BORN AGAIN WHORES OF REVOLUTION

When Gerry Kelly and Martin McGuinness, encourage their foolowers to inform British Occupation forces in Ireland to become Informers or Touts on Irish revolutionary elements in Ireland, they have crossed the rubicon as far as I am concerned and there can be no turning back. That is not to say that everything they have done in their lives is wrong, I am in no position to be the judge of that but they have surrendered any leadership role in Ireland's future, it is time for them to go quietly into the night, as gracefully as they can. I did my own surrender personally, almost 30 years ago, with regard to alcohol and the many things in life, I simply could not manage on my own, on a daily basis. It took a while for me to try to get a handle, on any sort of alternative solution that worked, as I first had to learn what the phrase, "Above all else to thine own self be true." means, in the absence of any religion or ideology and learn to trust something. Trust is critically important, because without it, there is fear in one form or another with all it's other illusionary substitutes, like drug addiction, control addictions, rigid ideologies or craving for the extremes of money and power. I am writing this from own experience, so it is not simply an opinion. I am trying to learn from it, to correct the numerous mistakes I have personally made and continue to make.


Henry David Thoreau once wrote that, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” From what I have observed this seems to be true and in our comtemporary world there are plenty of distractions from being true to ourselves or worse, simply losing our Spirit in cynical and reactionary cycles. Each day I awake, this would be my instinctual, habit formed mental programming before I switch through my new habit, of starting my day by chatting and listening to the Stardust in the heavens and in my own gut, to make a connection with Life, to enable me, to step out of the extremes of Self, to embrace Life with trust. I am far too extreme in many areas for it to ever disapppear, either totally or permanently, so all I can do is my own personal surrender daily to the Startdust and I simply ask is for the extremes to be relieved. An approximate explanation of Stardust for me is the remnants of the Big Bang theory, which in my case is beyond cerebral comprehension, which in my case is probably a good idea.

I have an aversion for formal religion, because it hands too much our hard earned empowerment, to other human control, which from personal experience, is another form of betrayal in the concept of being true to myself, thats not to say I find widom in all the beliefs that I have investigated. Now when this route of personal surrender, was first suggested to me, I frankly thought it a load of bollix, but fortunately for me it was suggested, that I simply try and see if it works, before I totally condemned it. So the following, is approximately my own daily mantra of surrender. "Stardust, I offer myself to you, to do with me as you will, please relieve me of the prison of myself, my extreme self-centredness, my extreme selfishness, my extreme self will, and my extreme self-centred fear. Please give me the emotional power that I need today, the material power that I need today, the physical power that I need today, the mental power that I need today, the social power that I need today, the spiritual power that I need today and the sexual power that I need today, to do your will, your unconditional Love and your way of Life, Thanks. " Now a lot of you may think. I am completely off my head and there is a lot of evidence out there to confirm you suspicions, but frankly my dear, I couldn't give a fuck what you think. All I know, is that it has worked very well for me, for 27 years now and for that I am very grateful, especially when I remember the state I was in, to begin with. From experience I now have proof that my trust is grounded in the reality test of daily life experience.

Anyway, enough about my own narcissistic self, it's boring but a necessry daily reality check, that I cannot afford to ignore. Ireland is my Spiritual home for better or for worse. As they say, the savage loves his native shore, so do birds and fish apparently and in my case sometimes I hate it because it mirrors my own dysfunctionality, particularly related to my past. Currently I believe the island is at a crossroads, with some very importand choices to make. It is in a state of chassis, indeed the whole world appears to be in astae of chassis right now, as Sean O'Casey wrote in Juno and the Paycock, "Th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis." I believe Capitalism is on it's last legs and for those who learn from the lessons of experience, so are the ideologies of Corporate Fascism and Stalinism. 

