

of their internship only get seasonal or part-time work.

The scheme is also exploited by businesses which have no training programmes at all. There have been adverts for JobBridge positions cutting chips in a takeaway, juicing vegetables at a trendy cafe, or collecting glasses in pubs. Other positions have been sought for jobs which already require years of training, such as teachers and accountants. Bizarrely, a number recruitment agencies have also sought unpaid interns. All this is done by interns for €50 on top of their dole entitlements, which barely covers the expense of going to work at all.

Many interns are then cast aside

when their six or nine months are up, only to be replaced by another intern.

This exploitation has not gone unnoticed. It was highlighted by Sinn Féin on its introduction. Numerous trade unions also condemned the scheme, including Unite, the Communications Workers’ Union and IMPACT. Activists in Work Must Pay feel, however, that more must be done.

Challenging exploitation The tactic of the group is to contact a business advertising a JobBridge position, outline the failings of the scheme and request that they remove

the advert and commit to paying at least the minimum wage in future.

If the business refuses to engage they are given another opportunity. Failing that, we launch a protest picket on their premises, complete with placards, leaflets and loud chanting.

Many businesses have so far acquiesced to our demands (some more grudgingly than others). Some business owners have been defensive within reason while others have been aggressive to the point of physical contact and insults.

Work Must Pay activists remain respectful but dedicated to their aim of challenging exploitation. The public support for our campaign and

5 Public support for the Work Must Pay campaign and opposition to JobBridge is clear at street demonstrations

opposition to JobBridge is clear when we take to the streets.

Our critics argue that some people have benefited from JobBridge. We are delighted whenever someone gets full-time, paid employment in a job they enjoy but no one should ever have to labour for free for nearly a year to be allowed a job.

The campaign’s principle is clear as is our name – work must pay.

We cannot allow unpaid work to become the norm for young people.

We cannot accept this exploitation.

If you would like to help us in our campaign please visit our Facebook page or email workmustpayireland@ gmail.com

20 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Dr Kathleen Lynn GUE/NGL & DUBLIN SINN FÉIN

ANNUAL JAMES CONNOLLY SCHOOL

Mandate Trade Union Hall, Parnell Square, Dublin 1

(Opposite Gate Theatre)

Saturday 19 September, 10am to 4pm » James Connolly: Revolutionary, Feminist and Trade Union Activist » Women, Austerity and the Labour Market » TTIP: Jobs and Workers’ Rights » Resisting the Neo-liberal Agenda Prominent speakers including Lynn Boylan MEP Panel discussions ALL WELCOME FÁILTE ROIMH GACH DUINE For further information contact

lynn.boylan@sinnfein.ie

BY MÍCHEÁL MAC DONNCHA ONE of the most prominent and significant women of the 1916 Rising who went on to play a lifelong progressive role in Ireland was Dr Kathleen Lynn.

The daughter of a Church of Ireland clergyman, Kathleen Lynn was born in 1874 in Mullafarry, near Killala in County Mayo. She decided on a medical career and overcame the many obstacles to women becoming doctors at that time. She set up a general practice in Dublin in 1904.

Kathleen was radicalised by the struggle for women’s suffrage and the 1913 Lockout, and her key influences were Helena Moloney, Constance Markievicz and James Connolly.

In early 1916, Kathleen was promoted

by Connolly to the rank of captain and Chief Medical Officer of the Citizen Army. On Easter Monday she joined the Rising in her car (one of the few in republican hands) and she was with the small garrison in City Hall. She tended to the dying Seán Connolly, the first republican casualty, and after the surrender was one of the relatively few women imprisoned.

After her capture following the City Hall surrender, Kathleen was taken to

Kathleen was promoted

by James Connolly to the rank of captain and Chief Medical Officer of the Citizen Army Ship Street Barracks, part of the Dublin Castle complex. She was then transferred to Mountjoy and then deported to England.

As soon as she was allowed to return home she threw herself back into republican activism. She played a very prominent role in 1917. We find her speaking at meetings demanding the release of prisoners and, as is sometimes forgotten, the release to their families of the bodies of the executed leaders, something which was never done, except in the case of Roger Casement many years later.

She was a member of Comhairle na dTeachtaí, a women’s committee to demand proper representation on the new Executive of Sinn Féin. In October 1917, the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis adopted a republican constitution and Kathleen Lynn was one of four women elected to the Executive (the others were Markievicz, Kathleen Clarke and Grace Gifford Plunkett).

Kathleen Lynn makes clear in her Bureau of Military History witness statement that she was assisted from the beginning by republican women, including Kathleen Clarke, in her plan

in 1918 to set up a hospital for infants.

When they acquired 37 Charlemont Street it was a derelict house and it was the women of the Citizen Army who came, as Kathleen Lynn says, “of one accord on a Sunday” and cleaned it up.

The plan for a children’s hospital had to be put on hold for some months due to the great flu epidemic which killed millions across the world. Flu patients were admitted to the new hospital and Kathleen Lynn carried out widespread vaccinations, including to 5Dr Kathleen Lynn devoted herself to the very successful and pioneering St Ultan’s over 200 members of the Citizen Army Hospital and to promoting health among the poorest citizens in Liberty Hall, not one of whom, she says, developed flu.

This period was also the time of the successful resistance to the British Government’s attempt to impose conscription on Ireland and, at the end of the year, the general election in which women had the vote for the first time. Kathleen was present at the meeting of the First Dáil Éireann and worked with Constance Markievicz, Minister for Labour in the First Dáil Éireann. She was thus part of the underground civil Government of the Republic. Her home was repeatedly raided and watched.

Like most of the progressive republican women, Kathleen Lynn opposed Some republican women, such as the Treaty. She was elected as a repubKathleen Clarke, joined Fianna Fáil but lican TD in the 1923 general election many became disillusioned when the for the Dublin County constituency, initial radical promise of that party fell refusing to take her seat in what she far short, especially with regard to the and her comrades regarded as the rights of women and children in the partitionist Free State parliament. She 1937 Constitution. By then, Kathleen was defeated in the June 1927 general Lynn had ceased direct political activelection. She served on Rathmines ism and devoted herself almost solely Urban Council until 1930. to the very successful and pioneering St Ultan’s Hospital and to promoting health among the poorest citizens.

The Ireland that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s was clearly not the Ireland that Kathleen Lynn had fought for. A conservative political, social and economic regime developed, dominated by the Catholic Church in the South and the Orange Order in the North. Radical voices like Kathleen’s were on the margins.

But those voices were ultimately vindicated. The women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the development of social welfare and public health were all progressed because of activists who took up the work of Kathleen Lynn and her generation.

5 Kathleen Lynn (sitting, front right) tended to the first republican casualty of 1916 Kathleen Lynn, a lifelong republican, died in September 1955, 60 years ago this month.

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• This article is based on a talk given by the author as part of the Sarah Lundberg Summer School, 18 July 2015, on the theme ‘Kathleen Lynn – A Truly Radical Woman’, organised by the East Wall History Group in Dublin.

