Comments on The Pensive Quill: Blanketmen: No Agenda Only The Truth

Sean Mor, I didn't mean to sound cutting when ...

2009-06-14T12:02:56.984+01:00

Sean Mor, I didn't mean to sound cutting when responding to your comments. The treatment of INLA prisoners has always been a very sensitive subject among ex-INLA prisoners and sometimes we may come across as being angry when talking about it as very little has changed in that respect except that particular PSF policy continues unabated on the outside.

This can be evidenced as recently as the demonisation of myself(and by extension the O Hara and Devine families) on Slugger yesterday from posters claiming to be from Strabane but with IP addresses from Derry. They claimed that my sole motivation representing the two families is solely anti-SF and that I am some sort of "Mr. Big" who is "very, very rich." And that my home is the epicenter of a crime-wave in the North-West. Nothing has changed in the PSF criminalisation policy-Thatcher taught them well.

Of course it is no coincidence that this comes after a rebuttal of Donnacha MacNiallis in the Derry Journal in regards to the motivations of those challenging the PSF narrative as well as the IRSP statement on the Adams meeting as well as the call by the O Hara and Devine families for an independent republican inquiry. PSF cannot openly attack the two families so will focus on their representative.

Not that this will deter me personaly, nor the IRSP nor the two families one iota. Our motivations have been clearly laid out and there will be no apologies for representing the motivations of our families which is seeking the truth and nothing but the truth.

Don't disagree with anything you've said t...

2009-06-14T01:50:40.591+01:00

Don't disagree with anything you've said there Willie. I wasn't trying to minimise anything in my comments.

''In relation to the INLA, the IRA authori...

2009-06-13T21:08:21.134+01:00

''In relation to the INLA, the IRA authorities in the prison, and many ordinary members, always had a snug, superior and suspicious attitude towards INLA prisoners, before, during and after the hungerstrikes. It was always barely comrades, at arms length.''

I think it was a lot more than that Sean Mor and you should know that as you too walked off the wings in 1988 as did many INLA prisoners albeit for different reasons.

INLA prisoners walked off in 1988 because of how they were being treated, second class republicans, whose members were being undermined, demonised and whose presence was barely tolerated. The IRA camp staff had the audacity to inform INLA prisoners that their structures were no longer recognised and that they were being viewed as 'civilians'and would be treated as such. Surely you remember that Sean Mor. I certainly do as does INLA prisoners from that period.

However there were many IRA prisoners who did treat INLA prisoners as comrades and you were certainly one of them and fair play to you. Some IRA prisoners were actually courtmartialled for complaining about the treatment of INLA prisoners by the IRA staff.

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2009-06-13T14:27:20.280+01:00

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This letter was to be published in today's edi...

2009-06-12T20:55:46.953+01:00

This letter was to be published in today's edition of the Derry Journal. When it didn't appear I went to the Journal office and asked the editor Martin McGinley why it wasn't published. He said he was out of town all week and couldn't get access to it and that it will be published next week in either Tuesday or Friday's paper. I can only take him at his word that it is carried.

Dixie.

Fair enough post, and we are certainly at the poin...

2009-06-12T19:19:06.417+01:00

Fair enough post, and we are certainly at the point now where there's no going back, and Hodgies call for an inquiry is probably the only logical next step, if there's to be any closure.

I have heard numerous references now to the 'offer' made by the British. Is there a copy of this offer in the public arena? I could give no personal opinion on whether or not it was substantial enough to end the hungerstrike, without actually seeing the offer itself. I doubt if it says 'we'll give you 4 of your 5 demands'. In my experience of the Brits, it would have been four disguised and emasculated concessions, that could have even been traps.

In relation to the INLA, the IRA authorities in the prison, and many ordinary members, always had a snug, superior and suspicious attitude towards INLA prisoners, before, during and after the hungerstrikes. It was always barely comrades, at arms length. I never liked it, even though I was associated with the IRA prisoners. It would be absolutely no shock or surprise to me to discover that the INLA were excluded in terms of information and decisionmaking.

At the same time, the INLA prisoners to me, many of whom I shared a cell with, always prided themselves in being 'more radical' than the IRA, less prone to 'compromise'... so I'm not sure if they would have enthusiastically grabbed at a dubious offer from Thatcher's Regime. The injustice is that they never got to see the offer, if there was one (and it is looking as if there was an offer).

It's probably time for an independent inquiry, even though there's no guarantee that that will clear up the confusion, or bridge the divide, either.

2009-06-12T19:19:05.822+01:00

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