When Will We Ever Learn?

Franklin Lamb with a piece from Beirut which was featured on Al Manar News

Beirut -- This observer has no idea if the American Ambassador here in Beirut, Maura Connelly or Secretary of State John Kerry has ever listened to Marlene Dietrich’s classic October 1965 performance of Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” still stunning, deeply moving and available on the Internet.

The need for gung-ho tactics

Ex-Blanket columnist and Radical Unionist commentator, Dr John Coulter, uses his latest highly controversial column in the Irish Daily Star to heap praise on the American security forces' handling of the Boston bomber case, and maintains if a similar 'shoot to kill' policy had been implemented in Northern Ireland by the British and Irish security forces in the Sixties, the Troubles may never have happened.

Republican Events in May

Danny Pierrepoint

Danny Morrison has once again been trying to give a bit of what-for to Boston College’s Belfast Project. In some respects it is easy to understand his unremitting hostility toward the research, without having the slightest sympathy for his anger. It did after all prise open a window through which the public could view his hitherto uncovered malevolent role as the Hangman of the H-Blocks during the 1981 hunger strike. It is now common knowledge that he laid a fatal trap for six of the ten hunger strikers by withholding vital information from them on the 5th July. The detail of a British offer to end the hunger strike, had it been conveyed to the dying men, would have undoubtedly saved their lives.  Morrison’s actions sealed their fate.

Derry Hosts Annual Brendan Hughes Lecture

Peoples’ Defence: ‘all we have are the monuments to our dead.’

Wicklow Independent Workers Union activist, Sean Doyle with his words from an Easter Commemoration event in Dublin on the 30th March this year.

Sean Doyle delivering his oration in Dublin

Ireland throughout its history has produced many that came to the fore and inspired thousands in their time to courageously challenge foreign occupation holding our nation in bondage. They gallantly laid down their lives against the military might of England to weaken the grip that one day we might break free. Lalor, Tone, Connolly and most recently Costello to name but a few in this chain of command to break the shackles of foreign and native servitude of the Irish people.

McKearney/Lynagh Commemoration

Just Like That

Ireland, because of the Northern political violence and criminal copy cat actions since, is familiar with the phenomenon of the Disappeared. But all of that has to do with bodies whereas this is this story of the house that disappeared on Tory Island.

"Good Cop/Bad Cop"

Guest Writer Sean Bresnahan with a piece on policing. The author is a Tyrone republican.

Demarche

On the same UTV spot referred to in an earlier piece that featured Declan Kearney and Ciaran Cunningham another figure to put in an appearance was the former blanket man and IRA leader in the H Blocks, Seanna Walsh.

As can be gleaned from some recent comments on TPQ Walsh is not without his detractors. Yet it seems indisputable that while he was in the IRA he did forego the cushy number, put the gloves on and went back to prison for a lengthy third time. Not easy to do no matter whom you or what your pedigree is: even harder when you are married with young children.  It would seem remiss of his critics to fail to acknowledge that much. Something like 22 years spent inside and, unlike many whose circumstance was a fait accompli and irreversible, he had choices and did not merely make a virtue out of necessity.

In Barney Rowan’s UTV slot Walsh was filmed as he walked across the tunnel beneath the Crumlin Road that would lead prisoners from the jail to the courthouse. Those who came back in the evening the same route they had gone in the morning were the unlucky ones.  Watching him there I could almost smell the atmosheric greenhouse odour that the dank bunker type structure always seemed to emit.  It was not unpleasant, just sufficiently tenacious to linger in the mind long after it had dissipated in the nostrils.

During his discussion with Barney Rowan, Seanna Walsh was asked if it was not a bit inconsistent for people like him to be speaking out against today’s armed republicans when he had done pretty much the same as today’s activists are doing. His response was interesting in that it was plausible. Rather than take the party line and talk bollix about the great strides that had been made to bring us forty years closer to a united Ireland than we were forty years ago, he simply said that it was criticism the party would have to live with. Then he cut to the chase and explained his reasoning. When the Provisional IRA was fighting its activists at least believed there was a chance of success. Nobody today seems to believe there is the remotest possibility of winning. 

