Periscopic Myopia

A periscope is supposed to have 360 degree vision, for use above the surface, and which allows a panoramic view of the surrounding terrain.  Although you wouldn’t know that from looking through the one used by Niall O’Dowd when probing the history of the Northern Irish conflict.  Instead of enhancing situational awareness the Periscope at the Irish Voice stays submerged so that vision is limited and the view opaque. The Periscope is guided by what it hears rather than what it sees.  And when the sonar is bouncing back off those behind much of the North’s organised lying any navigational sense after that is sure to be warped.

You need the truth to find reconciliation – A personal experience by Conall McDevitt

Conall McDevitt with a piece in which he addresses the vexed question of reconciliation through a prism of his personal experience of post-Franco Spain. It originally appeared on Eamonn Mallie's blog on 8th October 2012.


We are not all to blame for the troubles. That is the first message I want to send those like Sinn Fein Chairperson, Declan Kearney who are suggesting that we all, somehow, have to share responsibility for what happened. What we do all share is responsibility for promoting reconciliation and building a new Ireland.

If not now, then when?

Maryam Namazie with a piece from her own blog which was published on 23rd October 2012.


Someone always has some statistics about the West’s failings whenever I speak of Iran or Islam or sharia and wants to know what I’m doing about it…

Indolence Rather than Intellect

I have very little regard for the political opinions of Niall O’Dowd in respect of the politics of the North of Ireland. They tend to be slavish to what is a demonstrably mendacious Sinn Fein narrative. Nor do I believe that he exercises his analytical capacity to any great degree when writing on the same.  Rather than reflect he regurgitates. Indolence rather than intellect would best seem to characterise his output.

After watching the film You've Been Trumped and seeing how Alex Salmon and the SNP colluded with Trump, I doubt an independent Scotland would be safe in their hands.

Mick Hall from his own blog on 23rd October 2012

The past – another ghost – and still no process

A piece from Brian Rowan that initially featured on Eamonn Mallie's blog in which he raises questions about the handling of the past: 17th  October 17 2012


The work of the centre is another read back into an unanswered past; another piece that fits into that jigsaw, that adds another scene to the developing picture.

Recently I visited the office of a new project known as the Irish Centre on Wrongful Convictions (ICWC). Belfast based, it describes itself as a grassroots human rights organisation and it is considering civil cases against a number of former and serving police officers over allegations linked to torture and brutality.

It also wants the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to establish an office here, and says the Executive through the Department of Justice should provide the funding. 'If anywhere needs an active Criminal Cases Review Commission it’s the North of Ireland,' Jim McVeigh told me.


 
Jim McVeigh

He is Sinn Fein’s leader on Belfast City Council, was the last IRA jail leader in the Maze and is Project Manager at the new ICWC. 'Its purpose will be to work with prisoners – all prisoners or former prisoners – who feel they’ve been the victim of a miscarriage of justice,' McVeigh said.

He revealed that a number of loyalists have already brought cases to the attention of the new project. 'Anybody who has been in prison knows from their own personal experience that there are many, many people who were in prison who were innocent', McVeigh continued. 'There may well be thousands of people who were the victim of a miscarriage of justice and up until probably recent years they’ve had no opportunity to address those historic injustices,' he said.

McVeigh said there will be a particular focus on convictions that relied on statement evidence alone. 'We want to highlight the fact that brutality was systematic, was endemic and that draws a question over the safety of these convictions, particularly people who were convicted on statement evidence alone,' McVeigh said. 'It can’t be safe for those convictions to stand. 'All of them, in our view, are unsafe because of the evidence of brutality,' he said.

The former IRA jail leader, who was freed early as part of the Good Friday Agreement arrangements, said the work of the Centre will address some of the unanswered questions of the past. 'Whenever we come to dealing with the past, it is going to have to look at the whole issue of the treatment of detainees and prisoners and torture,' he said. 'We are going to be researching, highlighting cases of torture, brutality because that goes to the very heart of the whole issue about convictions,' McVeigh continued. 'Anybody who was in the jail in the ‘70s for example will tell you that on remand there might have been as many as 95 percent of the people awaiting trial in Crumlin Road jail [who] where in on confession evidence alone,” he said.

The Irish Centre on Wrongful Convictions officially opened earlier this month.


 
 Professor Kieran McEvoy

A number of solicitors including John Finucane and Padraig O Muirigh are on the Board of the new project, as is Queen’s University law professor Dr Kieran McEvoy. Its work is another reminder that so much of the past has yet to be addressed.

