Wednesday, 16 January 2013

DUMPED BY DUBLIN







Dublin, we begged for your attention
you ignored us as if we were invisible

all we wanted was some warmth, for you to let us inside
but instead of some heart, you let us lie down in the cold

Our hearts became saddened
when ye finally spoke to us our hearts raced then dropped to the floor
all ye had to say was "leave us alone!"

wordless spoken like a rush of sharp cold wind
your coldness froze our hearts
now we are cold to the touch

tears ran down our face and turned to icicles
it was hard to move
eventually the hypothermia took over us

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Occupied Ireland & Palestine British Neocolonial Creations






History of Palestine

Zionism arrived in Palestine in the late 19th as a colonialist movement motivated by national impulses.

The colonization of Palestine fitted well the interests and policies of the British Empire on the eve of the First World War.

With the backing of Britain, the colonization project expanded, and became a solid presence on the land after the war and with the establishment of the British mandate in Palestine (which lasted between 1918 and 1948).

While this consolidation took place, the indigenous society underwent, like other societies in the rest of the Arab world, a steady process of establishing a national identity.

But with one difference. While the rest of the Arab world was shaping its political identity through the struggle against European colonialism, in Palestine nationalism meant asserting your collective identity against both an exploitative British colonialism and expansionist Zionism.

Thus, the conflict with Zionism was an additional burden. The pro-Zionist policy of the British mandate there naturally strained the relationship between Britain and the local Palestinian society.

This climaxed in a revolt in 1936 against both London and the expanding Zionist colonisation project.

The revolt, which lasted for three years, failed to sway the British mandate from a policy it had already decided upon in 1917. The British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, had promised the Zionist leaders that Britain would help the movement to build a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

The number of Jews coming into the country increased by the day - although even at that point, during the 1930s, the Jews were just a quarter of the population, possessing 4 percent of the land.

As resistance to colonialism strengthened, the Zionist leadership became convinced that only through a total expulsion of the Palestinians would they be able to create a state of their own.

From its early inception and up to the 1930s, Zionist thinkers propagated the need to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population of Palestine if the dream of a Jewish state were to come true.

The preparation for implementing these two goals of statehood and ethnic supremacy accelerated after the Second World War.

The Zionist leadership defined 80 percent of Palestine (Israel today without the West Bank) as the space for the future state.

This was an area in which one million Palestinians lived next to 600,000 Jews.

The idea was to uproot as many Palestinians as possible. From March 1948 until the end of that year the plan was implemented despite the attempt by some Arab states to oppose it, which failed. Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighbourhoods demolished.

Half of Palestine's population was uprooted and half of its villages destroyed. The state of Israel was established in over 80 percent of Palestine, turning Palestinian villages into Jewish settlements and recreation parks, but allowing a small number of Palestinian to remain citizens in it.

The June 1967 war allowed Israel to take the remaining 20 percent of Palestine.

This seizure defeated in a way the ethnic ideology of the Zionist movement. Israel encompassed 100 percent of Palestine, but the state incorporated a large number of Palestinians, the people who Zionists made such an effort to expel in 1948.

The fact that Israel was let off easily in 1948, and not condemned for the ethnic cleansing it committed, encouraged it to ethnically cleanse a further 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

Irish Holocaust of 6,257,456 "Disappeared," Censored by Britain


The Irish Holocaust

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'Is Britain’s cover-up of its 1845-1850 holocaust in Ireland the most successful Big Lie in all of history?
The cover-up is accomplished by the same British terrorism and bribery that perpetrated the genocide. Consider: why does Irish President Mary Robinson call it “Ireland’s greatest natural disaster” while she conceals the British army’s role? Potato blight, “phytophthora infestans”, did spread from America to Europe in 1844, to England and then Ireland in 1845 but it didn’t cause famine anywhere. Ireland did not starve for potatoes; it starved for food.
Ireland starved because its food, from 40 to 70 shiploads per day, was removed at gunpoint by 12,000 British constables reinforced by the British militia, battleships, excise vessels, Coast Guard and by 200,000 British soldiers.'

Toll of Holocaust

Toll of Irish Holocaust. The 1841 census of Ireland revealed a population of 10,897,449. This figure includes the correction factor established by that year's official partial recount. When, between 1779 and 1841, the U.S. population increased by 640 percent, and England's is estimated to have increased, despite massive emigration to its colonies, by 100 percent, it is generally accepted that Ireland's population increase was 172% 10. The average annual component of this 172% increase is x in the formula (1+ x)62 = 1 + 172%; thus 0.0163, or 1.63%. Accepting that this 1.63% rate of annual population increase continued until mid-1846 (one human gestation after the late-1845 beginning of removal of Ireland's food), the 1846 population was 11,815,011.


