The Price of Curtains

Is it curtains for Marian Price? Not if the DUP’s Maurice Morrow gets his way. The female republican prisoner currently held in an isolated wing in Maghaberry Prison, until her arrival a male institution, recently had her cell made over. It makes a change from it being turned over as cells often are during punitive searches. Morrow was outraged and described the move as shocking:

the extent of outlay which has gone into accommodating Marian Price is simply insulting ... What is so special about prison inmates that they must be provided with luxuries such as a flat screen TV, with Digibox and DVD player, computer, bookcase, pictures, a coffee table and numerous soft furnishings? It sounds like she is living in a hotel suite as opposed to a prison cell.

Big Guns Move South

Tonight the Pensive Quill features radical unionist commentator and former Blanket journalist Dr John Coulter as he casts an eye over why Sinn Fein is so anxious to get its Northern-based ‘big guns’ into Southern politics.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams’ decision to leave his West Belfast Stormont and Westminster stronghold for a seat in Dublin’s Dail is the start of a new phase in Irish republican tactics. It most certainly is not a case of Adams being put out to graze politically. Nor should Stormont deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness’ Irish Presidential bid be dismissed as finding the aging Shinner a political green field to spend his days until his formal retirement, whenever that might be.

When Adams announced he would be his party’s candidate for the Sinn Fein seat in County Louth, it seemed at first sight a one-way ticket to electoral suicide. In the 2007 Southern General Election, Sinn Fein had expected to double its Dail tally to 10 TDs. However, the party went into meltdown, and Sinn Fein finished with only four out of the 166 TDs. Essentially, Southern voters still viewed Sinn Fein with economic suspicion, tending to write off its policies as too Marxist.

And They’re Off

The Irish presidential campaign officially opened today although it seems like it has been going on for yonks. It is hard to remember when the controversy about David Norris started. When the steam ran out of that, largely as a result of his withdrawal from the race, Martin McGuinness stepped into the breach to give the public a reason to reignite its almost extinguished interest in what was rapidly descending into electoral ennui. 

As the hopefuls and the hopeless together lined up to project their pleading faces upon us followed by an assault on our eardrums with their wheedling voices, it was most definitely not the Magnificent Seven that were under starters orders but something more like the Seven Dwarfs. Their standing is unable to escape the long shadow cast over it by Snow White still in the Aras but ready to vacate the minute one of the seven makes it across the finishing line on the 5th count or whatever.

Vox Clamantis In Desserto

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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The Mendacity of Martin McGuinness

Tonight the Pensive Quill carries an article that was originally published on John Smart's website.

The Mendacity of Martin McGuinness

The Irish presidency as an issue of international concern has no standing when compared to its US presidential namesake. It lacks political clout and comes sans razzmatazz.  But then we are not comparing like with like. In the US the White House is the seat of power. In Ireland the presidency is largely a ceremonial affair. Presiding over Ireland from ‘The Aras’ means holding the presidential tongue, avoiding controversy, and observing the niceties of diplomatic protocol to the letter. Executive power is not displayed on the side of the tin, not even in small print. Yet…

Within Our Grasp

Tonight The Pensive Quill features guest writer Sean Doyle, Wicklow branch, Independent Workers Union.

People have been downtrodden for years through the greed inspired selfish self serving ruling class who portray themselves and their financial parasitic friends and politicians as the respectable selfless servants of the country and society as a whole.

Possibly because we suffered British occupation for over 800 years and still do in the occupied 6 counties and the misrepresentation and denial of social justice governance ever since 1922 in the 26 counties, some people could be forgiven for thinking this is the lot of man and have become sensitised accepting the total disconnect between the political system and the quality or lack of it in their lives. Leading to a mental withdrawal and a sense of irrelevance to influence. A state of apathy which provides easy prey for the opportunistic reformist, a servile class poking their ashes where he can garnish favours and votes by drip feeding people their basic civil rights.

Faith must be restored in self reliance and get these parasites off our backs out of the ashes and on to the streets. A reappraisal of our values and social justice in recognition of the misery inflicted by greed of elite on the sovereign people the only true inheritors of all this island possesses.

In Hot Dispute

Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein maintained the combative tone towards the media yesterday which he has adopted since launching his campaign for the presidency of the Irish Republic. The first few days of his campaign have featured a number of radio and television appearances during which he has been aggressive towards interviewers, especially when questioned about his IRA past ... He spoke of "west Brit" elements in the media and elsewhere, using the term which republicans use pejoratively about Irish people they accuse of having excessive sympathy towards Britain - David McKittrick.

Sinn Fein’s intervention in the presidential election campaign had barely taken off before it allowed instinct to take over. Maligning and sheer bad temperedness made its way into the fray, enhancing the menacing character of the party at a time when something much less abrasive would not go amiss.

