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A Blog of the Irish way of life,news,politics,people,singers,writers,dancers, poets,multimedia,#JFTC2, and Ireland,featuring YouTube,brionOcleirigh,
Wednesday 30 December 2009
Monday 28 December 2009
Saturday 26 December 2009
Suzie's Golden Shower Liberation on the Pope's Face
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Suzie's Golden Shower on the Pope's Face
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! Everybody's holy! Everywhere is holy! Everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! The madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
Suzie's Golden Shower on the Pope's Face
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! Everybody's holy! Everywhere is holy! Everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! The madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
Friday 25 December 2009
Pope Benny Dick Butch-Slapped after X-Mas Mass ???
Link Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! Everybody's holy! Everywhere is holy! Everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! The madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
Thursday 24 December 2009
Monday 21 December 2009
Sunday 20 December 2009
Friday 18 December 2009
Thursday 17 December 2009
Monday 14 December 2009
Friday 11 December 2009
Thursday 10 December 2009
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Sunday 6 December 2009
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Friday 13 November 2009
Thursday 12 November 2009
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Monday 9 November 2009
Sunday 8 November 2009
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Friday 30 October 2009
Thursday 29 October 2009
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Monday 26 October 2009
Sunday 25 October 2009
Friday 23 October 2009
Monday 19 October 2009
Sunday 18 October 2009
Saturday 17 October 2009
Friday 16 October 2009
Thursday 15 October 2009
Wednesday 14 October 2009
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Wednesday 30 September 2009
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Thursday 10 September 2009
Eamonn Kelly Seanachai
In between tales of "The King of England's son" and "The Earl of Baanmore" he would tell his own life-story.
And those who knew his style could always differentiate between the fact and the fiction.
The Traditional Art of Storytelling.
The seanachaà made use of a range of storytelling conventions, styles of speech and gestures that were peculiar to the Irish folk tradition and characterized them as practitioners of their art. Although tales from literary sources found their way into the repertoires of the seanchaithe, a traditional characteristic of their art was the way in which a large corpus of tales was passed from one practitioner to another without ever being written down.
Because of their role as custodians of an indigenous non-literary tradition, the seanachaà are widely acknowledged to have inherited -- although informally -- the function of the filÃ(poets) of pre-Christian Ireland.
Some seanachaà were itinerants, traveling from one community to another offering their skills in exchange for food and temporary shelter. Others, however, were members of a settled community and might be termed "village storytellers."
The distinctive role and craft of the seanchaà is particularly associated with the Gaeltacht (the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland), although storytellers recognizable as seanachaà were also to be found in rural areas throughout English-speaking Ireland. In their storytelling, some displayed archaic Hiberno-English idiom and vocabulary distinct from the style of ordinary conversation.
Eamon Kelly (1914 -- October 24, 2001) was an Irish actor and author.
Childhood
Kelly was born in Sliabh Luachra, County Kerry, Ireland. The son of Ned Kelly and Johanna Cashman, Eamon left school at age 14 to become an apprentice carpenter to his father, a wheelwright. He first became interested in acting after viewing a production of Juno and the Paycock.
I was to follow Eamon's stories, on the air, and later in Dublin theatres, through his one-man shows, for decades. His trademark introduction was: "In My Father's Time" or "Ye're glad I came." In between tales of "The King of England's son" and "The Earl of Baanmore" he would tell his own life-story.
And those who knew his style could always differentiate between the fact and the fiction. He was born in Rathmore, Co. Kerry, in March 1914. In his autobiographical work "The Apprentice" he tells of how the family moved when he was six months old. He was brought to Carrigeen on Maurice O'Connor's sidecar. (Of course when he'd be wearing his Seanachi's hat he'd tell you he remembered it).
