32 YEARS UNDER WATER……..

….or ‘A SWIM FOR EVERY COUNTY!’

It began - properly structured and organised - in 1976 ,as a ‘fundraiser with a difference’ combined with the need to gain extra publicity for a situation which was then - as now - making world headlines . Those that sat down together in early September 1976 to tighten-up the then ‘hit-and-miss’ affair were a dedicated team who fully understood that to fail in their business would not only bring derision on them and the issue they sought to highlight , but would give their enemy a publicity coup which they would exploit to the fullest extent . With that in mind , the team persevered - favours were called-in , guarantees were secured , provisions obtained and word dispatched to like-minded individuals in the near-locale . At the appointed time on the agreed day - 12 Noon , Christmas Day 1976 - a soon-to-be 32-years-young event was ‘born’…….

The CABHAIR Christmas Day Swim is , thankfully , still going strong and will be , as mentioned , 32-years-young on December 25th next!
Photographs of last years event can be viewed here and , if you can’t make it to the actual swim itself , you might consider posting a donation to the following address (please note that all monies raised goes to the republican prisoners themselves and to their families - no expenses or admin fees etc are removed) :
CABHAIR
Irish Republican Prisoners Dependants Fund
223 Parnell Street,
Dublin 1,
Ireland.
Thank You,
Go Raibh Maith Agat.
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 most successful radicalisation of the Republican Movement since the Republican Congress, and it didn’t cause a split…” - that’s how Sinn Fein Vice President Gerry Adams, the man most identified with that radicalisation , now describes the recent political changes in Sinn Fein .

The move to the political left hasn’t , it’s true, caused a split in the Provisionals but it has come very close to it : there is undoubtedly a division within the Provo ranks , and that organisation can be said now to be roughly divided between North of Ireland and South of Ireland , old and young , traditional and revolutionary , but essentially between political ‘right’ and ‘left’ .

The impetus for the move leftwards has come from a small group of Northern and especially Belfast radicals whose influence far outweights their strength . One Belfast leftist puts their numbers at no more than 30 or 40 , but it is almost entirely because the present 7-person IRA Army Council is like-minded , and are responsible for the military re-vitalisation of the IRA , that the leftists have exerted as much influence as they have . Realistically , the Provisionals have yet to move much further to the left before the radicals can say that they have successfully turned it into a socialist organisation . More so than most political organisations , the Provisionals consist of a delicate balance of differing interest groups - move them one way and the balance is upset . Most political organisations can withstand those sort of stresses and strains but less so an organisation that is also fighting a war of national liberation . The leftists have been able to tip the balance so far and even then only a little at a time…….

(MORE LATER).

BLACK PROPAGANDA AND BLOODY MURDER…….
British Army Captain John Colin Wallace.
First it was the Maguire family - claiming they had been wrongly convicted of bombings in London on faulty forensic tests and circumstantial evidence . Then the Birmingham Six were shown to have been the victims of another miscarriage of British ‘justice’ . Now , in the most bizarre case of all , a former British Intelligence officer , who served in the North of Ireland , has claimed that he was framed for a killing he didn’t commit .
British Captain John Wallace , now serving ten years for manslaughter , claims that his conviction was part of a plan to destroy his credibility because he knew too much about covert operations in Ireland - on both sides of the border . Frank Doherty talked to Wallace and to another former British Intelligence officer , Captain Fred Holroyd , who is lobbying politicians to re-open a case which is as potentially embarrassing for the British Secret Service as the Wright case in Australia has proved to be.
From ‘MAGILL’ magazine , December 1986 .

British Army Captain John Colin Wallace claims that he was shifted from the North of Ireland to England because he was one of a team of black propaganda experts organised by the Secret Service chief in the North , Craig Smellie. According to Wallace , his title of ‘Head of Production Services’ was a meaningless cover for his real job as senior officer in the secretive ‘Information Policy Unit’ , a propaganda group run jointly by MI6 and the British Army.

