Corrupt political institution turns its naval force on its own people….

RSF members and supporters at a ‘Shell-To-Sea’ protest demonstration in Dublin , February 24th , 2007.

‘It would now appear that the 26-County government are willing to lock up its citizens whilst at the same time allowing Shell to dictate the energy and environmental policy of the 26 Counties…’
- Ruairi O Bradaigh, July 2005.

Part of the State Navy has been ordered , by State politicians , to move against its own people…

“Ask anyone you know how much royalties Shell Oil and its partners are paying the country to take our gas from the Corrib Field. I tried this over the past few days and I got answers ranging from fifty per cent to probably very little.
Nobody came up with the correct answer, which is not a single penny.
Did you know that? Did you know that the energy consortium, whose pipeline is being forced past protesters by hundreds of our own police, pays nothing at all to this country for taking our natural resources…?”
(From here.)

What we are witnessing with the ‘Shell-To-Sea’ outrage is the absolute moral corruption of a millionaire political elite who are completely reckless and shameless when it comes to lining their pockets with even more ill-gotten financial gains . They and their type are a free-loading cabal of non-productive leeches who will bend or break any moral , political or humane code of conduct that they see fit to ride roughshod over in order to further secure and enhance their moneyed lifestyle. I have wiped better than them from the sole of my shoe and had more respect for it : pond scum is more valuable.
Sharon.

THE IRA : the new IRA is younger , more radical and has seen little of life other than violence…….
By Ed Moloney.
From ‘Magill’ magazine, September 1980.

A vital element in the new structures is recruitment : the old days when virtually anyone could join the IRA are seemingly over . One IRA leader says that vetting of potential recruits is now so thorough that only 2 out of every 13 applicants are accepted and sent on for training and then placed into the ‘cell’ structure. The IRA also says that the average age of new recruits is 18 or 19 , an assertion that would seem to back IRA claims that the organisation has passed through the generation gap problem that has always spelled defeat for past campaigns .

However , it’s clear from a number of recent arrests such as that of an M60 ambush team in Belfast this year that the IRA is still heavily dependant on what British General James Glover called “…the intelligent, astute and experienced terrorist..” . The IRA also claims that less than 50 per cent of new recruits join up for the personal motive of seeking revenge for British Army violence and that most are politically committed to a socialist republic . Not even the IRA can know that for sure but if it is true then the policy of ‘Ulsterisation’, involving gradual withdrawal of troops from Nationalist areas will have less of an effect on the Provos than the architects of that policy hoped .

Once a recruit is accepted by the IRA he or she is taken along with three or four other recruits for training across the Border in ’specialism’ ie assassination , sniping , bombing etc that his/her cell will later employ . In contrast to the past , when whole IRA Companies could be trained without firing a shot , all recruits are now trained using live ammunition , which has enabled IRA members to ’sight’ sniping weapons more accurately : it is claimed that this sort of practice accounts for the success of the M60 machine gun in Belfast ambushes . When the M60 appeared on the scene in 1978 it was considered a propaganda weapon and too cumbersome and inaccurate for urban use but , in fact , the M60 has been responsible for the deaths of 8 members of the British ’security forces’ since then…….

(MORE LATER).

RESISTANCE ON ALL FRONTS…….
IRIS talks to a spokesperson authorised to speak on behalf of the Irish Republican Army.
From ‘IRIS’ magazine , July/August 1982.

IRIS : ” The hunger-strike period was generally a time when nationalist commitment to the struggle was heightened and refreshed . But since then there have been concerted enemy efforts to confuse and demoralise * the nationalist population , through the use of informers , psychological operations and black propaganda . ( * ‘1169..’ Comment - …and , at that time, these two efforts to “confuse and demoralise” were only around the corner..) What impact on the immediate post-hunger-strike increase in support has this had , within the Movement and on external supporters ? “

IRA : ” I think you have to deal with two separate circumstances . It had little effect internally because people who are actively involved understand the situation and what the enemy is trying to achieve . The use of paid agents by the RUC did initially have some psychological impact on nationalist supporters , but this has been quickly eroded as they have deepened their understanding of the situation , and by virture also of a number of IRA operations carried out at the time when RUC Chief Constable John (’Jack’) Hermon was making his infamous “…the IRA are reeling..” statement.”