Eamon grew up in a Rambling House and in later life said:"........my ears were forever cocked for the sound that came on the breeze. It wasn't the Blarney Stone but my father's house which filled me with wonder".ÊÊ
He was only a child when this country gained independence but he had his Kerry ear cocked long before that to accumulate stories such as this:
" 'Will I get in this time?' the sitting MP said once to one of our neighbours, coming up to polling day. 'Of course you will' the neighbour told him. 'Didn't you say yourself that it was the poor put you in the last time and aren't there twice as many poor there now?'Ê ".
Eamon didn't lick his storytelling ability off the ground. He said of his father that he was; "....a friendly person, a good talker. Neighbours and travelers were attracted like moths around a naked flame into his and my mother's kitchen". Their kitchen had "....all the rude elements of the theatre; the storyteller was there with his comic or tragic tale, we had music, dance, song and costume".ÊÊÊ When he left school Eamon became apprentice to his father who was a master carpenter and wheelwright.
The young apprentice missed nothing; seventy years on he could mimic a verbose mason who described how to put a plumb-board against the rising walls to: "ascertain their perpendicularity". He also began taking a correspondence course with Bennett College in England. Then it turned out that the architect of a hotel enlargement project that he was working on was the craftwork teacher at the local Technical School. Eamon enrolled for a night course. The teacher's name was Micheal O' Riada and, in his autobiography,Ê Eamon told how he:"...was the means of changing the direction of my footsteps and putting me on the first mile of a journey that would take me far from my own parish. He taught me and others the craft of wood and in time we passed examinations set by the technical branch of the Department of Education in carpentry, joinery and cabinet making. He taught the theory of building and how to read plans: he taught solid geometry which holds the key to the angles met with in the making of a hip roof or staircase".
No matter how far from home Eamon was working he cycled two nights a week to Tec. He was soon to learn that Micheal O'Riada's interests were not confined to sawing and chiseling. He introduced his pupils to books, writers and the theatre. On the head of this Eamon went to see Louis Dalton's company, at the town hall, in "Juno and the Paycock". "It was my first time seeing actors on a stage and the humour, the agony and the tragedy of the play touched me to the quick". He was mesmerized by the actors and; "...their power to draw me away from the real world and almost unhinge my reason long after the curtain had come across".Ê
Micheal O'Riada was impressed with Eamon's reaction to the theatre. He discussed O'Casey, Synge and Lennox Robinson with the young carpenter and advised him if he ever went to Dublin to go to the Abbey Theatre. Mr. O'Riada also told him that if he kept making headway in his studies and passed the senior grade in the practical and theory papers he would enter him for a scholarship examination, to train as a manual instructor, in Dublin. Since Eamon had left school at fourteen he also had to do additional study in English, Irish and Maths.
He passed his scholarship examination, and the interview in Dublin, with flying colours. He trained and worked as a woodwork teacher for years until he became a full time actor. His first acting role was as Christy Mahon in "The Playboy of the Western World" along with the Listowel actress, Maura O'Sullivan. He would later marry, and spend the rest of his life, with Maura. They moved to Dublin and Eamon was employed by the Radio Eireann Repertory Players and later by the Abbey Theatre Company. He drew large audiences in villages during the '50s as he traveled around Ireland with his stories.
He was to spend more than 40 years as a professional actor. Working with the top actors and leading producers of his day he performed in New York, London and Moscow.Ê Ê
As a storyteller his vivid and evocative descriptions are unsurpassed. Whether it was about an emigrant-laden train gathering speed before fading from view at Countess Bridge or sparks flying when the blacksmith struck red hot iron, nobody could tell it like Eamon. Once, in the Brooklyn Academy, while telling one of his famous stories he mentioned an Irish town and drew a graphic word-picture of emigrants at the station. From the audience he heard; "Divine Jesus" and a man crying. Ever the professional, Eamon instantly changed gear, swung to comedy and in seconds had the homesick exile laughing. Watching him on the stage, the Paps-of-Dana and Dooncorrig Lake almost materialized around you. There was a temptation to look up for the rising ground above Barradov Bridge.
In the Peacock Theatre in the 1980s you were standing beside the young Eamon Kelly as he made a Tusk Tenon at the workbench beside his father or walked barefoot on the submerged stepping-stones with his first-love, Judy Scanlon.