” Most of the propaganda was directed against the IRA . Some of it was used on targets like Ian Paisley, Bill Craig and some Southern politicians, ” says Wallace . He claims that he leaked information to ‘The Times’ newspaper after being instructed to do so by a ‘a senior officer in [British] intelligence’ . Files and papers concerning a special unit set up at Stormont Castle to discredit politicians were dropped through the letterbox of a Queen’s University professor’s home in 1975 - ” It was me who delivered those papers, ” Wallace says , ” but I was acting on instructions from higher authority . Later , the reporter was visited at a Dublin hotel by a British Embassy official and threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if he used the information in the documents I had left with him.”

The whole affair was part of the feud which had blown up between rival British spy agencies in Ireland . ” I ended up with a civilian job in Arundel, Sussex, as Information Officer with the local council . Other members of the MI6 team in Lisburn were sent elsewhere when MI5 took over responsibility for intelligence on both sides of the Irish border . The head of the Secret Service team , Craig Smellie , was sent to Athens . He died there……. “

(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.

Young women from Nationalist ghettos would be thrown into Armagh Jail , just like Brenda Murray was : Rita Bateson , from the Bone area of Belfast , arrested in November 1976 , then aged 16 : Peggy McCormack , sentenced to two years in 1978 , then aged 14 . In contrast to those teenagers , there were also women like Rose McAllister , from Ardoyne , who had done six months in prison for wearing a combat jacket in 1971 . Later , in 1976 , she spent a few months on remand which ended with her charges being dropped and , finally , in 1978 , she was sentenced to two years , which she did on the protest . She was then aged 40 and had four children . With these women a whole community was being criminalised .

Brenda Murray was on her own in the sentenced part of ‘A’ Wing for three or four weeks . Eileen Morgan , from Newry , then joined her and the two engaged in a ‘no work’ protest and , as a result , were put on 21-hour lock-up , with only one visit a month , loss of all privileges and loss of remission .

Other women were soon to follow : Roisin Rouse from Craigavon , then Mairead Farrell . By February 1977 , there were five protesting prisoners and two are still inside - Eileen Morgan and Mairead Farrell . By March 1979 , the numbers of protesting Irish republican female prisoners stood at 38…….
(MORE LATER).

HAVE SOME OF US LOST THE SENSE OF ‘RIGHT AND WRONG’ ?
HAVE SOME LOST THEIR MORALS ?

(Photo from here.)

On Wednesday, November 12, 2008 , an Irishman was killed in Afghanistan : Robert McKibben (32), from Westport in County Mayo , died wearing the uniform of the British Army . He joined the Royal Marines at 27 and trained as a commando before joining J Company 42 Commando based in Plymouth. Marine McKibben, known to most on his unit as ‘Frank’, was serving on Operation HERRICK 9 with the Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BRF), ‘United Kingdom Landing Force Command Support Group’, as a reconnaissance operator. He was buried yesterday (Monday 24 November 2008) in Aughavale Cemetary in Westport and six uniformed British Army Marines carried his coffin – draped in a Royal Marines flag . That particular group of savage bandits has a bloody track record on this isle , which they attempt to pass-off as ‘a jolly-good caper’ on behalf of the ‘empire’. It is nothing of the sort , as we Irish , amongst other peoples, are all too aware : that British Army Unit , and its members , represent the same ‘tradition’ as Cromwell did and should be seen as representing that ‘Thug Tradition’ .

The British political leadership themselves are , as expected , being extremely hypocritical regarding the deaths of ‘their boys’ :
‘Two weeks ago, it was revealed that a British commander with the elite Special Air Service (SAS) had resigned, blaming the failure to provide his troops with heavy armoured vehicles for the deaths of some of his soldiers. Major Sebastian Morley, commander of SAS (Special Air Service) troops in Afghanistan, had “resigned in disgust”….’
(From here.)
They’ll tell you it’s ‘your duty’ , that you owe it to those that have gone before you , that it’s for ‘justice and world peace’ ….or even that it’s “for the freedom of small nations” : and some Irish people apparently still consider that to be the case. In doing so , they ignore not only their own history but that of ‘The Great British Empire’ as well . More fool they.