According to rough guesstimates, the human casualty figures of various ideologies are as follows, in Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) 12,000,000 (concentration camps and civilians deliberately killed in WWII plus 3 million Russian POWs left to die), Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000

Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39) 7,000,000 (the gulags plus the purges plus Ukraine's famine), Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44) 5,000,000 (civilians in WWII),Ismail Enver (Ottoman Turkey, 1915-20) 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000. What is obviously missing from this list, are the many millions of Irish liquidated by the British in Ireland, and the mounting huge numbers worldwide by the UK/US axis. This blog is already slowed by intranets for distribution and would probably be totally censored in the Western world, if I give all of the correct numbers, which can be easly researched. So the conclusion is obvious, ideologies are particularly dangerous, especially in the hands of power craven dictators and manipulators, who will exploit them. This is also, I believe the principal lesson from the current long war in Ireland and its equvalent in both Fascist and Stalinist Europe.

The principal tools of dictators and manipulators within ideologies, under the guise of the, "Dictatorship of the Proletariat " is secrecy and censorship. In Catholic conservative southern Ireland and it's equivalent in Presbytarian northern Ireland, this has a particularly ignomious history. The island culture is steeped in secrecy, censorship and fascism with a current emerging Stalinist cabal of Secret Societies in the wake of the Provos. To understand the threat of Stalinism in Ireland and the censorship that accompanies it, I believe the following letter to the revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico, before a Stalinists hitman murdered him, with an ice pick in his head, describes it best;