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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Ach tá polasaia diultach ag an stát toisc go bhfuil lucht na Gaeilge sásta glacadh leis. Ní dhéanann muid ábhar toghchánaíochta den teanga.

Tá deis againne, lucht na Gaeilge, an scéal sin a athrú san olltoghchán atá ag teacht. Caithfear an deis a thapú le héilithe cinnte soiléire dearfacha a bhru ar na páirtithe ar fad, agus tacú le hiarrthóirí a léiríonn go bhufil siad dáiríre i leith na teanga.

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Now with

CRANNCHUR NÁISIÚNTA

dá-theangacha sa mBeilge, i dTuaisceart na Sualainne, nó eile; na aon deacrachht nuair a bhíonn dhá aibitir dhifriúil i bhféidhm mar a bhíonn sa nGréig nó sa Rúis.

Níl sa leithscéal seo ach sampla eile den bhiogóideachas a léironn an stát i gcoinne na

R OVEhased

NATIONAL DRAW 2015

TOTA paid

NÍ THUGANN na páirtithe bunaíochta aon aird air, is ní thugann na meáin ach an oiread, ach léiríonn an suirbhée is deireannaí faoi dhearcadh an phobail i leith na Gaeilge go gcreideann móramh an phobail san oilean ar fad go mbeadh féiniúlacht na tire caillte dá n-imeódh an Ghaeilge – 64% ó dheas agus 33% ó thuaidh ( mar gheall ar an seasamh oscailte diúltach ag na páirtithe Aontachta.

Le leibhéil tacaíochta chomh hard sin, cén fáth nach bhfuil aon pholasaí dearfach ag eagraíochtaí stáit is ag an stáitsheirbhís i gcoitinne?

Cinnte tá dílseacht béil ann don teanga ag gach páirtí Dála, ach tá an straitéis fiche bliain a chuir Fianna Fáil le cheile fágtha i ndearmad ag an rialtas reatha.

Agus diúltaíonn an Roinn Oideachais cead a thabhairt do ghaelscoileanna nua ach amháin in eastáit nua. Tá a lán cainte ann faoi patrúnacht scoileanna a bhaint óna heaglaisí ach tá cluas bhodhar ag an Roinn i dtaobh éilithe Gaeilge.

Bhí plean maith ag Leo Varadkar nuair a bhí sé ina Aire Iompair go gcuirfí an Ghaeilge ar

1916 CENTENARY DRIVE FOR SINN FÉIN NATIONAL DRAW

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

Féin’s National Finance Committee is making a special appeal to members, supporters and friends. We are asking you to give an added impetus to this year’s National Draw and to increase areas’ ticket sales to a wider audience that is clearly receptive to the hopes and aspirations contained in the Proclamation and the message of the 1916 Rising.

The upcoming elections across Ireland will also require funds to mount what could be the most serious challenge in decades to the stale politics of the Establishment parties and start to build the Republic worthy of the name and the ideals that the men and women of 1916 and subsequent generations gave their lives for.

Let’s make this year’s Sinn Féin National Draw the biggest and best yet.

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

THE O’Donovan Rossa Funeral re-enactment Commemoration staged by Sinn Féin was such a success that even the Irish Independent group appropriated photographs of the inspirational and colourful event to illustrate reports of the state’s lacklustre ceremony and make it look better.

The spectacle that captured the public’s attention in the busy streets of Dublin city centre on a Saturday afternoon was due to two things: the enthusiastic participation of all the people involved and the organisation behind it – supported by funds raised by the Sinn Féin National Draw.

With an extensive calendar of similar imaginative events marking the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising planned for the coming months and 2016, Sinn

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

22 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS GLEN BARR – senior political spokesperson for the Ulster Defence Association (19731976 and 1977-1981), Chair of Ulster Workers’ Council strike in 1974, which brought down the power-sharing Executive led by Brian Faulkner – writes for An Phoblacht

Building a bridge

5 Republicans and unionists remember Irish soldiers who died at the battle of Messines Ridge on 7 June 1917

New Zealand, Australian, French, Canadian, German, and Union flag. And the Irish Tricolour. Historians have commented that there was no Irish Tricolour there in 1917 but I have insisted that it is carried in memory of all those from the nationalist community who would have regarded the Irish Tricolour as their national flag.

Since 2002 we have held an annual parade to the Cenotaph in Londonderry/ Derry on the Sunday prior to 7 June.

Each year we have been joined by representatives from loyalist and republican organisations and political parties, “Friends of Messines” from Donegal, Dublin and throughout Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This year was a special event when it was attended by the Sinn Féin Speaker of the NI Assembly, Mitchel McLaughlin, and the Sinn Féin Mayor of the new ‘super council’ of Derry & Strabane, Elisha McCallion, who laid laurel wreaths. Also present were the two Deputy Lord Lieutenants of the

I wish every person on this island could be taken OBE to the Flanders battlefields with its Chief Executive, International School for Peace Studies countless headstones and see what is IN 1973 I made what was referred to as the ”First Ulster nationalist” speech in Stormont where the alternative to I asked if it was possible for us to build a new dialogue Northern Ireland which was not a Protestant state

GLEN BARR

for a Protestant people nor a stepping stone to a united Ireland.

In 1974, following the Ulster Workers’ Council strike, the loyalist paramilitaries held a three-day conference to discuss their options.

I had resigned as senior political spokesman for the Ulster Defence Association in 1976 after they withdrew their support for voluntary coalition but under the leadership of Andy Tyrie, who was also thinking ‘outside the box’ and supported my work. He asked me if I would come back and put together a new political policy for the organisation based on the independence idea.

After a year of development, Beyond the Religious Divide was presented to every member of the UDA’s 40,000 members and it received their overwhelming approval.

Unfortunately, our ‘respectable’ loyalist politicians saw to it that the new thinking was never going to be allowed to be taken seriously and threaten their stranglehold over the loyalist people. The same exists within the nationalist community, where nationalism will not tolerate those from their community who think outside the ‘united Ireland box’.

I wish every person on this island could be taken to the Flanders battlefields with its countless headstones and see what is the alternative to dialogue.

They could visit the Island of Ireland Peace Park and Memorial Round Tower dedicated by HM The Queen, President McAleese and ‘The King of the Belgians’ in memory of all those from the island of Ireland who gave their lives. This especially includes those nationalists from the 16th Irish Division and unionists from the 36th Ulster Division who fought and died together at the battle of Messines Ridge on 7 June 1917.

Following the dedication of the Island of Ireland Peace Park on 11 November 1998, we travelled to Messines on 7 June each year and carried the flags or all the nations who fought at the Battle of Messines – the Belgian,

City of Londonderry, who laid traditional poppy wreaths, and representatives from the residents of the Bogside and Creggan, who laid a beautiful floral arrangement.

We believe that it is not our mission to change people’s politics or religion but to create a society in which we are all equal and that all men and women have a basic right to be treated in a fair and equitable manner.

All of this means that when we claim these rights for ourselves we must also defend those rights for others.

The whole social fabric of our society is based on our ability to accept difference. This can only be achieved when people have confidence in themselves and their beliefs and free from the fear of those beliefs being diluted in a multicultural society.