Assuming that rate continued, the population in 1851, absent the starvation, would have been approximately 12,809,841. However; the 1851 census recorded a population of 6,552,385; thus there was a "disappearance" of 6,257,456. This population-loss figure of 6,257,456 is scarcely susceptible to significant challenge, being derived directly from the British government's own censuses for Ireland. It is reasonable to assume that the rigor established in the recount of 1841 became the standard for the 1851 census; so that any residual undercount would be systemic, affecting 1841 and 1851 proportionately (and, if known, would increase the murder total). These 6,257,456 include roughly 1,000,000 who successfully fled into exile and another 100,000 unborn between 1846 and 1851 due to malnutrition-induced infertility. Of the 100,000 who fled to Canada in 1847, only 60,000 were still alive one month after landing.11 Among the 40,000 dead was Henry Ford's father's mother who died en route from Cork or in quarantine on Quebec's Grosse Ile.

Thus; though from 1845 through 1850, 6,257,456 "disappeared," the number murdered is approximately 1.1 million fewer; i.e., 5.16 millions. Consequently; if Britain's census figures for Ireland are correct the British government murdered approximately 5.16 million Irish men, women and children; making it the Irish Holocaust. This number, 5.16 million, exceeds the high end of the range (4.2 to 5.1 million) of serious estimates of the number of Jews murdered by Nazis. The least reliable component of the foregoing arithmetic is the number assumed to have successfully fled. If the fleers who survived prove to number, say, 900,000 instead of 1,000,000, the murder count will have to be corrected from 5.16 to 5.26 millions. This amount of adjustment, up or down, of the 5.16 millions murdered is determinable by sensitive review of the immigration records of the U.S., Canada, Argentina, and Australia; and of government records on the Irish who fled to Britain at the time. We invite bona fide documentation of the foregoing; whether in confirmation or rebuttal. Economists and historians are disqualified if their published work on the events of 1845-1850 covers up the British army's central role therein. Such individuals lack the standing to participate in this truth-quest.

To our knowledge nobody else has ever published the above arithmetic or named the food removal regiments and battleships. Evidence that other truth-telling accounts exist would be greatly appreciated. Irish academia shuns and slurs Tom Gallagher's Paddy's Lament and Englishwoman Cecil Woodham-Smith's The Great Hunger for mentioning the Food Removal. Woodham-Smith fudged, but not enough to satisfy the cover-up cabal. For example; she reported that the 1841 partial recount established a correction factor of one-third for the 1841 census figure; but she used the uncorrected figure to calculate! By this and other fudges she arrived at a population-loss of only 2.5 million. She allocated only half a page to the core facts of the Genocide; the food removal data, while using some two hundred pages to describe British government "relief measures" as if they were something other than cosmetic exercises; a cover-up. But just as Telefis Eireann out-Britished Yorkshire TV by refusing to co-premiere the latter's 1993 exposé of the 5/17/74 British bombings of Dublin/Monaghan streets that murdered 33 and maimed 253; and as the Irish police menace the survivors of that bombing instead of arresting the known British perpetrators; so do Irish historians out-British Woodham-Smith by ostracizing her for exposing the Food Removal. They out-do themselves in describing the "benefit" of the Irish Holocaust; how Britain reduced poverty in Ireland ( by murdering those it had impoverished! They promote the notion that only the blighted potato crop belonged to the Irish while Ireland's abundant livestock, grains, etc., all "belonged" to mostly absentee English landlords. By that insane standard all of the property and production of Europe and Asia, excepting starvation rations for workers, would belong to W.W.II GIs and their heirs (or to the Axis had it won).

Irish are not guilty. Though many Holocaust Irish, like many, say, Auschwitz Jews, took deadly advantage of their own weakest, neither the Irish nor Jewish communities had hand or part in the conceiving and planning of the genocides from London and Berlin; respectively. But, the German government repented and paid $100 billion (dollars) reparations to Jews while the British government and its Dublin surrogates still use terror and slander against those who commemorate the Irish Holocaust. It is still dangerous - after 150 years - to reveal the truth of it. ...

Irishmen and Irishwomen!

Read this site and weep.  Weep for the agonies and deaths of your people at the hands of genocidists.  The authorities who imposed the curriculum, the teachers and professors who funneled it into you, have carefully kept you uninformed as to which British regiment, or that any regiment, murdered your people.  Until now, that information was kept from you. You had no access to it.  You do now - you read it on your computer screen!  Commit the regiment's name to memory. 

 
Never, ever, forget it! 

Learn its British HQ town.  As no Jewish person would ever refer to the "Jewish Oxygen Famine of 1939 - 1945", so no Irish person ought ever refer to the Irish Holocaust as a famine.


Monday, 14 January 2013

John Pilger - A Film - The War You Don't See



John Pilger says in the film: "We journalists... have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else's country... That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is. For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home... In this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth or their blood is on us... Those whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power."



