FREE LOVE IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

After I left the Provisionals and Newry, I spent several months, travelling the roads of most parts of Ireland, until I came to the Island of Inisfree, off the coast of Donegal. It was a commune based on the theories of Primal Scream, which I found, was essentially about having no secrets, particularly emotional, such as jealousy, anger, love, etc.. There was no such thing as personal owner ship, which extended to sexual partners and the group operated collectively, as a self supporting Vegan community, without drugs or alcohol. It was for me a worthwhile experience but one which would not appeal to me permanently, probably because I am too selfish and self centered.

My main issue with the group and my principal reason for leaving, was that while the ethos was based on total honesty, I found the primary females, who could co-operate together as a group, far better than competitive men, were manipulate and sneaky. I wound up telling them with love, they were a shower of bitches. They would collectively as women, choose their alternating partners for the night and choose fresh ones next day.

This of course produced a reaction in the males, which would be similar to Primal Apes, who would then, beat their chests in rage and rant on at the top of their voice, to their replacement male, that he had stolen his woman, which in the context of a commune without ownership, was of course ridiculous, to the point of pure entertainment, particularly for the manipulating females, who used this to domineer the group in a very  effective manner. 

We cut our own turf, had the island to ourselves, had goats milk, cheese and baked our own bread. We had our own boat to cross to the mainland, when the weather was good. We spent a lot of the time, repairing a very old a ship, to take us to South America. To be fair to the commune, I was in a really bad space at the time and going through a personal crisis, after my political activity in the North and the breakup of my marriage. Other than this complaint, I was treated well and would recommend it to anyone, seeking an alternative experience. Below is and article about the group, followed by another on polyamory.

' Screamers '

It was a grisly end to an idyllic, idealistic childhood. And the saddest chapter yet in the story of a hippie "cult" dogged by bad luck. Tristan James, a gentle lad of 18 who had been raised in the Atlantis commune in the Colombian rainforest, was to return to Ireland, the country of his birth, for a gap year. But before he went, he wanted to say goodbye to his 17-year-old brother Brendan, who was living in the country's highlands, southwest of Bogota, with a local family. He also wanted to glimpse one more time the organic farm in the forest from which his community had been evicted by rebels the year before.

It was a grisly end to an idyllic, idealistic childhood. And the saddest chapter yet in the story of a hippie "cult" dogged by bad luck. Tristan James, a gentle lad of 18 who had been raised in the Atlantis commune in the Colombian rainforest, was to return to Ireland, the country of his birth, for a gap year. But before he went, he wanted to say goodbye to his 17-year-old brother Brendan, who was living in the country's highlands, southwest of Bogota, with a local family. He also wanted to glimpse one more time the organic farm in the forest from which his community had been evicted by rebels the year before.

Only one eyewitness has talked about the horrific events that unfolded on 9 July when Tristan and his friend, a 19-year-old called Javier Nova, stopped for a drink at the hamlet of Hoya Grande in the Incononzo region. That witness, a woman who insisted on anonymity, has since fled the area, which is racked by bloody civil war. Everyone else is simply too terrified to talk.

According to the witness, the hapless teenagers were seized by four drunken gunmen, who there and then convened a macabre mock trial in which they were accused of spying for right-wing paramilitary groups. It was a farcical scene, but what happened next was gruesome in the extreme. The woman told how the men slit Tristan's throat - and as his life ebbed away, cut off his head.

While Tristan's blood was being spilt, his friend was made to watch. Then it was his turn: Javier's throat was also slit, and he was also beheaded. The woman recalled that the gunmen yelled: "We shall kill this gringo for bringing the death squads into this area..." Afterwards the bodies were doused with petrol and set alight. No one seems to doubt the eye witness's story. The boys were never seen again and no bodies have been found.

Violence is nothing new in Colombia, where the government, with $1bn from the United States, is waging war on leftist rebel forces, who are financed in turn by vast local opium and coca crops. This year alone, 1,389 Colombians have officially been slain by leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries in 314 separate massacres. On forest paths, villagers regularly find bodies which bear the "necktie" signature of the right-wing militias - where a victim's tongue has been pulled through his slit throat, as a warning to peasants who support the rebels.

So horrific murder is a fact of life, and civilians are mostly too terrified to protest, even when their loved ones become victims. But Tristan's murder was different - for instead of keeping quiet, his grandmother, Jenny James, and a fellow commune member, Donegal-born Anne Barr, are demanding information from every quarter even risking their lives by appearing on television and naming the killers.

The formidable matriarch of the female-dominated commune, Jenny James has always cut her own path. It was she who, more than 20 years ago, scandalised conservative Catholic Ireland when she decamped from her Brixton commune to the quaint fishing village of Burtonport, in Donegal, to found the back-to-nature community which became notorious in 1970s Ireland for its members' sexual promiscuity and practice of "primal-scream therapy". And it was she who, 13 years ago, brought the Screamers to Colombia from Ireland. Now she has turned her energies to breaking through "the wall of terrified silence" which surrounds her grandson's murder.

Back in Ireland, meanwhile, Tristan's mother, Rebecca Garcia, and her half-sister, Louise, are trying to push the European end of their campaign for justice, helped by Mary Kelly, a long-time commune member with three sons in Colombia. In a small, cluttered flat in Cork, Garcia explained that she had not seen Tristan for two years - having returned to Ireland to help repair the commune's sailing ship, in preparation for an ambitious voyage back to Colombia, and to sell its old Burtonport headquarters. Atlantis's remaining ties with the old country were being severed and eventually the women planned to return to the rainforests.

Rebecca says that for a very brief period in July she clung to the hope that Tristan had been kidnapped, before accepting that he was dead. Commune life has made her oddly unwilling to make Tristan's murder her own special loss. "I gave birth to Tristan," she told me. "But I really feel for the kids he grew up with. The saddest thing is that Tristan's life was just beginning."

On the walls of the little Cork flat, and in the "family" photo albums, there are pictures of Tristan, clad in crimson, and the other commune kids, Louise, Alice and Katy, all pretty and blonde, performing in the commune's theatre group. Their "gringo" band has performed all over Colombia. There are also pictures of the girls - in ethereal white costumes - practising yoga in the rainforest. In another the three sisters are being drenched under a stunning Colombian waterfall. It all seems as bohemian as Isadora Duncan, as idealistic as Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie The Beach.

But Louise, who is now 19 and who returned to Ireland two years ago to study dance, says it would be wrong to think of commune life as pure pleasure, and members as dreamers. Surviving in the rainforest, she says, is tough, particularly with the violence, which has become so bad that at times the group has had to arm itself.

Louise has been upset by the way the media has focused more on the commune's Screamer past than Tristan's murder. Rebecca, though grieving, has had calls from tabloids only interested in the old "free love" days when commune-members changed partners with alarming regularity. In Ireland, Mary says, at least the community was allowed to shed its Screamer baggage long ago and move into the environmental mainstream.

"All this stuff about the 1970s," says Louise. "It was all before Tristan and I were even born." But many who remember how the Screamers lived, are fascinated by their unexpected reappearance, two decades later, at the centre of the Colombian civil war.