While Walsh didn’t elaborate, there was enough in what he did say to permit the inference to be drawn that the Provos failed, had the nous to realise it and opted to quit even if their subsequent trajectory saw them veer away from anything republican and into the administrative camp of the British. Carried a step further the logic suggests that in trying to use the same failed methods to achieve the same unattainable goal today’s republicans, the armed contingent at any rate, are on the road to nowhere.

This seemed to be to be the most convincing explanation yet from a Sinn Fein member of the difference between the former IRA and today’s batch of IRAs. Because it was disarmingly frank, something we are not used to with the Provos, Walsh, given his track record, might be better placed than most others to represent the Provos in any possible dialogue with the physical force element of republicanism rather than the bluster and blowhard bamboozlers who use the symbolism of Easter to parrot the Thatcher line that republicanism is criminal.

What armed republicanism, the ostensible target of Sinn Fein's dialogue suggestion, needs to hear are some hardnosed truths that might just impact on its thinking rather than self serving tripe designed to hoodwink. As Barney Rowan terms it, a ‘reality check’ might have some traction.   They must definitely don’t need to be told the rubbish that what is in place today is some great victory; they need convincing that the Provisional project was defeated rather than cheated, that as self serving and other-sacrificing as key leaders were and are, what is in place today is not the result of them having contrived to snatch an avoidable defeat from the jaws of certain victory. This is why somebody who walked the walk, and walked the tunnel to be sentenced on three separate occasions as a result of it, is better placed to make the demarche than one of the party blow-ins or somebody from its its phalanx of serial liars.

Would Seanna Walsh make a difference if he were to make the opening gambit? Probably not. The gulf is most likely too wide. But if someone with his track record coupled with a seeming intellectual plausibility is unable to make a robust case as to the futility of armed campaigning there are none from the Provo camp who will.

Transcript: IRA Documents – CBC Radio’s As It Happens interview with Ed Moloney

Boston College case, Ed Moloney
 

TRANSCRIPT: IRA DOCUMENTS – CBC Radio’s As It Happens interview with Ed Moloney
As It Happens
cbc radio
16 April 2013

Host Helen Mann (HM) interviews Ed Moloney, (EM) journalist and former director of The Belfast Project, an oral history project archived at Boston College and presently under subpoena by the police in Northern Ireland. Host Jeff Douglas (JD) sets the stage for this interview.

There to Protect the State by Whatever Means Necessary

Guest writer Alan Lundy with a piece deeply critical of political policing.

On 15th July 2012 I was arrested by the PSNI in an early morning raid on my home. This was in relation to a number of scurrilous accusations made by a single PSNI officer regarding my behaviour while acting as a steward at the successful GARC protest march against sectarianism on the 12th July 2012.

Plaque Unveiling to Alan Lundy

Fran McNulty reports on further developments to the Boston College Belfast Project

Boston College case, Ed Moloney

 

TRANSCRIPT: Fran McNulty reports on further developments relating to the Boston College Belfast project

This Week

RTÉ Radio 1

Sunday 21 April 2013

Fran McNulty (FM) interviews journalist and former director of The Belfast Project Ed Moloney (EM) about the status of the archive presently under subpoena by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision not to hear his case. Host Gavin Jennings (GJ) provides interview framework.


Legend:
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams (GA)
Male voice reading from US Senator Robert Menendez’ letter (MV)
Female voice reading responses from HET and PSNI (FV)
Boston College spokesperson Jack Dunn (JD)
The Belfast Project Lead Researcher Anthony McIntyre (AM)

Gavin Jennings (GJ): This week the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal against a decision of a lower court to release archived interviews with the now deceased IRA member Dolours Price. Today this programme can reveal that much more information about the disappearance and murder of Belfast mother Jean McConville than initially thought is actually contained in the Boston College archive where the Price interview is stored as part of the so-called Belfast Project. Reporter Fran McNulty has more.

