Clann na hEireann's topics - tribe.net

A Chairde;

2009-08-31T07:39:15Z

Dia Dhuit...

Is Mise le meas,

Seosamh O' Dalaigh

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

2009-03-21T00:46:05Z

A belated Happy St. Patrick's Day to Clann na hEireann members...
Ni ceart go cur le cheile

Tiocfaidh ar la!

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Happy New Year...

2009-01-16T07:56:17Z

Hope it is a blessed year for you all.

Is mise,

Seosamh

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

History class on youtube - Irish Independance.

2008-08-27T04:53:04Z

I wanted to test this link as it should just play back all the parts
one after another. It's also a great lecture with heated exchanges, I
almost thought the speaker was going punch a guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gpnn3u8Mw&feature=PlayList&p=83D3F4381706175B&i\
ndex=0&playnext=1

Cáemgen

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Everyday English and Slang in Ireland

2008-08-09T21:30:30Z

Everyday English and Slang in Ireland

Top of the morning to ya! Welcome to a grand award-winning web site, filling up full of flowery Irish English, (even as you print out about 18 A4 pages!). While I'm the first to admit that it's by no means complete; fair's fair...it's a start. What are ya waiting for? Don't be a gobshite. Hit the bleedin' PRINT button!

Be a pal and drop us an e-mail to info@irishslang.co.za with comments.
A
Afters (n): dessert
Ages (n): long time
Agro (n): fight
Alans or Alan Wickers(n): nickers; as in keep your alans on; calm down.
Alco (n): someone who's always drunk
Amadáin (Omadhan) (n): idiot
Any Use? (n) any good? as in "Was the film any use?"
Apache (n): joyrider
Ape (n): fool
Ara be whist (v): shut up.
Arse (n): backside
Arseways (a): "I did it all arseways" = I made a complete mess of it!
Arthurs (n): a pint of Guinness; as in Arthur Guinness the founder.
That's Arthur Guiness talking (phr): when someone is talking rubbish while under the influence
Arthur Scargill (n): gargle/drink; after the miners union leader in the 80s in England.
Article (n): a woman, usually half in jest
Artist, government (n): person 'drawing' the dole [social security]
Ask me arse/bollocks; go and shite; eff off and don't be annoying me (phr): general ways of telling someone to shut up
As rough as a bear's arse
As scarce as hen's teeth
As sick as a small hospital
As small as a mouse's diddy
As thick as two short planks
As useful as a lighthouse on a bog
As useful as a cigarette lighter on a motorbike
As useless as a chocolate teapot
As useless as tits on a bull
As weak as a salmon in a sandpit - (hungry)
At it (v): making love
Aubergine (n): brinjal, egg plant
Aul Man or Fella (n): father
Aul Wan (n): mother
Aussie kiss (n): cunnilingus /similar to a French Kiss, but given down under
Away with ye / away on / Aye right (phr): I don`t really believe you.
B
Babby (n): little child - baby
Baby Power (n): miniature bottle of Powers Irish Whiskey (favoured size for ladies handbags)
Bad dose (n): tough old time with illness
Bad egg (n): a dodgy bloke or a troublemaker
Bag of Taytos (n): packet of cold potato chips a.k.a. crisps
Bags (n): messy job
Bake (n): face/mouth
Baldy, as in "I haven't got a baldy" (phr): I haven't a clue
Ball of shite (n): as in, my dad's old car was a ball of shite
Ball-bag (n): scrotum but used to mean total idiot
Balls (n): to mess up, e.g. I made a balls of that job
Balls (n): male genitalia
Baluba (n): "stop acting like a Baluba". Horseplay, rough housing. Derived from the Baluba tribe Belgian Congo. Several Irish soldiers killed by them in the early 1960s
Banger (n): old car
Bang on (a): perfectly correct
Banjaxed (a): broken, no good