Jenny James was already 33 when she arrived in Donegal in September 1974 to buy a new home for "her tribe". The middle-class daughter of Communist parents, she later wrote romantically of the west of Ireland with its "warm mist, rough roads... and cottages crumbling back into the earth they came from".

This was the perfect isolated spot, she believed, in which to create the perfect community and experiment with anti-psychiatry therapies. The three-storey building in Burtonport, purchased by James for £10,000, soon rang with screams. Sleepy little Burtonport must have had its moments. But, clearly, the new neighbours took it by surprise. Atlantis House's exterior was speedily re-painted with astrological signs, ruining the village's uniform whitewash and enraging the local council. Then the visitors, many emotionally distressed, began to arrive. And with them came scandal.

Mary Kelly says the scandals - accusations of kidnap, brainwashing and sexual promiscuity - that engulfed Atlantis were exaggeration and prejudice, eagerly seized upon, and by, a conservative establishment which saw Atlantis as a threat to religious and family values. In They Call Us the Screamers, Jenny James claims it was a split between an Irish couple staying at the commune that led to a man claiming his two children had been kidnapped and his wife brainwashed by a "cult". Questions were asked in the Dail and MPs called for the "English" Atlantis community to be deported. Even the IRA got involved, issuing kneecapping threats and bomb warnings.

Journalists and film crews trekked west and were invited in to witness tearful therapy sessions. While some condemned Atlantis as completely fruity, others actually joined the commune. The group tried to get away by moving to the nearby island of Innisfree, where they lived without electricity, but the west coast Eden was already spoiled.

A new paradise had to be found. Louise bristles at the suggestion that her mother wafted down to South America, Katy still in nappies, utterly naive and unprepared. James already had a degree in South American studies and had learned the native Indian language, Quechua. And she had money in her pocket, the profits from the commune's cottages rented to holidaymakers on Innisfree.

In her book, James occasionally comes over as a Svengali, unsympathetic to Irish families who "lost" their children to the group. And those who saw Atlantis as nothing but an excuse for sexual promiscuity were treated to the details of numerous partner changes.

Mary, Rebecca and Louise come over as level-headed. But some of Atlantis's early practices now seem quite bonkers. In one memorable passage Jenny James describes how the female-dominated commune is haemorrhaging men and how she and two other women spend all morning weeping in each other's arms in Becky's room while "Becky [Rebecca, then 14] does her homework".

But as Louise points out, it was another time. Primal therapy may not been jettisoned by the group but it is no longer centre stage. Louise does not talk of therapy sessions but of environmental lobbying and of Atlantis's attempts to get Colombian peasant farmers to save the rainforest by switching from poppies and coca to organic food production.

What cannot be denied is that James has vision and stamina, and enough charisma to have kept a small core group of followers together across continents and the passing of two decades. Twenty years ago Jenny James was, however, misguidedly pushing for the "truth". After Tristan's murder, she says, that's what she still wants.

In Cork Louise says she knows the campaign her mother is waging in Colombia is dangerous. But idealism is obviously contagious. Why stay in Colombia now that the farms have been confiscated and Tristan and Javier are dead? Surely the Colombian dream, like the paradise in Donegal, is over. "Colombia is completely chaotic just now," she says. "But it is so very beautiful and we believe we have a chance of changing it into an ideal society."

Polyamory

Over the past few years, polyamory has become a more widely known term and practice. And perhaps inevitably, certain misconceptions and misunderstandings about what "polyamory" means have become widespread as well. It would be unfortunately difficult to say which among these misunderstandings is the most common, or the most hurtful to polyamorous folks. But there's one in particular that I'd like to discuss: the idea that "polyamory" means "committed couple who have casual partners on the side."

There has been much talk about "open marriage" and "open relationships" in recent years, with some even paradoxically dubbing non-monogamy "the new monogamy." In this open-marriage conception of non-monogamous relationships, there is still a central, committed (often legally married) couple, who allow one another to engage in purely sexual (or at least quite casual) outside relationships. Generally, any discussion about the benefits of such practice revolves around how it strengthens and/or reinvigorates the central couple in question. I want to be perfectly clear that I don't see anything wrong with strictly sexual non-monogamy so long as it's genuinely fulfilling and consensual for all involved, including the outside partners. But for those of us living in polyamorous families, it can be incredibly frustrating when people use those concepts of open marriage to make assumptions about the structure of our relationships.

Because we live in such a monogamy-centered society, it makes sense that many people can only conceive of non-monogamy in what ultimately still amounts to monogamous terms. There is a common misconception that a polyamorous relationship is really no different from an open-relationship agreement: one committed couple, with some lighthearted fun on the side. But the word "polyamory," by definition, means loving more than one. Many of us have deeply committed relationships with more than one partner, with no hierarchy among them and no core "couple" at the heart of it all. To me, this notion that there must be one more important relationship, one true love, feels a lot like people looking at same-sex couples and thinking that one person must be the "man" in the relationship and the other must be the "woman." After all, both of these misunderstandings result from people trying to graft their normative conceptions of love and relationships onto people who are partnering in non-normative ways. It seems that it is somewhat easy for many people to acknowledge that humans are capable of loving one person and still enjoying sex with others (assuming, of course, that the terms of their relationship make such behavior acceptable). But it is much harder for people to think outside the fairy-tale notion of "the one" and imagine that it might be possible to actually romantically love more than one person simultaneously.

The unfortunate result of this is that, for those of us in more than one serious and meaningful relationship, the world around us insists on viewing one of those relationships as less valid than the other, especially when one relationship happens to predate others. I have been with my husband for 17 years, legally married for 11. But I am also deeply in love with and committed to my boyfriend of two and a half years, and it hurts that people make assumptions about that relationship simply being something frivolous and recreational outside my marriage.

Another side effect of this misunderstanding is that people often wonder why we poly people need to talk openly about "what happens behind closed doors." I have heard many times that there should be no reason to disclose one's polyamorous relationships with parents, children, or the neighbors. That might seem logical if what we're talking about is strictly extramarital sexual partners. But my life with my partners isn't reducible to "what happens behind closed doors" any more than any serious, long-term relationship is. We share a home and a life; we are a family. Openly, publicly acknowledging my boyfriend as my partner is not just saying that we have sex. It's saying that, like my husband, he is my partner in every sense of the word. He loves me and supports me and respects me. He sees me at my worst and still wants to spend his life with me anyway. It would be unimaginable to me to hide the nature of our relationship, to pretend that he is merely a friend or roommate, to not have him by my side at weddings and funerals and family holiday gatherings. But this is exactly what people are expecting of me when they ask why I feel the need to be so "open" about my "private business."

Not all polyamorous people have multiple equally committed relationships, and many do designate a more central (typically live-in) relationship as "primary." But my partners and I are hardly unusual among polyamorous folks. Many share homes in configurations like ours, or as committed triads or quads or complex networks of five or more. Many have deep and lasting relationships with no cohabitation at all. To project traditional conceptions of love and commitment onto these relationships, to view them only as a slight variation on monogamy, is to deny all of the many varied ways that polyamorous people form relationships and families.