Culture should not be seen as a prerequisite to community or national acceptance. Unfortunately, they have become synonymous in Northern Ireland and it is important therefore to ensure that culture is an experience to be shared and enjoyed.

Relationships are built on respect and trust.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Guest writers in the Uncomfortable Conversations series use their own terminology and do not always reflect the house style of An Phoblacht.

5 Glen Barr pictured alongside Ian Paisley at the 1974 Ulster Workers' Council strike in opposition to the Sunningdale Agreement

When we claim rights for ourselves we must also defend those rights for others.

The whole social fabric of our society is based on our ability to accept difference.

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

23

UNCOMFORTABLE CONV ERSATIONS FROM a Presbyterian background in north Belfast, Seán Oliver has been a Sinn Féin activist since the later 1980s. He has held a range of roles at both local and national level in the party and is currently involved in the ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ initiative. He sets out some personal views on the need for republicans to be fully involved in the reconciliation debate.

5 Our honouring of the Hunger Strikers and the republican patriot dead is of equal legitimacy to those who honour the British Army

Republicans and the reconciliation debate SEÁN OLIVER WE are still emerging from a conflict which saw thousands killed, injured, bereaved, traumatised, imprisoned and exiled. Within an area and a population as small as the Six Counties this leaves an intense legacy. While a process to deal with specific legacy issues and victims’ needs is required, a process of reconciliation is a society-wide need.

So what is meant by reconciliation? I recently saw it described as “all of us coming to terms with our contested but commonly experienced past and committing to live together in a new way within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement”. All I would add is that includes continuing debate and advocacy on the constitutional issue.

Reconciliation will be difficult for many, as it must involve the most difficult of conversations. But reconciliation cannot be based on preconditions.

Orange Order member Brian Kennaway ’s

Uncomfortable Conversations contribution in the August issue of An Phoblacht was long on example after example of republicans “poking unionism in the eye”; selected quotes from Declan Kearney and Gerry Adams; being involved in organising opposition to (a small number of provocative and unwanted) Orange parades; the ‘placing’ of ex-combatants in the political system as elected reps and advisers; Raymond McCreesh Park; the “removal” of the Union flag from Belfast City Hall.

And Brian concluded with the thoughts of unionist commentator Alex Kane: “If Sinn Fein clings to the belief that the IRA’s armed campaign was always justified and remains justifiable then, in my opinion, there can never be a process of reconciliation between Sinn Féin and political unionism.”

All of this, and a lack of repentance and remorse from republicans for past actions, apparently means that our clear desire for a process of reconciliation cannot be taken seriously.

Unionism cannot view a reconciliation debate – and who is in and who is out – through their own prism of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’.

Our honouring of the Hunger Strikers and the republican patriot dead is of equal legitimacy to those who honour the British Army and local state forces.

Our advocacy and campaigning for Irish unity is of equal legitimacy to those who argue to remain within the Union.

Republicans cannot be made to stand in the corridor like naughty schoolboys and schoolgirls while those in the big room talk of reconciliation.

We do not seek to ‘lead’ or ‘run’ the reconciliation debate. Our Uncomfortable Conversations initiative is a genuine attempt by us to open up another strand to what should be a debate happening everywhere. It is not ‘our’ debate but there is no logic to those who would seek to exclude republicans from reconciliation on the basis of past actions.

Unionism cannot view a reconciliation debate – and who is in and who is out – through their own prism of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’

5 Our advocacy and campaigning for Irish unity is of equal legitimacy to those who argue to remain within the Union

And we know reconciliation will be challenging for republicans.

We can and will acknowledge the human cost of IRA actions. Conversations will happen face to face with those bereaved and traumatised. But what of Brian Kennaway’s concepts of ‘repentance’ and ‘remorse’ for republicans who defend the legitimacy of the IRA campaign? Are these elements required in a reconciliation process as part of conflict resolution? To many republicans they bring back Biblical echoes of ‘sackcloth and ashes’.

But, in working through all this, a momentum needs to be maintained. The conversations need to continue.

The process must happen at all levels.

And I believe it is. In the conversations with those unionists brave enough to walk into a Sinn Fein advice centre to ask for assistance. In our discussions with groups from across civic society on issues of austerity.

Mitchel McLaughlin’s recent actions as Speaker of the Assembly – but clearly also as a Sinn Féin MLA – in acknowledging the sacrifice of the young Irishmen who died in British uniforms in the First World War shows what can be done. His actions, and those of our mayors, are not something with which republicans should be uncomfortable. Acknowledging what is important to others is about respect, but it does not alter our own political analysis – of the First World War as an imperialist adventure or our view of the record of the British Army in Ireland and further afield.

Many within republicanism are exasperated at the absence of any reciprocation from political unionism to what republicans are doing to advance reconciliation, as indeed are some of those with whom we are engaged in dialogue.

A reason for republicans to stand back? To slow down seeking out those in the unionist and Protestant communities who are up for talking? No. Maybe political unionism will not engage (not now anyway). But republicans should continue to pursue dialogue with as many sections of society as possible as we seek to build trust and understanding in a process based on equality and respect for all at the table.

There is no logic to those who would seek to exclude republicans from reconciliation on the basis of past actions

24 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

www.guengl.eu

Funded by the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) Aontas Clé na hEorpa/Na Glasaigh Chlé Nordacha Crúpa Paliminta – Parlaimimt na h Eorpa

Eurostat ruling eliminates economic argument for Irish Water THE European Union’s official statistical office, Eurostat, announced on 28 July that Irish state funds spent on Irish Water (more than €500million) must remain on the state’s balance sheet. The decision was made on the basis that the Irish Government was required to show that half of Irish Water’s revenue came from customers – it was unable to do so.

“Having already lost the political and democratic arguments on Irish Water, the Eurostat ruling that the state funds spent on Irish Water will have to stay on the balance sheet mean the Irish Government has now categorically lost the economic rationale as well,” said Matt Carthy MEP, a member of the European Parliament’s Economic & Monetary Affairs Committee.

The decision confirms that Irish Water has been a complete blunder for the Government since the start, he said.

“From the get-go, Irish Water has lurched from blunder to disaster, highlighting the complete incompetence of the Government. I hope that this ruling will be the final nail in the coffin for the utility.

“The fact that over 50% of people have not paid their bills demonstrates further that, as a revenue-raising measure, Irish Water has failed utterly.

“All of this originates from the fact that the current Government is completely out of touch with the people and failed to understand the huge and overwhelming opposition to water charges.

“Their scrambled attempts to make water charges more palatable to the Irish people have not only failed here at home but appear to also

‘Any semblance of an economic rationale for the establishment of Irish Water is in absolute tatters’

Matt Carthy MEP

have failed in the eyes of the European Institutions.

“Sinn Féin has consistently argued that water services should be retained in public ownership and investment in our water infrastructure should take place through direct Government spending and through sensible Government borrowing if required.

“It is time for the Irish Government to accept the wishes of the Irish people and scrap water charges once and for all.

