Moloney & McIntyre Announce Their Intention to Take Case to Supreme Court

Boston College case, First Circuit, Supreme Court  

Press Statement

From Ed Moloney & Anthony McIntyre

Friday August 31st 2012

With seven days to go before Boston College interviews must be handed to PSNI Moloney & McIntyre announce their intention to take case to Supreme Court

We are disappointed that the First Circuit Court of Appeal has today rejected our petition for an en banc rehearing of our appeal against that court’s decision denying us the right to intervene in the Boston College archive case. However we wish to make it clear that we now intend to apply to the Supreme Court of the United States for a hearing on a case which we believe addresses issues of major constitutional importance for Americans.

This & That: Take 12

LITTLE STANDING

The Irish Labour Party is certainly holding the line for secularism. Whether it is Eamonn Gilmore telling the Vatican to get lost or Pat Rabbitte blowing off Cardinal Sean Brady’s proposal that the Church would lobby the government on the abortion issue, the lines have certainly been drawn. Priestcraft has little purchase with the Labour Party and society is all the better for that, even if there are grounds to suspect that because it has failed miserably to hold the line for socialism its push against Church encroachment is solely down to the secular providing the one space where the party can wax radical.

Manners - A Long Time Coming

John McDonagh (JM) and Sandy Boyer (SB) interview former Irish republican prisoner Brendan Conway (BC) via telephone from Belfast about a trial he is facing concerning being a protesting Irish Republican prisoner. The exchange took place on Radio Free Éireann WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio New York City on Saturday 18th August 2012


JM: Just when you think things can't get more bizarre there are now people being brought up on charges for a prison protest. And people on the outside are looking at a two year sentence for something that they did while they were on the inside. And with us on the line from Belfast is Brendan Conway. He's an Irish Republican - Irish Republican prisoner, who ended up in court this week. Brendan, can you explain, what did you do to end up in court this week I believe with about ten other people?

Why are they doing it?

Guest writer Moya St Leger with a piece hammering British policy on the prisoner issue. The author is former President of the Connolly Association.

The great Irish human rights' campaigner, prolific author, editor, poet and academic, Monsignor Dr. Raymond Murray, said recently “All of the wrongs and injustices that I have campaigned against for over forty years still exist today.”

So why are they doing it? Why are the British subjecting Irish men and women to abuse, who have the temerity to want them out of Ireland? Why is this desire regarded as a sin and their non-lethal activities regarded as crimes? What is it that people around the world can see to which the British are blind?

Volunteers Gerard O Callaghan and Tom Williams to be Remembered

Guest writer Nuala Perry with a letter on behalf of Clonard Commemoration Committee.

Gerard O Callaghan

On Sunday the 2nd of September Clonard Commemoration Committee will hold a short remembrance ceremony for the seventieth anniversary of C Company Volunteers Gerard O Callaghan and Tom Williams.

This event is totally non-party political and is designed with nothing other in mind than a short dedication to both these young men's lives.

Murdering Miners

While ANC leader and South African president Joseph Zuma has called for a commission of inquiry and declared a national week of mourning.  Cyril Ramaphosa, once a militant workers’ leader and now a multi-millionaire with shares in the Lonmin mine, has offered to pay for the funerals.  Zuma and Ramaphosa are total hypocrites.  The massacre of these workers is the perfectly logical outcome of the entire course of the ANC since it won the country’s first democratic elections in 1994 - Shan Van Vocht

Barricaded Mizen Head on your head Wicklow County Council

Guest writer Sean Doyle with a piece on an Anglers “fish in” protest that took place on Saturday 11th August and was attended by Eirigi and members of the independent Workers Union.


This stunningly beautiful tranquil place which has given enjoyment to anglers, walkers and strollers since time immemorial but its serenity has been shattered on occasions by greedy land owners and land grabbers as far back as 1969.

Seamus Costello was arrested rallying to the plight of locals who were being denied free access to Brittas Bay just a short distance from this barricaded shoreline at Mizen Head. An attempt by the owner of the European golf club - whose land borders this unregistered coastal strip adjacent to the shoreline - to land grab, encouraged in the knowledge of his powerful friends and lackeys in Wicklow County Council who do not wish to cross swords with a man possessed by greed and ownership.

We have no desire to own the countryside or mountains or shoreline. But we are resolute and determined to prevent land grabbing and the exposure of any officials of state who aid or fail due diligence to protect citizens' rights to avail of this natural beauty and tranquillity which is their birthright.

A brief background and history of this land grab I have no doubt will resonate with many throughout the country. For others it will shock and leave you in disbelief. Let me explain. You’re familiar with the term “one law for the rich and one for the poor”. The fact that he erected the barricade in the first place believing he could get away with it confirms my worst and previously outlined fears. Judge for your selves.