If you have polyamorous friends, relatives, or acquaintances, please don't make assumptions about their lives based on what you think all non-monogamous configurations look like. Let them tell you how they define their relationships. And if they identify multiple people as their partners, don't try to read into who is more important than whom, imagining hierarchies even if you're told there are none. Though it might not fit with how you conceptualize love, offer polyamorous relationships the same validation that you would offer any other. And remember what a common human thing it is to want to be able to tell the world -- and not be told by the world -- whom we love.

Follow Angi Becker Stevens on Twitter

GET THE HATE OUT OF A FEDERAL IRELAND

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER SPEAKS TRUTH

For those who wish to be in the solution, rather than in the eternal problem, we don't have to be particularly bright, to realize that the solution, is to get the sectarian hate out, and create an inclusive, Federal, Ireland. The UK taxpayers, by subsidizing their sectarian, Orange State, to the tune of 10 billion pounds sterling annually, are part of the problem, by enabling it. Please, stop enabling hate, prejudice and bigotry. When you stop subsiding them, bigots in that failed state, will start to get real, have a little humility and move into the solution. Enough of the politicians hot air. LET'S KEEP IT SIMPLE & DO IT NOW!

As someone, who regards myself as neither Protestant or Catholic and who has the utmost respect for the Protestant tradition, I realized many years ago, that one of the critical, progressive ethics of their form of Spirituality, is that they preach the ethic of taking responsibility and being self supporting, in many countries they do. Credit must go to my Protestant fellow Irishmen who first brought the progressive ethics of Republicanism from France to Ireland. It is time for you gentlemen and ladies to walk your talk, instead of prancing with supremacist pride, down the streets of the plain people of Ireland, preaching bigotry, prejudice and privilege and banging out your egoism, with your bloated, bullying, Lambeg drums. At end of the day, my reality test, comes from your God fearing New Testament, which clearly states, "by their fruits you will know them."Incidentally my best friends are Protestants.

Obviously, I cannot do all of this on my own, aside from my Higher Power, I need the help of enlightened people, who actually care. Please work the hash tag #OOsashesOff  in a creative intelligent way, to carry this simple message, particularly to the ordinary decent taxpayers, of the UK, who are being hoodwinked by politicians for centuries. Please share on Facebook and Twitter to begin with. For further details, please google the hashtags below. We can do it! 

#OOsashesOff 

#OpKKK

#HoodsOff

Anonymous knocks hate sites offline as KKK ‘hoods off’ campaign continues

Hackers operating under the banner of Anonymous released another cache of information on people the group says are affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations.

Twitter accounts associated with the collective posted links on Tuesday morning to a document posted to PrivatePaste.com, a confidential pastebin. A pastebin is an Internet platform where users can store and display text, code configurations or other information.

In the PrivatePaste document are addresses, phone numbers, occupations and other information about Klan and white supremacist websites and the people who run and maintain them, as well as personal information about Klan members from Texas, California, Arkansas and other locations.

Anonymous poster @SouthFlCopBlock put up a link to a letter from the collective explaining to the white supremacists why Anonymous has aggressively targeted them as part of a campaign known as #OpKKK and #HoodsOff.

“Having fun riding the waves of losing twitter accounts, ddos attacks, and being caught with your zipper down?” asked the letter, which contained the names and contact information of more than a hundred alleged white supremacists.

The Anonymous campaign began when Klan chapters announced that they would be targeting protesters with “lethal force” in and around Ferguson, Missouri should riots follow a grand jury’s decision about Officer Darren Wilson. Wilson shot and killed unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson last August.

Anonymous responded by “doxxing” dozens of Klan members, i.e., posting their personal information and photos on line, hence the hashtag “#HoodsOff.” Then the hacker organization seized control of the Klan’s various Twitter accounts, posting images of a lynched Klansman and taunting the original owners of the accounts.

On Tuesday, the campaign continued, with Anonymous moving beyond the Klan to target racist websites like Stormfront.org and writing, “The aim of our operation is nothing more than Cyber Warfare. Anything you upload will be taken down, anything you use to promote the KKK will be shut down. DDoS attacks have already been sent and have infiltrated your servers over the past 2 days — d0x’s have also been launched on leaders of the KKK. All information retrieved will be given to the public.”

DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks are an illegal tool used by hackers to shut down a website by flooding it with so many dummy requests that the server overloads and goes offline. Anonymous is claiming to have knocked multiple Klan websites offline in several states including North Carolina, Utah and Texas, as well as a website for white supremacist group the Traditional American Knights.

DEMONIZING IRISH CHE & IRISH WATER PROTESTS

As a festival celebrating Cuban culture kicks off in Kilkee, Richard Fitzpatrick talks to artist Jim Fitzpatrick, who created the iconic image of Che Guevara, about his meeting with the revolutionary

Jim Fitzpatrick met Che Guevara in the Royal Marine Hotel bar in Kilkee, Co Clare, in the summer of 1961. Fitzpatrick was 16 years old at the time, and had travelled down to the seaside village to work in the hotel while on holidays from Gormanstown College, Co Meath. The hotel’s owners set up a mattress in a barn for him to sleep on for his first couple of nights’ stay. He was put working behind the bar.

“I was an instant barman — no experience whatsoever,” he says. “I wouldn’t mind, but I was a pioneer, totally opposed to drink and still am.” It was after Mass one morning, while Fitzpatrick was working in the bar, that the encounter happened.

“It was a beautiful sunny morning. I was working in the bar on my own. There was a guy there called Sam, who was in there every day, a lovely man. I was chatting away to him. There were two other people in the bar, regulars. And in walked these three, very interesting looking men. All that was needed was Clint Eastwood saloon doors because they came into the bar through swing doors at the side entrance to the hotel.

“They had green-coloured, London Fog raincoats with epaulettes. I recognised him immediately. Who the other two guys were was a mystery. One guy was very curly-haired. I said something like, ‘What brings you here?’ He laughed. And I said, ‘I recognise you. I follow the Cuban revolution.’

“The Cuban revolution was probably the most exciting thing that ever happened. For me, he was a world figure. We watched Pathé News and all the revolutionaries coming into Havana, sitting on top of tanks with their long hair and beards. He would have been as famous as Maradona today. People of my age idolised him.

“We talked for a few minutes once he realised that I knew who he was. His English was faltering, but he could make himself understood. The first thing he said was, ‘You know I’m Irish. My father was Guevara Lynch.’ I was taken aback by that because I didn’t know that at all.”

Guevara’s Irish roots stretch back to the Lynchs of Galway, one of the county’s 14 tribes. He was a descendant of Patrick Lynch, who left Galway in the mid-1700s and became a substantial landowner in Argentina’s Rio de la Plata region.

Jon Lee Anderson, who spent five years writing Guevara’s biography, says: “He was first and foremost a Latin American but I think his Irish roots were important to him. His father was very much a Lynch of Galway and knew the family history. That part of the family had done extremely well in Latin America.