Irish Times Photo Montage of Loyalist Flag Protests  Link

Sunday, 13 January 2013

BRITISH MINISTRY OF SILLY WALKS SPONSOR LOYALISTS

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IRISH REPUBLICAN NEWS
   

    Friday-Thursday, 4-10 January, 2013


1.  GARDA PACT WITH LOYALIST 'IDIOT'
2.  Price's internment opposed at Derry courthouse
3.  Pan-unionism hailed as forum meets
4.  Students starved by new grants requirements
5.  Omagh case to go before European court
6.  Furore over hunger-strike art
7.  Feature: 'We are to be shot in the morning'
8.  Analysis: A flag solution will not relieve loyalist anxieties


------------------------------------------------------------------


>>>>>> GARDA PACT WITH LOYALIST 'IDIOT'


 A deal between the 26 County Garda police and arch-loyalist Willie
 Frazer for a secret protest in Dublin has been revealed -- just hours
 after Frazer said he would not condemn an assassination attempt on the
 life of Six County Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

 Earlier this week, it was reported that a plan by Loyalist lobbyist
 Willie Frazer for a "sarcastic" protest outside the Dublin parliament on
 Saturday had been postponed.

 But on Thursday, Frazer told a Scottish radio prankster that he had made
 a secret arrangement with Gardai to hold the protest, apparently to
 avoid a counter-demonstration.

 Using the pseudonym 'Clarence Beeks' and claiming to be a "spin doctor"
 for Glasgow Rangers Football Club, the host of Glasgow Radio Online
 managed to convince Frazer of his support for the flags campaign -- and
 got him to reveal that Gardai had proposed a loyalist protest in Dublin
 tonight (Friday night) "to surprise everyone".

 "Keep it under your hat", he tells the caller -- but a recording of the
 interview was later placed online.

 Seven years ago, an inflammatory 'Love Ulster' sectarian march organised
 by Frazer through Dublin city centre led to the capital's worst riots in
 decades.

 The Armagh man has returned to prominence in recent weeks as a
 spokesperson for the loyalist campaign against the recent decision by
 Belfast City Council to reduce the number of days the British flag flies
 above the building, bringing it into line with similar civic buildings.

 That council vote in early December has provoked outrage among unionist
 hardliners and right-wing British extremists.

 'UNFORTUNATE' TO SHOOT McGUINNESS

 Frazer provoked further controversy on Thursday when he claimed that 99
 per cent of unionists would agree with his refusal to condemn anybody
 who shot Sinn Fein's Deputy First Minister.

 "If someone was to shoot Martin McGuinness, I would not condemn that
 man, but I would not ask him to do it," he said.

 Mr Frazer reportedly made the remarks while defending a comparison
 between loyalist paramilitary groups and the British Army and RUC.

 The hardline loyalist said it would be "unfortunate" if someone felt
 they had to shoot the Sinn Fein assembly member but claimed "99 percent
 of unionists would agree with him in not condemning it "if they were
 telling the truth".

 Sinn Fein last night described Mr Frazer as an "idiot".

 "Frazer is anti-peace process and  so are those he is leading in violent
 sectarian protests," a spokesman said. "It is important that unionist
 political leaders do not allow an idiot like Frazer to set their
 agenda."

 SIX DAYS OF RIOTS

 This week has already seen some of the worst violence of the loyalist
 campaign.

 The most intense riots took place on Monday evening, following what had
 been a relatively peaceful protest in Belfast city centre.

 Some 400 loyalist protesters descended on the city hall to coincide with
 the first full council meeting since the decision was made to reduce the
 flying of the Union Jack. As in December, a section of the crowd
 attempted to force their way into the council chamber, but were unable
 to do so.

 About half of the loyalists then made their way to east Belfast, where
 they again provoked and attacked nationalists from the Short Strand
 enclave. They set up barricades of burning pallets and bins on the lower
 Newtownards Road , then tried to hijack a Lidl lorry to block the busy
 Albertbridge Road.

 The PSNI used water cannon and fired three plastic bullets in an attempt
 to push protesters back. Violence also broke out in Dundonald, where
 petrol bombs and bricks were thrown at police.

 Serious rioting also broke out on Tuesday evening, when loyalists threw
 petrol bombs, fireworks and bottles, and burning barricades were also
 erected. However, the violence was not on the same scale as previous
 nights and calmed down after an hour.

 There was little doubt the violence had been planned, as some riots have
 been openly advertised in internet posts. The unionist paramilitary UVF
 has been accused of organising the violence, as well as using them to
 recruit youths.

 Tuesday was the sixth night of trouble before the Union Flag was
 returned to Belfast City Hall on Wednesday -- to mark the birthday of
 'Duchess of Cambridge' Kate Middleton, the wife of England's Prince
 William.

 The brief return of the flag for one of the 17 'designated days' was
 peaceful, but otherwise ignored by loyalists.  However, it produced a
 demand by Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt for Middleton's birthday
 to be marked by other civic buildings in Belfast as well.

 'OPERATION STANDSTILL'

 This (Friday) evening, the flags protestors appear to be planning a
 return to the widespread road blocks which marked the start of their
 campaign in December.

 Loyalists have vowed to block dozens of roads in Belfast and towns and
 villages across the north in an action dubbed 'Operation Standstill'.

