Sinn Fein’s Constitutional Breakthrough

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries an article on the recent election by former blanketman, Alec McCrory

Sinn Fein’s Constitutional Breakthrough
Alec McCrory

Sinn Fein is set to become a major player in the 31st Dail. Speaking after his election after topping the poll and exceeding the quota in Louth, Gerry Adams exuded a strong air of confidence as he declared Sinn Fein’s national project back on course. The party faithful whooped and hollered as the results poured in, outstripping all their expectations, and rightly so. Sinn Fein has finally cracked it and is now ready to present its citizen-based left of centre brand of politics to the nation. A complete turn around for a party which not so long ago appeared to be struggling south of the border.

At the last elections the wheels on Sinn Fein’s political wagon seemed to have ground to a halt, posing serious questions about its future. The failure of Mary Lou McDonald to win the Dublin seat in 2007 was seen as a major set back for the party. However, four years ago few could have predicted the economic disaster that would befall the state and how this would impact the political landscape. Forced to go back to the drawing board, Sinn Fein, as always, came up with a few clever tricks to try and turn the situation around.

The first sign of the fight back came with the election of Pearse Doherty in Donegal southwest, hailed as a resounding victory and a positive signal that more was to come. Suddenly, the party had a spring back in its step while Doherty himself was the subject of much positive reporting; the new face of Sinn Fein, confident, well presented and, most importantly, lacking the IRA baggage of many of his colleagues.

However, the master stroke was still to come: the unexpected and unforeseen appearance of the “Big Effort” in the frontier town of El Paso, home to hundreds of IRA outlaws over the years. The genius of this is move is now evident in Adams’ poll topping performance in the Fianna Fail stronghold that was Louth. Confounding his detractors, the man with the Midas touch trounced all comers exceeding the quota by 1000 plus. Even Arthur Morgan, the former SF representative for the area, expressed his surprise at the outcome.

As election fever intensified and the contest drew closer, Adams was harried by the southern press over his “alleged” involvement with the IRA. He was challenged at every opportunity regarding his now famous claim never to have been a member of that organisation. The established parties were at pains to put this northern blow in over a barrel hoping to arouse the people’s righteous indignation. His unqualified victory would suggest they shot themselves in the foot by pursuing that line of attack. Gerry Adams always performs best when he is painted as the underdog.

Sinn Fein is on the cusp of something big. Many commentators believe that Fainna Fail’s credibility is so damaged that Adams, or the clever option, Pearse Doherty, could head up the opposition in the new Dail. Linking up with a handful of the left of centre independents would almost guarantee them the dominant oppositional voice.

With 13 or 14 seats now to its name the party will have full speaking rights in the chamber, as well as, being able to table and debate motions and receive government funding for research and staffing. No doubt they are bursting at the seams to get stuck in! The Sinn Fein train has well and truly left the station on a course for increasing political representation north and south: but to what end?

With the assembly and local elections in the north looming the party will have little time to savour the moment. Now having the double advantage of its success in the south coupled with the significant election date -- May 5th being Bobby’s anniversary -- the conditions could not be more favourable from Sinn Fein’s point of view. The party will hit the streets running brimming with the confidence of old.

Recent years has saw the steady flow of republicans leaving the mainstream totally disillusioned by the political direction of Sinn Fein. Whether or not some of these people can be persuaded to return to the “republican family” will be put to the test. There is no doubting everyone loves a winner and that will be the message going out on the doorsteps. With several independent republican candidates standing across the six counties, the contest promises to be an interesting one; the duel between David and Goliath comes to mind. I know where my vote will not be going.

The Bold Gombeen Men

Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge

Gerry McGeough Family Fund

Today the Pensive Quill caries an appeal from regular guest writer Helen McClafferty, who is also Chairperson at Freegerry.com

Gerry would like to thank everyone who has offered to raise money on his behalf. He is very appreciative of everyone’s support. However, it is at his request and directions that all donations for him and his family be addressed in the following manner only:

1) Given directly to his wife, Maria.
2) Sent directly to Helen McClafferty (go to “freegerry.com” web site for details)
3) Through paypal or credit card on the “freegerry.com” web site.

Please ensure that Gerry’s request in this matter is honored.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Struggle for Political Recognition Will Continue

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries an update on the situation in Maghaberry by former blanketman, Alec McCrory

Struggle for Political Recognition Will Continue

The current situation in Magabherry requires urgent attention if further trouble is to be avoided. This is no idle threat, quite the opposite; it is a statement of fact based on the clear refusal of the prison administration not to honour their commitments under the terms of last year’s settlement. The independent facilitators, the prisoners and their families, all understood that routine strip searching would be ended in favour of a more humane procedure based upon the use of new technologies.

Electronic scanning devices, similar to those used in Portloaise, were accepted as alternatives to the age old practice of full body strip searching. The agreement states:

NIPS will introduce a new search facility and revised search policy for separated prisoners. The new facility will be located within the Bush and Roe complex and subject to CCTV and audio coverage. It will incorporate a combination of the latest technologies which will remove the requirement for routine full-body searching of separated prisoners within the prison.

It is now clear the above is subject to conflicting interpretations leading to a breakdown in relations between the prisoners and the prison authorities. However, it is the strong contention of all the prisoners that there is no misunderstanding on this central issue. As far as they are concerned the agreement delivers an end to routine strip searching except in two cases:

• a) where a scanning device identifies something of an illegal nature on or secreted within a prisoner and:
• b) a search which is intelligence lead.

Even in both these cases the agreement states that a full body strip search must be “carried out in a manner which is both sensitive and dignified.” Republican prisoners agreed to both exceptions to facilitate agreement. During a number of conversations with the facilitators we sought clarification on this and, on each occasion, they said they concur with the prisoners' view on the matter.

Maghaberry is now at a critical juncture. Six months have passed since the agreement was reached with little or no progress being made on the core issues of strip searching and controlled movement. Sadly, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the “prisoner’s collective” which successfully negotiated the settlement has dissolved into cliques to the detriment of all.

The NIPS response to this has been to seize the opportunity to slow down the process of change to a snail’s pace, thus creating even greater discord amongst the prisoners. Like any predator, the system stalks its prey, ready to strike at the first sign of weakness. Clearly, the system is attempting to hollow out the agreement believing the prisoners have neither the strength nor the will to do anything about it. History shows that political prisoners, however few in number, should not be underestimated.

In the case of the six non-conforming prisoners their resolve and determination to see the agreement implemented in full is undoubted. They steadfastly refuse to accept a degrading strip search which they insist contravenes last August's agreement. Nor will they submit to a humiliating oral inspection, night checks, or any other procedures designed to undermine their integrity and self respect. As political prisoners they will not cooperate with a regime that attempts to rob them of their dignity. Therefore, the struggle for political recognition will continue until its successful conclusion.


Alex McCrory is a former Blanketman

Darkness At Dawn

It is all over now bar the voting. Tomorrow, after the gangs of politicians have gathered the votes and counted the booty, there will be a new government. Its popularity will last about a month and then it will be back to much the same as we have known for the last lot of years. Harsh measures lie ahead and the Fine Gael led government will be howled at with the same vitriol as the previous Fianna Fail led one, the carp rather than the harp now being the national symbol. Nothing else for it when the political class screws the country into the ground.