(MORE LATER).

THE UNDAUNTED WOMEN IN ARMAGH…….
The full story of the republican prisoners in Armagh Jail has yet to be told. It has yet to be sung , and properly described , other than as an after-thought in public speeches - “…and of course the women in Armagh..” Republicans have a right to be proud of those women who, from the Divis Flats grandmother doing six months for what an Orange judge called “riotous behaviour” to the young IRA Volunteer inside for the second time and not yet 25-years-old , have managed, whether they numbered 12 or 120 , to maintain their resistance to the most vicious prison system in Europe. The words that follow , says writer Patricia Collins , were written to encourage more of those women to come forward and tell their story , and are based on conversations with several
ex-prisoners , and on visits and letters from those women presently imprisoned. They were written in the hope of jogging the memory of all those women who wrongly think their contribution to Ireland’s future peace is not worth mentioning.
From ‘IRIS’ magazine , August 1984.

The Prison Governor in the 1970’s was a Stanley Hilditch who was to torture the blanketmen some years later in the H-Blocks. Hilditch at first didn’t know how to cope with the new situation posed by women political prisoners - Anne Maguire recalls : ” When the Governor comes into your cell , you’re supposed to stand up but we just sat down , anywhere, on the bed , on the chair . The same in the exercise yard . The Screws would get flustered , the other prisoners would stare at us…”

After four or five weeks , Hilditch copped-on . The women weren’t allowed to talk to other ‘classes’ of prisoners : juveniles in red , or the ones in green . But two of the young ones were republican too - the women would not comply . Their ration of 20 cigarettes would then be held up , and a lot of petty harassment took place . Strip-searching was used in a few instances .

In July 1971 , Maire Drumm joined the women in Armagh Jail : earlier that month , she had made a fiery speech at Free Derry Corner- ” It is a waste of time shouting ‘Up the IRA’ . The important thing is to join.” She was bound over to keep the peace for two years on a surety of £500 , refused to sign and got six months for ‘promoting the objects of the IRA’ . A few days after Maire Drumm ‘came in’ to Armagh Jail , internment ‘broke out’ on the outside…….
(MORE LATER).

Dick Roche , State Minister for EU Affairs.

From this (in mid July 2008)….. “It is far, far too early to be talking about a referendum or about some specific policy to go forward (after the 12th June 2008 ‘NO’ vote to the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution) , that’s not the way to formulate a policy in response to a referendum….”

….to this - ‘A second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty would “ultimately” be required and ratifying key elements by legislation was not a viable option, Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche said at the weekend…’

A few days ago , John from this blog was on Newstalk Radio talking about matters political : one of the issues he raised was the strong rumour in political circles that the wasters in Leinster House were preparing to hold a second vote on the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution on the same day as the vote on the EU elections in June 2009 - this possibility was dismissed out of hand by the Presenter of the show as “unlikely” . It now appears that Dick Roche has been sent out by his political masters to ‘fly a kite’ regarding this issue ie ’soften-up’ the public to expect such a second vote in the near future . This blog done what little it could in calling for a ‘NO’ vote in the first Lisbon referendum -

- and will do so again when the political incompetents in Leinster House try , yet again, to secure an even cosier future for themselves in Europe by fostering a second Lisbon vote on the electorate in this State. So much for the mantra which those politically useless leeches throw at Irish Republicans as often as they can - ” You must respect the will of the people….”
Sharon.

From the ‘e-Thursday’ section of the ‘Business Week’ supplement of the ‘Irish Independent’ , 21st August 2008 .