Ed Moloney (EM): I have been able to share some of this with the American government. And I can tell you, Fran, when I tell them this particular set of details, the people that I’ve had conversations with, who I then hope will take this further up the chain in the American political system, have immediately understood just how dangerous the contents of these interviews can be.

Fran McNulty (FM): That’s Ed Moloney, the man who oversaw The Belfast Project. This weekend he warns the institutions in The North could fall such would Unionist reaction be to what Dolours Price revealed in her archived interviews.

EM: The consequences of this for the peace process, and I know there are lots of people in Ireland who are rubbing their hands in glee at the anticipation of the fall of Gerry Adams over all of this but with Gerry Adams will also fall the peace process and the power-sharing government. There’s a very distinct possibility of that happening.

FM: Is that not an overstatement?

EM: Not if you knew what was in the interviews and the impact that they will have and once they get out. And they will get out. They will get out I’d imagine reasonably quickly. They will be leaked, and once they get into the political stew in Northern Ireland there’s no removing them. They are stuck there and the consequences will be there. There’s material there about the story of one of these incidents that’s at the basis of the subpoenas. People think they know the full story. They don’t know the full story.

FM: But heretofore we’ve been told that the full story was that Dolours Price didn’t tell interviewer Anthony McIntyre anything about the murder of Jean McConville. That is true. But now we do know that she did tell someone else. From his home in the United States Ed Moloney has cast new light on the subject.

EM: What I have said all along is that in her interviews with Anthony McIntyre as part of the Boston archive she did not talk about Jean McConville.

FM: So if we restrict our comments to that particular interview is what you’re saying that there are other people speaking about the disappearance of Jean McConville?

EM: Or, the other possibility is that there are maybe other Dolours Price interviews that were not part of the project that happened to be deposited in the Boston archive.

FM: Are there?

EM: Well, that’s something which people can speculate on now, can’t they?

FM: Ed Moloney is holding back information as he’s entitled to. But this programme understands that an A to Z of what happened on the night Jean McConville was disappeared from her home and murdered is contained in the Boston College archive. The lengthy interview mentions names and places and in it, Dolours Price refers to Gerry Adams. Before her death she told a Belfast newspaper Gerry Adams was her Officer Commanding in the IRA, something the Sinn Féin leader has consistently denied. It’s a subject Mr. Adams has in fact spoken to this programme about:

Gerry Adams (GA): Look, I’ve said it for years, for decades, I learned a long time ago not to worry about things you have no control over.

FM: Dolours Price’s interview in the archive is causing concern in the United States.

Male Voice (MV) reading Menendez letter: Mr. Secretary, For over a year I have monitored the government of the United Kingdom’s efforts to subpoena the documents and recordings of the Boston College oral history project…

FM: The Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has written to the Secretary of State, John Kerry, on the issue.

MV: The United Kingdom’s request for material could have the effect of re-opening fresh wounds and threatening the success of the Good Friday Accords. Sincerely, Robert Menendez.

FM: Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre have been assisted greatly by Irish-America groups to lobby US politicians on this issue. But interestingly, Boston College is taking a similar approach. It is trying to stop the release of further material beyond the Dolours Price interviews – both legally and diplomatically. College spokesperson is Jack Dunn:

Jack Dunn (JD): The Secretary of State of the United States is John Kerry. John Kerry is a graduate of Boston College’s School of Law. He knows our feelings on the matter. So we’ve worked through diplomatic channels including the State Department and other areas that I won’t get into specifics now. So it’s a two-pronged approach now. We are looking for a legal resolution to the case through the court of appeals and we are also looking for a resolution through various diplomatic channels.

FM: Mr. Kerry himself when he was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote to the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the issue and expressed concern about the impact of releasing (the) tapes. Would that give you any hope?