This…..

….is NOT our flag . Let’s not make it so.

Robert McKibben died representing a foreign army of occupation . He is not the first Irishman to have that wrote about him and probably won’t be the last : voices like ours on this blog are in the minority in highlighting that fact and , while we understand the grief his family are going through , we can only hope - sincerly - that his death may at least give others a reason to think twice before they go off , fully armed and kitted-out in an occupiers uniform , to foreign climes to ‘keep the peace between the natives’ .
Sharon.

NO WELCOME HERE FOR BRITISH ‘ROYALTY’!

In the last few weeks there has been increased speculation by the establishment media that the present English ‘queen’ is planning to visit her loyal subjects in Stormont and Leinster House : the Irish Republican position on any such visit is clear -

‘When the english robbed our language
and gave us theirs instead,
they gave us leave to cheat them
in the things we left unsaid,
when they robbed us of our claymores
and thought our pikes absurd,
we fashioned brand new weapons,
with each new fangled word.’

Anne Windsor was the Colonel-in-Chief of the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment of the British Crown Forces (29th/45th Foot) until it became the 2nd Battalion of the Mercian Regiment (Worcesters and Foresters) last August. In 1916, the 178 (Forester) Brigade was sent to Dublin in an attempt to suppress the Easter Rising. The same women is presently associated with British political and military imperialism by virtue of the following positions which she holds :
* Colonel-in-Chief, The King’s Royal Hussars
* Colonel-in-Chief, The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment (29/45 Foot)
* Colonel-in-Chief, The Royal Corps of Signals
* Colonel-in-Chief, The Royal Logistic Corps
* Colonel-in-Chief, The Royal Army Veterinary Corps
* Commandant-in-Chief, The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal’s Volunteer Corps)
* Colonel, The Blues and Royals
* Royal Colonel, The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland
* Royal Colonel, The 52nd Lowland Regiment, 6th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland
* Rear Admiral and Chief Commandant for women, Royal Navy
* Honorary Air Commodore, RAF Lyneham
* Honorary Air Commodore, University of London Air Squadron
* Royal Honorary Colonel, University of London OTC
* Commodore-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
Irish Republicans will be opposing the presence on this island of Anne Windsor : details of the intended protest will be announced nearer the date concerned .
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.

At the same time there are indications that the IRA could be conserving its resources for the ‘long war’ ; to hit when and where it hurts . ” We could bomb all round us for three months and cause millions of commercial damage but we’d lose 40 or 50 men and maybe kill 9 or 10 civilians in the process . What would be the point of that ? ” , asks one Northern IRA leader .

Despite temporary or long term setbacks the IRA remains essentially a product of an abnormal society in the North of Ireland , what Tim Pat Coogan calls a ‘faecal society’ . The IRA is not the problem in the North , it is only a reflection of the problem . And as long as the problem remains unsolved the IRA and its bloody campaign will persist . In that context it is worth quoting British General James M. Glover’s conclusion to his 1978 assessment of the IRA : ” The Provisional IRA’s campaign of violence is likely to continue while the British remain in Northern Ireland (sic) .” (’1169…’ Comment : not only was the Brit General wrong in his forecast , but he also failed to predict that the Provos would one day be assisting his type in enforcing their administrative ‘controls’ in the Six Counties!)

(MORE LATER).