As Anette Bishop described it in The Irish American Post: "It's a case of the past returning to raise a charming blush on the cheek of the present".
Everything Eamon Kelly did was tried, tested and honed to perfection. And he always expressed appreciation of the crafts, skills and talents of others;"The correct actions of a craftsman sawing, planning or mortising with the chisel were as fluid as those of an expert hurler on the playing field". When rehearsing for Seamus Murphy's "Stone Mad", which he adapted as a one-man show, he spent days observing stonecutters at a quarry in the Dublin mountains. In the course of the show he "lettered" a stone on stage.
With little or no interest in money himself he was always on the side of the underdog and the marginalized. He was playing S.B. O' Donnell in "Philadelphia Here I Come" on Broadway, in January 1972, when he heard the tragic news of Bloody Sunday. There and then he decided to play his part in trying to rectify man's inhumanity; he became a vegetarian. Eamon was shy, by nature. And even in his eighties he would be, by far, the most nervous artist backstage. This was because he was a perfectionist.Ê A year before he died I saw him in a hotel about to do a piece he had performed hundreds of times. With the utmost humility he asked a staff member about facilities to do a last minute rehearsal: "Do you have anywhere where I could talk to myself for a while?"
While the great storyteller won't ever again stand on a stage or sit by the fire of a rambling house, his voice lives on. Rego Irish Records have brought out a video "Stories of Ireland, as told by Eamon Kelly" and a cassette "Eamon Kelly, the Irish Storyteller". You'll find Rego Records at www.regorecords.com
Finally, Kerryman, Brendan O'Shea (O'Sheas Tailoring, Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin) told me the following story: At the end of September 2001 Eamon Kelly brought a suit in to Brendan for some alterations. The suit was fifteen years old. Prior to one of his trips to America, Eamon had it made by another Dublin tailor who left the jacket minus an inside pocket and the trousers without belt-loops or a back-pocket. Now, Eamon, the perfectionist, asked his fellow-Kerryman to rectify the sartorial omissions, which he did.
When Eamon died on 24th October 2001he had left detailed instructions with his wife, Maura, about the funeral arrangements and which suit he wanted to be laid out in. Yes, you've guessed it!
Did the man who wrote so lovingly of Con-the-tailor, who made his first Communion suit, and who had portrayed an unforgettable tailor in "The Tailor and Ansty" want to somehow, bring the work of a Kerry tailor out of this world with him? I don't know. And neither does Brendan O'Shea.
As his coffin left the church the Congregation gave a round of applause. The show was over and this time there was no encore. The final curtain had fallen on a One-man show, performed by a man of many parts.
Actor, storyteller and writer, loving husband, devoted father and great Kerryman. Shortly before his death while lecturing North American Literature and Theatre students in the art of storytelling he said:
"My journeying is over. If the humour takes me, I may appear in some Alhambra, where angels with folded wings will sit in the stalls, applaud politely and maybe come round after and say;' that was great'Ê ".
As he walked into that great Rambling House in the sky, can't you imagine the opening line?: "Ye're glad I came".
Click Here for Eamon Kelly"s Papers
And those who knew his style could always differentiate between the fact and the fiction.
The Traditional Art of Storytelling.
The seanachaà made use of a range of storytelling conventions, styles of speech and gestures that were peculiar to the Irish folk tradition and characterized them as practitioners of their art. Although tales from literary sources found their way into the repertoires of the seanchaithe, a traditional characteristic of their art was the way in which a large corpus of tales was passed from one practitioner to another without ever being written down.
Because of their role as custodians of an indigenous non-literary tradition, the seanachaà are widely acknowledged to have inherited -- although informally -- the function of the filÃ(poets) of pre-Christian Ireland.
Some seanachaà were itinerants, traveling from one community to another offering their skills in exchange for food and temporary shelter. Others, however, were members of a settled community and might be termed "village storytellers."