 Traffic is expected to grind to a halt from 6pm during the co-ordinated
 protests, timed again to coincide with the Friday evening rush-hour and
 with the potential to cause mayhem for commuters leaving Belfast.

 In addition to Belfast, protests  are planned for towns including Larne,
 Ballynahinch, Portadown, Magherafelt and as far away as Liverpool,
 Glasgow -- and Dublin.

 Sinn Fein Dublin South West TD Sean Crowe called on Dublin people not to
 engage with or be provoked by loyalist protestors, who are understood to
 be planning a demonstration at the Dail.

 He warned that the demonstrations were being orchestrated by unionist
 paramilitaries and supported by elements of the British extreme right
 such as the BNP.

 "What we have witnessed is anti-Catholic and anti-Peace Process elements
 rioting on the streets, attacking property, people in the nationalist
 community, workers and the PSNI. This campaign of sectarian intimidation
 and violence must be brought to an immediate end.

 "Belfast is a shared city. The rights and identities of all sections of
 the community there must be fully protected and respected. This can only
 be done on the basis of equality, mutual respect and parity of esteem,
 as envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement.

 "While accepting everybody's right to peaceful protest I would call on
 Mr Frazer and his associates to reconsider their plans. They should
 cancel this protest and all other protests which have been the cause of
 violence in recent weeks.

 "This provocative publicity stunt is designed to ratchet up tension and
 trouble in Dublin.

 "I am calling on all Dublin people and others in the capital not engage
 with or be provoked by these protestors."


------------------------------------------------------------------


>>>>>> Price's internment opposed at Derry courthouse


 Legal proceedings against Marian Price were adjourned on Wednesday at
 Derry's Magistrate's Court after District Judge, Mr Barney McElholm said
 he would have to take advice from medical professionals regarding the
 republican prisoner's fitness to appear.

 Price was interned almost two years ago and is unfit to stand trial
 after being held in isolation for over a year at Maghaberry jail.

 Price is currently being held in a secure hospital unit after being
 transferred there via Hydebank Prison.

 Addressing the court, Judge McElholm revealed he was planning to convene
 hearings in the hospital unit itself.

 "The test here is of convenience and suitability, Those are issues for
 the doctors. I believe a secure hospital would be appropriate to hold
 the preliminary enquiry if necessary."

 Her lawyer Peter Corrigan told Mr McElholm that it would be "wrong to
 hold a preliminary inquiry hearing in a pseudo court situation in
 hospital" and he said the charge which his client denied should be
 dropped.

 "The deterioration in her physical and mental health has been
 exacerbated by the prosecution of the charge against her," he said.

 But a prosecution lawyer told the court that if "all the appropriate
 measures" in relation to transportation and security were in place,
 there was no reason why the hearing could not proceed.

 Fifty eight year old Price, who has suffered both physical and
 psychiatric ill health during her incarceration, faces charges in
 connection with holding a piece of paper for a masked 'Real IRA'
 spokesperson at a republican rally at the City Cemetery in April 2011.

 Following her release on bail, the then British Direct Ruler justified
 her continued incarceration by declaring he had revoked a prison release
 licence dating from 1980. Her supporters have said a royal pardon,
 issued to her following her famous hunger strike in 1980, had rendered
 that argument invalid.

 Judge McElholm adjourned his decision until Wednesday of next week.

 Outside the court, miscarriage of justice victim Gerry Conlon spoke out
 in support of her.

 Guildford Four member Gerry Conlon, who spent years in jail after being
 falsely convicted of a bombing in England, said keeping her in prison
 was an abuse of process.

 Outside court he said: "To think that a process of law is being usurped
 by politicians in order to hold a woman, without her lawyers being able
 to see the accusations against her, is an abuse of justice, it is a
 human rights issue.

 "If there is evidence to say someone has committed a crime it should be
 placed before the court, their lawyer should have access to it and the
 accusations should be made open and public.

 "Justice has to be fair, open and transparent and that it is why I am
 here. It is not fair, it is not open and it is certainly not
 transparent."

 A video of the rally at Derry's magistrate's court is available
 online at http://vimeo.com/57156956


------------------------------------------------------------------


>>>>>> Pan-unionism hailed as forum meets


 Unionist political leaders have said they are willing to hold talks with
 loyalist murder gangs about increasingly violent flag protests.

 The paramilitary UVF in east Belfast have been blamed by the PSNI for
 orchestrating riots in recent weeks.

 The pledge came after the first meeting of the 'Unionist Forum' at
 Stormont this week.  The body is said to be an attempt by the two
 largest unionist parties, the DUP and UUP, to discuss fears that
 nationalists are making inroads against British rule and a resulting
 unionist 'identity crisis'.

 Senior figures within the UVF in east Belfast have been blamed by police
 for "orchestrating" violent clashes in recent weeks.

 The inaugural meeting on Thursday was attended by the main unionist
 parties -- as well as leading loyalists including south Belfast UDA
 leader Jackie McDonald and east Belfast's Jimmy Birch.