Orangies

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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O’Toole Versus Dunphy

Earlier today I listened to what was supposed to be a debate between Fintan O’Toole and Eamon Dunphy on Newstalk. It focused on Martin McGuinness’s bid to become the next Irish president. Throughout it sounded like a match without any referee. Well it had a referee, Damien Kiberd, but he played rather than officiated. He, it seemed, had picked his side in advance, then proceeded to blow the whistle to thwart the other side rather than facilitate play. Consequently it was the type of debate that pitched Fintan O’Toole on one side against Eamon Dunphy and the presenter on the other. Kiberd, a former columnist with the Sinn Fein linked Daily Ireland, went about his business as if he had never left the paper. Dunphy cannot be blamed for that and to his credit he tried to maintain a civilised tone throughout but the format did not lend itself to an even handed discussion. 

Earlier in the week O’Toole had penned a strong column in the Irish Times which suggested Martin McGuinness was unfit for the presidency as he bore culpability for war crimes and in principle was liable for arrest.  Dunphy described the column as ‘outrageous’ and came on Newstalk the day after to take O’Toole to task. Such were the sparks generated by the issue that both men were then invited on this afternoon to slog it out.

Dead Men Gave Birth

Tonight the Pensive Quill features guest writer Sean Doyle, Regional Socialist Republican Unity Committee.

When all the choreography and timely press releases with due emphasis on participants had been adhered to and the illusion of British power sharing under devolution had been confirmed by the junior partner as is always usual in these flawed circumstances. 

Convincing your support base and yourself that you have not been upstaged when your pride is at stake it is unbelievable what energy you waste convincing your members that you are right knowing in your heart that it is not what you envisaged. At least for those Socialist Republicans within the ranks their dream has unfolded as a nightmare. In principle and in deed the recognition of our colonial masters right of sovereignty over the 6 counties and the 26 county referendums nullifying Articles 2 and 3 of our constitution. Copper fastened partition that only the unionist consent can change. We Socialist Republicans have no rights or say as Roger Casement speaking from the dock in his defence to a charge of treason in London in 1916 “Where all your rights only become an accumulated wrong”. To challenge the political right wing process developed by the British government and 26 county nationalists mindful of the U.S. support.   

Kop Not Top

A 4-0 thrashing at Spurs. Few Liverpool teams of old would have suffered that humiliation. Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur clashes are more memorable for the total command exercised by the Merseyside men. The 7-0 steamrolling of Spurs in 1978 in which Terry McDermott scored one of the finest goals in the history of the club is surely history now after Sunday’s display. 

To make matters worse, on the day they failed to score, the player they transferred to Chelsea, and who looked as if he had left the Midas touch at Liverpool,  (under lock and key it seems as nobody at Anfield has yet found it), Fernando Torres, managed to find the net even if he later reverted to his Chelsea form and missed a sitter when it seemed easier to score.

Positioning for the Presidency

Sinn Fein’s decision to throw the black beret of Martin McGuinness into the presidential election ring has certainly spiced up what was up until this point a lacklustre contest. That none of those vying with the North’s Deputy First Minister for residency in the Aras stir the public imagination is probably the strongest card he has. His weakest may be that the type of interest he generates could bring him more opprobrium than approval.

It was certainly within Sinn Fein’s strategic vision to make a bid for the presidency in 2011. The Dublin Government was well aware of it and abided by a rule of thumb – follow the money. It knew what the combined finances of the party and its alter ego were being prioritised for; a place in government in the North, a place in government in the South, gazing over both from within the Aras which would allow it to convey an overarching sense of national unity. Partition would still be there but would seem less relevant and thus less objectionable to nationalists. Yet Macmillan’s events intervened and the 2007 election debacle put matters on hold.

Uachtarán na hÉireann

Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge

Outside of the Clique

This review was first published in Fortnight July/August 2011

When Richard O’Rawe published Blanketmen, offering a challenge to the established Provisional narrative of the 1981 hunger strike, he was met with a wave of bile, bitterness and ‘naked hatred’. It was heaved up as part of a ‘McCarthyite crusade’ by those with most to lose from the emergence of his groundbreaking account - a Belfast clique within the Provisional movement. One vitriolic salvo after another rained down upon his head in a bid to force him to take cover and cede all ground to the guardians of a historical fiction.

In the years that followed the 2005 publication O’Rawe’s critics would tell us how they had comprehensively demolished him. That they had to state it over and over again after each new encounter belied their own confidence. O’Rawe never deviated from his account while his adversaries somersaulted, contradicted each other, spewed ‘mumbo jumbo’ and shifted position. O’Rawe had a major advantage from the outset: he had no record of lying whereas those associated with the Clique had well established reputations as strangers to the truth. He prevailed and a new framework for understanding the 1981 hunger strike is now firmly in place. It is nowhere better explained than in Afterlives.