The distinctive role and craft of the seanchaà is particularly associated with the Gaeltacht (the Irish-speaking areas of Ireland), although storytellers recognizable as seanachaà were also to be found in rural areas throughout English-speaking Ireland. In their storytelling, some displayed archaic Hiberno-English idiom and vocabulary distinct from the style of ordinary conversation.
Eamon Kelly (1914 -- October 24, 2001) was an Irish actor and author.
Childhood
Kelly was born in Sliabh Luachra, County Kerry, Ireland. The son of Ned Kelly and Johanna Cashman, Eamon left school at age 14 to become an apprentice carpenter to his father, a wheelwright. He first became interested in acting after viewing a production of Juno and the Paycock.
In My Father's Time
It was 1959. The National Council for The Blind of Ireland gave my visually impaired mother a wireless. It was our first radio. At the time my contemporaries were clued in to the highlights of Radio Luxemburg and the Light Programme. But, always one to live in the past, I had a preference for the folk programmes on Radio Eireann. My adrenalin was really let loose by the prologue to one in particular,The rick is thatchedThe Seanachi was, of course, Eamon Kelly.
The fields are bare,
Long nights are here again.
The year was fine
But now 'tis time
To hear the ballad-men.
Boul in, boul in and take a chair
Admission here is free,
You're welcome to the Rambling House
To meet the Seanachi. Ê
I was to follow Eamon's stories, on the air, and later in Dublin theatres, through his one-man shows, for decades. His trademark introduction was: "In My Father's Time" or "Ye're glad I came." In between tales of "The King of England's son" and "The Earl of Baanmore" he would tell his own life-story.
And those who knew his style could always differentiate between the fact and the fiction. He was born in Rathmore, Co. Kerry, in March 1914. In his autobiographical work "The Apprentice" he tells of how the family moved when he was six months old. He was brought to Carrigeen on Maurice O'Connor's sidecar. (Of course when he'd be wearing his Seanachi's hat he'd tell you he remembered it).
Eamon grew up in a Rambling House and in later life said:"........my ears were forever cocked for the sound that came on the breeze. It wasn't the Blarney Stone but my father's house which filled me with wonder".ÊÊ
He was only a child when this country gained independence but he had his Kerry ear cocked long before that to accumulate stories such as this:
" 'Will I get in this time?' the sitting MP said once to one of our neighbours, coming up to polling day. 'Of course you will' the neighbour told him. 'Didn't you say yourself that it was the poor put you in the last time and aren't there twice as many poor there now?'Ê ".
Eamon didn't lick his storytelling ability off the ground. He said of his father that he was; "....a friendly person, a good talker. Neighbours and travelers were attracted like moths around a naked flame into his and my mother's kitchen". Their kitchen had "....all the rude elements of the theatre; the storyteller was there with his comic or tragic tale, we had music, dance, song and costume".ÊÊÊ When he left school Eamon became apprentice to his father who was a master carpenter and wheelwright.
The young apprentice missed nothing; seventy years on he could mimic a verbose mason who described how to put a plumb-board against the rising walls to: "ascertain their perpendicularity". He also began taking a correspondence course with Bennett College in England. Then it turned out that the architect of a hotel enlargement project that he was working on was the craftwork teacher at the local Technical School. Eamon enrolled for a night course. The teacher's name was Micheal O' Riada and, in his autobiography,Ê Eamon told how he:"...was the means of changing the direction of my footsteps and putting me on the first mile of a journey that would take me far from my own parish. He taught me and others the craft of wood and in time we passed examinations set by the technical branch of the Department of Education in carpentry, joinery and cabinet making. He taught the theory of building and how to read plans: he taught solid geometry which holds the key to the angles met with in the making of a hip roof or staircase".