Local anglers and walkers wrote to Wicklow County Council and raised their objections to this barricade. It was referred to An Bord Pleanala who carried out an extensive investigation in 2004. The letter of the 3rd of February 2003 from the planning authority explained the nature of the development subject of the warning letter that is, newly erected fence. It further stated:
 

1. The fence does not appear to be necessary for the purpose of enclosing the actual golf course lands.
2. It has been conveyed that the cliff edge has been habitually used by fishermen over the last ten years and as such has been open to the public.
3. The land search carried out by the planning office found that the land holding of the European golf club did not extend as far as the rocks.
4. Site boundary shown on the planning applications has not shown the rocks to be in the ownership of the European golf club.

I now draw the board’s attention to the maps numbers 3 and 4 forwarded by the planning authority. This is stated to be an extract from the drawings for a previous planning application by the European golf club and show the boundary of the lands in question. I note the eastern boundary is indicated at the upper edge of the bank above the cliffs. Wicklow County Council issued an enforcement notice in 2005 to the owner of the European golf club.

This is further proof if we ever needed it. There is no contest. Big business, property tycoons and the protection of is their function or this barricade would have been removed 7 years ago.

Local anglers and walkers have over the years exhausted and battled in dismay at the complicity of the state apparatus and obvious reluctance to protect public access to the shoreline favouring private ownership in some flawed thinking that due to their subservience the rich and powerful may someday reward them for their servitude.

As part of our ongoing campaign of protest to highlight this grave injustice of the barricaded shoreline to the anglers and strollers we participate in “fish ins” along this coastal strip. On Saturday 11th August 2012 we arrived to find to our surprise a large section of the barricade had been removed. We assumed the owner of the European golf club had relented and had a change of heart of conscience and bestowed it back to the rightful possession of the people.

We commenced fishing but in a short time the owner of the adjacent golf club arrived and our generosity of thought towards him was quickly dispelled. When he started making phone calls and was joined by another man with a camera that commenced taking photos of us we objected saying you cannot take photos of people without permission. He responded by saying on private property you can. We pointed out that this shoreline was not private property that the golf club boundary was further up the bank.

Shortly afterwards the Gardai from Arklow arrived and said the owner of the golf club claimed we were trespassing. We pointed out we were on the shoreline peacefully protesting against his claim to ownership. He said if we refused to move we would be forcefully arrested. We felt we had achieved our objective for today having discussed it amongst ourselves and our campaign will continue and intensify in the coming weeks. Anyone interested in participation your support would be welcome.

Chris Bray: The Machine Just Keeps on Running

This piece by Chris Bray first featured in the The Irish Echo

It’s a loud, clear voice. But no one hears it. And I think I know why.

In the long effort against the foolish subpoenas of IRA interviews at Boston College, Irish-American groups have made reasoned arguments with persistence, determination, and seriousness. None of it appears to have mattered. Government grinds on, not listening or thinking.

In the United States and the United Kingdom alike, bureaucrats will do what they have set out to do, logic and consequences be damned. The machine, once switched on, just keeps running.

Time to free Martin Corey

Guest writer Sandy Boyer, the co-host of Radio Free Eireann on WBAI in New York City, reports on the ongoing imprisonment of former IRA activist Martin Corey. August 14, 2012

Supporters rally for Martin Corey's release

Martin Corey has spent more than two years in Northern Ireland's Maghaberry Prison, but he still doesn't know why he is there.

Twelve

While in prison I tended to avoid novels about the Northern Irish political conflict, assuming them to be contrived or propagandist. There was the infrequent exception. Shortly after the protest ended in 1982 Brendan Hughes suggested Roy Bradford’s intriguing The Last Ditch which allowed the former unionist minister to sheath a barbed political critique in fiction. Much later there was Danny Morrison’s West Belfast, which I picked up out of curiosity to see what literary talent other than propaganda our leaders possessed. While Morrison would go on to produce better, West Belfast briefly flickered and quickly faded as a work of literature, the title being about as much as I remember from it.  Some 16 years earlier during my first day in Crumlin Road prison, there was an IRA novel left in the in the cell in B Wing. Its name I no longer recall but it had a bucket of bullets graphic on the front cover. I read in it a single session just to get through day one of confinement.

Way Forward for Dissident Republicans

Guest Writer Former Blanket columnist and Radical Unionist commentator Dr John Coulter in an extension of an earlier piece on the same theme believes the formation of the New IRA represents the first stage in a fresh political process for non Sinn Fein republicans.