To Leon Trotsky 11 December 1938 New York City Leon Trotsky Coyoacan Mexico DF My Dear Leon Trotsky: We were both very pleased to receive your note. Hortense, jokingly, says that it must all be a Stalinist plot. While she is not disinterested in politics, she is, in no sense, a political person. However, she is no bitter foe. And in her own profession, the theatre, she must pay a price for her attitudes and the stand that she has taken. Stalinist influence is permeating the American theatre, and Hortense is automatically excluded from even being considered for roles in plays by certain managements because of this fact. Concerning ‘the mysteries of my style', you may be amused to know that one Communist Party functionary described it, once in The Daily Worker, as ‘Trotskyite.’ And one of the most current criticisms of my writing in Stalinist sources is that ‘the rationale of Trotskyism’ has given a basis for his ‘despair,’ and through that means he is degenerating. This summer I was in Ireland, and I saw Jim Larkin. All men have weaknesses, but all men are not the victims of their weaknesses. Jim Larkin is a victim of his own weaknesses, and his own temperament. Now, he is embittered and envenomed. He feels that the Irish working class has sold him out. He was not returned in the last elections for the Dáil, and he ran in a working class district. He defended the trials, but thought that Bukharin could not be interested. But Larkin's formal attitudes do not have much meaning. He is untheoretical and unstable intellectually. He is always a direct actionist, and his direct actionism takes whatever turn that his impulses lead him toward, In the midst, for instance, of a severe fight, he might be walking down the street and see a sparrow trapped in some electric wires where it might die. He will become incensed, and will telephone important members of the government and demand that they have men sent down to release the sparrow immediately, and then this will loom more important than the fight in which he is engaged. He is very garrulous, human and humane, witty, vindictive, vituperative, and he is Irish. At times, he is almost like an embittered version of the stage Irishman. In Ireland, there has never been much theory, and in consequence, never been many men with a rounded view of the reasons why Ireland was struggling. Before the war, the Irish labor movement was very militant and well toward the forefront of the European labor movement. It was defeated in the great Dublin transport strike of 1913, and out of this crushing defeat, the Irish Citizen Army was formed. Larkin left for America, and Larkin says that one of the last things that he said to Connolly was not to go into the National movement, not to join the Irish Volunteers, which was the armed force of the nationalist movement. Connolly did go into the Easter Rebellion, and there is the disputed question as to whether or not he made a mistake. Sean O'Casey, the Irish playwright, in a pamphlet he wrote on the Irish Citizen Army, declares baldly that James Connolly died not for Irish socialism but for Irish nationalism. Others maintain that Connolly could not have remained out of the rising. At all events, the Irish Citizen Army was decimated, and crushed by the Easter Rebellion. There were no leaders left to carry on the social side of Connolly's doctrines. The entire movement was swept along in a frenzied rise of Irish patriotism and Irish nationalism. Sinn Féin was in complete control of the movement. The leaders of Sinn Féin had only the most vague notions of what they wanted – an Irish Ireland speaking Gaelic, developing its own Irish culture, free of the British crown, and some were not even fighting them for freedom from the crown. In 1921, when the treaty was negotiated in England, there was this same unclarity. Following the treaty, there was the split in the Irish ranks. The record of that split is most saddening to read. It was not a split on real issues. There were two or three documents with different wordings, and they all meant much the same thing. Instead of discussing social programs, they discussed Ireland, and they insulted one another. Out of this split the bitter civil war developed, and the comrades in arms of yesterday assassinated one another. The treatment which the Free State government meted out to its former comrades matches almost that which Stalin has meted out. The bravest fighters of the Irish Republican Army were taken out and placed up against a wall and butchered without any formality. And now, after all the trouble, the Irish people have changed masters, and a new Irish bourgeoisie is developing and coagulating, and the politicians of Sinn Féin are aligned with them and the Church, with reaction rampant, poverty to match even that of Mexico, progressive ideas almost completely shut out, a wall of silence keeping out the best Irish tradition – that of Fintan Lalor, Davitt, and Connolly, and poor Ireland is in a hell of a state. Larkin returned in the early twenties. After defeat, the Irish labor movement needed someone to lead it who could remould a defeated class. Larkin was a great and courageous agitator, but not a leader of a defeated army, and he could not work with any one. Gradually, he lost influence, and now he is old and embittered. Of course, Catholicism plays a strong role in Ireland, and Larkin is a Catholic and talks of the virtues of the Christian home. And suddenly out of his garrulous talk, a flash of his old fire comes through. Perhaps you are riding through the Dublin slums with him, and suddenly, seeing the poor in their filth, standing in front of the filthy buildings in which they are forced to live like animals, and a strong denunciation comes, and there is something of the Jim Larkin who defied the