BLACK PROPAGANDA AND BLOODY MURDER.
British Army Captain John Colin Wallace.
First it was the Maguire family - claiming they had been wrongly convicted of bombings in London on faulty forensic tests and circumstantial evidence . Then the Birmingham Six were shown to have been the victims of another miscarriage of British ‘justice’ . Now , in the most bizarre case of all , a former British Intelligence officer , who served in the North of Ireland , has claimed that he was framed for a killing he didn’t commit .
British Captain John Wallace , now serving ten years for manslaughter , claims that his conviction was part of a plan to destroy his credibility because he knew too much about covert operations in Ireland - on both sides of the border . Frank Doherty talked to Wallace and to another former British Intelligence officer , Captain Fred Holroyd , who is lobbying politicians to re-open a case which is as potentially embarrassing for the British Secret Service as the Wright case in Australia has proved to be.
From ‘MAGILL’ magazine , December 1986 .

Ten years ago John Colin Wallace was on top of the world : he was head of production services at British Army HQ in the North of Ireland in Lisburn , he had just married an attractive English colleague , Eileen , the confidential secretary to the Chief of the Secret Service (MI6) in Belfast and was proud to be considered an expert parachutist - he had trained as same with the SAS.

He had also been a member of the inquiry set up under British ‘Lord Justice’ Widgery to ‘investigate’ the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry in 1972. And he was still only thirty-two years of age . Today , he has a different job - in the library at Lewes Prison in Sussex , England. And his ambitions have changed : now he looks forward to getting parole in time for Christmas 1986 - and to his new task in life , clearing his name after being convicted for a crime he claims he did not commit .

Ballymena-born Colin Wallace’s troubles began in 1976 , after a fierce dispute between MI6 and their rivals in the ‘Security Service’ (MI5), over tactics in Ireland . ” It was a bitter row , ” says Wallace , interviewed at Lewes Prison , ” there were many casualties . I was one of them…….”

(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.

March 1st 1976 was the beginning of the battle of wills between republican POW’s incarcerated in six-county jails and the British government : the first women to be charged under the ‘new system’ was Mairead Farrell from Andersonstown in West Belfast - arrested on April 5th 1976 , she was sentenced to 14 years after several months on remand , most of it spent on her own . However , Mairead was not the first to experience criminalisation .

In December 1976 , an 18-year-old girl from the Short Strand in Belfast , Brenda Murray , was sentenced to 15 years for her alleged part in the bombing of the Babalu Boutique : the ‘evidence’ against Brenda was so unsatisfactory that she eventually obtained a retrial and , after over two years spent in Armagh Jail , a British judge finally admitted that she could not possibly have done what another British judge sent her to prison for 15 years for !

Brenda Murray was one of many innocent young women who were put through the infamous conveyor belt of criminalisation and , like the many young men who were to fill the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, Brenda was brought to Castlereagh Interrogation Centre, threatened with further beatings and forced to sign a prepared ‘confession’ , imprisoned for months on remand and finally processed through a Diplock Court, where a British judge found her guilty , not because of the ‘evidence’ put forward but because she was from a nationalist ghetto…….

(MORE LATER).

SAME SHIT…..

…..DIFFERENT DAY !

Today , Tuesday 18th November 2008 , is , yet again , another “Historic Day” in the troubled annals of this wee island : the usurpers in Westminster have decreed that their newish-found rebel pets in the ‘Province’ can be trusted to have a bigger input into how the Occupied Six Counties is ‘policed’ . However , the trained pets will be keeping a close eye on the Provisionals , on behalf of Westminster , to make sure that Gerry , Martin and the rest of the Muppets don’t lose the run of themselves and forget that it is in fact British ‘law’ that they are being ‘allowed’ to implement!

And this is being presented as a ‘Victory’ : an “Historic Day” for us Irish - when in actual fact what it is is a step further on the ‘Normalisation’ Road , aided and abetted , yet again, by the usual anti-republican elements in Leinster House and Westminster .
Irish Republicans will not be ‘celebrating’ today , nor did we celebrate on any of the previous days when similar ‘historic’ announcements were made : we will , however, truly celebrate when the day comes that Westminster announces her intention to finally fully withdraw , politically and militarily , from this island . Until then, we hope the muppets enjoy their false dawn…..
Sharon.