” 1169 And Counting is a wealth of information on our Republican past and present , and demonstrates how the Irish political landscape , like that of any nation, will never be a black and white issue.”
A good review , we feel (…even if we do say so ourselves!) , from a good column (’Blog Digest’) in a newspaper we otherwise wouldn’t read as we don’t agree with the political slant (anti-Republican) propagated by it on a daily basis.
But the review we can live with…!

————————–

Political Fat Cats…

‘Fundraising operations made up less than €200,000 of the party’s
income in the republic (sic) last year…. “the primary source of donations to (P) Sinn Fein in the south comes from each of the party’s TD’s (sic) and MEP who each donated €6,000…’ and… ‘Despite the Dail (sic) sitting for fewer than 100 days a year, the TDs’ (sic) pay bill now stands at €20.3m — an average of €122,000 each…..’

Could you live on a wage of €2416 a week ?
From here.

————————–

Inappropriate spam…
I received this a few days ago :

‘QUEEN ELIZABETH FOUNDATION
WOODSLANDS ROAD
LEATHER HEAD COURT
LEATHERHEAD
SURRY
KT22 0BN.
PIN NO:QEF/GD/555-2247/2008

YOURS TRULY,
MRS.TINA GRAY.
Co-ordinator(Queen Elizabeth Foundation
cashGrant/Donation).’

Thanks anyway , Tina , but if my friends , colleagues and comrades heard that I was in receipt of payment from the British Exchequer I would have to re-locate to the hallowed halls inhabited by those I mentioned in the ‘Fat Cats’ piece , above! And I don’t think much of the circles they ‘move’ in….

THE IRA : the new IRA is younger , more radical and has seen little of life other than violence…….
By Ed Moloney.
From ‘Magill’ magazine, September 1980.

Some areas , like Belfast , are co-ordinated by an IRA Brigade Staff , while other areas are co-ordinated by local Commands , a ‘watered-down’ version of a Brigade Staff , whereas other areas are so weak that they can only support one or two cells and they are directly co-ordinated by the IRA Northern Command . One area still retains the IRA Battalion structure , and the three Battalions in that area report to , and are co-ordinated directly by , the Northern Command .

It’s a confused and mixed structure whose features seem to be determined entirely by area strength . The effect though is to make British Army and RUC penetration extremely difficult - its principal advantage seems to be increased security and secrecy for the IRA cells but its ‘Achilles Heel’ is that it is highly dependent on good co-ordination at local IRA Brigade and Command level as well as at Northern Command level , what the British Army terms ‘middle management’ . The arrest and imprisonment of a small number of leaders would seriously impair the organisation - hence demands from senior British Army officers after Warrenpoint for the introduction of selective internment .

Although British Army sources claim that the IRA structure has now been penetrated in Belfast and East Tyrone , the ’successes’ that the Brits have had this year seem to be the result more of increased undercover surveillance and disruption of IRA communications and co-ordination than from information supplied by informers . Indeed , one Brit source complains that they haven’t received one decent bit of inside information from the Northern IRA for more than a year…….
(MORE LATER).

RESISTANCE ON ALL FRONTS…….
IRIS talks to a spokesperson authorised to speak on behalf of the Irish Republican Army.
From ‘IRIS’ magazine , July/August 1982.

IRIS : ” In recent months the IRA has employed car bombs extensively , often with devastating success but also with an apparently high risk to civilians . Does the IRA intend to continue with its use of car bombs , and how would you answer this criticism ? ”

IRA: ” Yes , we intend to continue with the car bomb tactic . Because of the length of warning we give on a car bomb prior to its detonation , if the enemy act on the warning there’s no danger to civilian lives . The car bomb is used on property only , and this is accepted even by the British Army and RUC . It is not an anti-personnel bomb , that’s why we give warnings . It does not serve our cause to inflict civilian casualties , and all our operations , whether against military or commercial targets , are planned and conducted with this in mind.”
(MORE LATER).