British Army, and at whose words the poor of Dublin came out into the streets in thou-sands, and flung themselves against the might of Britain and that of the Irish bourgeoisie. Human beings are social products, and Larkin is a product of the Irish movement. The principal instrument of the Irish revolutionaries was always terrorism and direct action, and when Larkin was unable to function with these methods on the wave of a rising and militant movement, he was lost, and the labor bureaucrats outmaneuvered and outsmarted him. When he returned to Ireland from an American jail, he got his following together, and marched on the quarters of the union he had formerly led. He took the building, but later lost it in the law courts, and he is no longer the leader of the transport workers. He has union following, and among his strongest support is that of the butchers and hospital workers. He showed me something in Ireland that few people in Dublin know about. In the Parnell days, a terrorist organization, composed almost exclusively of Dublin workingmen was formed and named the Invincibles. The Invincibles committed the famous Phoenix Park murders in front of the vice-regal lodge, and were denounced by the Church, by Parnell, and by almost the entire Irish nation. There are no monuments in Ireland to the Invincibles. They died in isolation, some of them defiant to the end in their utter isolation. At the spot across from the vice-regal lodge in Phoenix Park, where the murders were committed, there is a patch of earth alongside of the park walk. No matter how often grass is planted over this spot the grass is torn up by the roots, and this spot of earth is left, and always, there is a cross marked into the dirt in commemoration of the Invincibles. Every week, someone – principally, I believe, one of Larkin's boys – goes there and marks that cross. This has been going on for a long time. In Larkin, there is something of that characteristic of defiant defeat that runs through so much of Irish history, and with it, never any real investigation of causes. But even up to today, he remains the only figure of commanding proportions in the Irish labor movement. The rest is pretty nearly all bureaucracy, tied to the tail of nationalism, enfolded in the cassock robes of the priestcraft, seeing the problems of Irish labor as an Irish question. Ireland is having something of an industrial boom. Certain sections of the Irish working class, the most advanced trade unions – which have been in existence some time – these are better paid than corresponding trade unions in England. But the country is partitioned between an industrial north and an agricultural south. In the south, de Valera is engaged in a program of industrialization. The Irish market is small, and that means that monopolies must be parcelled out to various groups or persons. When these monopolies get going, there will be resultant crises, because they will be able to supply the Irish market with a few months work and production. Also, the new factories are being spread over the country – a program of decentralization – and in many instances, factories are being set up in agricultural areas where there is no trade union strength. It is necessary to further industrialization in Ireland to have, as a consequence, sweat shop conditions. There is a small labor aristocracy and even this lives badly. And below it, poverty that reduces thousands upon thousands to live like animals in the most dire, miserable, and inhuman poverty. I saw some of this poverty. One family of eleven living in one room. The family has lived in this same room for twenty-four years. The building is crumbling, walls falling, ceiling caving in, roof decaying. The oldest in the family is nineteen, the youngest is an undernourished infant of eight months. Six sleep in one bed, three in another, two on the floor. The infant was born last Christmas eve in the bed where six sleep. The role of the Church is important. The Church tells the Irish that they are going to live for ever and be happier in heaven, and this engenders patience. There is a mystic fascination with death in Ireland. In all the homes of the poor, the walls are lined with holy pictures, those of the Sacred Heart predominating. The poor live in utter patience. They have lived in this patience ever since the heyday of Jim Larkin. In those days, at his word, they thronged the streets and threatened the power of England, and of the Irish and Anglo-Irish bourgeoisie. But no more. How-ever, with the industrialization program, there is likely to be some enlargement of the Irish working class, and the economic factors of proletarianization, plus the resulting effects of factory work and familiarity with machines is likely to cause some changes in the conscious-ness of Irishmen. Familiarity with machines is likely to rub off some of the superstition, and the economic conditions will pose their problems to the Irish workers. There is possibly going to be a change in Ireland because of these factors, and some of the eternal sleep and mud-crusted ignorance is likely to go. But being an agricultural country, a poor country, a country ridden by superstition, it now sleeps, and there is a lot of talk about Ireland, and little is done about Ireland, and a characteristic attitude is sure and what is the bother. Ireland is no longer merely a victim of England, but of world economy now. Irish nationalism correspondingly has altered from being a progressive movement to a reactionary movement. Fascism could easily triumph in Ireland were fascism vitally necessary to the new rulers of Holy Ireland. The Irish Republican Army is split into factions, some demanding emphasis on a social program, others on a national program. Stalinists are in the former group, but