Bap (n): bread bun
Barm brack (n): cake eaten at holloween, from gaelic bareen brack = a feckled cake
Barrelling (v): rushing around (with purpose?)
Baths (n): public swimming pool
Battle cruiser (n): the pub; rhymes with boozer.
Baz (n): pubic hair
Bazzer (n): haircut
Bean flicker (n): lesbian
Bean-jacks (n): ladies toilet
Begorrah (exclam): be god (no self-respecting Irish person says this. Sorry, Hollywood)
Bejappers (exclam): as above
Belt (v): hit, assault
Be wide (phr): be careful
Be dog wide (phr): be extra vigilant
Beor (pronounced bee-yo) (n): attractive woman
Bevvies (n): alcoholic drinks
Beyant (n): beyond or over there
Bibe (n): a girl/woman and means she's a right old cow - from the Waterford area
Bifter (n): joint, as in "roll a bifter"
A bigger bollox never put his arm through a coat (phr): Self- explanatory
Bills (n): pounds
Bingo wings (n): flabby underarms on a woman
Bird (n): girl generally, or girlfriend
Biro (n): ballpoint pen
Bitch-bag (n): male scrotum or bollocks
Bite the back of my bollox (phr): stop bothering me
Black (a): very crowded, busy - as in 'town was black!'
Blackers (n): blackberries
Blackguard (pron. blaggard) (n): a ne'er-do-well/ (v) to give someone a hard time: He's blaggardin' ya
Black Mariah (n): police van - Paddy wagon in the States
Black Stuff,the (n): Guinness
Blarney (n): nonsense
Blather (v): talk
Bleedin' deadly (a): brilliant
Bloody (a): strengthing adjective, used liberally
Blow (n): hash
Blue shirt type of guy (n): 1930's quasi-fascist group
Bob (n): a shilling in the old Pounds, shillings and pennies; even though the monetary system changed, the name stuck
Bob (n): If a girl sees a good looking man,she can say that he is a "bob" or that she would "give him a few bob", meaning she would like to have intimate relations with him
BOBFOC (n): Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch, eg. "she's a Bobfoc"
Bog (n): country area - where culchies come from
Bogey (n): snot; something wrong, as in he's bogey or I got a bogey pint
Bogs (n): public toilets
Bogtrotter (n): another word for a culchie
Bold (a): naughty
Bollacking (n): to "give out" to someone
Bollix (n): alt spelling of below
Bollocks (n): anyone you think is stupid
Bolloxed (a): very drunk
Bolloxed up (v): screwed up
Bolt (v): go fast/ run away
Bombardier (n): type of Irish bus
Boozer (n): pub
Boreen (n): narrow lane or road
Boss (n): polite generic term when you're chatting to someone
'Bout ye (phr): how are you doing? (Originated in Belfast)
Bouzzie, Bowsie (n): young good-for-nothing, who hangs around on street corners
Bowler (rhymes with Cow-ler) (n): dog/ugly person
Box (n): female genitalia
Boxin' the fox (phr): robbing an orchard
Boyo (n): a bit of a lad
Brass monkey (phr): In reference to exceptionally cold weather - "It'd freeze the balls off a brass monkey".
Brasser (n): woman of ill repute, who charges but a brass coin for her services
Brickin' it (a): nervous to the point of soiling oneself
Brilliant (a): great, best
Brown Trout (n): excrement
Brutal (a): terrible
Bucket of snots (n): a ugly person
Bucketing (v): raining very heavily
Buckled (v): drunk
Bucko (n): lad, player
Bud (n): polite generic term when you're chatting to someone
Buff (n): another word for red-necks, although mostly used by red-necks to describe other red-necks living further out in the countryside, and likely to live on a farm up a mountain somewhere OR (a) naked
Bushed (v): exhausted/knackered
Business (n): shit - as in, 'I have to do me business'
Business (n): cool - as in, 'It's the business' when asked about a new film, for example.
Buzzies (n): travellers
C