No matter how far from home Eamon was working he cycled two nights a week to Tec. He was soon to learn that Micheal O'Riada's interests were not confined to sawing and chiseling. He introduced his pupils to books, writers and the theatre. On the head of this Eamon went to see Louis Dalton's company, at the town hall, in "Juno and the Paycock". "It was my first time seeing actors on a stage and the humour, the agony and the tragedy of the play touched me to the quick". He was mesmerized by the actors and; "...their power to draw me away from the real world and almost unhinge my reason long after the curtain had come across".Ê
Micheal O'Riada was impressed with Eamon's reaction to the theatre. He discussed O'Casey, Synge and Lennox Robinson with the young carpenter and advised him if he ever went to Dublin to go to the Abbey Theatre. Mr. O'Riada also told him that if he kept making headway in his studies and passed the senior grade in the practical and theory papers he would enter him for a scholarship examination, to train as a manual instructor, in Dublin. Since Eamon had left school at fourteen he also had to do additional study in English, Irish and Maths.
He passed his scholarship examination, and the interview in Dublin, with flying colours. He trained and worked as a woodwork teacher for years until he became a full time actor. His first acting role was as Christy Mahon in "The Playboy of the Western World" along with the Listowel actress, Maura O'Sullivan. He would later marry, and spend the rest of his life, with Maura. They moved to Dublin and Eamon was employed by the Radio Eireann Repertory Players and later by the Abbey Theatre Company. He drew large audiences in villages during the '50s as he traveled around Ireland with his stories.
He was to spend more than 40 years as a professional actor. Working with the top actors and leading producers of his day he performed in New York, London and Moscow.Ê Ê
As a storyteller his vivid and evocative descriptions are unsurpassed. Whether it was about an emigrant-laden train gathering speed before fading from view at Countess Bridge or sparks flying when the blacksmith struck red hot iron, nobody could tell it like Eamon. Once, in the Brooklyn Academy, while telling one of his famous stories he mentioned an Irish town and drew a graphic word-picture of emigrants at the station. From the audience he heard; "Divine Jesus" and a man crying. Ever the professional, Eamon instantly changed gear, swung to comedy and in seconds had the homesick exile laughing. Watching him on the stage, the Paps-of-Dana and Dooncorrig Lake almost materialized around you. There was a temptation to look up for the rising ground above Barradov Bridge.
In the Peacock Theatre in the 1980s you were standing beside the young Eamon Kelly as he made a Tusk Tenon at the workbench beside his father or walked barefoot on the submerged stepping-stones with his first-love, Judy Scanlon.
As Anette Bishop described it in The Irish American Post: "It's a case of the past returning to raise a charming blush on the cheek of the present".
Everything Eamon Kelly did was tried, tested and honed to perfection. And he always expressed appreciation of the crafts, skills and talents of others;"The correct actions of a craftsman sawing, planning or mortising with the chisel were as fluid as those of an expert hurler on the playing field". When rehearsing for Seamus Murphy's "Stone Mad", which he adapted as a one-man show, he spent days observing stonecutters at a quarry in the Dublin mountains. In the course of the show he "lettered" a stone on stage.
With little or no interest in money himself he was always on the side of the underdog and the marginalized. He was playing S.B. O' Donnell in "Philadelphia Here I Come" on Broadway, in January 1972, when he heard the tragic news of Bloody Sunday. There and then he decided to play his part in trying to rectify man's inhumanity; he became a vegetarian. Eamon was shy, by nature. And even in his eighties he would be, by far, the most nervous artist backstage. This was because he was a perfectionist.Ê A year before he died I saw him in a hotel about to do a piece he had performed hundreds of times. With the utmost humility he asked a staff member about facilities to do a last minute rehearsal: "Do you have anywhere where I could talk to myself for a while?"
While the great storyteller won't ever again stand on a stage or sit by the fire of a rambling house, his voice lives on. Rego Irish Records have brought out a video "Stories of Ireland, as told by Eamon Kelly" and a cassette "Eamon Kelly, the Irish Storyteller". You'll find Rego Records at www.regorecords.com
Finally, Kerryman, Brendan O'Shea (O'Sheas Tailoring, Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin) told me the following story: At the end of September 2001 Eamon Kelly brought a suit in to Brendan for some alterations. The suit was fifteen years old. Prior to one of his trips to America, Eamon had it made by another Dublin tailor who left the jacket minus an inside pocket and the trousers without belt-loops or a back-pocket. Now, Eamon, the perfectionist, asked his fellow-Kerryman to rectify the sartorial omissions, which he did.