Benefits or bombs? That’s the key question republican dissidents have to ask themselves as to what they really offer the people of Ireland. Do they truly have the interests of the Catholic nationalist working class as their main ethos, or are they so stuck in the fantasies of the failed 1916 Dublin Easter Rising that all they can offer Ireland’s entire hard-pressed working class is more Padraig Pearse-style blood sacrifices?

What many in the Unionist and loyalist communities are also asking themselves - would the real dissident republicans please stand up?

Modern dissident republicans now have a perfect opportunity to show the world how they can be peace makers in a post conflict society. They can pull a fast one over the Provos by adhering to a purely democratic path within a decade. It took the Provisionals almost three decades of violence to reach a ceasefire.

Boston College Case - Papers Filed For En Banc Hearing

Boston College Case - Papers Filed For En Banc Hearing
Press Statement From Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre
August 20th, 2012

Eamonn Dornan and James J Cotter, attorneys for Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre, have today filed papers in the First Circuit Court of Appeal seeking a rehearing en banc* of a July 6th decision by a First Circuit panel affirming a lower court’s decision ordering Boston College to hand over archived interviews with former IRA activists on foot of subpoenas from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), facilitated by the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The court also refused Moloney and McIntyre permission to intervene in the case, thereby preventing them from presenting evidence objecting to the decision by the US Attorney-General, Eric Holder to issue the MLAT subpoenas.

The application is based on a number of issues of great public interest and constitutional importance, not least that one effect of the First Circuit decision is to give foreign law enforcement agencies greater power over US citizens in respect of subpoenas than could ever be exercised by domestic agencies.

The First Circuit decision effectively precludes the assertion of U.S. constitutional rights guaranteed in the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. In the case of the Boston College archives the Constitution guarantees, prior to the enforcement of the subpoena, the consideration of the free flow of historical documents to the American public and the protection of Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre - and their interviewees - against the deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre’s lawyers are arguing that the MLAT bestows upon the PSNI greater powers in relation to the serving of subpoenas in the United States than could be exercised by, for instance, the FBI. U.S. citizens could challenge a subpoena served by the FBI on First and Fifth Amendment grounds but are precluded from doing so in the case of subpoenas served by foreign powers under an MLAT. Sixty-two countries have signed MLAT’s with the U.S., some of which have poor human rights records.**

Their lawyers will also argue, inter alia, that the First Circuit panel conflicts with Supreme Court rulings in the landmark judgement, Branzburg v. Hayes in as much as that case permitted journalists to seek First Amendment protection against subpoena powers in order to demonstrate bad faith on the part of the requesting authority.

In this case the plaintiffs, Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre have been prevented by the First Circuit decision from arguing that the PSNI action is politically motivated and that the material requested by the PSNI was available in Northern Ireland. Their lawyers argue that Moloney and McIntyre have been denied their constitutional and statutory rights and protections and suffer violations of constitutional rights if the subpoenas are enforced by the Attorney-General.

Eamonn Dornan and James J Cotter also argue that because this is a case of first impression, as the First Circuit panel recognized, a re-hearing is warranted.

Appellant Petition for Panel Hearing or Rehearing En Banc

* An en banc hearing takes place in front of the full appeal court.
** Full list of countries which have signed MLAT’s with the US

It Only Seems to get Worse

Sandy Boyer (SB) interviews via telephone from Belfast Marian Price's husband, Jerry McGlinchey (JM) about his wife's health and ongoing internment. Radio Free Éireann WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio. New York City. Saturday 4 August 2012

SB: We're going to Belfast to speak to Jerry McGlinchey. His wife, Marian Price, has been in prison for over a year on the basis of secret evidence she can't see, her lawyers can't see (and) for most of that time she's been in solitary confinement. There have also been grave, ongoing concerns about her health. Jerry, thanks very much for being with us.

JM: Thanks very much for giving me the chance to be there, Sandy.

SB: And Jerry, as I was saying, it only seems to get worse for Marian.

JM: It's getting much worse at the moment. I was in hospital visiting her today. She has actually been moved to main hospital wing because she now has pneumonia on top of all else that's wrong with her. It's a canard. Months ago the family asked, when she was in Maghaberry still, that's how long ago we asked for x-rays to be taken because we believed then that she wasn't well, and needless to say the x-rays weren't taken and we believe that's when the actual infection started that has now shown itself as pneumonia. For your listeners maybe a word: In the late 70's when Marian was forced fed for over two hundred days the force feeding actually stopped when they put the feed tube into her lung instead of into her stomach and almost killed her by flooding the lung. The lung then collapsed leaving her with a weakness obviously. And that's been ongoing ever since then she's had a weak lung. And now as I say, with pneumonia, the family is very, very concerned about it, about the effect on her health.