Cacks (n): trousers - 'I was laughing me cacks off'- I was laughing so hard my trousers fell down' Or ' I wet me cacks' it was so funny - I was so scared 'I shit me cacks'. I was 'shitting it'.
Caffler (n): arsehole, idiot, eejit
Cake-hole (n): mouth or arsehole!
Can of piss (n): derogatory term i.e. "You're some can of piss"
Canary, nearly had a (n): had a fright
Canted (v): kicked a football over a wall - "you canted the ball you fucking eejit" - as in you CANT get the ball back - the other side of the wall contains usually a big dog or some bollix who never gives you your football back
Capper (n): a handicapped person
Carpet muncher (n): lesbian
Carry-on (n): argument, commotion
Cassie (n): back yard
Cat (a): no good, awful, very bad
Cess, bad (n): Bad luck
Cha (n): tea
Chancer (n): dodgy/risky character
Chav (n): Council housing and violent - someone who lives in an area that was populated by people kicked out of inner city slums
Cheek (n): Disrespect
Cheesed Off (a): angry, also Pissed Off
Cheese on your chin (phr): your fly is open!
Chinwag (n): a chat
Chipper (n): fish and chip shop
Chips (n): french fries
Chiseller (n): young child
Chokin' the chicken (v): wank
Chucker-out (n): doorman/bouncer
Circling over Shannon (phr): drunk. Derived from the visit of Boris Yeltsin to Shannon when he was apparantly too drunk to get off the plane. They circled six times to sober him up!
Claim (v): if you claim somebody you are picking a fight. You are claimed !
Clatter (n): slap
Clique (n): a group
Close (n): humid, as in "it's very close"
Cnawvshawling (v): complaining
Cock (n): penis
Cock manger (n): urinals
Cod (v): having someone on, as in: "Aw, g'wan, yer only coddin' me"
Coddle (n): shit
Cog (v): copy someone else's work at school
Colcannon (v): Mashed potatoes, cabbage or kale & butter, served at halloween
Complan (n): meal supplement, usually drunk by pregnant women and grannies
Conditioner (Fabric) (n): fabric softener
Confo (n): confirmation (Catholic sacrament)
Conkers (n): chestnuts
Cop on (to yourself) (v): get a life/don't be so stupid
Coppertop/ coppernob (n): Gingerhaired person
Cop shop (n): Garda station
Cooker (n): stove
Corner boy (n): somebody who hangs around aimlessly on the streets(gen a youth); used by older people
Covers (n): bedclothes
Cow Juice (n): milk
Crack (n): fart
Cracker (a): wonderful
Craic (n): (pronounced crack) fun time and good conversation
Crisps (n): potato chips (cold)
Crock (n): bad car; crock of shite is same as ball of shite.
Cub (n): young boy
Culchie (n): a city dweller's name for a country person
Cute hoors (n): usually politicians - it implies deviousness and crookedness. (in this case, I suppose it could apply to a female as well, but almost always the term 'hoor' is masculine.) In Ireland, at least, 'cute' means 'clever'
Cuttie (n): young girl
Cutty Knife (n): knife for cutting the bread
D
Da (n): father
Dander (n): a leisurely stroll
Danny boy (n): twenty pounds in money
Deadly (a): very cool
Deadner, give a (n): to knee someone in the side of their thigh
Dear (adj): expensive
Dekko (v): look at, inspect
Delph (n): crockery, cups, saucers etc
Dense (n): stupid - as dense as bottled shite
Desperate (adj): terrible
Diabolical (a): really terrible
Dickey Dazzler (n): an over dressed man
Diddies (n): breasts
Dig (n): punch or slap
Divil (n): devil
DNS (n): the Northside (of Dublin) generally or one of its residents
Do a Bunk/Flit (v): sneak off, usually to avoid paying a bill, the rent, etc.
Dodgy (n): suspect/mechanically suspect
Dog's Bollocks / Mutt's Nuts / Puppy's Privates (n): the genuine article / the real deal
Doing a line (phr): courting, seeing someone
Doing (or speaking) 90 to the dozen (v): going (or speaking) very fast
Doing the rat race (v): driving through housing estates to avoid the traffic