THE UNDAUNTED WOMEN IN ARMAGH…….
The full story of the republican prisoners in Armagh Jail has yet to be told. It has yet to be sung , and properly described , other than as an after-thought in public speeches - “…and of course the women in Armagh..” Republicans have a right to be proud of those women who, from the Divis Flats grandmother doing six months for what an Orange judge called “riotous behaviour” to the young IRA Volunteer inside for the second time and not yet 25-years-old , have managed, whether they numbered 12 or 120 , to maintain their resistance to the most vicious prison system in Europe. The words that follow , says writer Patricia Collins , were written to encourage more of those women to come forward and tell their story , and are based on conversations with several
ex-prisoners , and on visits and letters from those women presently imprisoned. They were written in the hope of jogging the memory of all those women who wrongly think their contribution to Ireland’s future peace is not worth mentioning.
From ‘IRIS’ magazine , August 1984.

On February 26th 1971 , 38 women and six men were arrested outside Chichester Street Court in Belfast on one of the ‘combat jacket’ pickets , organised to protest at the arrest of republicans who had been wearing uniforms at the funerals of Volunteers . Another similar protest was to take place two days later in Beechmount Avenue , Belfast . All those arrests resulted in a dozen women being sentenced to six months in jail .

The stance taken by those women was based not so much on a family tradition of republicanism as born of the Civil Rights marches , the ensuing backlask of the loyalists and the increasingly threatening presence of thousands of British troops on Irish streets . Yet there was no special status for those women . Therefore , in 1971 , women like Rose MacAllister from Ardoyne , Rita O’ Hare from Andersonstown and Anne Maguire from Ballymurphy had to wear the prison uniform . For the first-timers , the prison uniform was coloured blue - blue tweed skirt , blue sweater and polka-dot blouse . Prisoners under 21 years of age wore red , and green for those who had been in before .

Women prisoners , political or otherwise, were put in ‘A1′ Wing and were ‘entitled’ to one visit a month . Prison work was for all - laundry , cleaning and sewing , yet those nationalist women were quick to stand up to the system and to assert their dignity , refusing to be institutionalised . The Prison Governor at that time was to go on to ‘make a name’ for himself by allowing for the torture of POW’s in his later years…….
(MORE LATER).

We publish here three pics from the Eamonn Ceannt Commemoration that was held in Crumlin , Dublin , today (Sunday 17 August 2008) : three more pics and a brief report can be seen here whilst two other pics can be seen on this thread .

RSF ‘Republican Commemoration…’

…Wreath laid at the Ceannt Memorial Stone..

…Tomás Ó Cléirigh , who delivered the Oration.

Thanks!
Sharon.

(Eamonn Ceannt Commemoration , Sunday 17 August 2008)

HYPOCRISY……
” To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.”
(Oscar Wilde)

Bush condemns China over its Human Rights record…

Mary Harney (PD) .
When this female millionaire was State Minister for Health in 2006 she declared - “No one , particularly no older person , should sleep overnight on a trolley in a hospital corridor . I am determined to put an end to that for good . People who need to be admitted will have beds , not trolleys , and the basics for human dignity . This will be put in place in the coming months.”
It still hasn’t happened . Not surprising when you consider that since 2005 the total number of new hospital beds provided by the State for sick people is ten (10) !

Martin McGuinness (centre!) , British politician in the Six Occupied Counties of Ireland.
“I can give a commitment on behalf of the leadership that we have absolutely no intention of going to Westminster or Stormont……I reject any such suggestion and I reject the notion that entering Leinster House would mean an end to Sinn Fein’s unapologetic support for the right of Irish people to oppose in arms the British forces of occupation……the war against British rule must continue until freedom is achieved……don’t go my friends. We will lead you to the republic.” (From here)

We would deeply appreciate any assistance you could give us in our fight against these , and other , political hypocrites…..
Thanks!
Sharon.

THE IRA : the new IRA is younger , more radical and has seen little of life other than violence…….
By Ed Moloney.
From ‘Magill’ magazine, September 1980.