When Eamon died on 24th October 2001he had left detailed instructions with his wife, Maura, about the funeral arrangements and which suit he wanted to be laid out in. Yes, you've guessed it!
Did the man who wrote so lovingly of Con-the-tailor, who made his first Communion suit, and who had portrayed an unforgettable tailor in "The Tailor and Ansty" want to somehow, bring the work of a Kerry tailor out of this world with him? I don't know. And neither does Brendan O'Shea.
As his coffin left the church the Congregation gave a round of applause. The show was over and this time there was no encore. The final curtain had fallen on a One-man show, performed by a man of many parts.
Actor, storyteller and writer, loving husband, devoted father and great Kerryman. Shortly before his death while lecturing North American Literature and Theatre students in the art of storytelling he said:
"My journeying is over. If the humour takes me, I may appear in some Alhambra, where angels with folded wings will sit in the stalls, applaud politely and maybe come round after and say;' that was great'Ê ".
As he walked into that great Rambling House in the sky, can't you imagine the opening line?: "Ye're glad I came".
Click Here for Eamon Kelly"s Papers
Thursday 3 September 2009
MULLAH McGUINNESS'S UNDERCOVER CENSORSHIP FATWA
"In a political environment where a Sinn Fein leader is standing shoulder to shoulder with the chief constable, denouncing republicans as traitors and vowing to support whatever is required to defeat them, is it such a surprise that an off message journalist should find herself in court facing a possible prison sentence of five years. "- JM Thorne, Socialist Democracy
A very British journalist wrote in the London Times recently. “Easily the most eerie aspect of the last couple of days for me has been the sound on my car radio of Martin McGuiness, allegedly once a senior IRA commander, sounding just like a Northern Ireland Secretary of State from the Eighties.”
Whatever else McGuinness says about "making progress towards republican aims” and " unstoppable political dynamism towards a united Ireland ", it is surely undeniable that, at the present moment in time, he is the deputy first minister of a jurisdiction which has the British monarch as its head of state. Under these circumstances, a republican who is not a dissident isn’t really a republican at all."
The outburst against “dissident journalists” is very disturbing given the ongoing threats to all journalists in the north from loyalist/ PSNI sources presently.
The Sunday World newspaper has never had sympathy for the republican cause . One of the paper’s journalists, Martin O'Hagan, who was working on a number of potentially damaging stories about police collusion with the LVF was murdered. Despite McGuinness with all the chuckles in high places, the personnel who colluded in the murder of O’Hagan are still on active service for her majesty's service.
Its over 20 years since the assassination of lawyer Pat Finucane by loyalist paramilitaries colluding with the British police. The PSNI has just appointed another one of them as their "Head Boy". McGuinness’s recent remarks are reminiscent of British minister Douglas Hogg's remarks just before Finucane’s murder, about some lawyers in northern Ireland being "unduly sympathetic" to the IRA.
Journalists should take the deputy first minister’s words as a fatwa and cover for BBC type censorship. Now as a British government minister he is seemingly attempting to brow beat the media into compliance with censorship with another fatwa. The consequences for genuine independent journalists are very worrying, particularly if they are genuine non-monarchists.
God only knows what fatwa Mullah McGuinness will give next before he is knighted like Lord Gerard Fitt. Lord Londonderry perhaps, before he is then carted off to retirement . In fact the McGuinness fatwa is straight out of BBC opinion makers speak, for the recycled monarchist propaganda of the likes of Eoghan Harris, Kevin Myers or Conor Cruise OBrien
The PSNI wanted to interrogate Breen in camera sessions with a judge from which the journalist and her legal team would be excluded. The following Socialist Democracy article by JM Thorne explains it rather well.