 Senior members of the Progressive Unionist Party, the political wing of
 the UVF, were also in attendance. However, the Ulster People's Forum,
 which has organised a number of the flag protests, boycotted the
 meeting.

 Mr Robinson said the gathering was  the most "representative group
 within the unionist community to meet probably in half a century". The
 DUP leader said he was willing to meet those behind the recent violence.

 "We will talk to anyone who wants to talk to us about how we can move
 forward in an exclusively peaceful and democratic manner -- that's the
 way forward for Northern Ireland and that's the basis upon which we
 would be talking," he said.

 Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt said loyalists feel they have been
 left out of the political process, and were still angered by Sinn Fein's
 inclusion in power-sharing at the Stormont Assembly.

 In a break with traditional UUP policy, he dismissed media concerns
 about direct engagement with loyalist paramilitaries.

 "People with that sort of past look at what's up here [parliament
 buildings], look at who goes into that chamber to represent
 republicanism and they see frankly a hypocrisy and they think one side
 is being picked on while the other's being celebrated," he said.

 The leadership of the Orange Order also attended, and praised the event
 as a "coalescing of the wider pro-union family".

 However, Sinn Fein Upper Bann assembly member John O'Dowd said the
 Unionist Forum would not solve any problems.

 "That can only come when representatives from the whole community sit
 down together. There needs to be an open discussion on how people's
 Irishness and Britishness can be respected and valued," he said.

 "Equality, parity of esteem and mutual respect needs to be at the core
 of any move forward on identity and symbols.

 "Unionism needs to face the reality that the north has changed and will
 continue to change. Any attempts to hark back to a one-sided past will
 only sow more confusion among unionists and loyalists."

 Stewart Dickson of the moderate Alliance Party, said politicians,
 including unionists, should work for everyone, not just one section of
 the community.

 "Somebody should remind Peter Robinson that he is the first minister for
 Northern Ireland and not just the first minister of unionism.

 "Mike Nesbitt by co-chairing this group must admit that he has given up
 on his attempt to make the UUP appeal to all people and not just
 Unionists.

 "This tribal form of politics will only further cement divisions and
 will not help deliver a shared future."


------------------------------------------------------------------


>>>>>> Students starved by new grants requirements


 Hundreds of Irish students have been forced to accept free food boxes
 because they cannot afford to eat, it has emerged.

 An estimated 150 students at Athlone Institute of Technology in the
 midlands have had to rely on charity food after their grant payments
 were delayed. Students in Galway have also been provided with food
 boxes.

 A government failure to pay student grants has been blamed for chronic
 poverty among students across the 26 Counties. Over 10,000 students are
 believed to be still waiting on their first grant payment of the year
 from the centralised Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) body.

 Lengthy and bureacratic new application procedures have apparently been
 designed with the goal of reducing the number of students availing of
 grant entitlements.

 SUSI has insisted any decision to stop grants has been a result of the
 students' failure to provide the right documentation.

 BLEAK CHRISTMAS

 The Student Union President at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology said
 students had been gong hungry.

 "They were basically saying that they had come in to college that
 morning at 8.30am after a light breakfast or a bowl of cereal at home
 and literally did not have anything to eat until maybe 6pm or 7pm that
 evening because they financially just couldn't afford it," said Joe
 O'Connor.

 He said several local food outlets had helped to supply produce for the
 boxes. He also warned that some students may receive no grant payment
 before the end of the academic year.

 "There's a certain degree of progress but it's almost too late in the
 day to save the situation this year," he said.

 Meanwhile, President of NUI Galway Students' Union Paul Curley said
 students at the university had been seeking support from St Vincent de
 Paul services in the city.

 "By definition of qualifying for financial support, it means that no
 other support is available," he said. "Their families don't have the
 means to support them and part time jobs are few and far between. It
 really is at crisis point and it will result in more students dropping
 out of college."

 NEW CUTBACKS

 The student grant system has been one of the chief targets for cuts by
 the Labour/Fine Gael government as part of the EU-mandated national
 austerity drive.

 A battery of cutbacks were announced last month in the government's
 annual budget, and are now beginning to be implemented.

 Among the cuts to be introduced in the last few days are the removal of
 health services, nursing and disability services from tens of thousands
 needing care across the country.  It was announced that from this week,
 up to 40,000 medical cards will be cancelled, and that cuts to services
 for the disabled and older people will be up to four times that
 previously envisaged.

 Meanwhile, emigration remains at so-called 'famine levels' of around 200
 per day, while scandals over profound inequality in the 26 County state
 have continued.

 In a survey, more than 40 per cent of charities have admitted that their
 chief executives appropriate over 100,000 euro ($132,000) for themselves
 in salary payments every year.

 It was also confirmed that the retiring chief executive of the Irish
 Medical Organisation (IMO), which represents Irish doctors and
 consultants, is to receive an extraordinary lump sum payment in excess
 of 1.5 million euro, as well as a multi-million-euro pension fund.