An Appeal to Desist

A letter from a number of Ardoyne residents who claim to ‘have suffered at the hands of political policing in more recent times.’ TPQ after discussion with its authors is satisfied that it is authentic and not the work of some internet troll. It was delivered to Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly, Sean Mag Uidhir of Community Restorative Justice, and a priest, Gary Donegan. It was also delivered to a number of other people who attended an inter-agency meeting at the local church hall.

To Whom It May Concern,

As you will be well aware through your attendance of these Interagency Meetings, they are an attempt to normalise the role of the PSNI within this community and portray this unionist militia as an impartial, non political police service that has the best interests of the Ardoyne community, and the nationalist community in general, at heart.

It is notable that the PSNI official title is “The Police Service of Northern Ireland, incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary”. Recent events have exposed PSNI impartiality as pure nonsense, something that Republicans in this area have been saying for the last number of years, that the PSNI are no different to their forerunners in the RUC and RIC before them. These include:

The Ongoing Torture of Marian Price

Guest writer Sandy Boyer with a piece on the treatment of  Marian Price and role played by British Tory politician Owen Paterson. The author helps to coordinate the Free Marian Price Campaign, U.S. He is also the co-host of Radio Free Eireann heard Saturdays at 1pm New York time on WBAI 99.5 FM and wbai.org.


Owen Patterson, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is directly responsible for the ongoing torture of Marian Price.

Last Thursday, August 16th, and again on Friday August 17th, she had to be taken from the hospital where she is being treated for pneumonia to the nearby Musgrave Hospital in Belfast. Each time she was not only handcuffed but handcuffed to a prison officer as well.

This had to be excruciatingly painful since Marian suffers from such severe arthritis that she can’t even open her hands. Her husband, Jerry McGlinchey, told Radio Free Eireann that she can’t take her arthritis medication because it would interact with drugs she is being given for the pneumonia.

On Friday August 17th the hospital put a tube into Marian’s lung so that she could be given an endoscopy and a lung wash under a general anaesthetic. She was handcuffed until she entered the operating theater and again as soon as she left it.

Pussy Riot

Even by Russian standards, the trial has been roundly mocked as a farce, complete with barking dogs, a judge who feigned deafness when the defense objected, and denunciations of feminism as a “mortal sin" - New York Times


In a draconian act of cultural suppression the Russian state, keeping faith with a long standing Kremlin tradition, has sentenced to two years imprisonment three members of the punk rock band, Pussy Riot. Tsar Putin, like so many of the country’s autocrats that preceded him, whether in the Communist Party or outside of it, is not slow to take umbrage at dissent and is fond of cracking the whip in the hope of intimidating it into abeyance. Responding to the authoritarian sentiment of the country’s president its opposition leader claimed the women were jailed ‘because it is Putin's personal revenge. This verdict was written by Vladimir Putin.’

The charge for which the women were locked up is ‘hooliganism’, a typical criminal term that serves to denude their actions of any political content and thus strengthen the claims of the state to enhanced legitimacy.

Internment! – What it Means Today

Guest writer Martin Galvin with a lengthy piece on the British state practice of Internment currently in use against republicans.


It is said that 'those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.' Had George Santayana looked to Irish history, he might have added that those who fail to learn the lessons of British rule are condemned to see its injustices repeated.

Internment is again in vogue with the British colonial secretary presiding. Once Internment was a claim made only by supporters of Marian Price and Martin Corey. As Paterson happily ignored all judicial rulings or medical appeals for their release, the word Internment came to be accepted more and more widely, and is now repeated by Sinn Fein and SDLP members.

Internment by license is the most obvious but not most prevalent method of Interment Paterson now practices. Decades ago the British crafted catch-all criteria which empowered crown forces to intern anyone they imagined “likely to act in a manner prejudicial to good order.” Simply stated, internees could be held indefinitely for what they might do.

Today the British have updated Internment by remand. Republicans can be denied bail where a member of the constabulary says the suspect might “re-offend”. Simply stated those presumed innocent, and thus presumed to have done nothing, are refused bail because a constabulary member presumes they are likely to do it again. Skeptical Republicans note that an increasing number of well known activists from non-politically correct Republican groups have swelled the ranks of those conveniently removed from the streets by this policy of Internment by remand.

Some will say it does not manner. Today Martin McGuinness stands alongside Peter Robinson. Sinn Fein and the SDLP hold places within the British administration. Only a comparative few are interned. Why not let bygone images of Internment be bygones, forgotten and replaced by photos of former internees or Blanketmen at constabulary board or partnership meetings?

Is this history best forgotten? Are there lessons from Internment which Republicans must learn or else be condemned to see repeated under new terms and shapes tailored to today’s British strategy?

In the Absence of Hope

Sean Doyle with his oration at the wreath laying ceremony on the site of the 1798 Memorial Garden, Newtown-Mount-Kennedy, County Wicklow. Sean Doyle is with the Wicklow branch of the Independent Workers Union and is a member of Clann Eirigi.