PSNI attempts to censor journalist
JM Thorn
17 May 2009
The attempts of the PSNI to force the journalist Suzanne Breen to hand over material relating to a number of articles she authored on the activity of republican groups highlights the degree to which state censorship in still force in the north. The articles in question contained interviews with a spokesperson for the Real IRA claiming responsibility for an attack on a British Army base in Antrim and the killing of former Sinn Fein official and state agent Dennis Donaldson. Soon after their publication PSNI detectives came to Suzanne’s home demanding that she hand over computer, disks, notes, phone, and any material relating to the stories. She was told that if she didn’t comply within three days they would seek a court order under the Terrorism Act. A case against her was launched by Chief Constable Hugh Orde after she refused to comply.
Of course there was no possibility that Suzanne, adhering to the duty of a journalist to protect their sources and fearing for her life if coerced into the role of a collector of evidence, would comply with the police demand. She expected to get the opportunity to challenge the police case when it reached court last week. But in a kafkaesque procedure her defence team were prevented from making such a challenge. This is because the Belfast Recorder Tom Burgess agreed to a police request to hold a closed session. The evidence allegedly indicating that information held by Suzanne was relevant to the investigation into the killing of the two British soldiers in Antrim was presented in private to the judge by an unidentified police officer. This was justified on the basis that if the facts relayed were made public it could interfere with the investigation. The judge said he was minded to grant the court order, but gave Suzanne Breen an opportunity to put a case why he should not.
The affect of this decision is to put severe restrictions on Suzanne’s defence team. As she said herself, it "tied her hands behind her back". How could her defence adequatley respond to a case which hasn’t been dicloased? Depsite these limitations Suzanne and her team plan to challenge the police case on two basic principles. Firstly, the protection of sources and the journalist's right to confidentiality; and secondly, on the risk to her life if she was comply with the police’s demands. She quite rightly pointed out that the case could have implications for the entire profession of journalism as it could interfere with the reporter's ability to protect any type of source in any story. "This case potentially could close down journalism," she said.
With this comment Suzanne Breen goes to the heart of what theses legal proceedings are all about. They are not about investigating the killings, much less about producing evidence for a potential court case. What appeared in the articles or the supporting notes is unlikely to constitute evidence or add to the information that the police already possess. Indeed, Suzanne has made the point the she has written a number of articles over the years containing interviews with paramilitaries - such as the one with UDA members who boasted of murdering a Catholic man – which drew no such attention from the police. The purpose of the current case is to censor and intimidate. It comes at a time when there is a great of sensitivity and concern over the stability of the settlement and the growth of republican groups. Suzanne Breen is coming under pressure because she is one of the few journalists who take a more sceptical view of the peace process, particularly the role of Sinn Fein, and write articles that quote republican sources. In the repressive atmosphere following the killings of security force personnel such independent journalism cannot be tolerated.
Indeed, in the attempt to browbeat the media, it is Sinn Fein that has led the charge. It was Martin McGuinness who co-singed a letter with the DUP First Minister complaining to the proprietor of the Belfast Telegraph about the paper’s “negative” coverage of the Executive. In a more threatening tone McGuinness has lambasted what he called ‘dissident journalists’, accusing them of giving succor to the Real IRA. In a political environment where a Sinn Fein leader is standing shoulder to shoulder with the chief constable, denouncing republicans as traitors and vowing to support whatever is required to defeat them, is it such a surprise that an off message journalist should find herself in court facing a possible prison sentence of five years.
After the recent legal proceedings Suzanne Breen said it was quite disgraceful what was happening “when there is meant to be a new dispensation." But the fact is what is happening to her is just one manifestation of the repression that is part and parcel of the new dispensation. So alongside the harassment of journalists, there is 28-day detention and moves to re-introduce super grass trials – all of which are backed up by a politicised security apparatus and judicial system. But there is hope that in the Suzanne Breen case at least such repression isn’t insurmountable. The case of Ed Maloney, her predecessor as the Sunday Tribune’s northern editor, who faced similar legal action over articles he wrote on the role of state agents in the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane, shows that a determined campaign that garners widespread support can succeed.
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