JD: We certainly hope so. He understands how important this is. He was involved during the Clinton Administration in helping to broker the Good Friday Agreement. So he understands completely the importance of what’s at stake here. And our hope is that he will use his influence to get the Police Service of Northern Ireland to get law enforcement in Great Britain to work with the Department of Justice to re-evaluate the need for these tapes to go through.

FM: The family of Jean McConville have insisted the tapes should be released. They want those responsible for their mother’s murder brought to justice. Anthony McIntyre interviewed numerous people who were involved in The Troubles for the ill-fated archive. He, too, can see The McConville’s point of view.

Anthony McIntyre (AM): If I was in the position of the McConville Family I would probably be doing the same. And I think people would understand it that way. But there are wider issues at stake here, wider ethical issues. I mean, the same could be applied to the … an argument, for example, could be made that: should we torture suspects to get the information that the McConville Family require? Well obviously no, we can’t. There’s certain things that cannot be violated. And I don’t think journalistic research, academic research should be violated by these types of demands.

FM: With the US Supreme Court clearing the way for the release of the Price tapes many now want to know what the next step will be. We asked the Historical Enquiries Team in The North. Their response was brief.

Female Voice (FV) reading PSNI statement: The PSNI are dealing with the issues you’ve asked about not the HET.

FM: So if the Historical Enquiries Team aren’t interested in the interviews what will the PSNI’s next step be? Their response to that questions was, too, very brief.

FV: We’re making plans to take possession of the material and proceed with our enquiries.

FM: The Dolours Price interviews will be handed over unless there is high-level political intervention. And Ed Moloney isn’t hopeful.

EM: I’m watching this situation from three thousand miles away and watching Dáil debates and what’s said in Dáil debates etc and I can see quite clearly that some of the leadership of the political parties in the Dáil are rubbing their hands in anticipation and glee at all of this stuff coming out to do down Gerry Adams. Well, I can understand that. They’re under political pressure, they’re under electoral pressure from Gerry Adams’ party. But so far the Irish government has had no contact with me at all. Not one single Irish diplomat has rung me up and said: Look, Ed, can we have lunch and would you mind, like, telling us why you’re saying this stuff? Not one has shown any interest at all.

FM: Should they?

EM: Well, don’t you think if you were the Irish government and this thing is happening and that someone is saying these interviews could have this potentially devastating impact on the peace process that you invested so many years to create … you’d think you might have a little curiosity about what’s being said?

GJ: Journalist Ed Moloney speaking to Fran McNulty from his home the United States. Well in response, the Department of Foreign Affairs here has told this programme that it would be inappropriate for the Irish government to interfere or get involved in a case which was before a court of law in a foreign country.

Hands off our freethinkers!

Maryam Namazie with a piece from her blog in defence of freethinkers

Celebrated Turkish pianist and atheist Fazil Say has been given a 10-month suspended sentence for Twitter comments “insulting Islam”. He will face imprisonment if he “re-offends” and has shut down his Twitter account.

His Tweets included a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyám in which the 11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy: “You say rivers of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern to you? You say two huris [companions] await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?” In other Tweets, he made fun of a call to prayer that lasted only 22 seconds. Say tweeted: “Why such haste? Have you got a mistress waiting or a raki on the table?”

 Emre Bukagili, a “citizen” (read Islamist) who filed the initial complaint against Say, said that the musician had used “a disrespectful, offensive and impertinent tone toward religious concepts such as heaven and the call to prayer.”

In other news, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin who has faced numerous threats to her life has also been dragged into an Indian court and prevented from leaving the country by an Islamist because her Tweet on Muslim women “hurt his religious sentiments”.

Her Tweet?

“Muslim women deserve to have sex with 72 virgin men on the earth as they won’t get these things in heaven.”

And of course everyone knows about the threats of death against atheist, secularist and freethinking Bangladeshi bloggers. Islamists have called for the execution of 84.