“On both sides of the family, he had pretty illustrious ancestors. Part of the family folklore is that a great great-aunt may have been Eliza Lynch, the mistress of Francisco Solano López in Paraguay who in the late 19th century declared war on Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay and devastated the country, from which it never recovered.

“Che read his James Joyce. When he was a young lad he began keeping a philosophical dictionary. He didn’t write or speak much about the Irish rebellion, but it’s my understanding that he was certainly aware of it, and aware of the idea of the Irish rebel, which appealed to him very much.

“His father definitely had a little bit of the bard in him. He was a great spinner of tall tales. There was always a recognition in Che of that, and the difference between his mother and father — his mother being very much of Spanish blood, and of his father as a Lynch and the connection with the old country.”

Back in Kilkee, Guevara asked Fitzpatrick for a suggestion as to what to drink. “Obviously in Cuba, they drink rum, and I suggested rum. But he said, ‘No.’ He wanted an Irish drink. I recommended a whiskey. I said, ‘If you’re not used to it, I wouldn’t drink that quick. You need to put a mixer in it.’ He asked me what mixer and I said, ‘ginger ale or water.’ He took a glass of water, a glass of Power’s whiskey and he sipped it.

“I asked him what he was doing. He was on a Aeroflot flight — from Moscow to Havana or Havana to Moscow; I don’t think I was told — that got fogbound in Shannon. They wanted to see the coast. They hired a driver, and it was one of those old Ford Prefects — it wasn’t a flash car. They parked it outside. He said he was proud of his Irish ancestors; that the Irish brought down the British Empire. He sat down in a corner, chatting with his friends. They just had minerals.

“When it was announced he had been murdered in 1967, the next day his father was quoted in the Evening Press — I have the paper — as saying, ‘The blood of the Irish revolutionary ran in my sons’ veins’.”

-The annual Che do Bheatha Festival is taking place in Kilkee, Co Clare today and tomorrow.

Model of youthful defiance

Students and celebrities — such as Johnny Depp and Prince Harry — love to wear T-shirts adorned with Che Guevara’s image, while Mike Tyson and Diego Maradona have prominent tattoos of him on their bodies. He is a contentious figure, however.

When a Labour Party councillor, Billy Cameron, mooted the idea in 2012 of erecting a statue to the Marxist revolutionary in Galway, he was criticised by Declan Ganley, among others. The businessman and political activist described Guevara as a “mass murderer” and said the monument “would shame the people of Galway and Ireland”.

Jon Lee Anderson, Guevara’s biographer, disputes the charge that Guevara was a mass murderer, and explains his appeal: “Che’s face, extrapolated from that famous 1960 Alberto Korda photograph, which showed him at his height, his almost mystical anger and indignation. He had long hair, the very image of a rebel, angry, looking off to the far horizon. Already, he is a figure of legendary repute, as the guy who was backing the insurgencies that began to pop up everywhere. It became the defining image of an age.

He represents youthful rebellion and defiance of the status quo. That’s why it’s a universal image. By holding up his face, you’re sticking it to the man.

Story by Richard Fitzpatrick

IRISH PEACE PROCESS A DEAD PARROT

 As a former member of Provisional Sinn Fein, I have been waiting a long time for some indication that they were willing to stand up to the the British. This is a welcome step in the right direction, hopefully they will walk their talk. Kelly & Murphy should know as well as anyone, that the reason the sun never set on the British Empire is because He couldn't trust an Englishman in the dark. At the end of the day, an internal solution in the North will not work. I have just seen the Cait Trainor statement of resignation, where she put her Republican Principles before Personalities. We need more Republicans with the balls(women have them too) to do the same, while sticking together under the umbrella of the Republican Movement and family, while still sticking by our own interpretation and principles. Life is short and if we cannot learn from our mistakes and remain true to ourselves, it simply becomes a waste of precious lives. We need a genuine Truth & Reconciliation forum like the South Africa model, to unite us in the common cause of Ireland. We also need as best we can as Republicans to stick together as much as is possible, to achieve victory. This is the main lesson the English learned from the previous Roman Empire, which Ireland still has not learned and it is critical to victory. The British are always working, especially in the dark to divide and conquer!. The Republican Movement needs to find some sort of unity, while still keeping our Principles to achieve victory! beir bua!

Resignation:

As of today 19th November 2014 - I have regretfully resigned my position as Vice President of Republican Sinn Féin and withdrew my membership from the organisation.

Republican Sinn Féin have recently moved away from a position that I firmly believe in, which is non co-operation in any manner with the Parades Commission and RUC to commemorate our Patriot dead, and as such their policies are now at odds with my principles. If I were to remain a member it would be dishonest to both Republican Sinn Féin and myself and would serve no good.

The contemptuous behaviour by some members of the leadership towards me since the Ard Fheis of 2014, when I showed my opposition to this move has been truly startling and nothing short of an attempt to censor me. Attempts were made at the Ard Fheis to remove the motion put forward by my own Cumann confirming that we would not use the Parades commission from the Clar, this was the first anything untoward was made apparent.

Within days of my opposition to rejecting the motion I was castigated, suspended and attempts made to cover this up as a personal rather than a political matter. As a person of integrity and honour I have never been afraid to stand up to those who are unjust and this is no exception.

I wish to make clear however that I feel no animosity towards Republican Sinn Féin. It has been my privilege to have been a member and I have the utmost respect for countless people I have worked with. For my part I will continue to be a political activist and work towards the independence of our Country of which we all hold so dear.

Cáit Trainor

Remember Remember the 10th of December

Remember Remember the 10th of December , the day that the Government Fell ,
And we lent them a hand with a final demand that would see them all go to hell !

With a ne'r by your leave nor a tug at the sleeve for the things that we asked for ...by right !
While they blackened our name and tried to defame us with talk of violence and Fight .

Well , a fight they have got , and one that is not , of the type they tried sell to the press ,
And our numbers will swell and we'll see them to hell in the wake of their own sorry mess .

And it won't be a few that wash that whole crew right out of the Dail you can bet ,
For the days now are numbered for those that encumbered the People of Ireland with debt .

So now God please save us from those that enslave us and help us to stand up with pride ,
And banish the ones that dance for the huns and got there because they have lied .

We need faith in ourselves and to find that which dwells way down in the depth of our soul ,
A bond that unites and takes us to hight's of virtues that we can extol .

So now can't you see united of course ,
we can make this small country a place ,
Where the riches bestowed are a gift not a load to be taken for profit by force .

So Remember Remember the 10th of December the day that the Government Fell ,
They are weak we are strong it is time they were gone and it's probably just as well .

For they rule by ' Consent ' and the promises lent to the will of the people they serve ,
Now we've seen through their scam it is time they were ran and get just what they deserve .

For they lied and we cried and we let it be known , that this pain it is too much to bear ,
But from ivory towers they spend what is ours and they do it without any care .

And they don't feel our pain as we stand in the rain , sometimes you would think it's no use ,
But take heart Ochone for you stand not alone , and we'll take no more of their abuse .