The process of IRA re-organisation started , by some accounts, in the Spring of 1977 and according to one leading IRA source is still going on . Belfast , where the successes of the RUC were most evident , was the first to be re-organised largely under the direction of a former Belfast IRA Commander and a former IRA Brigade Adjutant . Most of the old Companies were gradually dissolved and their least-known members re-trained and passed into the new four-person cells , and were joined there by new recruits .

The old Battalion staffs were also dissolved and the Belfast Brigade assigned the task of co-ordinating the new cells . The Belfast Brigade still has three Battalions but they are composed of known IRA members who passed into the new civil and military Administration wing of the organisation . The other seven areas of IRA activity in the North of Ireland - Fermanagh , East Tyrone , South Derry , South Down , North Armagh , Derry City and South Armagh , were with varying success re-organised during the latter part of 1977 and most of 1978 .

South Armagh , where the IRA had always operated what amounted to a form of cellular structure , was the last to be re-organised in the Spring of 1979 . In fact little was changed in South Armagh except the area’s relationship to the new Northern Command . The captured British Army intelligence assessment of the IRA which fell in to the hands of the IRA in January 1979 (it was studied for several months before release to the Press Association in May 1979) demonstrated the dearth of information about the new IRA structures in British intelligence circles : in a ‘tentative order of battle’ , the document’s author , British General Jim Glover supposed that all the new IRA Cells were directly co-ordinated by the Northern Command . In fact it seems that there are a number of structures interposed between the Northern Command and the Cells…….
(MORE LATER).

RESISTANCE ON ALL FRONTS…….
IRIS talks to a spokesperson authorised to speak on behalf of the Irish Republican Army.
From ‘IRIS’ magazine , July/August 1982.

IRIS : ” After the massive explosion at Springfield Avenue in West Belfast, in June 1982, in which local homes were devastated by the Brits’ detonation of IRA explosives which were being temporarily stored in the area and which the Brits had uncovered , the IRA stated that the explosives had been unprimed and could have safely been removed from the area without detonating them ; that is, the Brits detonated the explosives in an attempt to discredit the IRA in nationalist eyes . Immediately afterwards , the Housing Executive chairman , Charles Brett, appeared to participate in this black propaganda campaign by saying that the effect of the bomb damage would be to delay the West Belfast housing programme , that is , again blaming the IRA by implication .What is your attitude to the Housing Executive’s apparently growing collaboration with the British military and their objectives , and the similar collaborationist attitude of other semi-governmental and public bodies ? ”

IRA: ” Firstly , I think it’s important to clarify the background to the explosion you mention . We have suspected for several months that the Brits are working at defusing our bombs before they have cleared the area , that they are deliberately ignoring bomb warnings and the locations given for bombs . In other words , they are deliberately jeopardising civilian lives , knowing that injuries or deaths can be blamed on the IRA . We don’t travel with primed bombs , we don’t store primed bombs , they are always primed ‘on target’ . It’s not a big job , only a matter of flicking a switch . Timers , also, would not be attached to explosives until they are planted on the target . Unprimed explosives are little different from having a can of petrol in your back yard -it’s safe till someone puts a match to it . The kind of explosives we use cannot detonate by friction , by being knocked about , by freezing up or being too warm . A detonator on its own will not detonate it . The only thing that can is a primer of higher velocity explosives than those being primed . In short , they cannot explode on their own , they’re probably the safest explosives that there are .

On the second part of your question , we know that all British government and semi-government agencies are being used in line with Kitson’s theory that all government structures , at all levels , have to be used against insurgents . All these people will be treated like any other enemy of the Irish people . ”
(MORE LATER).