Rather than arresting the Islamists, the Bangladeshi government has arrested four bloggers, namely Subrata Adhikari Shuvo, Mashiur Rahman Biplob, Rasel Parvez, and Asif Mohiuddin, who was brutally attacked in January. The four are still in detention and their bail applications refused. In the meantime, two more have been arrested from another district, one for ‘liking’ a Facebook page, the other for liking his ‘like’! There are reports that the government is now planning to arrest 7 or 11 more bloggers, An International Day to Defend Bangladesh’s bloggers has been called in order to stand with and support them.

Of course many Muslims also face attacks from Islamists and their supporters for questioning and challenging the status quo.

Canadian Muslim art student Sooraya Graham is one such case. She has had to leave her university and city of residence due to threats following an art work on women and the niqab.

As I have said many times, no society is homogeneous. Those who try to muzzle our freethinkers by claiming “offence” forget that we too are offended daily by their medievalism and barbarity. But freedom of expression does not include the right not to be offended.

Rather than being a question of offence, however, such charges and threats are further attempts at silencing criticism of Islam and/or Islamism by the powers that be.

Despite the threats, what is becoming very clear is that nothing will stop this wave of dissent.

Hands off and long live our freethinkers!

The Price of Change

Guest writer Pauline Mellon, a Marian Price campaigner, with a piece on the implications from justice that arise from the defecit between the promise of the GFA and the facts on the ground.
 
This year marked the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement or as it's also known the Belfast Agreement. This agreement was to bring change, a 'new beginning.'

March to Bobby Sands Memorial, Cornagrade

Rekindling the Spirit

Dr John Coulter is a Radical Unionist commentator and a former columnist with The Blanket. He is currently writing an e-book about republicanism as an outsider looking in. The e-book is entitled ‘An Saise Glas (The Green Sash) The Road to National Republicanism.’ The chapters are being published exclusively on The Pensive Quill. In this latest chapter, ‘Participating with the PUL Community’, Dr Coulter examines how National Republicans would build a new relationship with the Protestant, Unionist and Loyalist community on the island of Ireland.

Footfalls of Memory

‘To be alone with a book was one of the most precious gifts I received during those long solitary years ... solitary confinement taught me anew the delight and value of books’ – Terry Waite.

According to what I scrawled on the inside cover, I bought his book back in 1998 in a second hand bookshop somewhere in Belfast, more to have than to read other than at some point in the distant future.

How Damascene Jews Hope to Return... to Normalcy

Franklin Lamb with  a piece submitted to TPQ which initially featured on Almanar News.

Bab Touma Jewish Quarter, Damascus -- Growing up in the small town of Milwaukie, Oregon and until after graduating from high school, I never knew or knowingly met a Jew. Not until my first post-high school job as a swimming instructor and life guard at the Portland Jewish Community Center, having recently earned an American Red Cross Water Safety Instructor Certification -- something I would recommend to any teenager today. My plan was to teach swimming and lifeguard over the summer at the JCC until the fall, when I planned to head to Boston University.

Brendan Hughes Lecture Fundraiser

A fundraiser to help aid the hosting of the Brendan Hughes annual lecture will held in the Celtic Bar in Derry this Sunday evening

Three Years in Jail on no Charge

Jim McIlMurray a spokesperson for Martin Corey with a piece highlighting the appalling detention without trial of the Lurgan republican.

On Tuesday, April 16th, 2013, Lurgan man Martin Corey will have spent three years in Maghaberry Prison without any charges ever being placed against him. During that time, police have never questioned or interviewed Martin regarding any incident, occurrence or event relating to his imprisonment.

Join The Seán Mac Diarmada Republican Society

Unionists wrong to take on Maggie

Regular columnist Dr John Coulter with a piece on Margaret Thatcher that initially featured in the Irish Daily Star on 15 April 201. 


How many innocent people could Unionists have saved if they had embraced the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement which Maggie Thatcher signed with then Taioseach Garret FitzGerald?