I still don’t know if I’ll vote. For the most part it will be determined by how tired I am after work. There isn’t a lot to choose between. We will still be in hock to the IMF and the ECB this time tomorrow night, next week, next year. If I do make it out the door it will only be to vote for something to the left of whatever there is. That leaves even less to choose from. Left here is relative. What might be called left in Ireland would easily slot into the right in many other Western societies. If there is anybody standing from the United Left Alliance, they will get the vote if cast. Failing that it will probably be Labour given that there is some association with a left perspective.

What will make me hold my nose if I vote Labour is the certain knowledge that it will go into government with Fine Gael. I would feel much happier if the vote was to go towards a party that would form part of the opposition. This society stands to gain more from strong opposition rather than strong government. We saw how the failure of previous opposition allowed Fianna Fail to destroy the economy and send its citizens down the plughole of destitution.

Fianna Fail are certain to be in opposition but there is no chance of voting for them. One firm motive for making the trip to the polling station is to use the ballot paper as a red card to thrust in their faces. The Greens will get no vote either. They hardly deserve it after they abandoned everything for a taste of power. Then they might not even get any seats and would then fail to make it to the opposition benches in any event.

Sinn Fein will end up in opposition. But if the electoral arithmetic were to work out in a certain way the party would jump into coalition with Fine Gael. While individual Sinn Fein candidates in some constituencies would be worthy of a vote, the party grassroots has failed totally to curb the megalomania of its leader. Fine Gael know they would get a better deal from a small Sinn Fein partner than they ever would from a larger Labour partner. Enda Kenny would have fewer cabinet seats to dole out and he would also realise that the Sinn Fein leader will jettison the party for a taste of power.

As the wag might say people are fed up being told the truth about the terrible state of the country. They want lies and Adams is the man to tell them. A dark dawn awaits.

der "New Irland"

Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge

Government by Google

I never read Jude Collins. Whatever he is for or against his writing has invariably failed to stir anything remotely resembling interest in me. There is nothing personal in it. Some writers, adore them or abhor them, hit the spot and others fail to.

Formerly a columnist with the Irish News and then with the failed Daily Ireland, Jude Collins would write regularly. Yet for the world of me, apart from one piece in each where he first defended me against a PSNI raid on my home, and then in another attacked me because the McCartney sisters campaign annoyed him, there is virtually nothing of what flowed from his pen that has left an indelible trace in my memory. During the peace process he emerged as a bit of a republican. If he was a republican earlier it was something he successfully concealed.

Last week I was referred to a column he had written in his blog. It was described to me as a hapless attempt to defend Sinn Fein boss Gerry Adams from media scrutiny over his serial weakness on economic matters. Even though I guessed a masochist alone would take on that task, I could still not be persuaded to visit Jude despite the promise of a laugh. His piece was eventually read out to me. In essence the case he sought to make was that Adams had no need to understand economic detail, it could always be found via Google. If my children were to come to me and say they had gave up studying, there being no need to suffer it, as the computer would do it for them, I would immediately throw the contraption in the bin. So if we rebut a slovenly attitude from young children there is no imaginable reason to approve it from people who want to run the country.

Jude Collins’s idea is that Gerry should just be allowed to get on with it and not face questions he has no answer to. Which would mean on the economy he should be asked no questions at all.

Consider a doctor not understanding pathology and having to Google each time he wanted to diagnose a patient’s condition. What confidence would that inspire? If every other political leader in the country was equipped with the same level of economic awareness as the leader of Sinn Fein, the problems besetting society at this point, awesome as they are, would be greatly amplified.

Little marvel that someone commenting on the Collins post under the name ‘Dragnet’ tore strip after strip from his argument to the point where Jude felt it better to cut his losses and run. At least he proved savvy enough not to ignore the time honoured advice to stop digging when in a hole.

The type of debilitating virus that flows from the type of case made by Jude Collins for long ravaged journalistic integrity and efficiency in the North. We now see how subversive of pubic understanding that proved to be. To the extent that such a deferential attitude still exists – and RTE showed it in abundance with its truncating of a Vincent Browne savaging of Taoiseach Brian Cowen - it should be ring fenced into the North, well away from the South where public understanding should be fire walled against its invasiveness. And if that sentiment is born of a partitionist mentality, then lo and behold partition has some good qualities after all.

The media should be about intellect in defence of investigation, not idiocy defending ignorance.

Grave Desecration

The monument was quite a significant piece. It was made of solid granite and would have taken considerable force to do that type of damage. Whoever did this must have come armed with a sledge hammer or something similar. So it appears to have been a very deliberate premeditated act – Terry Hughes.

I have long thought that those who attack graves or other memorials seem to spend their time in a bleak cultural milieu where pathological hatred or mindless moronity govern their actions. Whether it is the anti-Semitic destruction of Jewish graves in a Hungarian cemetery, or the violation of the resting places of the late members of Lynyrd Skynyrd there is always something morbidly disquieting about it. Others might say revolting and we would be hard pressed to disagree.

When a granite bench in honour of the late IRA volunteer Brendan Hughes was destroyed early last week barely days after it had been put in place by family, friends and comrades in the Cooley Mountains, it at first suggested a visceral hatred on the part of those responsible for the destruction. On later reflection I considered that it might have been the calling card of local thugs whose minds are so tiny that there would simply not be enough room to squeeze hatred or any other emotion in. I still don’t know what lay behind the attack. Mindless vandalism might, I suppose, be less riling than the hatred that accompanies wilful and thought out desecration.

The past history of Brendan Hughes might not be to the liking of a majority of people in Ireland. He was a long serving member of the Provisional IRA, an organisation that represented a minority viewpoint and which had more than a fair share of opponents and critics. Many in that category were less than tempered in their often blistering critiques. That Brendan remained uncompromising in defence of the IRA’s armed struggle hardly endeared him towards them. Yet few of them would make it their mission to charge though the Cooley Mountains intent on destroying a memorial bench in his honour simply engraved with little more than his name and the dates of his birth and death. They have moved on like most others. The destruction was either the handiwork of a mindless vandal who did it because it could be done or a mind so warped by perennial hatred and for which there is no palliative, that it could find no outlet other than an explosion of destructive rage.

Were the families of the 18 British soldiers killed in an IRA attack not far from the Cooleys to erect something in memory of those lost, it would never strike me that honouring loved ones was something so offensive that it would give rise to an overpowering urge to desecrate and destroy their monument. Yet there is nothing new in this type of desecration. The republican plot at Milltown has been subject to attack and destruction, the perps widely suspected of being thugs with a long standing grievance against republicanism. The grave of the IRA volunteer Joe O’Connor in the City Cemetery has also attracted the attention of morbid marauders.

The war is over and people should be free to remember or even forget as they wish. Leaving a monument alone does not imply acceptance of the perspective, views or actions of those being remembered. It merely means an acknowledgment that those who died left behind family and friends who loved them and grieve them to this day. Those who don’t share their grief should at least leave them alone to handle it in their own way.