I believe that in the absence of hope we are all intellectually blind: as if someone suddenly switched off the light, disoriented, going around pointlessly in circles confused, repeating the same mistakes, walking head on in to blank walls, vulnerable susceptible to resignation and surrender due to the absence of hope.

But with the presence of hope we have the visionaries and presence of mind to heal the wounds of betrayal from struggles past and the positivity to galvanise our resistance and determination to overcome our adversaries.

Don’t Like Thursdays

For most it is Monday that is the harbinger of an unsolicited dose of the downers. The infamous Monday Morning Blues gained music immortality when the Boomtown Rats with I don’t Like Mondays soared to the top of the UK pop charts in 1979.  Bob Geldof penned the lyrics upon learning of Brenda Ann Spencer’s deadly attack in California after which she simply said ‘I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day.’

But in one of those ‘creative and imaginative’ acts that came to define the Northern peace process Sinn Fein caudillo Gerry Adams has broken the mould. No plain old Monday down in the dumps for him. Thursday is his challenging day. Apparently out of 22 sitting Dail days missed last year by the Louth rep 10 were Thursdays. Even god only worked a six day week, Sunday being his feet up day. So nothing unusual with the Louth TD’s swing low Thursday. All deities have a day they would rather not face. And there is cause to be thankful that Adams these days is a man of peace and wouldn’t dream of spraying schoolteachers, even if they are UDR men, just because it livens up a boring old Thursday.

A Decision to Stifle History

Sandy Boyer, the co-host of Radio Free Eireann on WBAI in New York City, spells out the implications of a federal court decision regarding the Belfast Project. It first appeared in Socialist Worker on 7th August, 2012.

A THREE-judge panel has ruled that interviews from the Belfast Project, a unique oral history of the Northern Ireland conflict housed at Boston College, can be turned over to the British government. This decision could make it difficult if not impossible for journalists and historians to document contemporary conflicts.

The Belfast Project interviewed between 40 and 60 former members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and one its adversaries, the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, about their role in the conflict in Northern Ireland. The interviewees spoke candidly – describing their experiences, including their role in paramilitary organizations – on the condition that nothing they said would be revealed until after their deaths.

The British government subpoenaed all interviews that might relate to the death of Jean McConville, a Protestant mother of 10 killed by the IRA because they believed she was an informer. She was buried in secret, and the IRA has long denied that it was responsible for her death.

Guevara No Racist

Guest Writer Mick Hall with a response to a recent piece in the Irish Independent by Mary Kenny.

Irish journalist Mary Kenny has never been slow to propagate reactionary drivel but she excelled herself in Monday's edition of the Irish Independent where she attempted to paint Che Guevara as a racist bigot when she wrote:

Che had some of the social attitudes of his caste,* some would now be regarded as racist. He considered blacks as indolent and had a low opinion of Africa. He thought of Mexicans as little better than backward native Indians.

Harry Villegas with Che in Bolivia.

Cardinal Sin

It’s sad that America’s top Catholic official won’t answer a simple question:  How many predator priests got how much money to quietly move on . . .  perhaps to molest again?  This is a predictable tactic bishops use when forced to defend the indefensible: they attack the messenger - David Clohessy

How often does the following point by Valerie Tarico need to be made before futher reiteration becomes superflous?

After all, these are men who claim to speak for God. They have direct access to the White House, where they regularly weigh in on issues ranging from military policy to bioethics, and they expect us all to listen – not because of relevant expertise or elected standing, but because of their moral authority. If paedophile payouts weren’t enough to convince you that this “moral” authority is often anything but moral, take a look at some of their other sins against compassion and basic decency.

There is no edge in moral authority that clerics of any hue could possibly lay bona fide claim to. To assert otherwise seems fraudulent. What creative primal moral force would contemplate allowing responsibility for its moral precepts to fall into the hands of any group comprised of such fallible men?  

Scurrilous and Outlandish Allegations

TPQ carries a Press Release from the Irish Law  Democracy Committee (ILDC)
 

                  The Irish Law & Democracy Committee

We, the Irish Law  Democracy Committee (ILDC) would like to take this opportunity to respond to a number of assertions that have been made in regard to our Committee in recent days.

Scurrilous and outlandish allegations have been made by Nelson McCausland MLA in respect of our Committee’s human rights activities.

 Our Committee wish to set the record straight.

From Belfast to Belmarsh

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey in Glasgow, Scotland in June giving a talk on the internment of Marian Price. Thanks to TPQ's invaluable transcriber.