 INSTITUTIONALISING INEQUALITY

 In other news, salaries for new nurses and midwives have been cut by 20%
 relative to their peers.

 Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald said pay inequity in healthcare was
 "rife", and that the Labour Party had now abandoned any notion of equal
 pay for equal work.

 "Those at the top of the service continue to be paid substantially more
 than European counterparts, including hospital consultants and senior
 administrators," she said.

 "If the HSE or any other government department or agency are serious
 about reducing pay and pension expenditure, significant savings can be
 found by addressing excessive pay at the top. Instead the Tanaiste has
 chosen to protect high rollers and target those at the very bottom of
 the public sector pay grades.

 "To be blunt it is incomprehensible that a Labour party leader would not
 only deepen pay inequity in the public sector, but would also robustly
 defend such a decision."


------------------------------------------------------------------


>>>>>> Omagh case to go before European court


 Two senior republicans are seeking to go before the European Court of
 Human Rights in a bid to overturn a ruling that they were liable for the
 Omagh bombing.

 Lawyers for Michael McKevitt and Liam Campbell have based the challenge
 on their inability to cross-examine an FBI spy whose evidence was
 central to the case against them.

 They are also contesting the decision to allow hearsay evidence from
 David Rupert in the case.

 The disclosure comes as two other men originally held responsible, Colm
 Murphy and Seamus Daly, prepare to face a retrial at the High Court in
 Belfast.

 No-one has been convicted of the bomb attack that devastated the County
 Tyrone market town in August 1998.

 It subsequently emerged that the device was tracked from its source to
 its destination by British military intelligence and RUC police Special
 Branch without being intercepted.

 Two telephoned warnings failed to clear the area around the vehicle
 which carried the bomb, resulting in the greatest single loss of life
 throughout the conflict.

 McKevitt, Campbell, Murphy and Daly were all held liable for the bombing
 in a civil ruling in 2009.

 Mr Justice Morgan, who is now the North's 'Lord Chief Justice', ordered
 them to pay 1.6 million pounds in compensation.

 The Court of Appeal subsequently upheld Murphy and Daly's challenges to
 the verdict and ordered them to face a retrial which gets underway next
 week.

 However, McKevitt and Campbell failed to overturn the rulings against
 them.

 A further petition to the Supreme Court in London was also rejected,
 leaving them with one final option of seeking to go to Europe.

 Legal papers prepared on their behalf focus on the role and credibility
 of Rupert, an American trucking boss-turned FBI spy who infiltrated the
 'Real IRA' in return for cash.

 He is on a witness protection programme after testifying for the
 prosecution at the criminal trial of Mr McKevitt in Dublin in 2000.

 Although Rupert was forbidden from attending the original civil action,
 emails between the spy and his handlers were submitted as evidence.

 The lawyer representing McKevitt and Campbell have objected to that
 move.

 Kevin Winters confirmed: "Having exhausted all domestic court processes
 both of my clients have lodged applications with the European Court of
 Human Rights.

 "The key areas that the court will be asked to look at is the reliance
 on the hearsay evidence of David Rupert, and the inability to
 cross-examine him about his claims."

 Papers lodged on behalf of the pair will undergo a preliminary
 assessment of the points raised.

 It is expected that the European Court of Human Rights will make a
 provisional ruling on the merits of each application by July.


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>>>>>> Furore over hunger-strike art


 A row has erupted in the Irish midlands over an artwork featuring
 messages written by republican hunger strikers in Long Kesh Prison.

 Longford artist Shane Cullen has defended his work, which is featured in
 Athlone's new Luan Gallery, pointing out that its content as a matter of
 historical record.

 He said the prisoners' writings allowed the public an insight into
 history.

 The large piece features messages which were written on cigarette papers
 and smuggled to and from prisoners during the 1981 Hunger Strike in
 which ten republican prisoners died.

 Fine Gael councillor Mark Cooney, son of former justice minister Paddy
 Cooney, tabled a motion at Monday night's town council meeting seeking
 the artwork's removal.

 Mr Cooney had argued that the installation was offensive to members of
 the 26 County police, prison guards, and others affected by the conflict
 in the North.

 Sinn Fein representative, Paul Hogan, dismissed Mr Cooney's motion as
 "censorship".

 During the meeting, it was revealed that around 1,200 people had visited
 the gallery since it opened less than two months ago, and that only
 three had recorded objections to the artwork.

 A polarisation of political opinion in the midlands has long put
 republicans into sharp conflict with right-wing elements.

 The motion was backed by Mark Cooney's father, Paddy, who served as a
 highly controversial 26-County justice minister between 1973 and 1977.

 Cooney is notorious for his links to the Garda 'Heavy Gang', which
 violently suppressed Irish republicanism in the 70s. He also once
 ordered the coffin of hunger strike victim Frank Stagg to be covered in
 concrete, to prevent his burial in a republican plot.

 Athlone Sinn Fein Councillor Paul Hogan branded the motion a narrow
 minded attack on Irish art and an attempt to censor history.