Brendan Hughes carried out many actions in his day that led to the loss of life and property. But those who knew him understand very well that he was neither mindless or hate filled. He is remembered as much for his compassion as his military actions. The idea of anyone creeping around in the dead of night wrecking graves or destroying monuments no matter to whom they were dedicated, would have appalled him.

Not able to lace his boots they could always wreck his bench. Hardly the benchmark of meaningful lives.

ABBA

The only party to call to the door up to now in the election campaign has been Fine Gael. We chatted amiably to one of its canvassers as he tried to persuade us of the merits of casting a vote the way of Fergus O’Dowd. We were assured that it was the one way to ensure Gerry Adams didn’t top the poll.

Why he decided to impart that piece of opinion our way I don’t know. I doubt if he knew anything about us or our animus towards Sinn Fein. He presumably tells most of those he calls with the same thing. Perhaps he believes our neighbourhood is not a Sinn Fein redoubt and that any adversarial comments about Adams are unlikely to produce a ‘clear off from the door’ response. For sure we would rather have him at the door than Sinn Fein. Last time they turned up it was to lead a Belfast hate mob screaming that we were heretics for not believing their lies.

A few nights after the Fine Gael canvass something from Sinn Fein was found lying in the hall. Although I phrased that as if it was planted there, a la a booby trap bomb, it in fact came in the post. It was a brace of computer generated leaflets addressed to both myself and my wife. Her tolerance level for Adams and his party is even less than my own. Then again she was six months pregnant when the party led mob fronted by a prominent member of Ugly na hEeireann came to intimidate. As I was at a political conference in Cookstown, she had to face the brunt of the abuse alone. To her with the US origins she has, Sinn Fein might as well have been just one more LA gang vying to be top dog in the ‘hood.

She pushed the leaflets across the kitchen table to as if they were something that exuded a foul odour. I almost suggested, given the derision on her face, that she could have used a stick. Being a product of the H-Blocks no-wash protest I had developed immunity to handling shit so picked up the leaflet to glance at any crap likely to be displayed on its bright shiny surface.

Across its top in bright white stencils were the words ‘THERE IS A BETTER WAY.’ Pardon my German but Vat needs to be explained is how the better way is to be found by a man who on economic matters does not seem to know vat he is talking about. It appears that just about everybody in the country, excepting the writer Jude Collins, senses that Adam’s limited economic knowledge is the Achilles’ heel of Sinn’s Fein’s hoped for forward momentum.

When the day comes I might vote; haven’t made up my mind yet, there not being a lot to choose from. Sinn Fein, for sure, have some appealing things to say but under its current leadership what it has to say this side of an election will have no bearing the other side of it when the votes have been safely gathered and we are stuck with them for another lot of years. We have already seen its false promises on the Northern cuts. When push came to shove the party pushed and shoved the cuts down the throats of society’s most disadvantaged, cutting and slashing with the rest of the political class governing on behalf of Britain.

If I do vote it will be on the basis of who knows most about economics and is most likely to give tackling our economic debacle their best shot. That inevitably means invoking the ABBA principle - Any Bollix But Adams.

RNU Respond to Unfounded Allegations

Today The Pensive Quill carries a statement by the Republican Network for Unity in response to the Friends of Irish Freedom

A Chara,

Due to a number of inaccurate allegations printed in the Belfast Telegraph regarding our National Chairperson, Carl Reilly, the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) would like the opportunity to respond to these groundless claims by the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF).

First and foremost, RNU is an Irish Socialist-Republican pressure/lobby group. A large amount of our members are former Republican prisoners. Throughout the first half of 2010, our imprisoned comrades in Maghaberry Gaol and their families were enduring terrible conditions. As a result of these conditions our Network established a POW Department last November.

A few days after Christmas, RNU’s former Chairperson, Danny McBrearty from Derry received a large OPENED envelope from the FOIF in America. Inside were a number of Christmas cards which contained money for the dependants of political prisoners in Ireland. Danny immediately contacted the FOIF asking why he was sent the envelope in the first place as he never had any previous dealings in the distribution of money for POW’s. The Spokesperson who he spoke to asked RNU to ensure the cards were distributed to those addressees. Danny also informed the head of our new POW Department, Carl Reilly that when the terrible weather conditions improved, the cards would be delivered to him in Belfast. Unfortunately, the unprecedented weather lasted longer than anyone imagined, and combined with the Christmas holiday period, Carl did not take hold of the cards until, January 7th.

On January 9th, Carl contacted his counterparts in the other prisoners groups, notifying them about the cards. This can be confirmed by Teach Na Failte, Cabhair, IRPWA and representatives of Independent POWs’. The following morning, the RUC/PSNI along with the British Army raided his Cafe. During the search, the unreformed RUC demanded to know what was inside the envelopes. They were informed that they were Christmas cards and money for prisoners. Carl was immediately notified that they would be seized as part of the raid. Before being taken away, he was allowed to count the cards and money, which would ensure that the same amount would be returned. It was then, and only then, that he discovered that POWs’ had been sent unequal amounts of money.

Soon afterwards, RNU issued a statement to the media detailing the raid as well as the insults to prisoners and the seizure of money. Prior to us notifying FOIF that the money had been seized by the RUC/PSNI, they had already read our Press statement and demanded to know why the cards were in Belfast. After giving them a full and honest explanation as to what had occurred, they were clearly unhappy with what RNU had to say. Its Treasurer then proceeded to insult RNU members on its Face book page. When challenged about this, an email was sent to Carl Reilly by Cathleen O’Brien stating that she would destroy our Network.

When Carl eventually received the cards and money back from the RUC/PSNI, he and other members of our POW Department checked the contents against the list he had compiled during the raid. They felt it would be hurtful to give unequal funds to the POWs’ we represented and then ignore others. Being an Irish republican organisation which champions equality, our activists, with the blessing of the father of one of the POWs’, felt that the money should be allocated to those we had a duty of care to on an equal basis. Those POWs’ have since publically agreed with that action and have also asked the FOIF not to use their names in future to fund raise.

RNU evenly distributed the money to a small number of prisoners. Immediately afterwards, the other cards containing money was given to the respective prisoner groups. Unfortunately, we didn’t have everyone’s address and asked other friends to deliver them to the relevant families. In one instance the card was not delivered to the proper address. However, we have been informed that this has now been resolved and the family of the late Óglach John Brady has publicly confirmed this to be the case. Another card had been given to a third person to deliver, and we were unaware that it had not been passed on, but this has also been rectified. We apologise to both those families for the delay and for not following up on the cards given to a third party to deliver. We believe that this is RNU’s only error is this state of affairs. We wish to reassure people that there was nothing underhand as alleged by FOIF.

In conclusion, the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) reiterates that the accusations against our National Chairperson are ridiculous and unfounded. We will defend our integrity and that of our Activists. We are currently seeking legal advice on this matter due to the defamatory and slanderous accusations by FOIF and our Network will issue no further comment on this matter.

On behalf of the National Executive of RNU
Martin Óg Meehan

Friends of Irish Freedom

Today The Pensive Quill carries a statement by the Friends of Irish Freedom

Background

Founded in New York, in 1916, the Friends of Irish Freedom's purpose has been to support Irish Republican prisoners and their dependents. By 1950, the organization had faded. In 1970, experienced, established Irish Republicans in New York City founded the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid). After the 1986 split amongst Republicans in Ireland, in 1989 members of Noraid, dedicated Irish Republicans, saw "the writing on the wall" regarding (Provisional) Sinn Fein. Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) was then revived.