Stalinism is very weak in Ireland, practically inconsequential. It amounts to a few pensionaries. Ireland does not need Stalinism. It has Rome. Rome handles these problems with the necessary efficiency. Rome confuses the struggles, poses the false questions, sidetracks protests as Stalinism now does in advanced countries. As a kind of compensation, Ireland a defeated nation has developed a fine modern literature, just as Germany, defeated and still un-unified at an earlier period, developed German philosophy. But the moral terrorism in the name of the Church and the Nation, and the parochial character of the life and of intellect in Ireland might choke the literature now. So backward is Ireland that even the American motion pictures have a progressive influence in the sense that they make the youth restless, that they produce freer and less strained relationships between the sexes, and that they give a sense of a social life of more advanced countries that is not permitted because of the state of economy in Ireland. Ireland impresses me as being somewhat parallel to Mexico, except that in Mexico there are progressive strains in the country, and in Ireland these are weak and morally terrorized. In part, this is undoubtedly because of Ireland's lack of mineral resources and wealth, the backwardness and sleep of its labor movement, and the role of the Church. In Ireland, the Church was not the feudal landholder. Behind the scenes, the Church always fought against the Irish people, and spoke for law and order. But at one time, the Church itself was oppressed. The Church and the people became entangled in the consciousness of the Irish, and the religion question befogged the social and economic one. In Mexico, Spain, France, and Russia, the Church was more openly a part of a feudal or pseudo-feudal system. The peasants became anti-clerical because they wanted land. This did not happen in Ireland. In consequence, anti-clericalism did not take the same form. Anti-clericalism amounts to jokes at the priesthood, dislike of the arch-bishops, and so forth. In earlier days, it was stronger, particularly among the Fenians. But it never took the real form it took in France, Spain, etc. And so the Church has great power in Ireland today. In the most real, vivid, and immediate sense it gives opium to the people. Poor Ireland! She is one of the costs demanded by history in the growth of what we familiarly call our civilization. There is an old poem with the lines – They went forth to battle And they always fell. And today, after having fallen so many times, Ireland is a poor island on the outpost of European civilization, with all its heroic struggles leaving it, after partial victory, poverty-stricken, backward, wallowing in superstition and ignorance. My favorite Irish anecdote is the following. The last castle in Ireland to fall to Cromwell's army was Castleross on the lakes of Killarney. At that time, the castle was held by the O'Donoghue. For several months, the British could not take the castle. The Irish infantry was more lightly clad than the British, and would always lead the better armored and more heavily clad British down into the bogs where their armed superiority became a handicap, and then the Irish would cut them to pieces. There was an old Gaelic prophecy that Castleross would never fall to a foreign foe until it was attacked by water. There was a proviso in this prophecy. For the lakes of Killarney empty into Dingle Bay, where the water is so shallow that foreign men of war from the sea cannot enter it. The British general heard of this prophecy. He went to Dingle Bay and built flat-bottomed boats and floated them up the lakes of Killarney. He fired one cannon shot at Castleross. And the O'Donoghue, thinking that the prophecy had been fulfilled, surrendered without firing a shot in return. I took the liberty of writing in such detail about Ireland because I thought you might be interested in modern Ireland. They call it the ‘new Ireland’ these days. Hortense joins me in sending our warmest greetings to you and Natalia. Yours, Farrell This summer I saw Alfred and Marguerite Rosmer a number of times, and they were very well. Madame Rosmer talked very often of you and Mrs Trotsky. Currently in Ireland the "Dialectic of Materialism" is being stifled by the censorship of former 'Provos' and 'Stickies' who are Stalinist. On the the other side it is being censored by the Blueshirt and Orange Order Fascists in their Corporate mainstream media. Without a transparent, informative open dialogue of these apparently opposing views, Ireland is again doomed to make incorrect choices, at it's current critical crossroads. The Banksters and Corporations will always find a 'useful idiot' demagogue to distract and expoit them, such as Hitler. They abound in every revolutionary organizations and thrive in secrecy and are exploited by the British, in an environment of humility by genuine comrades, who make the big sacrifices often with their lives. This is why CENSORSHIP is such a deadly enemy of progress and critically important in keeping Ireland ignorant, where simply reactionary politics can thrive. People of change, need to be aware of it's destructive power and fight it. We are as sick as our secrets within organizations or without, this is a critcally important lesson from our Irish experience. It is not the way to go forward, it's baggage far outweighs it's short term benefits. Recent revelations about this culture within the Provos, make that clear, for anyone open to learning the lessons of our history. On the other extreme, there is nothing so pure, as a born again whore, particulary of the fascist variety. Hitler was vegetarian you know? I do hope the 'Sunlight of the Spirit' saves Ireland from such a horrific calamity.