THE UNDAUNTED WOMEN IN ARMAGH.
The full story of the republican prisoners in Armagh Jail has yet to be told. It has yet to be sung , and properly described , other than as an after-thought in public speeches - “…and of course the women in Armagh..” Republicans have a right to be proud of those women who, from the Divis Flats grandmother doing six months for what an Orange judge called “riotous behaviour” to the young IRA Volunteer inside for the second time and not yet 25-years-old , have managed, whether they numbered 12 or 120 , to maintain their resistance to the most vicious prison system in Europe. The words that follow , says writer Patricia Collins , were written to encourage more of those women to come forward and tell their story , and are based on conversations with several
ex-prisoners , and on visits and letters from those women presently imprisoned. They were written in the hope of jogging the memory of all those women who wrongly think their contribution to Ireland’s future peace is not worth mentioning.
From ‘IRIS’ magazine , August 1984.

Armagh women’s prison : a Victorian granite building in the loyalist centre of Armagh city . Before 1969 virtually unknown , yet it had housed 18 republican women internees during the Second World War , and one during the Border Campaign of 1956-1961. By 1969 however , Armagh Jail’s population consisted of a few destitute women , some short-term male prisoners and borstal boys .

Bernadette Devlin brought Armagh Jail into public focus when she was sentenced to six months for rioting in Derry’s Bogside: she lost her appeal and started her sentence on June 26th 1970, a month after having been elected MP for Mid-Ulster for the second time in two years . Until her release in October 1970 , having served four months of her sentence , she was treated in effect as a political prisoner, and made a few representations to the prison governor on behalf of ordinary prisoners .

By the beginning of 1971 more nationalist women came to be sent to Armagh Prison , usually on six-month sentences . ‘Riotous behaviour’ was the usual label affixed by the British judge . ” Assaulting a British Army patrol with an offensive weapon - a yard brush …” , is how Anne Maguire from Ballymurphy describes her ‘offence’ . She recalls that, at the time, a 60-year-old granny from Divis Flats got six months for hitting a Brit with a bin lid …….
(MORE LATER).

FIGHT BACK!

This post is dedicated to our friends and colleagues in the Shell2Sea and Tara campaigns , and to our comrades in the Republican Movement. They may well be out-financed , out-’peopled’ and out-’spun’ by the various ‘establishments’ pitted against them , but they keep on pushing back as best they can. So : in praise of us little people who fight back - a Dublin song….

The Inner City Song.

So he takes a stroll down Monto whats left of it today
Remembering his childhood and the games he used to play
Now all he’s got are memories and they are but few
And it seems the money grabbers want them too

[Chorus]
And living in a one room slum ain’t easy
Raising seven children on the dole
No place for kids to play while you build your motorway
Is Loughlin house the playground of today

And living in a one room slum ain’t easy
Raising seven children on the dole
No place for kids to play while you build your motorway
Is Loughlin house the playground of today… “

(Our thanks to Mickjoe , who likes to go walking hand-in-hand along Sandymount Strand, for that little Gem!)

Meanwhile , those rich, greedy and immoral bastards carry-on enriching themselves at the expense of future generations , blind even to the damage they do to their own off-spring . Callous , black-hearted gombeens .
Sharon.

RSF TO PUBLICLY REMEMBER EAMONN CEANNT.
Eamonn Ceannt:1881-1916.

“I shall die, like a man, for Ireland’s sake.”
-note written by Éamonn Ceannt to his wife, May 7th, 1916 , the day before he was executed by the British .
Éamonn Ceannt was an uileann piper, a member of the IRB Military Council and a signatory of the 1916 Proclamation. He was stationed in the South Dublin Union during the Rising of 1916. As a member of the Provisional Government he was executed by the British Army in Kilmainham Gaol on May 8th 1916.
A Republican Commemoration to honour Éamonn Ceannt will be held in the Crumlin area of Dublin , in a 42-acre park named after the man, on Sunday August 17th 2008. Those attending are asked to assemble at ‘Superquinn’ on the Sundrive Road at 12.45PM.
All Welcome!

On a point of interest: two of our recent [repeat] visitors (click to enlarge) :

(See ‘Visitor Number’ 10 and 18)

We know why that particular administration would be interested in us ie they would view that which we represent [Irish Republicanism] as a threat . However - could we ask you , the reader, to do something likewise and tell Mick why it is that you like us !
Thanks!
Sharon.