Since then, FOIF has supported Irish Republican prisoners & their families, working with Sister Sarah Clarke, the Tyrone Prisoners Dependents Fund, and others. FOIF supports Republican Prisoners regardless of affiliation. For over 20 years, FOIF has assisted prisoners in England, Ireland, & the USA.

• FOIF hosts the largest annual Easter Mass & Commemoration in the United States
• FOIF is the only prisoner support group in the New York City's St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
• FOIF runs numerous memorial ads, articles, and letters in American newspapers, publicizing the plight of Irish Republican Prisoners and raising awareness.
• FOIF organized protests at the British Consulate, most recently during the fall of 2010

Friends of Irish Freedom is an active, committed organization with a long history. In its ranks are many respected activists with strong connections to Ireland.

FOIF has never been asked by any group in Ireland to raise money on their behalf. FOIF does not give money to other organizations; donations are given directly to families only. FOIF is an all-volunteer, independent Irish American organization. Its independence is valued.

Christmas Donations

As it has done every year, FOIF organized Christmas donations for prisoners' families. The committee determined that each child that FOIF was aware of would receive $50, and the remaining funds would be divided among single prisoners' families at $75 per man. It is the belief of FOIF that prisoners with children need more support than single men. 19 prisoners were selected from an incomplete list of current prisoners. FOIF sent Christmas cards containing the donations to each family. The 19 cards written by FOIF members were individually addressed and sealed.

In the 22 years that FOIF has been donating money for prisoners' families, there has never been a problem.

This year, FOIF's Christmas money was delivered by hand before Christmas Day to a trusted, respected Republican. The donations were NOT delivered TO or FOR any organization. The recipient of the sealed envelopes contacted us to confirm the arrival of said envelopes.

By first week of January 2011, FOIF had no word the 19 envelopes were delivered to families. FOIF contacted some families to ask if they received our money. None had. This caused concern.

On Monday 10th January 2011, a press release was issued by the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) stating Christmas cards with donations from the USA were confiscated by PSNI in a ‘raid’ in Belfast at an RNU member’s place of business. It transpires that Belfast RNU Spokesperson Carl Reilly was in possession of FOIF's money when this ‘raid’ occurred.

This news was a shock to FOIF as money was not given to the RNU. It was not known why FOIF's money was in Belfast in a place of business. FOIF immediately tried to reach the person in Derry to whom the money was entrusted. FOIF received no communication from the RNU about the ‘raid’ or the status of our money and what transpired.

Questions

FOIF has a number of questions regarding what happened to its donations:

• Which cards were taken by the PSNI
• Why were FOIF's donations in Belfast on the 10th of January in a place of business
• Where the remaining 10 cards were (FOIF heard the PSNI took 9)

No answers were forthcoming. Only that FOIF persisted in contacting people in Ireland did some information come to light. All the effort was on FOIF’s part - the RNU never came across. It is disgraceful that FOIF had to make all the effort to ascertain what occurred and that the RNU made NO effort to inform us. FOIF is troubled that it learned of this ‘raid’ via a press release.

In response to FOIF's persistence, an email sent to the RNU National Chairman by Belfast RNU Spokesperson, Carl Reilly (who was in possession of our money when the ’raid’ occurred), was forwarded to FOIF. In it, Reilly said he did not have to explain anything to FOIF, nor did he intend to waste his time talking to us. There were additional insults in that email.

The RNU National Chairman told Reilly FOIF deserved an explanation.

Reilly's response:

Some of the other envelopes were delivered to the pows cara. The prisoners envelopes were sent to Derry after Cathleen was TOLD NOT TOO send them there but to me, SHE ignored this, the envelopes then sat in Derry over the christmas period as getting them to me over the festive period was difficult and the fact that we had the worst weather condtions in 135 years! They were not in a taxi depot they were in the Cafe, Cathleen needs to stop ringing Charlotte Natarintonio for info as it was her who told her I own a taxi depot! I opened the envelopes because she decided to only send to THREE out of the TWELVE pows that we look after, I opened them in the presence of TWO members of the RNU leadership and put the money together and divided it equally between all twelve, I will not allow Cathleen to treat any pow differently!

If Cathleen wants to know were the envolpes are? they are in the custody of the RUC!!! Cathleen has made more of the fact that I had the envolpes than she has of the RUC stealing them!!! John Bradys envolpe like the others is part of the RUC raid! Cathleen can rescind permisson all she likes for FOIF name to be used....RNU has its own pow department now and hasnt used the FOIF name in some time!!! I do have her email and number, I will not be wasting my time talking to a crackpot! If Cathleen has ANY issues with me or how things worked out over christmas, tell her to contact ME!!! ps plz forward this email to her if you wish cara!

Previously, in November 2010, Carl Reilly told FOIF on the phone that FOIF were “to take orders and directives” from him. He stated on the phone FOIF was to have no contact with anyone else in Ireland but him. He stated all money raised for prisoners by FOIF was to be sent to him. He refused to send FOIF a prisoners list. FOIF's response was to tell him in no uncertain terms that “FOIF is an independent organization and takes ‘orders’ from no one”. He was told FOIF does not send money to organizations.

It has been confirmed that Belfast RNU Spokesman, Carl Reilly, opened Christmas cards addressed to prisoners' families containing money. He opened envelopes for families not affiliated to his group. He has claimed he only opened cards the PSNI were confiscating. We were told by the RNU National Chairman that Reilly opened envelopes before the raid. Reilly's email to the RNU National Chairman confirms this.

FOIF's cards and money are none of Reilly’s or the RNU’s business as it was not sent to them. This breach of trust is cause for concern.

Since the ‘raid’ took place, FOIF has been unable to determine if all families received their money.

It has also been brought to our attention that three Belfast RNU members have been slandering FOIF on the internet.

One Belfast RNU member stooped so low as to claim FOIF lied, and sent empty cards while claiming all cards contained money.

FOIF was not informed by the RNU that PSNI returned the cards and money. This was heard from other sources.

Some of the donations have since been handed over by Carl Reilly to a respected Republican who is in contact with FOIF. FOIF is grateful for her assistance.

Conclusion

FOIF still has unanswered questions that need answered by the RNU: where the rest of the money is and what exactly they did with every card.

• One card contained $350.00 dollars for a prisoner's seven children; when it was finally handed over by the RNU - that card was missing $150.00.
• FOIF included a card with money for the children of the late John Brady. This card and money was still missing as of Sunday 6th Feb. 2011. FOIF has not yet received confirmation of its arrival.

In addition:

• FOIF learned Belfast RNU members are claiming FOIF treat prisoners differently. This is a lie. FOIF treats all prisoners the same.
• Belfast RNU members claimed FOIF posted a list of prisoners on remand on the internet. That is a lie. FOIF does not have a website yet and has never listed prisoners' names on Facebook.
• A Belfast RNU member posted a list of prisoners who in a statement allegedly said they did not want their names used and do not wish to receive money from FOIF. Some of those prisoners' families were sent Christmas envelopes by FOIF with money enclosed. FOIF does not know if their families ever received them. Those donations have not been returned to FOIF if, in fact, their families do not want them.