“They had long ago lost the political argument – now any semblance of an economic rationale for the establishment of Irish Water is in absolute tatters.”

Deaf community deserve equal treatment MEP Liadh Ní Riada has called on the Irish Government to give full official recognition to Irish Sign Language (ISL), which is used by upwards of 45,000 members of the deaf community in Ireland.

The language already has official recognition in the North and members of the deaf community are campaigning for similar recognition in the South.

Speaking on 13 August, Liadh Ní Riada said: “The Irish Deaf Society has been campaigning for more than 30 years to have Irish Sign Language officially recognised by the state to ensure equality for deaf people in accessing services, stating informed and participating fully in our society.

“ISL is the indigenous language used by the deaf community in Ireland and is part of a unique, rich and valuable culture. It is distinct from British and American sign language and has no connection to spoken English or Irish.”

She pointed out that the deaf community rightly view themselves as a linguistic minority and take pride in their distinct language and culture “which in itself is part of the great cultural diversity of our country”. She added: “It is high time that their language was given the recognition it deserves.

“In the wake of the recent marriage equality referendum, I am calling on the Irish Government to strike while the iron is hot and bring forward

Liadh Ní Riada MEP

legislation to give full official recognition to ISL. Acquiring this status will lead to greater awareness of the language and also enforce the rights of deaf people to access essential information in their own language.

“It will also provide far more certainty that deaf people could access ISL interpreter services for

essential situations such as job interviews, using health services, education and court hearings.

“If we want to build a fair recovery for all we need to commit to ensuring a level playing field for all our people. Giving recognition to ISL will be a strong and positive step on the road to a fair recovery.”

Irish Deaf Society has been campaigning for more than 30 years to have Irish Sign Language officially recognised by Irish state

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

25

Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip REPORTS BY EMMA CLANCY AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Call for ‘Boycott Israel’ campaign to aid Palestinian prisoners THE collective of Palestinian prisoners issued a joint letter on 4 August urging the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli policies to “put prisoners on the agenda”.

The appeal came in the context of escalating Israeli repression and violence (including torture and the force-feeding of hunger strikers) against Palestinian political prisoners.

The attempt by Israeli prison authorities to use the new force-feeding law against 31-year-old Palestinian lawyer and administrative detainee, Muhammed Allan, has triggered widespread Palestinian protests and condemnation by the UN and human rights organisations.

Irish MEP Martina Anderson, Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation to the Palestinian Legislative Council, has

Martina Anderson MEP

backed the call for campaigning against Israeli and international corporations violating the rights of the political prisoners to be intensified.

Martina Anderson said: “The national leadership of Palestinian prisoners sent a letter to the global BDS movement asking to prioritise the cause of the prisoners and to intensify BDS campaigning against Israeli and international corporations that are most complicit in the crimes committed by Israel.

“As a result of this appeal, a call has been made for the international human rights organisations to initiate and/or escalate boycott and divestment campaigns against the companies that are most complicit in Israeli crimes.

“This call from the prisoners, which I echo,

Call to escalate boycott and divestment campaigns against companies most complicit in Israeli crimes adds another dimension to the campaign.

“I ask you to redouble your efforts to boycott corporations that are most deeply involved in Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law and prisoners’ rights.”

The global BDS campaign body has identified six key partners in Israel’s repression and torture of Palestinian prisoners. Number one on the list of security company G4S, which runs several prisons.

HP (Hewlett-Packard), Volvo, Siemens, Ashtrom and Shamrad are also on the list.

Dublin MEP visits Ibrahim Halawa in Egypt as he enters third year in jail

Lynn Boylan MEP

DUBLIN MEP Lynn Boylan visited Egypt on 2/3 August for the scheduled trial of Irish teenager Ibrahim Halawa, who has been held without trial in an Egyptian jail for two years for attending a protest in 2013. Ibrahim’s legal representative, Darragh Mackin from KRW Law, also flew to Egypt for the trial.

However, the mass trial was postponed yet again and the judge stated that nobody will be released before 4 October with no chance of bail for Ibrahim before that date.

Lynn Boylan expressed her frustration as an Irish MEP at the further postponement of the trial until 4 October.

“This is devastating news for Ibrahim’s family who are in Egypt today for his trial.

It’s undeniable now that Ibrahim will never receive a fair trial,” she said. Lynn and family members were not allowed in to the court for the hearing.

On 3 August, she met with Ibrahim in jail and later expressed her concern for his health.

“Ibrahim, who suffers from a medical condition, has been denied medical treatment despite repeat requests by his lawyer,” she said.

Speaking on 6 August at a press conference back in Dubin, Lynn Boylan said: “When we visited Ibrahim last Monday, despite his spirits rising considerably on seeing his sister, his health is not good.

Liadh Ní Riada

Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

“He needs to see a specialist doctor as a matter of urgency.

“There is also a pressing need for an Irish Ambassador to be appointed to Egypt as soon as possible to ensure that cases like Ibrahim’s receive as much support as possible.

“Ibrahim is convinced the publicity campaign for his release, spearheaded

Ibrahim has been denied medical treatment despite repeat requests by his lawyer by his family and friends here is Dublin, is paramount to ensuring his safety in the Egyptian prison.

“I will be sending a report to and I am available to brief the Foreign Affairs Minister’s department, the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee and the EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini, directly on my experience to see is there anything I can offer to help with Ibrahim’s case.

“It’s time to bring Ibrahim home.”

Lynn Boylan

are MEPs and members of the GUE/NGL Group in the European Parliament

26 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

ROBERT ALLEN RIVING the scary descent from the Connor Pass is a Dantesque scenario for travellers who have never witnessed such a panoramic vista – mountains, fields and sands morphing into a bluegreen chimera that holds the past and present in its fiery breath.

AN earlier remark comes to mind. “Isn’t Castlegregory where that Yank set her book all those years ago?” Extinguish that thought. Modernday Castlegregory is a place of artists and craft workers, and, further along the promontory, a place to rest the head and eat good food after a hard day cycling, hiking, swimming, surfing, walking and playing. Not a picture postcard in sight, social media projects live images of the blue-sky day around the globe. Even the wind has calmed. It is not even raining.

Today we are passing by, across the Dingle Peninsula, northwards. Our destination is Loop Head, across the wide Shannon at Tarbet to Killimer and around to Kilkee, to take the narrow coastal road past Castle Point to the pier at Carrigaholt.

A journey of just under four hours, avoiding Limerick, where the past remains sacrosanct.

Whatever the people of Kerry and Clare were in days when foreign anthropologists and native sociologists couldn’t decide the who, what or why of the people and their place, there is no argument now. Welcome to the pleasure dome.

Writing more than two thousand years ago, Megalopolis-born historian Polybius lamented the fate of those who sought avarice and glory to the detriment of society: “They are so fond of wine that they cannot even get to sleep without drugging themselves with drink, and they are so addicted to sex and its attendant derangement that they have been responsible for homes and cities being razed to the ground and have brought personal disgrace upon themselves by the manner of their deaths.”