AN ENGLISH REDCOAT -

- a ‘tribute’ to those 56 countries which Westminster has sent ‘peace-keeping’ troops to , and in memory of the six million native people murdered in those countries for resisting the ‘efforts’ of those ‘peace-keepers’ :

” I joined the Redcoats then – mo lein! – what would my father say?
And I was sent in one short year on service to Bombay.

No sin to kill for English greed in some far foreign clime
How can it be that patriot love in Ireland is a crime ?
How can it be, by God’s decree, I’m cursed, outlawed and banned ?
Because I swore one day to free my trampled native land.”
(From ‘A FENIAN BALLAD’ [aka ‘Sweet Iveleary’] by Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa)

Remembrance of Genocide -

In Mein Kampf, Hitler stated his plans, his motivation, and the precedents for the policies which, when he implemented when achieved power with the assistance of Britain.

Extermination or genocide was the norm in the British Empire, providing Hitler with the model for his East-land colony or Lebensraum. Many British authorities and writers stated this plainly, from Edmund Spenser and Cromwell through to the twentieth century. Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke was a prominent Liberal, expected to become party leader and Prime Minister until he was scuppered by a divorce case. Here is what he said about Empire in his book Greater Britain (1894): “The Anglo-Saxon is the only extirpating race on earth. Up to the commencement of the now inevitable destruction of the red Indians, of the Maoris and of the [native] Australians, no numerous race has ever been blotted out by an invader.”

What this means was demonstrated across the British Empire which projected itself by brute force and conquest around the world. Here is what happened in Tasmania:

“In 1830 Tasmania was put under martial law, a line of armed beaters was formed across the island, and an attempt was made to drive the aborigines into a cul-de-sac.” (Moorehead, The Fatal Impact.) “The final extermination [of the Tasmanians] was a large-scale event, undertaken with the co-operation of the military and judiciary. Soldiers of the Fortieth Regiment drove the natives between two great rock formations, shot all the men and dragged the women and children out of fissures in the rocks to knock their brains out.” (Ziehr, Hell in Paradise.)

And here is how Hitler put it in Mein Kampf:

“We will select the best settlement areas as land for German settlement …we will deal with the population. …we don’t need to give ourselves any pangs of conscience about this …after all we don’t think of [Red] Indians when eating Canadian wheat. … England … was free to … eat its frozen mutton [from Australia] without looking too closely into how they were produced. … One task lies ahead: Teutonisation by bringing in Germans and regarding the original inhabitants as [Red] Indians. … We will have to have a razzia [extermination war], square kilometre by square kilometre and constantly stringing people up. This is to be a real Indian War.”

A Real Indian War: The Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado, November 29, 1864:

In 1858 white settlers poured into Colorado, where the Southern Cheyenne and Arapahoe lived after they had been ethnically cleansed by the settlers from the Great Lakes area a century or so previously, in a pattern repeated over and over again across the continent.

The conquest of the Irish took about a century (late 16th to late 17th century), the conquest of the Indians started a little later (early 17th century) and took nearly three centuries to accomplish. The parallel between these two conquests was fully obvious to settlers such as the genocidal Edmund Spenser and Walter Raleigh. Cromwell’s chaplain, the Rev Hugh Peters, was familiar with both Ireland and America: “The wild Irish and the Indian doe not much differ, and therefore would be handled alike … [Rather than] spend time about Castles and Forts, [we should] burne up the Enemies provisions every where.” In other words, extermination by famine, disease and scorched earth.

An element among the settlers recognised the attractions of Indian life, and a few actually became Indian. Thomas Morton’s sympathetic 1637 account of the Indians includes: “Of their Houses and Habitations: The natives of New England are accustomed to build themselves houses much like the wild Irish.”

A campaign of extermination was waged against the Colorado Indians after they were falsely accused of stealing 175 cattle, after they had attempted to make peace, and after they had handed over most of their weapons. The kind of scenes described below were replicated over and over again through the centuries, in America as in Ireland.