Writing out loud

Guest writer Davy Carlin with his latest take on austerity

In recent times we have seen the banks bailed out by our public money being handed over to them. Now we see in Cyprus the bankers going into citizens’ private bank accounts and stealing the money directly from them to cover the banks gambling debts.

Marathon of Grief

Boston is not a name that resonates kindly in my psyche. It is a city that is associated with too many problems, leaving me to rue that peace of mind is not a low hanging fruit. Even when I pass a local hairdresser, Boston Barbers, I sort of involuntarily recoil. On Monday the city, or at least its college, preoccupied me due to my awaiting the ruling from the SCOTUS conference on whether the Justices would hear our case in respect of the Boston College subpoena. As it transpired, our luck was out. Apart from delays we haven’t got much change out of the court system.

Yet our misfortune was hardly the worst news to emerge from Boston on Monday where three people lost their lives and many more were seriously injured in a no warning bomb attack as they gathered to watch the city’s annual marathon. Eight year old Martin Richard was among the dead. It is so easy to imagine his parents hugging him last Christmas in sheer appreciation of the fact that he was not a pupil at Sandy Hook. Now this crushing devastation descends upon them.

Martin Richard appealing for peace

I emailed a lawyer there that my wife and I are friendly with, expressing sympathy and hoping he and his family were nowhere near the scene of the carnage. He had heard the blast from his office but they are all safe.

It could have been at any location across the globe. Enniskillen in 1987 comes to mind, if only because it has been so indelibly seared into the cultural memory. Examples are legion from around the world of unsuspecting civilians crowded together for a major social event in the civic calendar being targeted for homicide. 

Yet as horrendous as they are all such attacks don’t impact on us in the same way. Perhaps, to some degree, because of that mental association with the city, Monday’s blast in Boston grabbed my attention in a way that other bomb attacks tend not to.

Despite being cognisant of its occurrence the horrific death of 11 Afghan children earlier this month in a NATO bomb attack didn’t focus my concentration in the same way that the Boston explosion did. It was a much worse atrocity given the fatalities sustained and yet the mind didn’t linger around the scene of the crime for very long. Perhaps it is just the way we are as humans: culturally out of sight out of mind. Los Angeles, for example, seems that much nearer than Kabul even though in terms of physical proximity Kabul is closer.

Afghan child victims of a NATO bomb attack laid out prior to burial

But being culturally less close does not make people less real, less sentient, less human. The children slaughtered in Afghanistan are every bit as valuable and as conscious of pain as the eight year old child Martin Richard who was butchered as he stood with his mother and sisters watching his father run the Boston marathon. They all have the same right to life and there is no justification for depriving them of it. The parents who brought them into this world and who are now left to grieve all carry the same burden of loss.

The Boston marathon is over, completely overshadowed by the vicious attack on civilians. Now the more demanding marathon of grief begins. There is no finishing line.

Release Martin Corey Committee renews calls for release

Today 16th April 2013 will mark 3 years exactly since veteran Republican Martin Corey was interned. To hold someone as a political hostage for 3 years without charge or trial is a human rights abuse.

Margaret Thatcher

Guest writer Phil Scraton with a piece on the death of Margaret Thatcher

For years I anticipated my emotions and reaction to the day of Margaret Thatcher's death. I remember being in Liverpool's Royal Court at an Elvis Costello gig, knocked out by his Tramp the Dirt Down ...

Moloney & McIntyre: Political Fight Continues

Press release from Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre on today's decision by the Supreme Court not to hear their challenge to the PSNI/Department of Justice subpeonas on Boston College:

New group aims to end street harassment in Belfast

TPQ with a press release from Hollaback.

Hollaback!, an international organisation dedicated to ending street harassment, launches in Belfast today. “On average in studies, between 80%-99% of women report experiencing street harassment in their lives.” Hollaback! is now in 64 cities, in 22 countries, with leaders speaking more than 10 different languages.