A STALINIST FASCIST REPUBLICAN CENSORED DEBATE

 Self-confessed                             


Censorship by the enemies of Irish Republicanism is nothing new, we must continue to voice our opposition to it wherever it rears its ugly head.


A CENSORED DEBATE

DOMINIC MCGLINCHEY INTERVIEW: SAYING WHAT NEEDS SAID

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2014  AM  13 COMMENTS

"Q: What do you say to those people who are unhappy but are pulled the other way by feelings of loyalty?

A: Examine their consciences. Take a good look at what is going on. If they agree - ok. If not then speak out." - Fourthwrite interview with Brendan Hughes 

Dominic McGlinchey Interview: Saying What Needs Said

TPQ features an unedited interview that the republican Dominic McGlinchey gave toConnla Young of the Irish News. The interview initially featured in the paper today, Friday 24 January 2014. The unedited version was provided to TPQ by Dominic McGlinchey. 

Well known in anti-agreement circles Dominic McGlinchey has been a staunch opponent of Sinn Fein's political strategy. But with "little appetite" for armed conflict, the republican activist asks whether the time is right for an end to armed struggle as he urges "conversations" to take place on the future for militant republicanism.

A prominent opponent of Sinn Fein’s political strategy has said there is “little appetite” for armed conflict in nationalist communities in the north.

In a rare interview Dominic McGlinchey urged those opposed Sinn Fein’s strategy to hold a 'conversation about the future of  the republican movement' and 'question the integrity of those standing beside them'.

His comments come after a period of intense debate within anti-agreement circles  about the merits of various republican paramilitary campaigns.

In recent weeks a number of other high profile anti-agreement republicans, including former Provisional IRA hunger strikers Gerard Hodgins and Tommy McKearney, have said it is time for armed republican groups to “reconsider” their campaigns.

Mr McGlinchey believes republicans have little to fear from making tough decisions.

'Republicans have shown they are well capable of taking decisive action against the British,' he said.

'That’s not something that they need to prove and nobody is saying you shouldn’t do this or do that.'

Born into a staunch republican family from Bellaghy in south Derry, Mr McGlinchey’s decision to enter a public debate at this time will be viewed as significant.

There are currently several active republican groups including the IRA, Oglaigh na hEireann and the Continuity IRA.

The IRA, which was formed as after a merger between the Real IRA, Republican Action Against Drugs and independent republicans in 2012, and Oglaigh na hEireann have been particularly active in recent months.

Although he keeps a low public profile, Mr McGlinchey is a well-known figure in anti-agreement circles.

Speaking last night the father-of-three said that in some cases “armed action” was being used to 'stifle republicanism at the present time. It’s not that you are asking republicans to give something up, it’s not a matter of giving something up,' he said.

"It’s a matter of being pragmatic and astute about where the battle is at and where it needs to be brought. Republicanism need to be aware of where it sits and the battles that are opening up in front of it and if certain tactics are holding you back from entering a new field of battle."

The 36-year-old left Sinn Fein in 2006 partly because of its support for policing in the north.

He later joined republican socialist party Eirigi before resigning from that group in 2009.

He remains opposed to Sinn Fein and believes support for the party 'is support for British rule in Ireland and the administering of British rule in Ireland'.

In 2012 Mr McGlinchey was questioned by police about a Real IRA gun attack which claimed the lives of two British soldiers in Massereene in County Antrim in 2009.

He strongly denies any involvement in the attack and believes his name was connected to the ambush by 'the British media, MI5 and (PSNI) special branch'.

The Co Derry man believes there is little support for a paramilitary campaign in nationalist communities.

“I don’t believe the appetite exists among the people,” he said.

"That’s not to say there is not considerable support among certain segments of republicanism for particular types of resistance, but what is very clear is that the appetite is not there for a full blown campaign. Never has the groundwork been done for a campaign like that to be launched."

Mr McGlinchey says that republican groups must answer to the people they claim to represent.

'As republicans we say our loyalty is to the Republic and the people make up the Republic and our loyalty has to be to those people,' he said.