The Greek spoke about Roman commanders who frequently lost the run of themselves, but his words hold a metaphorical meaning and a warning, especially today, not least because civilised Roman society was eventually crushed from within and without by uncivilised barbarians who cared only about themselves.

Have the good people of Kerry and Clare exorcised their own demons, banished sin and embraced future promise, and learned from the past? It would seem that way. There is a Celtic pragmaticism about Kerry and Clare, and the people (natives, blow-ins and foreigners) have embraced the Celtic ways that celebrate life.

The same can be said of the people of Donegal.

In Kerry, the mountains meet the sea, in Clare the road and the sky collide, but in Donegal everything comes together in an elemental fusing of sound and vision. This is the past, present and future. It is no wonder Donegal is seen as the land of the friendly people.

www.anphoblacht.com

The Wild Atlantic Way 5 Businesses along the Wild Atlantic Way have benefitted from increased numbers of travellers and tourists

Fáilte Ireland call it “The Wild Atlantic Way”, signposts that tell where you are. And where is that exactly? We have been travelling the coastal roads from Clonakilty, where we think the Wild Atlantic Way begins, to Derry, where we think it ends, this summer in search of people, place and produce (a story for another day), and it is very interesting learning what the local people think of this initiative.

“What is it exactly?” a Clare chef asks, answering his own question. “A scheme to make money, they no sooner had the signs up and we had people ringing and calling looking for money for this and that, like we have no choice.”

For many, though, it is a lifeline and the owners of businesses along the Wild Atlantic Way have benefited from the increased numbers of travellers and tourists. But what are they looking for?

What have they come to see?

“It’s unique, that’s that it is,” says a Donegal farmer, staring up at the Derryveagh mountains, which in this instant are off the beaten track. “They Googled a map of Ireland. They didn’t come and ask the people where they should put the signs.”

This man’s complaint is repeated along the coastal route by people on roads that are clearly

next to the Atlantic and don’t have any signs. In Limerick, where there are no Wild Atlantic Way signs to be seen for love nor money, they are not amused. The Wild Atlantic Way crosses the Shannon at Tarbert, and doesn’t go anywhere near Limerick City.

N CARRIGAHOLT, on Loop Head, they are delighted with the Wild Atlantic Way. After the N67 veers to the west after Moyasta, the signpost is clear in the townland of Garruan. The hire car we have been following since Tralee turns left into Loop Head. We continue onto Kilkee, and take the scary narrow section of the Wild Atlantic Way around and across the Loop down into Carrigaholt. It is not possible to get any closer to the Atlantic on this road.

For once the sea is not wild but the view is breathtaking.

5 A rare blue sky day in the West of Ireland

5 Enjoying the weather at the edge of the Atlantic at Kilkee in County Clare

The inclement weather has affected trade along the Wild Atlantic Way, especially in the areas where it hugs the coast like a long-lost friend, and businesses are suffering. “People don’t

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

27

5 The Wild Atlantic Way has boosted tourist numbers along the coast

5 The Wild Atlantic Way crosses the Shannon at Tarbet and Killimer

5 The Castle Point section of the Wild Atlantic Way on Loop Head is dramatically scenic

O IT IS. And the lack of it, to improve the infrastructure of the West, remains, as it did when Scheper-Hughes and her like visited the West in the 1970s.

“Our Road is a Mess” screams the sign on the verge of the N86.

5 Nancy Scheper-Hughes's 'Saints Scholars and Schizophrenics' was heavily criticised when it was published in the late 1970s but it did capture the dying days of old family traditions

5 Irish music is always an attraction along the Wild Atlantic Way come out when it is like this,” a Donegal publi- An Clochán. The American wilderness was fast can says, indicating the soft day. “The summer disappearing and with it went the remnants of people whose lives had not changed for centuhas been bad.”

It has been said many times, mostly by foreign- ries. The film is remembered for its iconic music, ers, that Ireland and its people are shaped by the the duelling banjos that launched a whole new weather, that our moods are related to brood- musical genre known as Americana.

Scheper-Hughes was accused of leaving out ing skies. Others, including that Yank who spent a year in An Clochán on the Dingle Peninsula, this aspect of Irish culture in her study, kind of suggested that madness was a peculiarly Irish ironic when you consider how Americans came to thing, especially in the places where the people embrace Irish dance culture and still pay homage lived off the land and the sea in some of the to traditional Irish music, always an attraction places where the Wild Atlantic Way goes today. along the Wild Atlantic Way. American Nancy Scheper-Hughes arrived in “You said nothing about our fine musicians the peninsula in 1974 at a time when anthropol- and poets, and our step dancers who move ogists from England, France and the USA decided through the air with the grace of a silk thread,” to study the lost peoples of the world before they an An Clochán native told her when she reviswere lost forever. The world was clearly chang- ited the place in June 1999. “And we are not a ing and the time had come to record the lives backwater today.” of those who were anachronistically out of tune Not a bit of it. The music pubs, from Dingle with modern civilisation. to Doolin, are packed to the rafters with tourists Whose civilisation? every summer. Never mind the weather, we have Deliverance, John Boorman’s cinematic adapta- song and dance to enliven the spirits. “I don’t like tion of James Dickey’s poetic novel, was almost it when people give me cards all the time,” says two years old when Scheper-Hughes arrived in a Doolin barman. “Cash is better.”

In fact it might be argued that much of the Wild Atlantic Way is a mess.

Right now these coastal roads – the N71 from Cork to Kerry, the N70 that rings Kerry, the N86, the N67 through Clare (the R477 through Fanore into Ballyvaughan is a better road), the N59 in north Connemara and west Mayo – need a lot of work, or need replacing if the Wild Atlantic Way is to continue to receive all this attention.

“They are slackers, that’s what they are,” says a Galway fisherman about the bureaucrats and politicians “up in Dublin”, repeating that often heard phrase. “Sure, what do they care about us? They just want to make money out of us and give nothing back.”

As for the Yank’s assumption that Ireland is populated with more than its fair share of schizophrenic people, that is still debatable and continues to be controversial, with wildly diverging opinions.

A healthcare professional in the Galway Regional said, several years ago, that Ireland’s adoption of the American model of treating mental illness was a major problem.

The real issue, for those who live in the West, is the lack of respect or the lack of credit Scheper-Hughes was accused of not giving the people of An Clochán. There is, of course, a dichotomy.

Not everyone wants to live in the fast lanes of modern society. Some prefer country roads and a slower pace of life.

The Wild Atlantic Way is a great idea and there is no argument about the extra jobs it brings, but it is not enough.

Family farms are almost gone, in-shore fishing is dying a slow death, and the tourist season eschews the dark days of November through to the middle of March, when everything and everyone becomes somnolent.

The West is wild and windy during those days, worse enough to drive any sane person into the depths of despair and depression. At least these days it doesn’t rain so much in the winter months.

28 September / Meán Fómhair 2015

www.anphoblacht.com BOOK REVIEWS

Rhyming and the Rising

Waging war for wealth

A Terrible Beauty – Poetry of 1916

The Bloody Trail of Imperialism: The Origins of the First World War

Selected by Máiréad Ashe Fitzgerald O’Brien Press, €14.99

By Eddie Glackin Communist Party of Ireland, €8

REVIEW BY

Mícheál Mac Donncha PÁDRAIG PEARSE famously remarked that if the Rising would do nothing else it would rid Dublin of three bad poets.