Rights Watch Report on Marian Price

Please click here to read a recent report on Marian's situation from Rights watch (uk)

This & That: Take 19

Is he Serious?

The recent killing of Kieran McManus in West Belfast produced the following reaction from the area’s MP, Sinn Fein’s Paul Maskey: 'it’s hard to comprehend how somebody can come out and kill someone who is at their work.'

At The Graveside of Jim McAllister

Pat McNamee with the oration he delivered yesterday at the graveside of Jim McAllister who died this week.

Tá fáilte romhaibh uilig anseo inniú chuig cuireadh Jim McAllister. Sílim ghfuil sé oiriúnach cur tús leis mo chuid cáinte as Gaeilge.  Ba ghaeilgeoir Jim comh maith le gach rud éile.

Most of you will have known Jim McAllister as an Irish republican and political spokesperson from South Armagh. It is appropriate for me to use a few words of Irish as Jim was a Gaeilgeoir and loved his language and his culture as well as his country.

It is a difficult task for me to speak about such a great man. Jim wasn’t a big man in stature but he was a great man in heart and mind. As well as being a gaeilgeoir and a politician he was a father and a husband, he was a craftsman with many skills. He was self educated in Irish History and politics and he was well read in the folklore and legend of Ulster and Ireland. Indeed Jim might say that it can be hard to distinguish nowadays between the history and the folklore or more recent times. Jim was also a songwriter and a poet.  One of the best things of all about Jim was that he could tell a great yarn, he had humour and wit and he was mighty crack to be with. I am proud to speak about Jim today for his family Turlough, Aoibhínn and Brendan.

PUP membership back to GFA levels

Tonight TPQ runs a piece by Dr Aaron Edwards. It initially featured at EamonnMallie.com on 4th April 2013. Dr Aaron Edwards is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield. He has worked closely with progressive loyalists for over a decade on their internal conflict transformation initiatives. A former journalist with The Other View magazine, his articles have appeared in Fortnight Magazine, the Belfast Newsletter and the Sunday Life. He is the author of Defending the Realm? The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars since 1945 (Manchester University Press, 2012) and The Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Banner, 1969-2007 (Osprey, 2011), co-author (with Cillian McGrattan) of The Northern Ireland Conflict: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld, 2010), author of A History of the Northern Ireland Labour Party: Democratic Socialism and Sectarianism (Manchester University Press, 2009; 2011) and co-editor (with Stephen Bloomer) of Transforming the Peace Process in Northern Ireland: From Terrorism to Democratic Politics (Irish Academic Press, 2008).

Not One About the Place

Dwelling too much on the passing of Margaret Thatcher is not something that has great appeal for me. The harm she did throughout her political career has been well documented since the announcement of her death.

Relaunch NILP

Former Blanket columnist Dr John Coulter maintains that the North's socialists should relaunch the old Northern Ireland Labour Party as a radical alternative to the rush to grab the Centre vote across Ulster. A shortened version of this article appeared in his Ireland Eye column in the British Labour Party's Tribune magazine on 5 April.

If Red Ed won’t give the green light to Labour contesting elections in Ulster, then the Province’s socialists should revamp the old Northern Ireland Labour Party.

Culpabilty Lies ... it Always Lies

Richard O'Rawe with a piece on the late Margaret Thatcher that initially featured on the Broken Elbow and which he kindly submitted to TPQ. 

I never liked the tenor of Margaret Thatcher’s voice.  It was either too raucous, or too fawning: too rehearsed for my liking.  Image, presentation, a certain charisma: the MP for Finchley, I’m convinced, would have made it on the silver screen (but then all politicians are actors, aren’t they?)

Death is Death is Death

When I got a text this afternoon telling me that Margaret Thatcher was dead at the age of 87 two thoughts occurred to me: she lived sixty years longer than she let Bobby Sands live and, as Stalin commented on learning of the death of Hitler, that’s the end of the despot. Stalin gave it a slightly coarser inflexion.