If we take back our Isle then fortune will smile on a people united and strong ,
But divided we'll fall and dance to their call and that would be terribly wrong .

We don't do this just , for our own selfish gain , we do it for each generation ,
For the ones still to come and the ones too long gone that we hold in great veneration .

When your children grow up and they ask you............................... "Where were you , on the 10th of December " ?
Don't let it be said as they put 'YOU' to bed , that ..... "I'm sorry I just don't remember " !

So ....Remember Remember the 10th of December , BRING OUT FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS AS WELL ,
And let it be known in every town ' TWAS.......

THE DAY THAT THE GOVERNMENT FELL !

Raymond Whitehead : Nov 2014

BAN THE ORANGE ORDER #OOsashesOff

The IRA is a non sectarian organization, whose purpose is to achieve a united Ireland. The Orange Order is a sectarian organization, whose goal is to maintain the union with the UK. Both secretly support violence, to achieve their ideals. The IRA is illegal, the Orange Order is not. Commonsense would suggest there is an anomaly, and that it is as inappropriate for the Orange Order to parade, with their paraphernalia through nationalist areas, as it would be for the IRA to parade through a loyalist area in their paraphernalia. A basic requirement of any Genuine Peace Process, would require equality or at the minimum compromise in this matter. 

Ban the Orange Order or reform it.

Responsible department: Northern Ireland Office

The Orange Order has for years created segregation throughout the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland. They claim to celebrate religious liberty, but exclude those who do not belong to a Protestant denomination. They celebrate a victorious battle that was won by both Catholics and Protestants, yet they exclude Catholics and see that Victory as a Victory over Catholicism. In today's democratic age, it seems absurd that such an institution is allowed to march freely and to promote it's sectarianism and bigotry. Either ban this institution, or introduce an open door policy, open to anyone regardless of religion to truly represent religious liberty and let it be open to all who wish to celebrate the Victory of the Battle of the Boyne and support the Union. Only if one of these actions is taken will there truly be Religious liberty and unity in this country.

This e-petition has been rejected with the following reason given:

E-petitions cannot be used to request action on issues that are outside the responsibility of the government. This includes:

• party political material
• commercial endorsements including the promotion of any product, service or publication
• issues that are dealt with by devolved bodies, eg The Scottish Parliament
• correspondence on personal issues

http://twubs.com/OOsashesOff

Internet Movement, campaigning to disband Freemason hate society of the Orange Order and declare them an illegal organization.

1. #OOsashesOff

2. Orange Order - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Order
3. The Loyal Orange Institution, more commonly known as the Orange Order, is a Protestant fraternal organisation based primarily in Northern Ireland. It was founded in County Armagh in 1795 – during a period of Protestant-Catholic sectarian conflict – as a Masonic-style brotherhood sworn to defend Protestant supremacy.

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BURIED STORIES OF PRISON PLANET NEWRY