Thanks very much. I always forget when I come to speak at these things how small I am and then I have to try and see you over the mike. (adjusts microphone) I was here in 1972 and it was only when I came in that side door that I remembered going out that side door in 1972. So some progress has actually been made. (all laugh) Last time that I spoke at a meeting in this hall it was surrounded by right-wing fascists. And I am not kidding you - we literally had to fight our way out of it. And the police turned up to basically protect the fascists and we all got out through that side door.

And I'd forgotten actually- it's just when I came around and saw it - I'm not sure if it was post-traumatic stress...I just said Wow! That's the same place I was in in '72. So well done to everybody's who kept this hall opened and kept people coming to it for all these years and again filling these seats tonight.

From Belfast to Belmarsh: Belmarsh also is a place every time I hear it mentioned my blood runs cold because my daughter was the only woman prisoner to spend time in there when she was heavily pregnant and deigned to be a terrorist.

And people throughout the whole of the British Isles, throughout the UK, throughout Ireland, throughout the world, particularly and I will never, ever forget an organisation called Women of Colour and led by a number of very, very fine Muslim women who stood the ground in London and looked after all of us while we were there. And fought that battle and got my daughter released. And my granddaughter who might, but for that campaign, have possibly been born in Belmarsh was actually born free in hospital in London. And she's now fifteen and was well worth the effort let me tell you all. She's a great girl!

Peace Process Could Unravel Over Tapes Fight

Ed Moloney with a piece that first appeared in the Belfast Telegraph on 4th August 2012 with his thoughts on the corrosive impactt on peace posed by the British State attempts to seize the Boston College oral history archive.

For reasons that are easy to understand, a lot of people have problems when the word ‘war’ is used to describe the 40-year conflict that was the Troubles in Northern Ireland. And that is in spite of the fact that, for a lot of people, especially victims and those who took part, it often felt and looked like a war.

There was, however, one major difference between what we all went through and a conventional war and that is the way it ended.

Traditional wars usually conclude with one side winning and the other surrendering. Victorious troops parade through their enemy’s cities, the population at home celebrates and the enemy leadership pays the penalty for losing, sometimes the ultimate one, while many of their supporters end up in jail.

Stiffed, Snuffed Out, Put Away: the Orwellian Language of Peace

The following is the text of a letter sent to the North Belfast News earlier this week regarding its reports of "threats" against community workers last week.

To the Editor,

We, the undersigned, would like to respond to last weeks edition of the North Belfast News and a number of articles detailing alleged “threats” to community workers employed in the Ardoyne area. As individuals and Republicans from the aea we would like to point out that we speak for no particular group from the area, nor are we aligned to any political party within the area, nor do we speak for them. Political parties can speak for themselves in our opinion. We are Independent Republican Activists.

With regards to the letter handed in to the Ardoyne Community Centre, we think it is important to point out that the majority of staff within the Centre have contacted or made representation to individual Republicans, including a number of former POWs, expressing their opposition to the presence of the PSNI within the Centre, and the heavy military presence that accompanies PSNI attendees, for Interagency Meetings. It is a fact that, following advice from Republicans, staff informed their line managers and trade unions to highlight the negative impact on the running of the Centre and the restrictions that the accompanying “security” operation places on accessibility to the Centre and playground. In fact staff and volunteers from almost all the community groups in Ardoyne currently engaging with the PSNI have approached local Republicans stating their opposition to having to work with the PSNI in any way other than compulsory matters, e.g. Child Protection issues.

Dissidents need to band together: United front can take on Shinners

John Coulter with a piece that appeared in the Irish Daily Star on 6th August 2012. He offers his take on the announcement of a restructured IRA.

Would the real dissident republicans please stand up?

We now have one set of dissidents copying the old Provos and going in one direction, while other groups appear to be travelling in a totally different direction. 

Initially, the dissidents I interviewed emphasised they wanted to be in separate organisations rather than one big group because they feared being infiltrated by MI5 and the cops. That was the clear message given to me inpublished interviews with Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH), the Real IRA and Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD).

So why have the Real IRA and RAAD along with a few individual ex-Provos teamed up under one banner of ‘The IRA’, leaving ONH and the Continuity IRA out in the cold?  Have the dissidents given up on their ‘hit and run’ sporadic terror campaign and their only way forward is to copy the Provos ’ long war tactic?  Could it be the dissidents are coming together for one last blast of terror before calling it a day and are pooling their resources?

An Affront to any Notion of Justice

Pauline Mellon with a letter taking The North of Ireland's political boss Owen Paterson to task over his dissembling on the ongoing imprisonment of Marian Price.

I am writing to you In relation to the letter from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson published in the Guardian Friday 3rd August 2012. In response to the Guardian Mr Paterson states that he is 'grateful for the opportunity to set out the facts.'