 He said Shane Cullen is a highly respected artist who has exhibited
 internationally.

 "This work has been exhibited in many places including London," he said,
 and pointed out that Cullen's best known work is a piece on the Good
 Friday peace Agreement.

 "Councillor Cooney is asking this council to censor a piece based on the
 tragic events in the prisons in the North in the 1980s, events that were
 milestones in Irish history.

 "The first person to raise this issue was none other than former
 Minister Paddy Cooney, a member of a government in the 1970s notorious
 for political censorship of the media.

 "Facing up to the legacy of our country's history is a responsibility we
 all share, no matter how uncomfortable some aspects may be for some
 people. Censoring history is never the way forward."


------------------------------------------------------------------


>>>>>> Feature: 'We are to be shot in the morning'


 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Three teens were among 7 IRA 'irregulars' executed in the civil war 90
 years ago in Kildare. A historical article by Robert Doyle (for
 thewildgeese.com)
 --------------------------------------------------------------------


 'We are to be shot in the morning, 19th December at 8.15...We are dying
 happy anyway, so good-bye old Kildare.' -- Paddy Bagnall, from Hare Park
 Prison, Curragh Camp, December 18, 1922



 With much of the attention regarding the struggle for Irish independence
 being on the upcoming centenary of the 1916 Rising, events in County
 Kildare 90 years ago this past December bring into sharp focus the tragedy of
 the subsequent Civil War.

 Men and women who had fought side by side against British rule, turned
 their vitriol and their weapons on each other in a bitter conflict that
 began with the occupation of the Four Courts in the summer of 1922 by
 forces opposed the signing and ratification of an Anglo-Irish Treaty.

 The outbreak of the Civil War forced pro and anti-treaty supporters to
 choose sides. Supporters of the treaty came to be known as 'pro-Treaty'
 or Free State Army, legally the National Army. The objectors called
 themselves "Republicans," but were more commonly known by the Free State
 government as "Irregulars."

 Although most of the fighting took place in Dublin and around Munster,
 County Kildare was no different in terms of the bitter divides. The
 occupation of the Curragh Camp by the Free State Army after British
 withdrawal made operations very difficult for the small column of
 Irregulars who operated in the vicinity of Kildare town.

 Eamonn O'Modhrain from Ballysax, who had commanded the 6th Battalion of
 the IRA's Carlow Brigade (South Kildare/West Wicklow) during the War of
 Independence, objected strongly to the signing of the Treaty and was
 immediately arrested and imprisoned for much of the year-long conflict.
 However, many of his former command took up arms against the Free State
 and operated a guerrilla- style war around Kildare Town, concentrating
 their efforts on disrupting the vital railway network in the area.

 In late 1922, The Leinster Leader reported that a column of Irregulars
 were operating in the vicinity of Kildare, derailing or stealing train
 engines, which would subsequently be used as an obstruction, blocking
 the line. It was also reported that on November 25th, this column took
 part in an ambush of Free State troops, audaciously close to the Curragh
 Camp.

 On December 13th, 10 men, allegedly the same column, were surprised at a
 farmhouse beside Moore's Bridge (close to the Curragh Racecourse) by
 Free State troops. Having been found in possession of rifles, a quantity
 of ammunition and other supplies, the men were arrested and brought the
 short distance to the Curragh Camp. During the arrest, one of the
 captured, Thomas Behan, was killed although the cause of his death
 remains disputed to this day.

 In the following days, seven of the men were tried before a military
 court and found guilty of being in possession of arms without authority.
 Unfortunately for the convicted, the Free State government had, only
 weeks earlier, decreed that such an offence was punishable by death. The
 executions were duly carried out by firing squad on the morning of
 December 19th at the Military Detention Barracks. Although the Free
 State sanctioned 77 official executions of anti-Treaty prisoners during
 the war, this combined execution of seven men was the largest carried
 out -- a tragic statistic in County Kildare's history.

 The day before their deaths, the seven men were allowed to write letters
 to their family and loved ones. Each letter is a tragic but very
 poignant memorial to the men, composed as they each came to terms with
 their fate. Typed copies of some of the letters were sent to their
 ex-commander, Eamonn O'Modhrain.

 Nineteen-year-old Paddy Bagnall wrote to his uncle that he and his
 comrades were "all to go West together ... but it is all for the best, and
 I hope it sets old Ireland free." Bagnall finishes a remarkably mature
 letter for one so young by stating that he was dying happy and bids
 "good-bye old Kildare."

 Paddy Nolan, 34, penned a heartbreaking final letter to his mother and
 father. He hoped that they would bear his death with "the Courage of an
 Irish Father & Mother." He tried to ease his mother's worry by writing
 that the chaplain in the Curragh, Father Donnelly, had told him that he
 would go straight to heaven.

 However, the saddest words are often the simplest, and Nolan signed off
 by telling his family that he "had a few pounds in his suit case" and
 they could have them and anything else in the house belonging to him. A
 shorter letter to his younger brothers and sisters asks that they
 remember him and his comrades on Christmas morning, only a few weeks
 away. He also asks that they be good children and always obey their
 parents.