But Pearse himself, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett were three fine poets and their poetry lives on, inextricably linked to their leadership of the Rising and their execution after it.

The complete poems in English of these three signatories of the Proclamation have been collected together before. This volume begins with a selection from each of them and then has selections from George Russell, Francis Ledwidge, W. B. Yeats, Eva Gore Booth, Dermot O’Byrne, James Stephens, Seán O’Casey, Thomas Ashe, Joyce Kilmer, Joseph Campbell, Dora Sigerson Shorter and Canon Charles O’Neill.

The last named was parish priest of Kilcoo, County Down, and wrote the ballad The Foggy Dew, included here.

While Yeats has dominated the poetic response to the Rising he was not in sympathy with it. For me, the best poems in this book (apart from those of the three poet leaders) are by two contrasting figures. Francis Ledwidge knew Pearse, MacDonagh and Plunkett as friends and fellow poets, yet he was in the British Army. After the Rising he was increasingly out of

REVIEW BY

Michael Mannion THIS HIGHLY-READABLE history, published by the Communist Party of Ireland, is an obvious labour of love by Eddie Glackin who is a leading light in the party and a member of its National Executive Committee.

Glackin traces the imperialist histories of each of the major participating combatants in the century prior to the First World War and reaches the conclusion that the conflict was the

place in that army and expressed his sympathy for the Irish cause in many poems. Eva Gore-Booth was sister of Constance Markievicz, but a pacifist.

Like Ledwidge, she experienced the transforming power of the Rising, best expressed in her poem Easter Week: Grief for the heroic dead Of one who did not share their strife, And mourned that any blood was shed, Yet felt the broken glory of their state, Their strange heroic questioning of Fate Ribbon with gold the rags of this our life.

5 Pádraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett

IN PICTURES

5 The author argues the War was an inevitable outcome of imperialist policies

Over 30 different colonial wars are itemised, establishing an unbroken line of expansionist conflict by the major imperial nations in the run-up to the First World War natural, and inevitable, development of the policies pursued globally during this period.

The author introduces his book with Clausewitz’s famous aphorism “war is the continuation of politics by other means” and concludes the introduction with a quote from Lenin (no surprise there): “The war of 1914-1918 was imperialist (that is, an annexationist, predatory, war of plunder) on the part of both sides; it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies and spheres of influence of finance, capital, etc.”

The rest of the book is filled with examples from the histories of the major powers that serve to confirm this interpretation.

There are two major schools of thought regarding the start of the First

World War. One is that to which Eddie Glackin subscribes, namely as an inevitable extension of previous policies, as opposed to the alternative theory that it was due to an arbitrary combination of events that induced the participants to ‘sleepwalk’ into war without any real intention to commence protracted hostilities. The author’s contention is that the entire history of the various “Great Powers” was based upon the waging of war as “part and parcel of imperialism. It is in the nature of the beast. They cannot be separated.”

Outlining the establishment of the various nation states after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the book traces the rise of imperialist expansion throughout the world. Over 30 different colonial wars are itemised and serve to establish an unbroken line of expansionist conflict by the major imperial nations in the run-up to the First World War. The author cites this as proving the predisposition of the “Great Powers” to conflict and therefore acted as precursors to the greater conflict of the First World War. No distinction is made between relatively small-scale conflicts with largely indigenous (and therefore poorly armed) peoples and all-out war with comparable nations and nation groups.

Glackin also follows the Marxist analysis by conflating imperialism and capitalism, although they were motivated by very different considerations. Many modern historians actually consider that the international business community, despite its many other failings, was in fact a force for peace.

Global war is bad for global trade.

International conflict destroys international trade.

Despite these quibbles, there can be no doubt that imperialism was certainly an important factor in the build-up to the war and this book provides a most interesting analysis.

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5 The new Patrick O'Connell, 'Don Patricio', mural on Whiterock Road, Belfast, painted by Danny Devenny and Marty Lyons. Patrick was an Irish international who played for Belfast Celtic, Manchester United and other teams in England, Scotland and Spain. He then went on to become a Catalan legend when he managed the mighty FC Barcelona 5 Sinn Féin MLA with Pilots Row Youth team at the Pádraig Barton Cup as part of Derry's Gasyard Féile

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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I nDíl Chuimhne

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 11 September 2015

1 September 1973: Volunteer Anne Marie PETTICREW, Cumann na mBan, Belfast.

4 September 1970: Volunteer Michael KANE, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

9 September 1973: Volunteer Francis DODDS, Long Kesh.

9 September 1985: Volunteer Raymond McLAUGHLIN, Donegal Brigade.

12 September 1989: Volunteer Seamus TWOMEY, GHQ Staff.

14 September 1986: Volunteer Jim

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations PÁDRAIG PEARSE McKERNAN, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

16 September 1991: Bernard O’HAGAN, Sinn Féin.

17 September 1972: Volunteer Michael QUIGLEY, Derry Brigade.

20 September 1972: Fian Joseph McCOMISKEY, Fianna Éireann.

22 September 1973: Volunteer James

BRYSON, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

23 September 1996: Volunteer Diarmuid O’NEILL, England.

29 September 1972: Volunteer Jimmy QUIGLEY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement

Comhbhrón COOPER. Comhbrón o craoí le clán Leo Cooper a fuair bás le deireanas. Beannacht Dé lena hanam. Tommy agus Áine.

COOPER. Deepest sympathy to the family of our dear friend Leo

Cooper RIP. May he rest in peace.

Josephine, Marty and family.

DUGGAN, Mary. In proud and loving memory of Mary Duggan who died on 25 July 2015. “I may die but the Republic of 1916

will never die. Onward to that Republic and the liberation of our people” – Bobby Sands MP. From her sons Michael (Belfast), Pip (County Louth) and Marty (County Donegal).

McGLADE, Charlie. In proud memory of Volunteer Charlie McGlade, who died 17 September 1982. A lifetime of dedication and commitment to the cause of Irish freedom. Always remembered by the Vol Charlie McGlade Sinn Féin Cumann, Drimnagh.

MORROW, Anthony. In proud and loving memory of Anthony ‘Dodger’

» Imeachtaí There is a charge of €10 for inserts printed in our Imeachtaí/ Events column. You can also get a small or large box advert. Contact: sales@anphoblacht.com for details.

DUBLIN GUE/NGL & DUBLIN SINN FÉIN

Annual James Connolly School

Bridie McMahon Belfast

5 Bridie McMahon at the 2014 Belfast Easter commemoration participated in many plays, includ- memories of helping to arrange ing Just a Prisoner’s Wife; Murphy’s for Bridie and the Binlids cast and Law; A Mother’s Heart; Binlids and crew to go to New York to put on the play. “It was a great success,” he Forced Upon Us. Gerry Adams shared fond said, adding: “While out with a meal

Leo Cooper Rostrevor and Dublin REPUBLICANS the breadth of Ireland were sad to see the passing of Volunteer Leo Cooper, originally from Rostrevor, County Down, but who had built a family in Dublin.