Luck o'the Irish!

Cartoon by Brian Mór

Transcript: Radio Free Eireann interviews Liam Clarke about his recent article on informers
Radio Free Éireann
WBAI Radio 99.5 FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
Saturday 6 April 2013

John McDonagh (JM) and Martin Galvin (MG) interview via telephone from Belfast Liam Clarke, (LC), Political Editor for The Belfast Telegraph newspaper.

(begins 1:16PM)

How could it get better for the British?

Martin Galvin with a letter to the Irish News that featured on 4th April 2013

A chara,

Why would the British ever heed Brian Feeney’s call to Wipe the Slate Clean (March 27) much less risk any honest truth process, when British interests are better served by the present arrangements?

Best Wishes to Sandy Boyer

The Pensive Quill sends Get well wishes to Sandy Boyer who thankfully is making a good recovery after a recent operation.

Sandy is of course well know to TPQ followers as a contributor. He is also co-presenter with John McDonagh of the weekly Radio Free Eireann program on WBAI in New York, a rich source of discussion and free inquiry. He has been a key activist in justice campaigns including the bid to free  Marian Price today and stretching back to the H-Blocks protests of the 1987s and 80s.  He was also a contributor to The Blanket and has been involved in the activist scene since there was activism!

Radical activist, writer and broadcaster, Sandy Boyer

GET WELL SOON SANDY FROM ALL YOUR FRIENDS AT THE PENSIVE QUILL

Strange Places, Questionable People

Often the size of an MP’s ego seemed to be in inverse proportion to his or her quality as a human being - John Simpson.

What is particularly useful about a journalistic memoir is its ability to take the reader to the scene of many of the main news events that have long since faded in our memories. A quick guide of the world’s trouble spots, they are a handy refresher for all the stuff our cluttered minds have accumulated over the life lived thus far and then involuntarily discarded, due to lack of mental space. There may be some shallowness to the accounts, resulting from quick gliding rather than slow methodical excavation. The ‘first draft of history’ is often the end product of alacrity in dialogue with that lack of understanding presumed to exist within the target audience. Yet, even in the bullet point format that they ooze, the better written memoirs convey something of the ambience of the time in which the journalist was reporting.

Elitism Should be Sacrificed

Guest writer Padraig O'Deorain with a piece on a fragmented republicanism written on Easter Monday.

In 1916, the men of Ireland, the bravest of Irish men, took on the might of the British Empire on the streets of Dublin. Had it not been for the divisive tactics of Eoin MacNeill it is safe to say that, whilst victory might still have been out of their grasp, the collective force that would have assembled would have caused more damage to the British Establishment in Ireland. This year marks the 97th Anniversary of the Rising.

Pointless

As suggested in a recent post there is a substantial disparity between Easter Sunday Republicanism and Good Friday nationalism. How a chasm of such magnitude might be bridged between two divergent and by now seemingly irreconcilable political projects appears logic defying. If these two can reconcile it will be taken as read that one of them was never serious about their current project to begin with.

Prod denominations need to follow Big Frank’s example

Former Blanket columnist Dr John Coulter believes the various Protestant denominations could learn a trick ot two from the election of Pope Francis. This article first appeared in the Monday 25 March edition of the Irish Daily Star.

Pope Francis is just the tonic that the warring Prod Church factions in Ireland need.

Impotent rather than Important

Just yesterday it was Easter Sunday, a time of poignant memory for republicans given the graves that claim space in many cemeteries throughout Ireland. Easter Sunday also serves, painfully, to remind republicans of how little was actually achieved by the armed campaign. Even measured by its own reformist gauge, rather than a republican one, the gains Sinn Fein made are undergoing sustained erosion. Martin McGuinness complained that the Irish and British governments are not paying attention. The meeting he had with British Tory Prime Minister David Cameron was he said ‘one of the least satisfactory engagements’ he has had with a British prime minister since the onset of the peace process.