Donkey's Years (n): a long time - 'I haven't seen him in donkey's years'
Doorstep (n): a sandwich made with thickly cut bread i.e. a mug of rosie and a doorstep
Dope (n): idiot, more playful than eejit
On the Doss (v): To be goofing off
Dosser (n): layabout, useless
Dote (n): a lovely little thing, usually a baby
Down the Swanie (phr): down the drain
Doxie (n): a lady of the night who plies her trade on the docks
Drain da snake (phr): have a piss, take a leak
Drawers (n): underwear, usually ladies' :-)
Dressed to the nines (phr): done up, in your Sunday best
Drink Link (n): a bank ATM
Drop the hand (phr): gain access to a female's nether regions, go below the belt etc.
Dry Shite (n): a dull, boring person
Dry up (phr): Shut up!
Dry your arse (phr): Shut up and stop acting like a child.
Duck's Arse (n): wet fag butt
Duds (n): clothes
Dummy/Dummy Tit (n): pacifier / soother
Dump (taking a) (n): sitting on the toilet, doing a #2 !
E
Eat the head off (v): attack verbally
Eatin' house (n): restaurant
Eccer (n): homework (from exercises)
Eejit (n): idiot
Effin' and blindin' (n): cursing and swearing
Elephants (n): drunk
Erection section (n): slow set at a disco
F
F-word (n,a,v, etc.): used freely, mostly for strengthening an adjective.
Fag (n): cigarette
Fair play/whack to ya! : well done!
Falling from me, it's (phr): polite way of saying "I've got the runs"
Fanny (n): female genitalia
Far wack, the (n): over on the opposite side.
Fart around (v): to fool around
Feck (n): used instead of the other F word
Fecker (n): used instead of the other F word
Fecky the Ninth (n): complete idiot
Fib (n): a lie
Fierce (a): very; 'twas fierce cold
Fifty (n): stood-up (I got a fifty)
50p lifesaver (n): condom
Fine thing/fine bit of stuff (n): admiring comment on member of opposite sex
Fire away (v): continue, go ahead
Fiver (n): 5 pound note
Fla/Flah (n): very attractive person
Fla/Flah (v): to have sexual intercourse with someone ( From Irish 'Fleadh' meaning party)
Flah'ed out (a): exhausted
Flahulach (a): flamboyant, also very generous, throwing money around
Flagon (n): large 2-litre bottle, usually cider
Flaming (a): drunk
Flea Rake (n): a comb
Flicks (n): movies, pictures
Flied Lice (n): rice (in Chinese take-away accent)
Flitters (a): tattered and torn
Flog (v): sell
Flummoxed (a): puzzled
Flute (n): penis
Fluthered (a): drunk
Fly Cemetery (n): currant bun
Flying low, you're (phr): your zip is undone
FM (n): Fuckable Mother or MILF
Follier-upper (n): a serial at the pictures (movies). To be continued ...
Foostering (n): wasting time
Foundered (a): freezing cold
Frankie (n) : Co Down term for someone from Belfast, usually implying a broad accent and a certain lack of sophistication
Fry (n): fried breakfast (typically sausage, bacon, eggs and pudding)
G
Gaa, playing (v): gaelic football [from Gaelic Athletics Association]
Gack (n): refers to a foolish or stupid person. Can also be pronounced "gackawacka", or "gacky" (a). "Wise up ya gack ye." "Those shoes are gacky looking."
Gaff (n): house
Gallery (n): great fun, someone is a gallery-entertaining person- a mad laugh
Galya (n): baby
Gameball (exclam): OK
Gammy (a): shitty, a load of crap, useless
Gander (n): a nosey look
Ganky (n): ugly, unpleasant woman (Co. Cork)
Gansey (n): sweater, jersey, pullover or loads (of something)
Gargle (n & v): alcohol - to go out drinking
Gary Glitter (n): your shitter or arse
Gas (a): funny
Gasur (n): young boy
Gatch (n): an unusual way of walking e.g. look at the gatch on him
Gawk (v): stare
Gawk (v): to throw up - especially after alcohol
Gear (a/n): good, clothes
Gee, Gee-box (n): female genitalia (hard G sound)
Gee-bag (n): general term of abuse
Gee-Eyed (a): drunk
Gersha (n): young girl