 The other letters written by the men on the eve of their deaths are
 similar in composition and sentiment. Each is also a reminder of the
 conflict that scarred the fledgling Irish nation during its progression
 from a British colony into a sovereign country.

 The men were buried in the grounds of the Detention Barracks, but their
 remains were later exhumed and lay in state in the courthouse in Kildare
 Town before being reinterred in Kildare's Grey Abbey Cemetery, in 1924.
 A gravestone was subsequently erected over their collective grave and a
 monument erected in the Market Square, in Kildare town.

 The seven executed were Stephen White, 18, Abbey Street, Kildare; Joseph
 Johnston, 18, Station Road, Kildare; Patrick Mangan, 22, Fair Green,
 Kildare; Patrick Nolan, 34, Rathbride, Kildare; Bryan Moore, 37,
 Rathbride, Kildare (leader of the column); James O'Connor, 24, Bansha,
 County Tipperary; and Patrick Bagnall, 19, Fair Green, Kildare.


------------------------------------------------------------------


>>>>>> Analysis: A flag solution will not relieve loyalist anxieties


 By Brian Feeney (for Irish News)


 On Monday, Matt Baggott surfaced briefly to say the UVF are involved in
 fomenting rioting in east Belfast.

 "I am concerned that senior members of the UVF in east Belfast - as
 individuals - have been increasingly orchestrating some of this
 violence. That is utterly unacceptable and is being done for their own
 selfish motives," he said.

 Now what would those motives be? We know the boss in east Belfast
 paddles his own canoe and that in the summer of 2011 he organised
 rioting in much the same areas as are now suffering. The trouble then
 spread to the usual places - Portadown, Ballyclare, Larne, Ballymena. At
 that time the outbreak was regarded as a pretty obvious demand for money
 which was duly supplied to 'the community'. What could it be about this
 time since it's difficult to see where more money could be shovelled
 into east Belfast 'community projects', which would be dominated by -
 guess who?

 How about this? In 2009 Gary Haggarty was arrested by the Historical
 Enquiries Team (HET) on foot of investigations by Nuala O'Loan some
 years before. He quickly confessed his senior role in the UVF and became
 what is known under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (Socpa)
 as an 'assisting offender'. That's what they call a supergrass now.
 Since then he was interrogated by HET, an interrogation which produced,
 wait for it, an extraordinary 30,000 pages of evidence and 760 interview
 tapes.

 Forty-year-old Haggarty, a self-confessed senior UVF man - some say he
 was number one in south-east Antrim - has apparently named every senior
 UVF man in Belfast in the past 20 years and given chapter and verse of
 murder, robbery, extortion and collusion with RUC Special Branch.
 Despite being charged with nine serious offences, including murder, on
 November 22. Haggarty was granted bail under strict conditions and
 whisked to a safe house, no doubt in England. In other words the deal is
 done. Haggarty's case is due to come up this year. It has potentially
 explosive repercussions for the UVF.

 Ten days after Haggarty's bail, individual UVF members were out on the
 streets of Belfast 'orchestrating violence' at the city hall. The
 prospect of Haggarty's evidence is giving the UVF the heebie-jeebies.
 Whereas 30 years ago supergrasses could receive immunity for testifying
 against their associates, under Socpa they cannot. They are sentenced
 and then can have their sentence reduced to as little as three years but
 only if they testify against their accomplices. When Haggarty's case
 comes up, he must confess everything he knows or else he goes down for
 the full sentence. If he does, what will the DPP do? Ignore his
 testimony? Prosecute senior UVF men named? What do you think?

 What these very destabilising circumstances in the UVF mean is that even
 if some solution is found for the flag protests, disturbances will not
 end in loyalist districts which the UVF control. No wonder graffiti
 round the UVF Mount Vernon stronghold says, "HET forget the past".

 When people say the commotion in unionism is about more than flags
 they're right. The consternation in the UVF is the result of the failure
 of northern politicians to produce an acceptable process for resolving
 the past. One former proconsul ran away from the best solution proposed
 so far, the Eames-Bradley report. Since then nothing has been done or is
 likely to be done under our proconsul who has appeared completely out of
 her depth in the last month.

 Until there is a coherent proposal to satisfy victims, relatives and
 survivors of past violence, piecemeal and random prosecutions will
 continue to have the potential for destabilising the whole political
 process here. UVF members out on the streets of east Belfast and
 elsewhere are giving notice that they can destroy any attempt by
 Stormont politicians to create a pacified society here.

 Pretending the disturbances are about flags or Mike Nesbitt's truly
 pathetic 'chipping away at Britishness' ignores the anxiety gnawing away
 within loyalism that unpredictable investigations by the HET threaten
 the UVF more than republicans and worse, that, when the HET's money runs
 out in a couple of years, anyone not already prosecuted will go scot
 free. There has to be a better way