The actions of members of Republican Network for Unity in Belfast have raised serious questions and caused great concern.

Private cards were sent to prisoners' families -- not to any organization.

No one had any right to open those cards except the families they were addressed to.

All prisoner support groups in Ireland are well aware of Friends Of Irish Freedom. They are also aware of US laws and restrictions. If any support group wanted more prisoners' families to receive support they simply could have sent FOIF a current list of prisoners.

It has been agreed by FOIF members that if, as alleged by Carl Reilly, there are any prisoners who do not wish their families to receive support from FOIF, we will indeed honor their wishes.

It is important to also note that the RNU representative in the USA stated that all existing Republican support groups in the USA are to be closed down and work under the RNU.

Friends of Irish Freedom will not be intimidated by attempts to slander and threaten emanating from of certain elements within the RNU.

Signed by FOIF Officers and Christmas Drive Committee

C. McLoughlin, National Chairman
J. McLoughlin, National Secretary
K. Montague, National Treasurer
C. O’Brien, National Trustee
C. Canty, Raffle Chairperson
E. Griffin
R. O’Brien
M. Moore
C. P. O’Brien
M. Donnelly
M. Pastor
M. McKenna
K. McLaughlin
P. McCarthy
K. Gavin
J. Burgel
J. Montague
T.J. McLaughlin


The 19 prisoners whose families were sent Christmas cards:

Colin Duffy = 6 children x $50 = $300.00
Kieran Doran = 7 children x $50= $350.00
Damien McLaughlin = 2 children x $50 = $100.00
Harry Fitzsimons = 2 children x $50 = $100.00
Sean Carlin = 2 children x $50 = $100.00
Sean O'Reilly = 2 children x $50 = $100.00
Damien McKenna = 2 children x $50 = $100.00
Mickey Walsh = 2 children x $50 = $100.00

John Brady's children = 2 x $50 = $100.00

Willie Wong = $75.00
Paul McCaugherty = $75.00
Martin Corey = $75.00
Turlough McAllister = $75.00
Tony Rooney = $75.00
Sean McConville = $75.00
Brendan Conway = $75.00
Gerard McManus = $75.00
Joe Barr = $75.00
Philip O'Donnell = $75.00

Northern Ireland: a Product of Gerrymandering – not Democracy

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries a piece by guest writer Liam o Ruairc, which featured previously in the Sovereign Nation.

Over the past few months the Belfast Newsletter ran a series of opinion pieces on ‘Union 2021’ to mark the forthcoming one hundred anniversary of the creation of ‘Northern Ireland’. On the horizon is thus not just the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016 but importantly also that of partition in ten years time. This provides the opportunity to restate the Republican case against partition and the existence of ‘Northern Ireland’. It is not a matter of 'irredentism' as Paul Bew and Henry Patterson attempt to portray it. It is fundamentally an issue of democracy. As democracy is the essence of Republicanism, for Republicans the problem is first and foremost that ‘Northern Ireland’ is a product of gerrymandering and not democracy. It is based on a sectarian headcount to maintain supremacy, not equality. It is not based on consent but on coercion. It is not based upon the rule of law but on a system where normal rules of justice can be circumvented.

It was imposed by the British state, not created by the will of the people. It was established by a 1920 British Act of Parliament for which no one in Ireland ever voted. What the British government thought of democracy can be summed by what Prime Minister Lloyd George wrote to Lord Carson in 1916 : 'We must make it clear that Ulster does not, whether she wills it or not, merge with the rest of Ireland.' The people of all Ireland were given no say. The partition of Ireland is not even based on the wishes of the people within the partitioned area. Along the actual border areas were included where the majority wished to be on the other side of the line. There are even some indications that the Unionists did not want partition. Some historians like Clare O Halloran argue that some sort of partition was inevitable. However, it was the British government which chose the way in which Ireland was to be divided and imposed this by force. It is inconceivable that negotiations between Republicans, Nationalists and Unionists would have produced the same settlement, especially of the British state had been out of the equation. The primary responsibility for partition lies with the British government and ‘Northern Ireland’ is kept in existence only by British guns and finance.

It is sometimes argued that partition was legitimate because a majority in ‘Northern Ireland’ wished to remain part of the United Kingdom. But one has to draw a line where the majority for partition begins and where the majority for partition ends. The only recognised constitutional entity until 1920 was the 32-county Ireland. It recognised itself as a constitutional entity prior to Henry II although it had difficulties in establishing a central government. (on this see Christopher Maginn, Contesting the sovereignty of early modern Ireland, History Ireland, November-December 2007) It was governed as an entity for 750 years under English rule. It was the parliament of Ireland that passed the Act of Union in 1800, and it was never suggested that the 32-county Ireland disintegrated itself by enacting the Union. It was governed as a distinct entity under the Union right through until 1920 when the British government over-ruled the democracy of Ireland and split the country. There are therefore serious grounds to take the 32-county Ireland as being the legitimate unit for self-determination. Howevere the historical, geographical or national basis to justify the existence of ‘Northern Ireland’ are more questionable. The six-county ‘Northern Ireland’ is not the nine-county Ulster and there is little that makes its population distinctive from the rest of the island (also not all protestants in Ulster consider themselves to be British or Unionists). To take ‘Northern Ireland’ as a legitimate unit for self-determination has little political, geographic or historic logic. On that basis, if six counties have the right to secede from the thirty-two, then there is no reason why counties Fermanagh, Tyrone and Armagh couldn’t drop out of ‘Northern Ireland’ ! Finally the aggregate verdict is the normal means of assessing an electoral contest so even if a ‘majority’ in the North wished to remain part of the United Kingdom this lacked democratic legitimacy.

In fact ‘Northern Ireland’ did not demand self-determination, it was created to deny self-determination. ‘Northern Ireland’ was created and maintained through the threat of violence and denial of democracy. Its origin was a sectarian head-count as John Whyte explains : « For the border was so drawn as to corral within it not only almost all areas with unionist majorities, but also considerable areas with nationalist ones. If the county is taken as the unit, there were at the time of partition unionist majorities in only four of the six counties of Northern Ireland. If some smaller unit had been chosem then parts of Tyrone and Fermanagh might have been reclaimed for unionism, but considerable parts of other counties would have been lost to nationalism…(Unionists’) only worry was how much territory they would be able to control. The idea that it might be unjust to ask for more territory than was actually unionist apparently never entered their heads. The fact might be used by their critics to argue that unionists sought , not equality, but supremacy. » (John Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp.163-164) On that basis, one can seriously challenge the idea that « there is nothing inherently reactionary about…a national frontier which puts Protestants in numerical majority. » (Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon, Henry Patterson, The State in Northern Ireland, Manchester University Press, 1979, 221)

As a result of this the people of Ireland were denied their rights as a majority and an undemocratic system of artifical majority and artificial minority was set up. What made partition ‘legitimate’ was that a majority in the North wanted it when partition had created this majority in the first place ! (therefore artificial ) But since democracy is usually equated with majority rule (something Martin Mansergh would probably call outdated majoritarian thinking), many would argue that it would be undemocratic to force the Unionists, who are now a majority in ‘Northern Ireland’ into a united Ireland without their consent. What this argument ignores is precisely the artificial nature of this ‘majority’. Prior to partition Unionists constituted a minority within the whole population of Ireland. The very existence of ‘Northern Ireland’ is due to the British government and Unionists’ refusal to accept the results of majority rule in Ireland as a whole. To attempt to legitimise that refusal Unionists had to be transformed into a ‘majority’. This was achieved by creating ‘Northern Ireland’ whose borders were deliberately chosen to exclude counties which were predominantly Nationalist and Republican. In this new state Unionists thus enjoyed a clear majority. The fact that within ‘Northern Ireland’ Unionists can outvote Nationalists and Republicans is simply an outcome of the way in which its borders were fixed at the time of partition and says nothing about the justice or democratic nature of their case. The principle of consent for constitutional change only refers to consent within the six counties against the will of the majority of the people of Ireland and has therefore dubious democatic credentials.