I would state that what Mr. Paterson claims are facts and what the facts actually are, are completely disparate.

As one of the broad spectrum of people campaigning for Marian Price I feel her treatment is an affront to any notion of justice, due process or a peace process. This current situation is reminiscent of the darkest days of the conflict in the North of Ireland when the government showed scant regard for human rights.

Secret Speech

As in his first novel, only considerably more pronounced this time, Tom Rob Smith appears to let the narrative slip from his control at crucial moments. This invokes the law of unintended consequence where the slippage rather than the plot assumes responsibility for defining literary output. Here, the failure to apply the brake to the runaway narrative leaves the outcome all too predictable, a feature compounded by coincidences that just raise the eyebrows once too often.

A good holiday read, I picked it up in Ireland, browsed through it on a flight before finishing it abroad, eventually leaving it in a hotel book exchange shelf. I noticed days later that it was still there. No takers, which surprised me a bit given the coverage the three novels in this series have received thus far. The secret and the illicit seemingly not endowed with eqaul drawing power.

There is not the same saturating sense of drizzle-dull bleakness that formed a backdrop to Child 44. The greyness remains but is punctuated by a more humane principal character. The main cast first time around make the step over without showing the joints: the formidable Leo Demidov and his wife Raisa, described throughout as beautiful.

Reply to Owen Paterson on Marian Price

Sandy Boyer in a letter takes the North of Ireland's political boss to task over his Guardian letter which fed disinformation on Marian Price

Owen Paterson, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has written a letter to the editor of The Guardian (London) attempting to justify imprisoning Marian Price. I’ve included his letter below.

Paterson makes two essential points:

• That Marian Price was released on “license”, parole in American terms, which he had the right to revoke.
• That he does not have the legal right to release her because it can only be done by the Parole Commission.

Unfortunately for Mr. Paterson, neither is true.

What a tangled web

Guest writer Sean Doyle reflecting back on Martin McGuinness meeting the British queen. The author is a socialist republican in the Wicklow branch of the Independent Workers Union and a member of Clann Eirigi.

Personally I believe Martin McGuinness shaking hands with the queen of England and head of the British crown forces in our occupied 6 counties is hard to comprehend. Equally difficult is the realisation that their post-Good Friday new constituents of a new emerging rich middle-class nationalists, taking into account Sinn Fein’s astute political machine, consider it a vote friendly and populist gesture.

Which makes you consider the pace of their transformation to an establishment party must leave a lot of people unrepresented and creates a void. Options: status quo of predatory greed and exploitation of the most vulnerable and the preservation of the heart and cause of generational misery, the holy grail of capitalism the free market; or build from the bottom up.  A no brainer.

A blow to freedoms in reporting and research

Ed Moloney with a piece on the Boston College Subpoenas that initially appeared in the Irish Echo

The recent judgment handed down by the First Circuit Court of Appeal concerning the Boston College/PSNI subpoenas demonstrates that this case is now beginning to impact in a very serious and negative way on American rights as well as having numerous potentially disastrous consequences in Ireland.

The comments by Puerto Rican judge, Juan Torruella, in the judgment illustrate this well. The alleged offences at the center of the subpoenas were undoubtedly political in nature, he concluded, deriving as they did from the partition of Ireland and the recent Troubles in Northern Ireland. The U.S. government could stop the subpoenas on that basis but not myself and Anthony McIntyre, the plaintiffs in this case.

Why not? Well, according to Torruella, the treaty with Britain which made the subpoenas possible 'prohibits private parties from enforcing any rights thereunder.'

Ulster Says Noah

Nesbitt was chosen not because of his ideas (most of which passed over the heads of his supporters), but because he was reckoned to be the man to turn around the negative media perception of the party and land some hefty blows on the DUP – Alex Kane

Former UUP leader Tom Elliot defends imprisonment without trial so long as the agencies that provided disinformation for the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, also supply the intelligence upon which a British state decree of internment may be issued. Consistently antediluvian in outlook it appears he is an apple that dropped from the Harry West Bramley tree, losing none of the bitterness in the fall. That he eventually had to relinquish the reins of leadership within the UUP might have raised expectations in some quarters that Harry’s ghost had been sufficiently exorcised to the point that any Doppelgänger resembling the old Fermanagh Orangeman might just be the recipient of a persona non grata award in Glengall Street.

But only in some quarters. The ghost of Unionism Past is proving a tough nut to crack. Tuning in to the ideas of new leader Mike Nesbitt hardly engenders confidence that he will be much of an improvement on what he replaced. Okay, his attempt to sound progressive and secular on the issue of no state funding for faith schools might win him a few brownie points - even fewer blessings - but not many. Likewise with his decision to remove the party whip from that other escapee from the Ark, Ken Maginnis, who thinks in true biblical style that gay people are “unnatural and deviant.” Nor, even in the Left deficient Northern assembly, is there any chance of him emerging as flaming Red Mick from the Strangford Soviet because of an invite issued to a Marxist to address a UUP seminar on poverty.