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” ― Mark Twain The army asked me to make bombs for the IRA, told me I had the Prime Minister's blessing ... then tried to kill me Neil Mackay Exclusive: confessions of a secret agent turned terrorist KEVIN Fulton is very clear about where the orders were coming from. 'I was told that this was sanctioned right at the top,' he says, sipping a Pepsi in the bar of a Glasgow hotel. 'I was told 'there'll be no medals for this, and no recognition, but this goes the whole way to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows what you are doing.' This was 1980, and if Margaret Thatcher knew about the activities of military intelligence agents such as Fulton, then she was also aware her own military officers were planning to infiltrate British soldiers as 'moles' into the IRA. These moles were ordered by their handlers to carry out terrorist crimes in order to keep their cover within the Provos so they could feed information on other leading republicans back to security forces. For almost two years the Sunday Herald has been investigating the activities of the FRU -- the Force Research Unit, an ultra-secret wing of British military intelligence. Fulton worked for the FRU for much of his career as an IRA mole. This unit, which has been under investigation by Scotland Yard commissioner Sir John Stevens for more than a decade, was involved in the murder of civilians in Northern Ireland. Nicholas Benwell, a detective sergeant formerly attached to the Stevens Inquiry, says the Scotland Yard team came to one conclusion: that military intelligence was colluding with terrorists to help them kill so-called 'legitimate targets' such as active republicans. FRU handlers passed documents and photographs to their agents operating within paramilitary groups detailing targets' movements and the whereabouts of their homes. Pictures were also handed over to help gunmen identify their victims. But there was a problem. The targeting was far from professional and many of the victims of these government-backed hit squads were innocent civilians. In 1989 the FRU passed information to the UDA which the loyalist gang used to murder the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, who was shot dead in front of his wife and children. Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged that the Government was determined to uncover the truth about Finucane's murder. The Canadian judge Peter Cory who was called in by the government to investigate the case is expected to recommend a public inquiry. The Irish government is also pressing for an inquiry of its own. So who was the overall controller of the FRU with its 'licence to kill' republicans? Until now it seemed that responsibility for the activities of the FRU rested on the shoulders of one man -- Brigadier Gordon Kerr, the Scottish officer who led the unit and is now the British military attach? to Beijing. A two-part BBC Panorama programme, concluding tonight, much of it based on the Sunday Herald's previous investigations, puts Kerr squarely in the frame. But if Fulton's claims are correct, then Kerr, soon to be questioned by the Stevens team, was just one link in a chain of command which went all the way to the cabinet and the Prime Minister. As Fulton says: 'Kerr was just following orders. Soldiers don't make up the rules, they just do as they're told.' Fulton's story begins in 1979. He was 19, and had just enlisted in the First Battalion Royal Irish Rangers. Kevin Fulton isn't his real name, but a pseudonym used to protect his identity since turning whistle-blower on the activities of the British military, the RUC and the security services in Ulster's 'dirty war'. His work for military intelligence has been confirmed by FRU sources. Fulton's military file quickly found its way onto the desks of the Intelligence Corps, the regiment which includes the FRU. It made interesting reading. Here was a Catholic from Newry, in the heart of a republican strong-hold, who seemed a loyal servant of the Crown. After only a few weeks in the army, Fulton's staff sergeant approached him. 'I was told that some guys from military intelligence wanted to speak to me,' Fulton says. 'They asked me if I'd like to work for them and I said 'no' as I wanted to remain in uniform. They told me to think about the offer. They added that I shouldn't tell anyone about the visit and that if I was asked I should say they were from a military welfare group. The next time we met they asked me if I'd go to Newry with them. We looked through pictures of local characters and I put names to faces, saying if they had a republican background or not.' The two FRU officers, one of whom was Scottish, continued to try and persuade him to work with them. 'They confessed they needed guys like me -- Catholics from that part of Northern Ireland -- in order to get inside the Provos,' he says. Fulton was still unsure, so the FRU asked him if he could help recruit a Catholic civilian in Newry who might be willing to go inside the IRA. He did. It was an old friend, who he refers to as Agent Washington. He and Fulton accompanied FRU members to the army training camp at Ballykinlar in County Down. 'He was given weapons training. They taught him how to fire an M16, AK-47s, Remington wingmaster shotguns, Sterling sub-machine guns and a Browning 9mm,' says Fulton. 'Remember that this was a civilian going inside the IRA.' Fulton finally decided he'd work with military intelligence. In 1981, he was officially given a compassionate discharge from his regiment on the fictitious grounds that his father was seriously ill. He also received papers claiming he'd been thrown out for republican sympathies -- a great document to present to the IRA men he would soon befriend. From then until 1995, Fulton remained on full army pay as he worked his way through the ranks of the IRA. He began drinking in republican bars in Dundalk and socialising with senior IRA officers, including Patrick Joseph Blair, who the Sunday Herald named this year as one of the men behind the Omagh bombing. Blair later went on to became Fulton's 'mentor'. Not long after his discharge, he told one prominent IRA man that he wanted to join the organisation. He was taken to a room above a bar and confronted by a number of men in balaclavas. 'I'd told them that I'd been kicked out of the army and they started shouting at me saying 'So you're telling us you'd shoot your f***ing comrades if you saw them in Crossmaglen?' I said 'Yes, of course'. 'They started calling me a tout (republican slang for an informer) and saying they were going to shoot me. Eventually, they dragged me outside. They told me to kneel and say the Act of Contrition. I heard a huge bang behind me. It was them banging a big bit of wood on the ground to pretend to be a gunshot. They were testing me. They told me to come back when I was ready. 'My handlers thought this was great. I offered my services to the IRA saying I'd help carry out robberies to fund them. This was all with the knowledge of my handlers in the FRU. I made pals with a prominent Sinn Fein councillor in Newry who suggested I hijack a lorry carrying TVs. I knew that this would give me credibility, so that's what I did. I took a lorry in Belfast with about £100,000 of TVs inside.' Fulton was later arrested for the robbery and served a year in the Crumlin Road prison in Belfast. Because of his republican connections he was denied the usual privileges of an ODC -- an ordinary decent criminal. This also gave him additional credibility with the IRA. Fulton was released in 1986 and inducted straight into the IRA. 'My handlers told me to do anything to win their confidence. That's what I did. My brief was that if I got into a situation where I couldn't get to my handlers but I had to break the law, I was to try not to take a life. I was to shoot high or blow up a bomb prematurely. But that isn't always possible. If I f***ed up all the time, then the IRA would shoot me. Don't forget I also ran the risk of getting shot by the army and the police. I mixed explosive and I helped develop new types of bombs. I moved weapons. If you ask me, 'Did I kill anyone?' then I will say 'no'. But if you ask me if the materials I handled killed anyone, then I will have to say that some of the things I helped develop did kill. 'I reiterate, my handlers knew everything I did. I was never told not to do something that was discussed. How can you pretend to be a terrorist and not act like one? You can't. You've got to do what they do. The people I was with were hard-hitters. They did a lot of murders. If I couldn't be any good to them, then I was no use to the army either. I had to do what the man standing next to me did.' This took an especially dark turn when Fulton became a member of the IRA's 'internal security squad' -- also know as the 'torture unit' -- which interrogated and executed suspected informers. 'I remember once when a guy had been questioned for three days in a safe-house in the Republic,' says Fulton. 'They eventually rolled out a sheet of plastic and decided we were going to 'nut' him. We drew straws to decide on who would do the shooting. Luckily, I didn't draw the short straw.' In 1992, Fulton told his handlers -- this time in both the FRU and MI5, that his IRA mentor Blair was planning to use a horizontally-fired mortar for an attack on the police. His handlers did nothing. Within days, Blair fired the device at an armoured RUC Land Rover in Newry, in the process killing policewoman Colleen McMurray. Another RUC officer lost both his legs. Fulton then travelled to the US and helped develop light-sensitive bombs, activated by photographic flashes, to overcome the problem of IRA remote-control devices having their detonation signal jammed by army radio units. 'I broke the law seven days a week and my handlers knew that. They knew that I was making bombs and giving them to other members of the IRA and they did nothing about it. If everything I touched turned to shit then I would have been dead. The idea was that the only way to beat the enemy was to penetrate the enemy and be the enemy. At the time I'd no problem with this way of thinking.' The claim that the cabinet and Thatcher knew of these types of operations is startling. Thatcher's office has refused to comment on Fulton's claims. It is known, though, that intelligence supplied by other British army moles inside the republican movement was being read at cabinet level. One such mole, Willie Carlin, was flown out of Northern Ireland in Thatcher's Prime Ministerial jet in 1985 after his cover was blown. As chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which met weekly at Number 10, Thatcher was kept informed of FRU activities. Whether this ran to the day-to-day details of agent-handling is not known. Thatcher did grant the FRU extra funding to recruit agents in the wake of the IRA's Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen. Fulton split with both the IRA and military intelligence in the mid-1990s after a number of terrorist operations went disastrously wrong. Once his handlers told him to get a mobile phone and a car for a planned hit in 1994 on a senior RUC officer in Belfast. The IRA team was arrested on its way to carry out the murder. Fulton believes his handlers thought he had outlived his usefulness and deliberately linked him to the operation before tipping off the police about the plan. By then, the army had secured a far more highly-placed mole within the IRA -- a man still active and codenamed Stakeknife. Fulton is sure that he was compromised, so the IRA would kill him and believe they were free of informers, allowing Stakeknife to pass top-grade information to the military without risk of being detected. 'If I was dead that would have been the end of it,' he says. 'There would have been no embarrassment to the army.' From 1995 until now Fulton has been fighting the MoD -- demanding they clear his criminal record, give him a new identity, a relocation package and provide a military pension. 'If they hadn't screwed me, then I wouldn't be screwing them now,' he says. 'If the IRA ever find me I'm dead. I accept I'm a marked man, but I intend to take everyone down with me who was in on this -- no matter how high up the stink goes.'

NEWRY IRA TWILIGHT ZONE

In the twilight years of Provisional Sinn Fein, when liasing with the IRA, started to become a feature of local political activity in Newry, I was always impressed by the way it was conducted from my own personal experience. Primarily for security reasons, it was logical that we would always go south of the border for any important meeting, which was kept to a minimum at that time. Newry for various reasons, was not a good location for such an event. 

There was always considerable reconnaissance of the adjacent territory, prior to such a meeting. The IRA eliminated telephone line bugs and wiretaps, using wiretap detection sweeps, computer data line taps and bugs. i.e., telecommunications security line sweeps and bug swept the conference room, using electronic room bug sweeping and electronic detection. Their equipment could detect electronic espionage, identifying and locating those bugging devices. Each participant, regardless of status, was body searched and batteries of all electronic equipment, such as mobile phones were removed.

Despite all of these precautions, we have since that time, become aware, of the considerable extent of British infiltration of the IRA, up to it's most senior level. Since then, there has been considerable advancements made in surveillance technology, such as drones, listening devices designed for long distance stake-outs, with built in monoculars, to allow spies, watch everything from a considerable distance.  