The artificial majority set about building ‘a Protestant state for a Protestant people’, a state built on discrimination and bigotry. While ‘Northern Ireland’ was formally democratic, as an entity where more than a third of its population contested its legitimacy, it could not function as a normal democratic state. It was an exceptional state relying on special powers, sectarianism and electoral fraud for its survival. The Nationalist experience of the creation of ‘Northern Ireland’ is an equivalent of the Palestinian experience of ‘Nakba’. Nationalists became an artificial minority and were long treated as second-class citizens. ‘Northern Ireland’ was based on coercion not consent. It is not based upon the rule of law but on a system where normal rules of justice can be circumvented. Many civil liberties taken for granted in other Western countries have always been severely restricted in the six counties. From the moment of its birth, ‘Northern Ireland’ has been in a state of more or less continuous emergency where civil liberties have been severely curtailed. The British state has dispensed with the ‘normal’ process of law and had used ‘special powers’ of arrest, detention, internment without trial and remand procedures. It has used extra-legal methods of ‘shoot to kill’ to eliminate political opponents, collusion, censorship, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, abolished trial by jury. All these have been documented by international human rights bodies and organisations. Legal constraints on security forces are minimal. Today, security forces have almost unlimited powers to stop, search, arrest and detain whoever they chose. No-jury courts and ill-treatment of suspects are still commonplace.

The Belfast Agreement has certainly created greater equality for nationalists within ‘Northern Ireland’ and gave it more legitimacy in the eyes of nationalists. The six counties in 2011 are not the same place they were in 1971 or 1921. But to say “that ‘Northern Ireland’ is ‘more stable’ and ‘more legitimate’ is not the same thing as suggesting that it is either stabilised or legitimised.» (Sara O Sullivan (ed) Contemporary Ireland: A Sociological Map, Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2007, 416) Because the fundamental reality is that ‘Northern Ireland’ « is inherently sectarian and undemocratic and the British presence only serves to perpetuate that state of affairs ». (Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland : The Orange State, Pluto Press, 1976, 332)

Giving CID A Snow Job

Book Review: Duplicity And Deception by Alan Simpson.
First published in Fortnight Magazine

Before he was ‘forced into early retirement due to ill-health’ in 1993 Alan Simpson had reached the rank of Superintendent in the RUC. In this memoir he sets himself the onerous task of defending not only the RUC but the role of CID within it, the section of the force he moved to in 1972. In his own words, the aim of Duplicity And Deception ‘is to throw some light onto the professionalism and fairness within the CID’ as well as ‘trying to claw back some credibility for the RUC’. Chutzpah or well meaning, the reader may decide.

His writing strategy is to flag up the deficiencies of Special Branch who he feels operated a cult of secrecy, treated their CID colleagues with disdain and generally behaved as a law onto themselves. Branch deception was brazenly exercised in the 1989 assassination of Pat Finucane, where, Simpson claimed, ‘they and FRU appeared to collude in the murder ... they and the FRU knew a great deal about the crime but failed to communicate any of it to me.’ If the British government announce in the New Year an inquiry into the hotly contested circumstances of the solicitor’s death, Simpson can put his money where his mouth is and communicate all he knows to it.

There are three main pillars used to stanchion the overall narrative in Duplicity And Deception; the killing of Pat Finucane; the kidnapping and eventual recovery of the body of Thomas Neidemeyer; and the life and crimes of UDA boss Jim Craig. Yet, the reader may wonder how much of its contents were actually put together from police files as distinct from contemporaneous tabloid journalism. Simpson has Brian Keenan as IRA Chief of Staff as far back as 1973, claiming to have ‘been well aware’ of the fact. But the fact that he was obviously not well aware of was that the IRA top spot was one that Keenan never held. CID would be expected to know this.

Keenan is the person blamed by Simpson for the kidnapping and subsequent disappearing of Neidermayer, a West German industrialist. The policy of disappearing people had been devised the year before by a Belfast IRA leader who, unlike Keenan, would go on to become chief of staff. Neidermayer was unfortunate because he had not crossed the IRA in any way but was considered a bargaining chip in the organisation’s drive to force the British to release the Price sisters, Marian and Dolours, then on hunger strike in a British prison.

Keenan now deceased, who once gazed at Alan Simpson in Brixton prison with ‘venomous eyes’, was also alleged in the book to be the driving force behind the sectarian massacre of 10 Protestant workmen in January 1976.

The hunt for Neidermayer’s body takes up a sizeable chunk of this narrative. Yet it seems too much of a coincidence, not commented on by the author, that the discovery of the body should coincide with the release of one of the Price sisters. The second was released the following year. If it was a quid pro quo between the British and the IRA, Simpson does not portray it as such.

There was something of the voyeuristic when I read through the interrogation of men who I would later spend time in prison with, sent down for their involvement in the kidnapping and killing of West Germany’s honorary consul to the North. Their description, if accurate, of Neidermayer’s death and subsequent burial in a secret grave where he lay undiscovered for a further seven years, is a chilling account which ranks alongside the narratives of similar actions that have emerged from Chile and Argentina.

Why the IRA ever resorted to the war crime of disappearing people - a propaganda nightmare - is still the subject of debate and a measure of angst amongst some of those who made up its ranks. Most see it as being a vindictive tactic designed more to cover failures on the part of some leading figures than as a measure of the organisation’s success. It was a dirty war but as Camus reminds us ‘even in destruction there is a right way and a wrong way – and there are limits.’

Simpson concedes it was impossible for the war to be fought cleanly. But he does nothing to show the role of CID in the dirty war he refers to. Yet in October the Guardian reported that

a number of former RUC interrogators, men who worked at Castlereagh during the 70s, 80s and 90s, have recently told the Guardian that the beatings, the sleep deprivation and the other tortures were systematic, and were, at times, sanctioned at a very high level within the force.

All of this was carried out by the CID, led by Bill Mooney who died in 1995 and who is referred to glowingly in this book.

Without saying it directly Simpson implies that the IRA was penetrated to the hilt and that ‘many of their high ranking terrorists … were actually Special Branch agents.’ He appears to be the first bearer of former senior rank in the RUC to state that the prominent IRA figure, Brendan Davison, afforded full military honours at his funeral in 1988, was ‘a long standing Special Branch informant.’