Friends and comrades travelled to Rostrevor to accompany Leo on his final journey from his home in St Jude’s Gardens, Rostrevor.

Following his Funeral Mass in the Star of the Sea Chapel, the cortege, led by a lone piper and a colour party, walked to Kilbroney Cemetery. Leo was laid to rest with his parents and the oration was delivered by Mícheál Collins of Newry Sinn Féin.

Leo was born in Rostrevor and became involved in republican

politics at a very early age. In the early 1970s Leo felt that the only alternative to the unionist ‘Orange State’ was armed struggle and he joined the IRA. There were several attempts made by the RUC to arrest Leo so he moved across the Border and continued his participation in the struggle.

Leo moved to Dublin in the 1980s and then left Ireland for a while to go to New York for work. He missed home and returned after 18 months. He settled in Dublin and gradually gained a large circle of friends. His door was always open to comrades and friends and his kindness to friends whose loved

ones were in hospital knew no bounds.

Twenty years ago, Leo had some tumours removed from his throat.

Despite this, he remained very active and continued to live life to the full.

Unfortunately, in August 2014 his illness returned. Leo fought a brave fight and bore his illness with great dignity. He spent the last six weeks of his life in the care of Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cross, in Dublin.

He was very happy with the care he received there and he died in the early hours of 23 May, surrounded by his family and close friends.

Leo will be sadly missed by all who knew him. Codladh sámh a chara uasal.

Morrow, who died 29 August 2012.

Always remembered le gra mor by wife Mary and the kids, Caoilbhfiona, Bláthraid, Niamh, Oisín and Aoibheann, Dundalk.

O’HAGAN, Bernard. In proud and loving memory of our friend and comrade Sinn Féin Councillor Bernard O’Hagan, murdered by pro-British forces on 16 September 1991. A true republican, always remembered by the McCusker/McMullan/O’Hagan Sinn Féin Cumann, Swatragh.

» Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@anphoblacht.com at least 14 days in advance of publication date. There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón etc.

FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

THERE was widespread shock at news of the sudden death of ex-Armagh prisoner and Sinn Féin activist Bridie McMahon on holiday in Portugal with family and friends in August.

The Felons’ Club immediately tweeted their “total shock” and said: “Legend is overused – Bridie is befitting of the title. A lifelong republican, when you saw Bridie you knew you were sound and safe.”

Sinn Féin President and Louth TD Gerry Adams, former MP for west Belfast, said he had known Bridie for over 40 years and his wife, Colette, knew her even longer than that.

As a republican political prisoner in Armagh in the early 1970s she was, as one comrade said, “the life and soul of the place”. For a time she was with Máire Drumm and in subsequent years one of her party pieces was to recite the famous speech by Máire which saw her sentenced to Armagh Prison.

She was also a natural and gifted actor. Over the years she was a crucial part of Féile an Phobail and

29

along with her friends in Portugal, she was approached by a couple from Belfast who recognised her as the character ‘Ma Maguire’ in the BBC series Pulling Moves. Bridie enjoyed the craic.”

Bridie was a longstanding Sinn Féin and community activist. She worked tirelessly and fearlessly during the H-Block/Armagh campaign and the hunger strikes, and took part in countless election campaigns.

“Her loss for her friends and comrades is immeasurable,” Gerry Adams said. “Bridie was an example of the total activist. She was immersed in her determination to help her neighbours and through her activism and acting to promote freedom and justice and equality. Over five decades she made a significant contribution to the community of west Belfast.

“I want to extend on my own behalf and that of Sinn Féin our deep appreciation of Bridie, our regret at her death, and our deepest sympathy and condolences to her family and friends.”

Saturday 19 September, 10am to 4pm Mandate Trade Union Hall, Parnell Square, Dublin 1 (Opposite Gate Theatre).

All welcome. See page 20 for more details.

Commemoration VOLUNTEER CHARLIE McGLADE

Volunteer Charlie McGlade Commemoration.

Saturday 19 September. Assemble 3:30pm, Dolphin Road Green, Drimnagh. Main speaker: Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD. Colour party and Rising Phoenix RFB in attendance.

The Volunteer Charlie McGlade Memorial Cup TugO-War Challenge will be held on the day.

30 September / Meán Fómhair 2015 MOST OF US are aware of the quote, the opening words from Charles Dickens’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris during the time of the French Revolution: “It was the best of times it was the worst of times.”

A fuller quote from the classic novel, however, is: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the Season of Light, it was the Season of Darkness.”

For me, this sums up the last month or so in light of the Orange marching season which reaches its peak in July with the Eleventh Night bonfires – orgies of hate with their inherent sectarianism and racism – and parades that demonstrate an intolerance many would have hoped was consigned to the dustbin of history.

In a tiny minority of nationalist areas in Belfast and Derry, gangs of young people insist on building bonfires to ‘commemorate’ the introduction of internment in August 1971, mimicking their loyalist counterparts by burning Union flags and otherwise insulting unionists in a way that goes against the very philosophy of republicanism.

These beacons for anti-social behaviour are often endorsed by anti-Peace Process elements and used as platforms for anti-Sinn Féin activities and sentiments.

This year the thugs in the Beechmount area of west Belfast reached a new low when they forced republican former prisoner and author Tim Brannigan from his home in an attack that was motivated by racist bigotry and general thuggery. Brannigan had previously complained about the bonfire located close to his home.

During the three-hour attack, when windows were smashed in a hail of stones and bottles, Brannigan was subjected to a torrent of racial invective.

As well as causing thousands of pounds of damage to the area where the blaze was sited, those gathering for the fire drove stolen cars around the densely-populated neighbourhood.

Speaking to An Phoblacht, Sinn Féin MP Paul Maskey offered his support to Brannigan, saying: “All of us will stand with him against these disgraceful attacks.”

He added: “Those who say these bonfires are built to commemorate internment are deluding themselves. The facts are that they attract criminals and car thieves, they are a platform for on-street drinking and drug taking, and then there is the damage to local amenities and the environment.

“The people don’t want them so it is time they were stopped.”

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Ireland’s biggest community arts festival and summer school

Festival of the People AS FÉILE AN PHOBAIL brings the curtain down on its 27th year, An Phoblacht’s PEADAR WHELAN looks back on what gives Féile its unique character.

He recalls the roots of Féile in the bloody events of March 1988 while also comparing

the positivity of Féile and its objectives to the negativity of the unionist ‘marching season’ and Eleventh Night bonfires, and the anticommunity actions of those burning fires in nationalist areas on 9 August under the guise of commemorating internment.

MARCH 1988 was a month in which the conflict in the North of Ireland shocked people around the world and brought home to many, both in Ireland and abroad, the viciousness of the war.

The very public nature of the assassinations of IRA Volunteers Mairéad Farrell, Dan McCann and Seán Savage in Gibraltar by the Britain’s elite Special Air Service (SAS), and the subsequent carnage caused by unionist Ulster Defence Association killer Michael Stone when he bombed mourners in Milltown Cemetery as the IRA trio were being buried, was captured by an international media corps attracted to Ireland for the funerals.