Nearly every day, there is another question that reads back into those years of conflict – that pulls the present back into the ‘70s, ‘80’s and  ‘90s. There is the saga over the Boston College tapes; what might have been said particularly in relation to the brutal IRA execution of Jean McConville – one of the “Disappeared”.

More specifically the questions being asked by many relate to Gerry Adams, to his leadership role in the IRA, which he denies – a denial that many dismiss with derision. Elsewhere, another case is being developed, a ‘supergrass’ or assisting offender case that could bring a spotlight onto the leadership of the UVF. All of this is happening 18 years after the IRA and loyalist ceasefires of 1994 and 14 years since the Good Friday Agreement.

The ending of the different ‘wars’ may well have silenced many of the guns and the bombs, but not the questions; the many different questions being asked by every side of all sides.

In all of this it is obvious that the past is not going to go away and there is no such thing as drawing a line.

So, there is a choice – to structure a process within which all of this can be addressed, or to spend several more decades when on any day another question could be asked or allegation made.


 

Gusty Spence running past Crumlin Road Jail shortly after his release from prison, 1985. Image courtesy of: Bobbie Hanvey Photographic Archives, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.



The ghosts of that past are still with us.

Last Night Another Soldier

This is what is called a quick read book. It serves to get you by if caught in a queue or on a short train journey. I grabbed it quickly in a second hand book shop and read it while abroad. What surprised me about it was the degree of entertainment value it contained. I had read the war accounts of Mark Baker and Antony Beevor on the same trip, so some lighter battlefield reading was a welcome detour.

Unrepentant Sectarian Bigots with whom Civilized Society Should have no Truck.

The following is a statement from Gerry McGeough currently imprisoned in Maghaberry


The constant political persecution directed against me by DUP extremists is  quite extraordinary. Never has any Republican prisoner had to endure such a  prolonged venomous onslaught. The latest outburst by Nigel Dodds, Arlene Foster  and Maurice Morrow, as reported on the front page of the Newsletter on May 23, 2012  is just another example of this.

No One is Safe

Maryam Namazie from her own blog with her latest thoughts on Islamism.


They will believe anything

2nd October 2012

Did you hear the one about Fars News Agency (a state-affiliated media outlet of the Islamic regime of Iran) publishing a satirical piece from The Onion as fact?

When I thought I couldn't be shocked..

Tonight the Pensive Quill carries an article by guest writer Emmet Doyle on his latest visit to Maghaberry.

When I thought I couldn't be shocked..
Emmet Doyle
A Simple Wee Man
MONDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2012


Last Thursday I again found myself in the bleak surroundings of Roe House, Maghaberry Prison. Pat Ramsey and I went to visit some of the men, including Gerry McGeough. I thought that the shell-chocking effect of the place had hit me hard my first few visits, and that I couldn't be shocked any further. Boy was I mistaken.

Usually, we enter Roe at landing four, and enter the Recreation Room to meet individuals and groups. It is a much larger, cleaner and more modern space. Akin, strangely, to my old school canteen. Not this time. We were led by the SO upstairs, to Roe 3 as the Officers and external staff were cleaning the floor on Roe 4, as a result of the on-going protest, and given it was early in the morning, the stench was almost overpowering.

Money Talks

Former Blanket columnist Dr John Coulter is a staunch euro-sceptic. As a Revolutionary Unionist, he maintains both Ireland and the UK should leave the European Union and promote the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. In this article, he analyses how the Republic should use its six-month EU Presidency as a springboard for withdrawal.

The Irish Republic must use its forthcoming six-month term of the European Union Presidency in January 2013 to save its economy by establishing closer political ties with the so-called ‘Auld Enemy’, the United Kingdom.

This and That: Take 15

Food Poverty

There is nobody the length of breadth of this country who will accuse anybody in Leinster House of going hungry. Whatever the ailments that afflict our venerable TDs malnutrition is not amongst them. Yet between them they manage to run a society where food poverty is pretty rampant. A study commissioned by the Department of Social Protection last week found that almost half a million people are experiencing food poverty.

A Department of Social Protection spokeswoman said that:

We found in our research that certain groups like families with three or more children, lone parent families, the unemployed, people on low incomes and also people with poor health, or the ill or disabled, are most at risk of food poverty.

Not too many banksters, under-developers, or financial sharks there.

St Vincent De Paul Society, always in the front line of the battle to alleviate poverty, has voiced its concern, claiming that it is coming across circumstances in which people are getting by on packets of potato crisps:

We've seen cases where adults on their own miss a meal. They stay in bed in the morning, especially on weekends. They stay in bed and just miss a meal. I've seen cases where dads survive on a bag of crisps until the main meal in the evening.

Ireland is supposed to be a first world country, what they sometimes call an advanced industrial society, yet a huge amount of people are going hungry. 