Notes from the Ard Fheis

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Style Sans Substance

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye  - Miss Piggy

In life it is useful but often difficult to see oneself just quite as others do. What might seem a great initiative to the beholder can at the same time be viewed as sheer folly by those gazing on. These days I no longer follow Sinn Fein ard fheiseanna, long having been bored into intellectual torpor by the vacuity of it all. Drivel, dross, deference do not combine to produce a magnetism that would draw the concentration; especially when something of such quality as The Killing, a twenty part Danish murder mystery, can command an attention it does not have to vie for. Sinn Fein these days wants to put clear blue sea between itself and the killing.

With a Handshake and a Hug

Tonight The Pensive Quill features Dr John Coulter who describes himself as Revolutionary Unionist and former Blanket columnist. He outlines how in his view Sinn Fein scored mega political brownie points by publicly hugging a leading Protestant cleric at its ard fheis and genuinely prepared the way for a united Ireland by 2016.

With a handshake and hug, Sinn Fein deputy First Minister and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness delivered a series of political right hooks which could see it become the most influential party in Ireland, north or south.

That double greeting became a carefully staged double whammy which will probably deliver Sinn Fein’s ultimate Northern goal by 2016 – to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising by becoming the largest Stormont party. That Stormont party would be in a provincial nine-county Ulster with one Stormont-style parliament for each of the island’s four provinces in a united Ireland.

Self Serving & Legalistic

It is hard to avoid the sense that the Vatican is still more concerned with avoiding any admission of legal responsibility than with the anger, confusion and sadness of the faithful. To a moral and spiritual crisis, it has given only a bureaucratic, self-serving and legalistic response ... The most notable aspect of the Vatican statement is what it does not contain: any substantial reflection on the Cloyne report itself. While declaring itself ‘sorry and ashamed’ for the suffering of victims, it expresses neither sorrow nor shame for the systematic covering up of abuse by church authorities - Irish Times editorial

The Vatican’s response to Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s scathing criticism of the Rome based corporation for its involvement in cover up of child abuse has come at last. Part of a poorly coordinated two step with Bishop John Magee’s managed but weak interview with RTE, the Vatican chose Federico Lombardi to deliver it without much reference to the fact that he has been a sandbag to Ratzinger for years, not merely in relation to Ireland. Earlier Lombardi had fallen foul of Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore who accused him of using noise to mask the issue.

The National Question and the Class Struggle

Tonight The Pensive Quill features guest writer Sean Doyle who gave an address at the Newtown-mt-Kennedy 1798 memorial situated in Co Wicklow in commemoration of the INLA volunteer Michael Devine who died on the 1981 hunger strike

On behalf of The Regional Socialist Republican Unity Committee I welcome you all here today to The East Coast 1981 H-Block Hunger Strike Commemoration. Today we have come to this beautifully maintained 1798 memorial garden in Newtown-Mt-Kennedy, County Wicklow.

Wicklow was the last of the 32 counties founded in 1606 and Cromwellian soldiers settled there in 1650. Newtown-Mt-Kennedy was founded in 1668 after Newcastle was burnt down by Murtagh O’Toole from Kilcoole and granted to survivors by Alderman Kennedy a parliamentarian during the Cromwellian period. Old Norman names still survive in and around Newtown to this day Devereux, Ellis, Walsh, Nevin etc.

Close to the Marx

Capital is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour – Karl Marx

Is Capitalism destroying itself? There is at least one mainstream economist, by definition not a Marxist, who not only thinks that it is but also that Karl Marx, the progenitor of scientific socialism, was correct in his 19th Century analysis that capitalism would buckle under the weight of its own contradictions.

In an age when the prevailing answer to greed is even more greed, manifested in strategies of displacement whereby the weakest and poorest sections of society are compelled to support the strongest and the richest, it is refreshing that somebody within the box is at least thinking outside the box. Nouriel Roubini is an economist who teaches at New York University and whose reputation was immensely enhanced when he was one of the first to foresee the 2008 US economic crash.

Dear Danny

On reading your latest outpouring, 'The Making of a Tout', the first thing to strike me is that I suddenly realised why you wear a big black hat. It helps fend off the hungry woodpeckers that flutter around your head. I was delighted to read your piece and see the photo at the top of Gypo Nolan. Was it a self portrait? His hat might not be as big as your own but it may serve to conceal as much.