While just about everybody that can read will find little objectionable in Simpson’s depiction of Jimmy Craig as an incorrigible thug it was the UDA gangster’s meetings with Provisional IRA leaders in Belfast under RUC surveillance that will raise most hackles. ‘They were meeting like a group of insurance brokers and were taking out policies not to target each other for assassination at their high level.’

While the grass roots combatants slogged it out with sledge hammers and Kalashnikovs the leaders could put their feet up.

Collusion how are you?

Duplicity And Deception by Alan Simpson. Brandon: IBSN 978-0-86322-416-4

God Save Ireland

Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge

The Bombmakers

Tonight The Pensive Quill features a short story by guest writer, Carrie Twomey

The Bombmakers

Seamie could have been twelve, maybe thirteen. He and his mates gathered in the back garden, the evening summer long. As usual, they had nothing much to do. One of his older brothers was in the kitchen, at the table with their ma, both of them smoking the evening away with languid gossip and chatter. Seamie didn't understand why his brother bothered with their ma. Their da and other brothers were away at the pub, drinking and playing pool. No one ever made the connection to the misery of the week, before the dole cheques came, with the drunken revelry of the weekend that often ended with someone's head getting busted. The pent up frustration of poverty — no food, no heat, everyone was expected to fend for himself and to make do with hand-me-down shoes, worn jumpers and never anything new — lent itself to rage that often exploded at home.


Some of his sisters had gone to the disco. Their escape was in the possibility of love, but it was more likely to come in sex. His youngest sister Maeve wanted to tag along with him. Being the youngest she had no fear and was more adventureous and typically romantic than her sisters. No harm to her, he thought, she could more than hold her own with his lot. He'd look after her anyway; she was his father's daughter. Seamie, protector — he puffed himself up with pride at the image of himself.


Seamie, Maeve and his mates gathered themselves and headed to their tiny kingdom, the Fort Na Gig Estates. Sometime ago, a supreme authority had deemed it more proper for the people to be housed in terrible, umpteen stories high complexes rather than the run down worn-in neighbourhoods they did live in, and the Housing Executive erected the Estates. Surprisingly enough, no one wanted to live in them, and the people who did end up there did not stay long. Squatters and winos and druggies took over and decent respectable people left. The edifice was set to be demolished soon, but the neighbouring kids deemed themselves first crack at destruction.


It was a great place to test bravery and foolhardiness, hardiness being the word; this was their way of metting out the hard men they would become. "Walk this ledge here," the ledge being 60 feet, though it seemed like 160 feet off the ground. "Walk it, don't run, dont cry and for chrissakes dont shite your pants," while they pelted each other with bricks and stones. "Just practising our aim, you see." Any fixtures or furniture that had been left behind were great for wrecking and smashing. Seamie pictured his da's screaming face filled with rage then pained surprise as he smashed a porcelain bowl to bits. "That'll shut you up yew oul bastard!" The refrain was familiar, all the mates growled one version or another as they worked away. They threw things at each other, as a silent test: who was the big sissy, who ducked out of the way? Who cared? They all were, hiding out here, taking out their rage and stymied frustration in the indigo twilight of broken windows. They took it out on inanimate objects instead of where the source really lay. As if they could face that source, or even name it. As if their fathers could.


The best part of their play came when they tired of the smashing, throwing and taunting and began collecting for their bonfire. They'd lazily search for bits of wood and the ancient blood in them would begin to stir, old memories whispering in their heads. They'd build their fire, and then, one by one as the mood took them, they'd tell stories and jokes, sing songs — bastardise popular songs really, and try to scare the shit out of each other with the ghost stories their older brothers would haunt them with after the lights were out. "Did you hear the one about the ol'widow who eats children? She was out of her mind with grief over the death of her husband, shot to death in her own front room by the gunmen, and she left with her wee'uns, and not knowing what to do, everyone coming over to the wake and she having nothing to serve and she BOILED THEM to make stew, and everyone thought it was the most lovely stew, but she couldnt live with herself, once she got her right senses back — which some might say she never did — and she offed herself, her whole family destroyed and she not remembering why nor how, and now, in her twisted grief, she hunts for more children to boil and so you should always wonder about your stew when it smells especially good..."


This was how lifelong friendships were formed.


The fire glow warmed Seamie's close cropped hair. He wanted to be like his older brothers so he kept his hair short. While his mother grieved over the lost beauty, his was fine hair with just enough wave in it to make the girls sigh, she also recognised the effiency of simplicity. She dreaded the day when he became cognisant of fashion. It was a good thing he wanted to be like his brothers, because his clothes were once theirs. Well-washed, they had acquired their own distinct colour, which went well with his pale skin. His body appeared inert and listless, but his eyes were ever vigilant and took everything in. While even the rest of his face gave way to boredom, sleepiness or fatigue, in his eyes a spark always flared. That was one thing that distinguished him from the rest of the city's roaming kids. His eyes would have spoken, had anyone been listening, but he was quiet.




Usually, when the talk around the fire had petered out or someone's sister came to gather them away home, that would be their night ended. Tonight something hung in the air, like smoke from a careless spy. It left its telltale sign, but no one knew yet what it was telling. Sparky made the first suggestion. "Let's add to our stash." And so they traded in their bardic image and became hunters. When their boredom didn't drive them to the satisfying target practice of smash-the-glass, they had quite a collection of milk bottles growing in an overlooked corner of one of the abandoned flats. It was Maeve who enlarged the net of the night. "Where do yous get the petrol?" Now a buzzing excitement lit the air. Did they tell her, or just go get some? Did they need any? Could they need any? A riot was always happening somewhere. And when one hadnt been sparked, there was always more than a few willing to give it a go. "You lot get started. We'll suss it out." Sparky volunteered himself, Seamie and Maeve. The group split up. Seamie, Sparky and Maeve headed up the road to look for the army patrol and the others went to siphon petrol from parked cars.




Sparky had the natural inclination of a leader. He had flaming ginger hair and hazel eyes that in the right light matched his hair. It looked as if his soul was on fire and escaping through his head. His father had been in jail three years now. He did have a lot of uncles to look after him but he missed his da. He would go through periods of prolific writing when he'd write his da pages and pages of letters. Then, when he resented that letters were the main contact he had with his father, he would stop writing altogether. He could never last too long without writing though, because he realised it should not be his da he punished and took his anger out on. That was part of where his leadership came from; he wanted his da to be proud of him, that he could handle himself out here on his own.


The three of them walked up the road at a leisurely pace. No real hurry, they'd allow the others time. As they walked they occasionally came across someone they knew. If Sparky deemed them sound, they'd tell them they were getting wired into it down the road. That way, Sparky reasoned, there'd be more people — maybe they'd even erect barricades. "I like it when the buses are on fire," Maeve said. "The shadows are so pretty."


They saw the army patrol before the patrol saw them. Their instinct was to crouch low and creep in the shadows, but that would have called attention to themselves. The patrol was at a crossroads. If the soldiers went on straight, they'd have to find a way to lure them back onto their road. That might make the soldiers more paranoid than they already were, and they'd probably call in for more back up sooner than they should for the plan to work. If they turned, they'd walk unknowingly straight into it. The kids would just have to circle round the streets to give fair warning to the others. The patrol turned onto their street. The three of them looked at each other and smiled. They crossed the road and went down the back alley way to the others.