The revival of the IRA in the early '70s, generally caught the British unawares and gave the Provisionals a head start. However since that time, the British were sufficiently established and prepared for all subsequent splits in the Republican movement, which enabled them to not alone be aware of the details, but to infiltrate all subsequent groups and place their agents in key positions. Most seasoned republicans are aware of most of these details. However it would appear, many younger idealistic ones are not.

I personally volunteered for the IRA, on three separate occasions, fully aware of the dangers, as a personal reaction, to events around me at that time. With the wisdom of hindsight, I can see, that reactionary politics does not have any future in the long term in Ireland. While the essential problems in Ireland remain the same, the sea, that fish of a successful guerrilla army swim in, is simply not there presently. The high price, that many of highly idealistic youth are currently paying, such as long years of political internment and early graves, I believe is not justified in the present context. There are other avenues for committed Irish republicans to achieve their goals, other than violence.

As Terence McSweeney taught us, morals and ethics are a very important part, of the proper motivation and justification for taking up arms. All other avenues must be exhausted. I personally believe, we will have a united Ireland, albeit not meeting the ideals of most people but a sufficient basis, to realize the dreams of martyrs like Bobby Sands. In fact, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion, that all paramilitary organizations, are currently more of a hindrance, than an asset to achieving our goals and are wide open to abuse in our present materialistic culture, which is degrading this noble tradition. Traditional republicans did not wear masks, neither Che Guevara, in fact he stated that a genuine revolutionary, gird themselves on the inside.

If I appear to be preaching, please forgive me, my analysis may be wrong. This article again will make many enemies but I do have a responsibility to younger people of the next generation, to speak from my own experience. No I do not support Sinn Fein or belong to any political organization or party but I do support Republican Sinn Fein, as founded by Ruairi O'Bradaigh and his colleagues, of which I knew a sufficient number, to be aware, that they were genuine people of considerable integrity, who inherited a noble tradition, who persevered without personal gain at considerable personal cost. Their characters obviously cultivated in adversity, which puts my own selfishness to shame.

 A news article, as reported by the Belfast Telegraph, prompted this article, which raised many questions with myself personally, in the context of this preamble. There are far more qualified people than myself, who would have a far better insight on these matters. This is simply the best I can do for now from my own experience, primarily for the benefit of any young people, considering their political alternatives. I would also add, that Father Raymond Murray, was of considerable help to myself, many years ago, when I found myself in a Catch 22, situation, related to the above matters, at the end of my political activity in Newry. I found him to be a trustworthy man of integrity, whom I would recommend to anyone in a similar situation.

Secret recordings reveal 'plot'

18 NOVEMBER 2014
A dissident republican plot to target judges and police officers in Northern Ireland has been exposed by a covert MI5 operation, a court has heard.


Listening devices placed in a house in Newry, Co Down at the direction of the Security Services has provided the evidence to charge seven men who appeared in court in the city accused of a range of terrorist offences, a police officer told the judge.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) detective sergeant said "somewhere close to 70 hours" of material gathered in the property in Ardcarn Park over a three month period from August included a series of meetings involving "leading key figures of a proscribed organisation".

All seven accused, aged between 30 and 75, were arrested in a raid in Ardcarn Park last week by heavily armed police investigating the activities of the Continuity IRA.

They were all remanded in custody by the district judge at the close of today's short hearing.

Four of the accused are from the Republic of Ireland and three from Northern Ireland.

All have been charged with membership of a proscribed organisation, while six face charges of conspiracy to possess explosives with intent to endanger life, conspiracy to possess firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life and preparation for acts of terrorism.

Five of the men are also charged with directing terrorism.

As all seven watched on from the crowded dock, a prosecution lawyer asked the detective sergeant to confirm details of the operation that led to the arrests.

"MI5 arranged for a device or number of devices to be placed within an address at Ardcarn Park, Newry," he said.

"A number of meetings were recorded at which the defendants were present."

The officer said those statements were correct.

She also answered "correct" when asked by the lawyer if topics discussed during the meetings included membership of a proscribed organisation; weapons training; funding terrorist activity; plans to commit acts of terrorism; and plans to procure firearms and ammunitions.


The lawyer then asked: "Specific individual police officers were discussed with a view to targeting them?"

The detective sergeant answered: "That is correct."

Asked if "members of the judiciary" were also discussed at the meetings, she again answered in the affirmative.

The lawyer then asked had there also been talk that a dissident member be "taken out" for apparently posting material on the internet.

"That is correct," replied the officer.

The policewoman, who said she had listened to a "substantial proportion" of the 70 hours of recordings, said she could connect all seven to the charges they face.

The five men facing a count of directing terrorism along with the four other charges are Patrick Joseph Blair, 59, from Villas One, Dundalk; Liam James Hannaway, 44, from White Rise, Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast; Joseph Matthew Lynch, 73, from Beechgrove Avenue, Limerick; Sean O'Neill, 75, from Quinn's Cottages, Limerick; and Colin Patrick Winters, 43, from Ardcarn Park, Newry.

The man facing four charges is John Sheehy, 30, from Clounmacon, Listowel, Co Kerry.

Seamus Morgan, 58, from Barcroft Park, Newry, faces the solitary charge of membership of a proscribed organisation.

None of them spoke when asked to confirm their identity at the outset of the hearing, which took place amid a significant police presence inside and outside the court.

Some stood while others sat during the legal proceedings that followed.

Lawyers for all seven accused said they did not wish to ask any questions of the detective sergeant.

A lawyer for Morgan said a bail application would be made before the same court on Wednesday. The other six accused were remanded in custody to appear again in four weeks.

As the men were led away at the end of the hearing there was some sporadic applause from supporters in the public gallery.

Five other men detained in the swoop on the property in Ardcarn Park last Monday were subsequently released pending police files being sent to prosecutors for assessment.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER MURRAY

Gerry Conlon's request before he died, was to include a prayer at his funeral, for prisoners who are suffering miscarriages of justice today. In his last days he removed his oxygen mask to remind visitors of the injustice of the Craigavon 2. As he struggled to breathe at the end, he repeated over and over, "Don't forget about the Craigavon 2." Gerry believed that the Craigavon 2's Miscarriage of Justice, is today's Guildford Four, Birmingham Six and McGuire family. Please support the campaign for the Craigavon 2 in any way you can, wherever you are, by contacting the relevant officials, spreading the word, sharing this post, demonstrating, letters, etc., in anyway you can. Justice is the foundation of Peace. 

brionOcleirigh

Monsignor Raymond Murray, 

14 November 2014.

The Craigavon Two.

Ireland's Archbishop Tutu, Monsignor Murray statement 

Monsignor Raymond Murray

In October 1978 I delivered speeches to a hundred Congressmen in Washington DC and to the Ad Hoc Committee for Human Rights in Northern Ireland, Philadelphia. Among the demands I listed were an end to 7 Day Detention; an end to torture and ill treatment of arrested persons; an end to imprisonment without trial; an end to long remands without trial; an end to Special Diplock Courts; the release of 18 Irish prisoners in Britain who were innocent. We are still campaigning some forty years later against legal injustice. There is no adequate procedure for undoing miscarriages of justice.