When a junior officer, Lieutenant Cramer, protested to Colonel Chivington against his attack on an Indian band (that means families of men, women and children), Chivington said: “I have come to kill Indians, and believe that it is right and honourable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”
According to Cramer, Chivington ordered his troops to: “Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”

Chivington, a former Methodist minister, commanded a force of 700 soldiers against 500 Indians at Sand Creek, of whom about 100 were men of fighting age. The rest were women, children and old men.

Robert Bent, Chivington’s guide, reported:
“After the firing the warriors put the squaws and children together, and surrounded them to protect them. I saw five squaws under a bank for shelter. When the troops came up to them they ran out and showed their persons, to let the soldiers know they were squaws and begged for mercy, but the soldiers shot them all.There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick, she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed, and four or five bucks outside. The squaws offered no resistance. Every one I saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child, as I thought, lying by her side. Captain Soule afterwards told me that such was the fact .I saw quite a number of infants in arms killed with their mothers.”

First Lieutenant James D. Connor, New Mexico Volunteers:
“About day break on the morning of the 29th of November we came in sight of the camp of the friendly Indians aforementioned, and were ordered by Colonel Chivington to attack the same, which was accordingly done. The command of Colonel Chivington was composed of about one thousand men; the village of the Indians consisted of from one hundred to one hundred and thirty lodges, and, as far as I am able to judge, of from five hundred to six hundred souls, the majority of which were women and children; in going over the battleground the next day I did not see a body of man, woman or child but was scalped, and in many instances their bodies were mutilated in the most horrible manner – men, women, and children’s privates cut out, etc. I heard one man say that he had cut out a woman’s private parts and had them for exhibition on a stick - according to the best of my knowledge and belief these atrocities were committed with the knowledge of J.M. Chivington, and I do not know of his taking any measures to prevent them; I heard of one instance of a child of a few months being thrown in the feed-box of a wagon, and after being carried some distance left on the ground to perish; I also heard of numerous instances in which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddle-boxes, and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks. “

Lieutenant Cramer:
” We arrived at the Indian village about daylight … Colonel Chivington moved his regiment to the front, the Indians retreating up the creek, and hiding under the banks. White Antelope ran towards our columns unarmed, and with both arms raised, but was killed. Several other of the warriors were killed in like manner. The women and children were huddled together, and most of our fire was concentrated on them . The Indian warriors, about 100 in number, fought desperately; there were about 500 all told. Our force was so large that there was no necessity of firing on the Indians. They did not return the fire until after our troops had fired several rounds . I told Colonel Chivington that it would be murder in every sense of the word, if he attacked those Indians. His reply was, bringing his fist down close to my face, ‘Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians’ -he had come to kill Indians and believed it to be honourable to kill Indians under any and all circumstances.”

Ashbury Bird, Company D, 1st Colorado Cavalry:
“I went over the ground soon after the battle. I should judge there were between 400 and 500 Indians killed . Nearly all, men, women, and children were scalped. I saw one woman whose privates had been mutilated.”

Corporal Amos C. Miksch, 1st Colorado Cavalry, Company C:
” Next morning after the battle, I saw a little boy covered up among the Indians in a trench, still alive. I saw a major in the 3rd regiment take out his pistol and blow off the top of his head. I saw some men unjointing fingers to get rings off, and cutting off ears to get silver ornaments. I saw a party with the same Major take up bodies that had been buried in the night to scalp them and take off ornaments. I saw a squaw with her head smashed in before she was killed. Next morning, after they were dead and stiff, these men pulled out the bodies of the squaws and pulled them open in an indecent manner. I heard men say they had cut out the privates, but did not see it myself.”

Sergeant Lucien Palmer, 1st Colorado Cavalry, Company C:
” The bodies were horribly cut up, skulls broken in a good many; I judge they were broken in after they were killed, as they were shot besides. I do not think I saw any but was scalped; saw fingers cut off [to get the rings off them], saw several bodies with privates cut off, women as well as men.”