Three mourners – Thomas McErlean and John Murray and IRA Volunteer Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh – were killed by Stone and as Caoimhín’s funeral took place on 19 March two armed British soldiers in civilian clothes drove into the cortege, sparking fears of another attack by unionists. The pair were set upon by mourners and, when their identity was discovered, they were shot dead by the IRA. The British and Irish Establishments (including the churches, the SDLP and the media) vilified the people of west Belfast with then British Secretary of State Peter Brooke branding the area and its people “a terrorist community” while ignoring the real fear felt by people in the aftermath of the killings of mourners in Milltown Cemetery.

Dozens of people were arrested and questioned and up to 60 charged in relation to the attack on and subsequent killings of the two British soldiers.

A fifth IRA Volunteer killed in action that same month was Kevin McCracken, from Turf Lodge, while a further two nationalists were killed by unionists. The IRA killed a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Derry. The IRA also killed civilian Gillian Johnston in Fermanagh.

It was in response to the demonisation of west Belfast that community activists, under the auspices of Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, then the local MP, that the West Belfast Festival – or Féile an Phobail as it became known – was established.

That the needs, aspirations and interests of the community were foremost in the minds of the organisers is outlined in the foreword to the publication Féile: A Week in the Life of West Belfast, produced after the first festival of August 1988: “The objectives of the festival were threefold.

Primarily we wished to provide a well-deserved week of fun for a people and an area forced to endure high unemployment, bad housing, a lack social amenities and abuse, both verbal and physical, from a hostile media.

“Secondly, we wanted to highlight the positive and culturally rich side of West Belfast – to show the true image of ourselves as builders,

5 The late Brian ‘Cormac’ Moore playing at the first Féile in 1988

5 Eddie Keenan with good friend Cathal Holland at Féile an Phobail 2000

5 Siobhán O'Hanlon (right) on the first Sinn Féin delegation to meet the British Prime Minister in Downing Street alongside Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams and Lucilita Bhreathnach, 11 December 1997

contributors, developers and self-helpers – and to heighten our sense of pride and identity.

“Finally we felt that it was important to give a more constructive expression of the area and its people during this politically intense period around the anniversary of internment – a time when many people, especially children, have been seriously injured by plastic bullets, with several fatalities.”

The events of March 1988 were a watershed as they heralded an initiative that saw August become a month of celebration and joy. New ground was broken.

Communities challenged the thinking that burning large bonfires and tyres polluting our environment was the way to ‘remember’ internment. Street parties and fun days were to become the order of the day.

So, a year later, in 1989, when the RUC shot and killed young Seamus Duffy (15) with a plastic bullet in the New Lodge area of north Belfast, the need for further change was underlined.

From the outset, Féile represented a culture of change that forced people to think about struggle in a different way and opened people’s eyes to outside influences.

The international dimension to Féile, which sees social, political and community activists from across the world come here to bring their experience of struggle to us, is always enlightening.

This year, representatives from the SYRIZA party in Greece attended and outlined their strategies trying to resist austerity.

The talk given by Ilan Pappé, a fierce critic of Israel, was brilliantly enlightening while the campaign calling for the release of the Basque leader Arnaldo Otegi was given a boost at a packed meeting in St Mary’s College.

Controversy has always been something that has followed Féile. This year was no exception.

The booking of star comedian Frankie Boyle prompted protests by some families because of his jokes about people who have Down’s syndrome.

Subsequent meetings between Féile organisers and the protesters resulted in a public expression of regret by Féile and “effective measures that Féile would put in place to avoid a situation like this arising in the future” saw Boyle’s show go ahead in front of an audience of more than 2,000.

And the invitation to Police Service Chief Constable George Hamilton to join a West Belfast Talks Back panel (including Sinn Féin deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness), on the theme ‘Will the questions of the past ever be answered?’, led to a demonstration by people opposed to Sinn Féin’s policing strategy.

For the first time, former soldiers from the British Army involved with the ‘Veterans for Peace’ voluntary ex-services organisation addressed two

September / Meán Fómhair 2015

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1988

5 PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness arrive at St Mary's auditorium for Féile an Phobail's 'Will the questions of the past ever be answered?' discussion

1990

5 Former IRA prisoner and Hunger Striker Pat Sheehan, British ex-soldier Lee Lavis, republican former POW and director of Coiste na n-Iar-chimí Michael Culbert, Eilish Rooney (who chaired the debate), Séanna Walsh (who served three terms of imprisonment and works in Coiste's Legacy brief) and former British Army paratrooper Gus Hales

1994 1995

1998

5 Annual Poc Fada – Gerry Adams waits his turn with participants 2001

2011

2002

5 Sinn Féin West Belfast MP Paul Maskey with particpants and officials atop the Black Mountain

5 Úna Simpson won the camogie section

public meetings. One, titled ‘Talking to the Enemy’, was an engagement with former IRA prisoners.

The many sporting events that have become synonymous with Féile give young people the chance to develop their skills and encourages physical activities.

One such event, the annual Poc Fada, as well as encouraging young hurlers sees some ‘wannabe’ hurlers – notably Gerry Adams! – take on the challenge of the Black Mountain.

Leafing through the Week in the Life of West Belfast publication of 1988 with its reminders of just how far we have come, there is also the loss of so many people whose efforts made it possible and whose presence added that touch of the ‘it couldn’t happen anywhere else’.

Eddie Keenan, former prisoner, Gaeilgeoir, singer and story-teller who epitomised the character of Belfast is no longer with us. Political cartoonist and singer-songwriter Brian ‘Cormac’ Moore,

whose take on the struggles of the people in the North in An Phoblacht were cutting edge, is also gone.

And Siobhán O’Hanlon, who died of cancer in 2006, played a crucial role in making Féile what it is today.

Féile has set the benchmark for community festivals despite the best efforts of officialdom to kill it off.

It has helped mould a different way of doing things during our fraught summers and this is what we don’t want to lose. It is why we need to confront those who think destroying their own environment, attacking someone because of the colour of their skin or where they come from, who endorse under-age drinking and drug-taking and applaud death drivers are behaving in the basest reactionary way.

We need this to be the Age of Wisdom and Enlightenment rather than the Age of Darkness.

anphoblacht NEXT ISSUE OUT – Thursday 24th September 2015

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IN PICTURES

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PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

PHOTO: AIDAN McFAUL

5 Re-enactors arrive at Glasnevin Cemetery for the O'Donovan Rossa centenary commemoration

5 'An inspiration to us all' – A black flag vigil in Galway marks the 1981 Hunger Strike

5 Mayor of South Dublin Sarah Holland and Cllr Noeleen Reilly at the Tallafest Town & Country Fair

5 Residents protest as loyalist bands march through the mainly nationalist Antrim village of Rasharkin

5 The James Connolly Republican Flute Band from Glasgow taking part in the National Hunger Strike Commemoration in Dundalk – See pages 10 & 11