Our sympathy is with the family of Constable Stephen Carroll, 48 year old Catholic member of the PSNI, murdered in the Lismore Manor area of Craigavon, Co. Armagh, in March 2009. We feel for his wife Kate Carroll, his son Shane, and all members of the family who have suffered grievously. The campaign for the Craigavon Two, Brendan McConville and John Paul Wooton sentenced for the murder, views their conviction as a miscarriage of justice. We also feel for them and their families. The campaign points out the flaws in witness and forensic evidence and one of our legal expert speakers on the panel this evening, Sarah Wilson (and assisted by Angela Nelson in this case) has outlined the case of their innocence. Leaflets are also available to you summarizing the flaws.



The campaign for the Craigavon Two is mounting at home and abroad and in particular in the USA due to the great work of Helen McClafferty. It follows fast on the recent campaigns for the release of Marian Price, Martin Corey and Gerry McGeough. John Finucane, solicitor for John Paul Wooton, at a campaign meeting in Belfast, in August this year, said 'A campaign will strengthen any legal avenue and I have seen that personally in my father's case' (i.e. Pat Finucane). We are now seeing also an extraordinary development of international concern in the case of the Craigavon Two (and Julian Icom, Canada, present here this evening, will spread the campaign in Canada, Cuba, and Venezuela). After attending the appeal in their case we were surprised by the long delay in the verdict and shocked at the judgement. We were so confident that they would be released. Now the case goes to the Supreme Court. Your support is urgently needed. Write please to the Secretary of State, Teresa Villiers, to the Minister for Justice David Ford, and to the Taoiseach Enda Kenny. There has been little interest in trials in the North by the Irish Government when doubt is cast on a conviction in a Special Diplock Court. Yes, some TDS in recent years have entered campaigns for justice and are involved in the Craigavon Two campaign. We are grateful to them. Bring your view also before local politicians North and South and to human rights organisations.



A year ago I spoke at a Conference in London organised by personnel from Wiltshire University. After my speech a man approached me flanked by two women. It was Billy Power and his two daughters coming to greet me. The last time I saw him was in Brixton Prison. Billy as you know, innocent man, one of the Birmingham Six, spent 16 years in prison. Fr Denis Faul and I wrote a pamphlet The Birmingham Framework within a year after the conviction of the Birmingham Six and also a broadsheet on the forensic aspects of the case - there was ample evidence in those two publications to prove that they were innocent. Corruption of law meant that they and other innocents at that time were condemned to suffer in jail. Why do we still have to fight cases of legal injustice? I recall after giving a copy of our pamphlet The Birmingham Framework to a journalist asking him some weeks later what he thought, 'Guilty as hell' he said. Yes it took 16 years to build up the truth against hostile government and weak media, to establish counter-action to sentences which found the men guilty. We don't want such a delay in this case. Gerry Conlan lately deceased, R.I.P., one of the Guilford Four, joined in this campaign for the release of Brendan McConville and John Paul Wooton and called loudly for their release. He poured scorn on the evidence against them. He knew what it was like to suffer as an innocent in prison. He did not want them to suffer a similar fate as himself.

Corruption of law!


We had internment in the North in every decade of the Stormont monolithic unionist government. In the 1970s it was introduced with ill-treatment and torture- besides the hooded men in Ballykelly some 400 men within a few months were severely tortured and ill-treated in the Palace Barracks Holywood and Girdwood Park Barracks, Belfast . Even after internment was formally ended in 1975 – a substitute was found – doubling sentences and imposing charges so that innocent people were held in jail for a year and a half before they were found innocent at their trial. The English government was found guilty of torture by the European Commission on Human Rights and guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment by the European Court of Human Rights – their injustice is recorded in legal text books - and the Hooded Men are now bringing their case back to the European Court of Human Rights to have it declared that they had been tortured. Ian Cobain's book Cruel Britannia - A Secret History of Torture(2012) showed how the use of torture had long been a tradition and policy of the British Government. There is still no sense of guilt and reform in British governments regarding the tragedies of the conflict here: are the Ombudsman and The Historic Enquiry Team's work now to be wiped out with a denial of funding and a firm attitude threatening the closure of documentation regarding state violence and crime ? Speaking at the University of Ulster in early November this year European human rights commissioner Nils Muiznieks insisted that the British Government must uphold the rule of law and claimed that it had breached the European Convention of Human Rights by not conducting independent and prompt investigations into conflict killings. The British Government for forty years has avoided its responsibilities in relation to killings carried out by the security forces. Mr Muiznieks said that budget cuts 'should not be used as an excuse to hamper the work of those working for justice'. The British government in these cases and in the cases of convicted innocent people continues to fail victims.



We never have had adequate procedure for undoing miscarriages of justice. We still have Special Courts. During the 30 years conflict Diplock Courts were not acceptable by people seeking truth and justice, and present traces of its workings in the Justice and Security (NI) Act 2007 in non-jury courts with their aura of injustice, are not acceptable. The rule of law in N. Ireland was corrupted by the use of illegal methods of interrogation and by the official efforts to cover up the use of these methods. The end can never justify the means. Justice not expediency is always the principle. Justice, freedom and truth are helped by jury courts. Confidence in the protection of the law is vital to a free society. To retain non-jury courts for certain individuals leads to selectivity and the danger of prejudice. If this is seen in prosecution and preferring of charges then confidence in the courts is undermined. It casts doubts on the objectivity of law officers of the Crown and the police. Law officers depend on security forces (‘intelligence’) for information about crimes committed by private individuals thought to be members or former members of prescribed organizations, and are therefore limited by the quality of their sources of information. Selectivity at stages of the application of the law disturbs peace and justice. During the conflict Catholics/nationalists felt they were denied civil rights and legal justice. This led to alienation. Any measure that indicates retention of selectivity casts doubts on the practice of justice. Will the Stormont government face the problem, has it an interest in it?


And what of ourselves? How can we fail to be anxious and concerned when we hear of injustice inflicted on individuals? The state is supposed to be the servant of its citizens not the master. It always comes down to the individual with a name, a human being. Names, yes, Brendan McConville and John Paul Wooton and their tormented families. They deserve our special attention. We must not seek excuses for ourselves in the matter of injustice by just proclaiming the abstract. We thank you for attending this meeting. It is an indication that you want to be guided by justice and as you have heard this evening where there is injustice there is suffering. I finish with words of Brendan McConville and John Paul Wooton themselves:

'While we must acknowledge that this partial court system is the only mechanism available to us to obtain our eventual release, we also acknowledge that the only real momentum for the realisation of that eventuality will come from you, the public, and not from a system where the presumption of innocence has been replaced by a single judge who along with his traditional role also fulfils the role of the entire jury single-handedly. We place our faith in the jury that really matters and that is the jury of public opinion. We ask that you demand justice for the Craigavon Two and justice for all'.

Raymond Murray, Derry Meeting, 14 November 2014.