In the article Bangers Babble which has so incensed you, I briefly outlined your role in blocking an honourable and satisfactory way out for the six hunger strikers whose one sure destination after you had deprived them of information was the grave. I was aware, given how often Richard O’Rawe had turned you inside out on the matter, that you would not bite. I therefore took the liberty in the closing lines of putting something else on the hook which I knew you were sensitive to, given that many years after the event you publicly flogged the people responsible for the Llewellyn killing in a bid to claim a moral high ground for yourself that you were clearly unwilling to allow to them. Don’t tell us you were not angrily confronted about it. You were. Nor should you feign denial of the contempt you are held in as a result of it.

From Insurrection To Parliament

Tonight the Pensive Quill carries a book review of Tommy McKearney’s The Provisional IRA From Insurrection to Parliament. The review is by guest writer Sandy Boyer.

This is the first book to present a comprehensive republican case against the Good Friday Agreement settlement. Tommy McKearney is intimately familiar with the Provisional IRA. He was the Officer Commanding of the East Tyrone Brigade which led him to Long Kesh where he participated in the blanket protest and the 1980 hunger strike.

McKearney argues that the Good Friday Agreement has transformed Northern Ireland from an Orange State into a sectarian state. The Orange State, gave a Protestant elite a monopoly on political power. The Protestant lower classes had the first access to the crumbs that fell from the table.

Educating Rita

In her Boston Globe letter, September 1, 2011, Rita O’Hare expresses ‘disbelief’ that Ed Moloney and myself should vent concern that the British police might, through their endeavours to break in to the Boston College oral history project, seek to undermine aspects of the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement which has annoyed some of them. In her view we should refrain from probing the motives of the British police or ascribe to them some other motives we do not believe them to have. How considerate of her to think of sparing us the effort.

What we are concerned with is hardly what Rita O’Hare thinks, on the odd occasion that she might. Our primary focus is this: as journalists and researchers our first commitment and duty of care is to the protection of our sources; in the journalistic world, the primus pares inter. Were the British police seeking to strengthen the peace process by obtaining the Boston College oral history archives, our concern would be the same. It just so happens that in their pursuit of those archives, elements of the British police are doing so for nefarious reasons, which when distilled down amount to what Niall O’Dowd has termed revenge. O’Hare at least seems to acknowledge this much in her reference to a fishing expedition driven by ‘political motivation.’ But only she is allowed to say so. In deference to the Führerprinzip, her party’s governing ethos, we should remember our place and remain silent.

Irish Void

Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge

Standing at Silly Point

Danny Morrison in his Boston Globe letter, September 1, 2011, has sought to reassure the British police as they pursue part of Boston College’s oral history archive pertaining to the Irish conflict. Not knowing what is in the archives currently held by the college has not prevented him from arguing on behalf of the British police that the deposits ‘contain potentially incriminating taped evidence by Irish Republican Army volunteers about unresolved killings during the Irish conflict.’ Yet, for all his undoubted fealty a knighthood will elude him. ‘Arise Sir Daniel Dudley Morrison’ is not going to happen no matter how hard he tries to reinforce the thin blue line or how often he bows to Prince Charles at Glastonbury.

In spite of his charge, the discipline of rank hypocrisy, in which Morrison should hold a first class honours degree, has no bearing on the observation by Ed Moloney and myself that the release of the material ‘could be immensely destructive to the peace process in Northern Ireland’ and that the subpoena appears aimed at damaging Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein’s ‘remarkable electoral comeback in the general election in the Republic of Ireland.’

Morrison who, on much more tenuous grounds, has long promoted this very theme of British police foul play in respect of the peace process, now seems to have abandoned it, presumably because he currently supports the British police and wishes to row in behind them.

Up Your Periscope

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Gerry Adams was Never Target of Boston College Oral History Project

Tonight the Pensive Quill features a Right of Reply which appeared in IrishCentral.com: It was a response to an Irish Voice Editorial article written by Niall O’Dowd in which the author who took issue with Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre. It featured in IrishCentral.com on August 31, 2011, under the byline Anthony McIntyre, IrishCentral.com Contributing Writer.

In a recent Periscope column in the Irish Voice (August 23rd) Niall O’Dowd can be found lunging wildly at a range of targets he has taken umbrage at. Their transgression is nothing other than having taken part in a research project for Boston College. Because he is of a view that the project failed to establish that Gerry Adams was never a member of the IRA, he has lashed out not only at the college but also at Ed Moloney and myself, the project manager and lead researcher respectively.

What Niall O’Dowd fails to understand is that academic research is not about falsifying the historical record so that history becomes the mere tool of the present, a servant of a current political process. It is about establishing to the best of its ability a record for the benefit of posterity. Oral history is not without pitfalls, relying as it does on the recollection of players in key historical moments. Their accounts might be off centre, even wrong. They are certainly never beyond question. What they are is an indispensible contribution to public understanding, without which society is left intellectually poorer. Oral history seeks not to monopolize the historical record or suppress alternative histories, but to deposit an additional layer of historical sediment on the vast formations already in existence.