"For us to enforce rather than to persuade and debate and bring the people with you on a particular road map, what sort of Republic would we have at the end of it all?

There are those involved in a process who have already delivered us to one surrender and they have no right to deliver us to another surrender."

Mr McGlinchey is of the view that republican 'activists on the ground need to have an understanding of what they want'.

He said the activities of republican paramilitary groups do not constitute a sustained “campaign”.

He urged anti-agreement republicans to consider alternative methods to further their aims and reject any romantic notions about the Provisional IRA’s campaign.

'Resistance is good,' he said.

"But it doesn’t mean you have to be running around with an Armalite in your hand.

You can’t refer back to the "good old days", the fact of the matter is there was nothing good in it.

I am 36-years-of-age and I never saw the IRA walking the streets. There was a resistance movement but the IRA were on the back foot."

As a child Mr McGlinchey saw both his parents being shot dead in separate gun attacks in Co Louth.

His father Dominic, a former INLA Chief of Staff, was gunned down in Drogheda in February 1994 by gunmen who have never been apprehended.

His mother Mary, also a former senior member of the INLA, was shot dead in her Dundalk home in January 1987 as she bathed the then nine-year-old along with his brother Declan.

Again, her killers have never been caught.

Mr McGlinchey says alternative ways of expressing republican politics should not be dismissed by hardliners.

'There are hundreds of ways to expose the status quo for what it is,' he said.

'Through civil disobedience or not recognising institutions. Republicanism cannot be viewed as a one-trick pony, there needs to be a proper analysis of where it is at.'

The former Sinn Fein man believes that conversations about the future of militant republicanism can be held privately.

'I don’t think republicans need to say they are calling a halt,' he said.

'It’s clear that as republicans you have a duty to reflect, gather your thoughts and analyse our strategy. There needs to be a conversation about the future of the republican movement.'

He revealed that hardline republicans have already entered into a “period of reflection” but that efforts to move away from violence are opposed by elements within the British security establishment.

'MI5 and the security services have moved certain people from our streets that are of a more moderate persuasion to stifle that,' he said.

'The security forces, MI5 and British intelligence have a vested interest in keeping things going.'

He also believes that at times in the past British “agent provocateurs” within the Republican Movement have steered its direction.

'Whether we like it or dislike it at the minute the Brits are controlling both sides of the argument, or certainly have major influences in terms of both sides of the argument,' he said.

Mr McGlinchey believes the in recent years 'republicans are trying to swim in a dirty pond and there’s not even enough oxygen for anything to breathe in it never mind grow'.

He says this has been demonstrated more so in Dublin where hardline factions have descended into a “gang structure” whose members “masquerade as republicans”.

'There’s been too much sacrificed just to be lost on a gangland in Dublin or a corrupt person in Belfast,' he said.

"We are now many, many years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and the name of republicanism, especially in the 26 counties, has been trailed through the mud by people who should never never ever been allowed on the bus. There needs to be a crdible middle ground."

The South Derry man says militant republicans have encountered tougher challenges in the past.

'We have been shot by our own, hanged by our own, hanged by the Brits, we have been raped and beaten by the church and starved by colonialism – there’s nothing in this world we cannot face,' he said.

'By taking a step back you actually do move forward. You need a bit of luck, but you can’t have luck if you don’t have a plan.'

Mr McGlinchey is convinced the time is right for him to speak out now.

'We were told to go and sit in the corner and that’s not acceptable any more,' he said.

"I say this with the greatest respect to every other activist of my age, but it feels like I have lived five lifetimes within the Republican Movement. And all of my life I have been told you need to watch what you say and where you say it, everybody is out to get you.

You have a duty I think to say what needs to be said - what’s on your mind. Republicanism is a very noble and just thing to be involved in. Republicans also have a duty to do the right thing, to stand up and be counted and when that time comes to be honest about where it’s at."

Posted in: Physical Force Republicanism