David Louderbeck, 1st Colorado cavalry:
” The dead bodies of women and children were afterwards mutilated in the most horrible manner. I saw only eight. I could not stand it; they were cut up too much- they were scalped and cut up in an awful manner. White Antelope’s nose, ears and privates were cut off.”

John S. Smith, interpreter:
” All manner of depredations were inflicted on their persons, they were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the head with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every sense of the word - worse mutilated than any I ever saw before, the women all cut to pieces , children two or three months old; all ages lying there, from sucking infants up to warriors.”

In celebration, Denver Opera House strung Indian scalps across the stage during intermission, to standing applause. A few months later, in July 1865 Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin addressed the Denver audience, and said that the choice was to put the Indians on reservations or to exterminate them. Doolittle wrote that the audience gave “…a shout almost loud enough to raise the roof of the Opera House – ‘Exterminate them! Exterminate them! Exterminate them….!”
(Doolittle’s proposal was for mere ethnic cleansing as opposed to genocide. Early photographs show the concentration camps or death camps – stockades guarded by military watchtowers – into which the Indians were sometimes herded to rot, starve and be murdered.)

Like the anti-Hitler resistance, the Indians often displayed spectacular heroism. Hitler was defeated by his intended victims in Russia within a few short years. The Indian ordeal went on for three centuries….
(By Pat Muldowney ,on this thread. )
And they dare to call us ‘terrorists….’
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 IRA has so far spent most of this year (1980) killing ’soft’ targets like so-called ‘off-duty’ UDR men and the campaign against prison warders has been halted to await the out-come of the H-Block negotiations .

But it is Charlie Haughey’s tough policy and legal moves against IRA operations in the Border counties which has done more to impair the IRA in the last year than the RUC and British Army combined in the last three years . Cross-border ‘co-operation’ between the Garda and the RUC at regional commander and ground level combined with meticulous Free State Task Force searches of Border farms have seriously disrupted IRA logistics and produced a number of significant arms and explosives dumps .

Those tactics are described by one IRA leader as “devastating” and things could get worse for the Provos if Haughey’s attempt to activate the dormant ‘Criminal Law Jurisdiction Bill’ for cross-border offences succeeds…….

(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 : ” If you were to specify one particular need which you consider the highest political priority for republicans at this time , what would it be ? ”

IRA : ” To organise support and structure it . And to ensure that opposition to British rule is not restricted to military actions but that people’s opposition is channelled into resisting in whatever way they are able.”

[END of ‘RESISTANCE ON ALL FRONTS…….’]
(NEXT : ‘ Black Propaganda And Bloody Murder’ - from ‘Magill’ magazine 1986)

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.

As prisoners with political status were being released , their numbers rapidly dwindled : in August 1979 there were only 7 left , a month later , 4 - the Price sisters, Chris Sheerin and Pauline Deery . The first three were eventually released on compassionate grounds for extreme ill health . As the women got fewer , the prison screws got more aggressive - ” They were trying to get us to give up our political status…, “ says Kate McGuinness, released in August 1979 , ” …in petty ways they were trying to take away our rights.”

Pauline Deery writes - ” By 1980 , education classes for republican prisoners were almost non-existent , and exercise time has also been substantially reduced from 1976 . In 1976 we could stay in the exercise yard all day but , by 1980 , it was down to two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon . In 1983 I was moved to a unit on ‘B1′ on my own , and my exercise time was halved . Food parcels are now strictly limited , as are handicrafts .

Political papers and film shows have been stopped and cell searches , in the absence of those occupying the cells , have been introduced , as have strip-searches . I am unable to see my brother or my fiance , who are both in Long Kesh prison, because I won’t take the strip-search . A remand prisoner was charged for talking to me through her window last year , and she was locked up for it…”

(MORE LATER).

104th Ard Fheis of Republican Sinn Féin , 8-9th November 2008.