The Celtic tigers having devoured the wealth are now devouring the nation's hungry children.


Not Profiting From Expenses

The United Left Alliance is under pressure these days. With the departure of the indefatigable Clare Daly followed by the withdrawal from the Alliance of Secretary of the Workers and Unemployed Action Group(WUAG) Seamus Healy TD, the group already under strain has come under even more media scrutiny because of expenses claimed by Richard Boyd Barrett.

Unlike others who bob and weave Boyd Barrett put in a convincing display when confronted by the media. He pointed out that while he draws a full salary he only takes a third of it, the remainder being distributed around the various causes he is involved with.

But rather than giving the remainder of his salary back to the taxpayer, he donates it to the People before Profit group, the anti-household tax campaign, the Save our Seafront campaign in Dun Laoghaire and the campaign to keep the 24-hour A&E department in Loughlinstown Hospital.

While the Indo might hold its nose this seeems a meritorious approach to the matter which Boyd Barrett defends on the grounds that the money is better directed to groups fighting against disadvantage instead of being handed back to government so that it can be recycled to cronies in the corrupt world of banking and business. Even if he is in breach of some technical procedure his ethics are not in question.

Boyd Barrett appears to have broken no rules and is clearly not motivated by greed. It is not very often that we get the chance to hear a politician ringing honest. When we do the moment should be savoured.


Returned to Service

A Catholic priest, Oliver Brennan has been reinstated in his Co Louth parish of Blackrock and Haggardstown after child abuse allegations against him were found to be without substance. Brennan is innocent and it is only proper that he should be allowed to resume his ministry. Given the amount of priestly abusers that were trafficked from parish to parish to carry on where they left off, there is no conceivable reason for the Church to withhold ministry from this man. It is also going to apologise to him.

No cause is served other than a bad one if priests are not to be afforded the same rights as everyone else in society. Not everyone arrested or charged is guilty. Not every accused priest is a child molester. And there are occasions when people make false accusations for whatever reason. If human beings are capable of sexually abusing innocent children then they are capable of ruining the characters of innocent priests. Moreover, police services are no more infallible than the pope even if they find it easier to substantiate the bulk of their claims.

Oliver Brennan endured a harrowing time. Hopefully, the maxim that whatever doesn’t kill makes stronger applies here.

Announcement: Public Protest Meeting - New York

PUBLIC PROTEST MEETING

FREE MARTIN COREY, GERRY McGEOUGH and MARIAN PRICE

SATURDAY - OCTOBER 27th - 4pm

Rocky Sullivan’s of Red Hook, Brooklyn
34 Van Dyck Street at Dwight Street
For directions call (718) 246-8050

Martin Corey, Gerry McGeough and Marian Price are Irish Political Prisoners.

Martin Corey and Marian Price could be imprisoned indefinitely on the basis of secret evidence they are not allowed to see.

Gerry McGeough is scheduled to be released in January 2013 but could easily be re-arrested on the same kind of secret evidence.

Auspices:
Release Martin Corey Campaign, US
Free Gerry McGeough Campaign, USA
Free Marian Price Campaign, US

For Information Call 718 436 4770

Bravo Charlie Hebdo

Maryam Namazie with a piece in support of the radical French magazine Charlie Hebdo that featured on her blog on 20th  September 2012.

In a climate where Islamist murder, violence and intimidation is cowering many into silence and submission, Charlie Hebdo's insistence on poking fun at Islam on par with all religions and its refusal to back down despite calls for censorship is one that will be remembered when Islamism is in the dustbins of history.

French professor Marlière writes in the Guardian that the magazine’s aim to reassert its leftwing secular tradition in this climate is more anti-Islamic than anti-clerical.  But anti-Islamism is this era’s anti-clericalism.

He adds that the cartoons are ‘unhelpful’ in a ‘climate of religious and racial prejudice’ but like the Guardian and many a liberal and post-modernist leftist, he misses the point. What is ‘unhelpful’ is Islamism’s murder and mayhem.

Criticising Islam and Islamism is not about prejudice – that is Islamism’s narrative – which has been bought hook, line and sinker by those calling for censorship. In fact, in this day and age, criticism is a historical necessity and legitimate challenge to our era’s inquisition.

Also, what the professor and the Guardian seem to forget is that those most at threat of the Islamist herds are not satirical French publications or even US and French embassies worldwide but the many countless human beings living under Islamism and Sharia law  – a lot of them Muslims – who daily face threats, imprisonment and death for their dissent from and criticism – like Saudi Hamza Kashgari, Indonesian Alex Aan, Egyptian Alber Saber and Pakistani Asia Bibi.