The army gave Seamie nightmares. Sometimes he'd be at home in the evenings watching films with his da when one of his brothers would quietly bang into the house. None of them would say anything, but he could sense how tightly wound up they were as they hurried rigidly up the stairs. Beneath that he could sense the despair of the false security of the house being unable to offer any safety. His brothers would go up the stairs into the bedroom, sometimes the bathroom if the room was already occupied, and, shutting the door behind them, they'd slowly unlace themselves and start to sob.


Later they'd come down the stairs with wild stories and jokes about how they were stopped by an army patrol or at a checkpoint. Sometimes the stories would turn angry, but they never, ever, told of the humiliation and loss of dignity that drove them up the stairs.




Late at night, early in the morning, the army with black faces and heavy guns would bang and burst into the house. Bounding up the stairs they'd drag everyone out of bed — in their nightclothes or naked, grabbing at blankets — and hole everyone up in the front room under guard while they wrecked the place. They'd say things to their ma and taunt their sisters and no one could do a thing. All their furniture would be busted up. Walls were punched through, floors ripped up. After a few hours, they would leave: "You can take this reciept to the claims office, ma'am."


They'd sit in the gloom not saying anything to each other while their father stood outside like a volcano and their mother busied her anger cleaning up. The sun would come up and they'd get ready for school. When they came home there'd be no furniture, but the house would be clean.




Seamie, Maeve and Sparky joined their mates at the bottom of the road, and told them about the patrol headed towards them. Some older boys had joined them, making a barricade around the bend in the road so the patrol wouldn't clue onto the ambush right away and the rioters would have some protection. Others were making piles of bricks and stones. Someone had found a bunch of rags and quite a few petrol bombs were on the go, lined up, waiting to be lit. Somebody whistled. The army patrol came into sight.


It seemed everyone lit into them at once, as if they all sensed the need and opportunity to destroy the destroyer. Even a symbol of the destroyer would do. They started lobbing the bricks at the soldiers, taunting them as they did each other. One soldier yelled frantically into his radio as more people came barreling into the road. More older boys, and men, joined them as sirens of back up were heard rushing toward the scene. Binlids were banged, the neighbourhood version of the soldier's high tech radio, alerting the people to soldiers in the area and a riot in progress.


Seamie and Maeve were lighting the petrol bombs as they were being thrown. Maeve decided she wanted to throw her first. She lifted one and took careful aim. Seamie watched her as the arc of her arm curved and let fly at the nearest soldier. He grabbed her and held her to him as the bomb struck the soldier's face. "I want to see," she shouted into his thin frame. He pushed her further into his stomach as he watched slow motion the glass shatter on impact — where did she get such force? The petrol leaked over the soldier's face and into his clothes, adding sting to the gashes the glass, like shrapnel, made: sting the soldier didn't feel very long as the fire licked the petrol and exploded. "I want to see," she howled again, beating him with her fists. She should finally see the damage she could do, the pretty shadows of her creation. Seamie held onto her, as the soldier became a shadow in the flames eating him, his movements like a dancing bear in a halo of orange. He closed his eyes and held her, and everything went away. All the sounds: the screams and whoops, bangs and booms, thuds, explosions; the guns firing plastic bullets into the crowd, the women banging their lids, the shots fired sproadically. The smells: of fear and tension and rage, of petrol and fire and guns, burning tires, cars, and flesh. And the sight. The twisted shadows the flames made. The screaming children. The angry boys. The men with the woolly faces. All gone. He held Maeve and he felt transported to another world of long ago. Just the two of them. Another time, another riot, another war they'd escaped from. He closed his eyes tighter. "I want to see!" Maeve pushed herself from him but she could not see where her bomb had landed. Too many things were lit, aglow. He said he needed some water. She looked at him, took his outstretched hand. They started walking. She was his father's daughter. She could hold her own with his lot, but he'd be there, protector.

Life Among'st the Ruling Class

Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge

Crazy Heart

‘I used to be somebody, but now I am somebody else’ - Bad Blake

Jeff Bridges is a brilliant actor. Until my wife introduced me to his screen performances I had never rated him and had the tendency to avoid movies with him in it. He came across as pedestrian. Now having watched a few of his on screen accomplishments, there is no movie featuring him that I would turn my nose up at. In Crazy Heart, which we viewed a few nights ago, he played Bad Blake, an alcohol addicted Country and Western star who broke the law on DWI each time he got into his car to make the journey between venues. He was his own roadie and his trailer was his jeep. So the venues were not packed auditoriums but darkened barrooms and bowling allies.

Anyone familiar with Micky Rourke in Barfly will instantly identify with Crazy Heart. Bad Blake lives in an alcoholic haze which is not lifted even when he looks at the post-make up faces of some of those he wakes up beside the morning after a show. He is 57 and does the circuit picking up bit money, his legendary song writing prowess – his once real financial pulling power - rendered impotent by a whiskey addled brain. While little blue pills might put some firmness into other areas of his life there is no equivalent for tackling song writing dysfunction.

Four times married, five if Maggie Gyllenhaal who effortlessly plays Jean, a journalist who comes to interview him, is right, evidently Bad Blake is not a man who holds things together very well. Jean, who wants to profile him in the paper that employs her, knocks on the door of his hotel room where he is cooped up drunk, almost naked, watching porn, while trying to eat what looks like a tray of prison food. From that moment on it is pretty much a done deal – their lives are going to intertwine. Not a healthy option for a working single mother who has a four year old son in whose presence she forbids alcohol consumption. But forget any notions of a sensually appealing film. Bad Blake and eroticism are mutually repellent. As the film and book blogger Sheila O’Malley writes, you can smell him from the television. She conjures an image of a porous screen through which alcohol just oozes, invading the nostrils. The sensual dimension of the film, to the degree that it is preserved at all, is solely the accomplishment of Jean.

Bad trudges through what remains of his career being resentful of the iconic Tommy Sweet, played by Colin Farrell, whom he regards as the protégé who stole all the plaudits. To the hoards of C & W fans Tommy Sweet is sweet Tommy whereas Bad is just sour and stale, tolerated for past performances rather than lauded for anything new he might produce, which he invariably doesn’t. Pride jars with financial self interest. He needs the money but doesn’t want to open for Tommy in front of an audience of 12 000. In his resentful state of mind he calculates that Tommy should be opening for him while knowing it can’t happen.

In red neck country where bible bashing is an even greater fixation than Country & Western music, Bad Blake is on the road not to salvation but oblivion. A doctor tells him to quit drinking and smoking and to lose 25 lbs or go under the sod. It falls on deaf ears. Taking responsibility for himself does not enter the equation but when placed in charge of Jean’s four year old son, who he has been told not to drink around – instructions he ignores – the realisation that the world is not his plaything and that it has to be shared with others begins to take hold.

Too late, maybe; but there is a willingness there to salvage something if not all he might have hoped for. The drink is his demon and his battle with it is absorbing viewing. The glass of bourbon I sat down to watch Crazy Heart with was only half finished when the curtain fell.