Some pics from the opening session of the 104th Ard Fheis of Republican Sinn Féin , which is being held in a Dublin city-centre venue over this weekend , Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th November 2008. I’ll have to let the pics speak for themselves as I’m trying to help organise one of these as well as doing a wee bit at the Ard Fheis . Much too busy to tell you of the large crowd present , the extra helpers needed at the Book-In table and the extra people roped-in to work the Ard Fheis shop . You’ll just have to make do with these few pics for now!

The above two pics were taken within a half hour of the opening of the Ard Fheis.

‘British Withdrawal’ Banner .

‘Eire Nua’ Banner .

‘Hunger Strikers’ Banner.

‘ILPS’ Banner.

‘Unbroken Continuity’ Banner .

CABHAIR 2008 Swim Leaflet.

Ard Fheis Shop items.

Shop items.

Ard Fheis Shop items .

And finally…
….one of the Special Branch cars used by the State to spy on the proceedings of this Ard Fheis . That red car was parked in a side lane beneath a fire escape landing used by those stepping-out of the Ard Fheis hall for a cigarette : it is believed an on-board camera was monitoring those on the landing as they had their smoke . Also , note the absence of insurance , tax and/or NCT discs ; State cut-backs , perhaps…
That’s all for now - back to the monthly raffle work for me !
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.

There have been more so-called ’security force’ deaths and less civilian deaths from IRA activity than for a long time : furthermore , as the ‘Criminal Damage Payments’ bear testimony , the reduced level of bombings has not reduced the damage caused .

Also , the contrasting numbers of deaths of PIRA operatives compared to those in the ’security forces’ show the IRA is losing less men for every death they inflict on the enemy than ever before in this campaign . In terms of enemy kills against the IRA the picture is even bleaker for the British - in 1979 and 1980 , premature explosions , not British Army or RUC bullets , killed four of the six dead IRA men , and all the figures available point to more effective activity by the IRA .

While 1978 and 1979 were ‘good’ years for the IRA , 1980 so far has been a ‘bad’ one : increased enemy undercover operations have hampered the IRA , whose leadership has admitted that five out of six operations are now aborted due to surveillance and frequent arrests and seven-day detention orders of ‘middle management’ IRA leaders have disrupted co-ordination and communication . One such IRA activist was told by the British Army officer who arrested him that his orders were - “Disrupt Them!” …….

(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 view of current events in the Middle East , could you reiterate your position on the Palestinian struggle ? ”

IRA : ” We support the PLO’s right to their own country . We morally support their position and we see in the Israelis’ attempt at genocide a similarity to the Nazis’ attempted genocide of the Jews in the 1930’s and 1940’s . That is to say , there is a marked similarity between Israel’s present stance and Hitler’s ‘final solution’ . The hypocrisy of the super powers - the Reagan administration particularly - and of the EEC governments , is evident and we condemn it.”

(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 Jail left its mark on the women : many were not only experiencing at first hand the repressive nature of the Orange State but also discovering the strength that lies in being united and organised , and the warmth and solidarity of the struggle .

One of the women POW’s said - ” Quite a few of us have now dropped off , got married , had families . But you will still see them at marches . They’re still here . Of the 40 on my Prison Wing I can only think of five that disappeared from the scene completely.” And some of the women were of course to experience jail again - in that same prison , but in totally different conditions .

After the last internee left in mid-1975 , between 60 and 70 sentenced republican prisoners were left in Armagh Jail . They were all moved to ‘B’ Wing while ‘A’ Wing was closed off and made ready for those prisoners coming in after March 1st 1976 - the date on which special category status was no longer applicable . One or two women had been arrested just before that date and were brought to Armagh Jail at the beginning of April 1976 : the POW’s with political status fought hard to get those women in with them . Pauline Deery was one of those women , and is now the last POW to receive ’special category’ status in Armagh Jail , where she is in a unit on her own in ‘B1′ Wing…….

(MORE LATER).