When will the professor and the Guardian side with them?

As the most wonderful Salman Rushdie says: we “need to be braver”.

Yes, clearly we do if we are going to stop this barbarism once and for all…

As an aside, of course Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon is different from the despicable and racist Christian Right film, the Innocence of Muslims. But free expression is not just for those we agree with. And let’s not forget a bad film is just a bad film. The real problem that needs to be addressed head on is Islamism and censorship is the wrong response.

They Died by Pearse’s Side

Guest Writer Simon Smith with a review of They Died by Pearse’s Side.

I was on my second guided tour of Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin recently when I picked up a book from the new 11 million euro visitors centre.  The cemetery is well worth a visit with many fascinating stories behind the graves on the guided tour.  1.5 million people are buried there.  32 of these people are volunteers who fought in the 1916 Easter Rising and it is their stories along with the 14 buried at Arbour Hill and around 20 or so others buried elsewhere that are the subject of Ray Bateson’s 2010 book entitled They Died by Pearse’s Side.

Stay Granted at Supreme Court

A statement from Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre about today's developments in the US Supreme Court

Our lawyers, Eamonn Dornan, JJ Cotter and Jonathan Albano have won a fantastic victory at the Supreme Court with the approval of Justice Stephen Breyer that our request for a stay be granted and extended until the Supreme Court deicdes whether to hear the case. Here is the text of the decision:

Just Go Home

Statement from Gerry McGeough delivered at a Ballad Session for him in Dublin on the 12th October 2012.

A Cairde,

May I begin by extending my warmest and heartiest greetings to you all. This evening's event is a tribute to the organisational skills, fundamental decency and great Patriotic spirit of the wonderful people of Dublin. May God bless you all.

Boston College has a Strong Motivation to Launder the Truth

Ed Moloney with a critical response to a piece by Joanna Harrington.  The Harrington article and the Moloney response appeared on the  EJIL: Talk blog.

I wish to lodge a protest with this website in the strongest possible terms. Your article contains a number of key inaccuracies which could have been corrected or at least challenged had you bothered to contact me, Ed Moloney, the director of the Belfast Project which is the subject of your article. You clearly have had access to my blog and your article is dotted with my name (but none from Boston College), yet you did not even bother to contact me to check some important facts. Instead you took as gospel the account of Boston College in this affair despite the fact that this college has a strong motivation to launder the truth in its own self-interest.

A Shrine Worth Fighting For

Former Blanket columnist Dr John Coulter casts his Revolutionary Unionist eye over the Maze 'shrine' debate. This is a version of his regular column in the British Labour Party's Tribune magazine which featured on the 5th October 2012.

When is a shrine not a shrine? That’s the big winter row now that the Stormont summer recess is over. The shrine debate focuses on the development of the former Maze prison site near Lisburn city. At one time, it was the most famous – or notorious – high security jail in Western Europe, housing some of the Irish Troubles’ toughest republican and loyalist paramilitary inmates.

This & That: Take 14

French Decision

Hounding and harrying gays on the grounds that they are some sort of abomination is not just some Paisleyite thing. Even the North of Ireland wrapped in its insularity can’t feign to think it is a place apart in that respect. As much as the Nelsonsaurus might dream of a welcome sign across Belfast Harbour promising hospitality to the demented homophobes of the world, offering them special cut price daily pilgrimages to the Giant’s Causeway where they can reflect and marvel on the creation of the world 6, 000 years ago, it is just that, a dream. The Save Ulster from Sodomy mob has not been quarantined within the six north eastern counties under a Free Presbyterian government. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is a moot point.

Still Battling Away

John McDonagh (JM) and Sandy Boyer (SB) interview journalist Ed Moloney (EM) who is the former director of the Belfast Project about recent developments in Ireland. Radio Free Éireann WBAI 99.5 FM Pacifica Radio Saturday 29 September 2012


John McDonagh (JM): Now when you open up your email box alot of times you don’t know whether I should read the article or shouldn’t I? But when the headline reads: “Why Niall O’Dowd is One of the World’s Greatest A-Holes” and it’s on The Broken Elbow. (If you just type in “Broken Elbow” you’ll find Ed Moloney’s blog.) And when you see a headline like that you say: This is a story I have to read!

Put her in to get her out

New York attorney at law Martin Galvin with a letter that first featured in the Irish News on the 8th October 2012
        

A chara
 
If Marian Price or a surrogate nominee were to stand on her behalf for the soon to be vacated Mid-Ulster seat, it would present Sinn Fein with opportunities that should not be hastily disregarded.

Will CBS and Sunday Telegraph Defy PSNI Demands For Dolours Price Material?