The Skinning of Marian Price: My Letter to Irish Newspapers

George McLaughlin with a letter that he sent to Irish Newspapers expressing deep concerns about the imprisonment of Marian Price. The author has been a prominent campaigner on behalf of prisoners for decades.


A chara,


The continued detention and mistreatment of Marian Price by Owen Paterson and the government of Northern Ireland has slowly but surely raised the ire of Irish-Americans.   From across the sea we have watched her long-term solitary confinement (beginning in May, 2011), her granting of bail twice—only to be revoked by Mr. Paterson because of unseen and unknown evidence and her continued deterioration –both physically and mentally—to the point where she is now a resident in a psychiatric facility, has contracted pneumonia and is deteriorating more rapidly.

Free Eskinder Nega!

Ed Moloney from the Broken Elbow with a piece calling for support for a fellow journalist currently languishing in an Ethiopian prison

During the more than a year that myself and Anthony McIntyre have been fighting the ill-advised attempts by the PSNI and the Obama Justice Department to confiscate the Belfast oral history archive at Boston College, we have been lucky to have secured the support of many good people from all walks of life who have been outraged and disturbed by this effort to censor and silence truth and history-telling.

 As a journalist, I have been particularly gratified at the support shown by fellow members of the media, many of whom have been generous with their time and advice. At times like this solidarity is really a great thing.

Now, it is my time to give a little bit back and ask people who read this column to give their support to a journalist whose fate makes our predicament seem like an afternoon picnic by a beautiful lakeside.

The Merger of Physical Force Republicans

Tommy McKearney with a piece from his own blog writing on the emergence of a new IRA. He is author of The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament.

Organisations with strong centralised and hierarchal structures, especially the conviction driven, are usually prone to splitting or the breaking away of factions. Often this occurs at periods of significant political development or societal transformation when direction-changing decisions are required. This happens in religion, in sport and with unending regularity in the world of militant Irish republicanism. Three of the largest parties in the present Irish parliament, for example, had their origins in bitter divisions within the country's republican milieu. Such a history, therefore, makes the news of a merging of certain forces within the present day republican underground, an interesting and indeed surprising development.

A small number of journalists were briefed on Thursday 26th July that three strands of what is sometimes referred to as the "physical force" element of Irish republicanism had amalgamated. The Real IRA (best known to British readers for carrying out the 1998 Omagh bombing), a vigilante group called Republican Action Against Drugs and a low profile group of armed republicans still calling themselves "the IRA" have united under the, hardly original, title of the Irish Republican Army. In its communiqué to the press, the group repeated its commitment to militarism when it spoke of the 'necessity of armed struggle in the pursuit of Irish freedom.'

Fundamental Questions of Ethics and Justice

Transcript of an interview/discussion on BBC Sunday Sequence, 22nd July 2012. Host Mike Philpott (MP) interviews Tom Elliott (TE), former Ulster Unionist Party leader, and law professor Phil Scraton (PS) about the imprisonment of Marian Price and Martin Corey, and the issue of “closed material procedures”. As always thanks to our transcriber.

MP: There's a bit of a justice theme running through the program this morning and the continued detention of Marian Price and Martin Corey poses some fundamental questions of ethics and justice. Most particularly, when does the public interest or a perceived threat to public safety override the core of the justice system – that it should be seen to be done and that everyone deserves a fair trial?With us now is Queen's University Belfast Professor of Law Phil Scraton and the former Ulster Unionist leader Tom Elliott. Tom Elliott, Republicans see the continued detention of Marian Price and Martin Corey as “selective internment”. How would you see it?

TE: I think, Mike, we need to look at this in the round and these are not school children who are being detained for small misdemeanors. These are ruthless terrorists and criminals who have been locked up in gaol in the past for some of their actions. Now I think there is, obviously, intelligence. And we must give some credibility to the intelligence that comes forward and we can't hear all of that intelligence...

MP: They may have past convictions but they're not currently being held on a conviction.

TE: No, but what I'm saying is there is obviously intelligence there. And public safety, the safety of our citizens, must come paramount in this. And you know, when you look back at the history of these people, and particularly if you want to look at Marian Price, and she was actually released in 1980 and got a pardon at that stage or was released anyway. And you have to question .. .she was released because she was on her deathbed was the indication at that time. Now, that's quite a number of years ago and Marian Price is still alive and well. And obviously it's been suspected that she has been involved in some very, very devious and terrorist acts and we have to take that into account.