Ed Moloney with a piece that first appeared on his blog the Broken Elbow on the 8th October 2012


This weekend a number of news reports claimed that the PSNI has requested that journalistic material from the US broadcaster CBS and the British newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph concerning Dolours Price and the abduction and ‘disappearance’ of Jean McConville be handed over to detectives investigating her death.

An Appeal on Behalf of a Seriously Ill Prisoner

An appeal from guest writer Pauline Mellon who has been a tireless campaigner for Marian Price

Dear All


At this point Marian Price is seriously ill. We would ask that people write to their elected representatives and those in authority to demand Marian's immediate release. I would also suggest that you write to the Justice Minister David Ford, the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Secretary of State Theresa Villiers. I have attached a letter that can be downloaded or indeed if you prefer, write your own.

Response to Danny Morrison

This piece appeared on Ted Folkman's US blog Letters Blogatory on 5th October 2012. It was in response to an article that Danny Morrison posted on the same blog

In a copy and paste of what earlier this week he had posted on his own comments-not-allowed blog Danny Morrison reiterated his demand on Letters Blogatory that ‘Ed Moloney has some explaining to do.’ How frustrating it must be for Morrison that Moloney is not tied to a chair and therefore can happily ignore his demand for an explanation. I am not tied to a chair either but I am used to all manner of exchanges with him over the decades, ranging from the friendly to the frosty, so responding to his queries doesn’t tax me one way or the other. Had he demanded me to answer I too, like Moloney, would happily have dismissed him. I guess there is much to be said for Walter Bagehot’s maxim that ‘the greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.’ And if Danny demands to be noticed, he will be joyously ignored.

Mr O'Grady, Meet Mr Sloan

 Guest Writer Eoghan O’Suilleabhain with a piece on Irish sovereignty

Independent nationalism is unacceptable to the West, no matter where it is, and it has to be driven back into subordination  – Noam Chomsky

Writing wishfully but not presciently Joseph O’Grady stated in 1990 that:

“The very movement toward (EU) economic unity can only mean that (Irish) political unity will follow…” (p. 16).  The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Dec., 1990), pp. 7-20

The Belfast Project and the Boston College subpoena case

Photo by Ida Milne

The following paper was given at the Oral History Network of Ireland (OHNI) Second Annual Conference in Ennis, Co Clare on Saturday the 29th September 2012.

• Introduction
• Origins of the Belfast Project
• Purpose of the Belfast Project
• Confidentiality and Copyright
• Process that led to the publication of the book and the issues surrounding it, including the threat to researchers’ and participants’ safety
• The Press and Dolours Price
• Boston College’s response to the subpoena and the subsequent legal action brought by myself and the Project Director, Ed Moloney, against the US Government to stop the subpoena
• Progress of the case
• Protections and the egregious role of institutions housing material from the perspective of John Lowman and Ted Palys
• In terms of conflict resolution, oral history can play a large part in dealing with legacy issues
• Conclusion

Introduction

The trials and tribulations of the Belfast Project if nothing else should serve as a salutary lesson to oral historians who opt to capture narratives of an acutely sensitive nature. Like other history the oral component often deals with a safe subject, posing no risk to the researcher, research participants or the research project.   There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. But history construction, particularly that which seeks to excavate armed conflict is often going to unearth knowledge that is frequently more toxic, than safe.

Hundred Years Sham Fights

Guest writer Mark McGregor with a piece on the Decade of Centenaries.

Saturday (29.09.12) saw the first showpiece event in what has been called a ‘Decade of Centenaries’. Tens of thousands of Orangemen, bandsmen, political Unionism and members of loyalist paramilitary groups marched en masse through Belfast to Stormont to celebrate the signing of the Ulster Covenant. While there was little trouble around event, beyond traditional disrespect outside Catholic churches, it should give pause for thought on how such commemorations are conducted, their role and purpose.

Chris Bray: Next They'll Subpoena a Candy Wrapper

Dolours Price is an open door, but two different governments are still hammering at the unobstructed doorway with a battering ram. "Open up!" they scream. The door just stands there, open. They go at it with the battering ram some more, grunting and sweating. They will not give up until the open door is opened. And somehow they aren't kidding.

Footsteps of Anne Book Launch

The following notice provides information about an upcoming book launch: In the Footsetps of Anne. The book details the experience of republican women imprisoned during the republican war with the British state.

A Direct Line To Foggy Bottom

Ed Moloney with a critical take on Niall O'Dowd's call on Hillary Clinton to intervene in the Boston College subpoena case. the piece appeared in the Broken Elbow.

Niall O'Dowd