Get off with (someone) (ph): make out
Get on like a house on fire (n): to get on real well with someone
Get out of that garden (phr): same as ""Yeah right!" or "Up the yard!""
Gick (n): shit
Gicker (n): your bum [up the gicker (no man quicker)]
Gift (n): excellent, unexpected surprise
Gimp (n): an undeveloped weedy adult male
Gingernut (n): redheaded person
Git (n): rotten person
Give him a toe in the hole (v): kick in the arse
Give Out (v): to criticize someone - 'She gave out to him something fierce over standing her up'
Gizmo (n): a thing or most often a guitar
a Go (n): turn/fight
Go on outta that (phr): no way in hell or you're pulling my leg
Gob (n): mouth, as in: "shut your gob" or (v): to spit
Gobber (n): A spit (of the green kind)
Gobshite (n): idiot
Gobsmacked (a): very surprised
Go-car (n): baby's pushchair
Gollier (n): a big, fat spit of phlegmy stuff
Gom, Gombeen (n): idiot
Good Gear (n): good, clothes or stuff
Gooter (n): penis
Gossoon (n): child
Gouger, (Gow for short) - (As used by Dublin Gardaí) (n): a dangerous knacker/thief
Go way outta that! (phr): Dismissive response, indicating general disdain and disbelief
Gowl (n): stupid person/idiot; vagina
Grand (a): fine, nice
Growler (n): female genitalia (hairy growler)
Gushie/rushie (n): to throw up a sweet/candy or coin and have a crowd of kids run to catch it.
Guard (n): policeman - also Razzers, the Razz, mule, pigs, shades, a female guard is a "banner" - (the irish for police woman is Ban Garda).
Guff (n): nonsense or smell
Gullier (n): a large marble used when playing along the road kerb
Gummin' (v): salivating, dying for something e.g. I'm gummin' for a pint.
Gur cake (n): a dense fruit cake
Gurrier / Guttie (n): lout, hooligan or gypsy
Gut (n): stomach
Gutties (n): trainers, sports shoes
Guzz-eye (n) cast in the eye i.e. "he has a guzz-eye"
H
Hames (n): a mess - 'He made a right hames of the job'
Happy out (v): everything is sorted out now or you're generally happy with the situation.
Hard Neck (n): cheek
Hardchaw, Hardman (n): rough person, the type who's ready for a fight at the drop of a hat - "Yeah you, wha' ya lookin' a?"
Hard Tack (n): spirits (usually whiskey), neat
Hash (n): to mess up, e.g. I made a hash of it
Has she calfed yet? (v): Giving birth
Haven't got a baldy (phr): no chance
Haven't got a snowball's chance in hell (phr): no chance; longer version of above
Having the painters in (ph): having your period
Head (n): friend or pal e.g. How's it going head?
Header (n): nutcase, unstable person
Head the ball (n): foolish person/ or generic name for any person
Heavin' (v): thronged/packed i.e the place was heavin last Saturday
Heel (n): the first or last slice of a loaf of bread
Heifer (n): an ugly country woman (the consensus being that she looks like a cow)
Hick or Hickey/Hickster (a/n): unfashionable
High babies (a): senior infants' school
Hit and miss (n): piss
Hobnails (n): the knuckles of the fist - I touched his jaw with my hobnails and dropped him to the ground
Hockeyed them out of it (phr): really beat them, in a game of football or whatever sport you are playing. Like 10-0
Hogan's Goat (phr): kept woman
Hole (n): arse
Hole in the wall (n): ATM
Holliers (n): holidays!
Holy joe (n): sanctimonious person
Holy show (n): spectacle
Hoofed (v): walked
Hooley (n): party or celebration
Hoor (n): an all-purpose type of word. Someone you disapprove of can be 'a right old hoor', but you can also have 'not a bad old hoor' ( kind of grudging respect).
Hoor's Melt (n): offspring of a hoor, a bit like "son of a bitch"
Hop, on the (n): bunk school, playing truant
Horrors (n): drunk, e.g. I was in the horrors last night
Hot Press (n): airing cupboard, where the hot water geyser is.
Hot Rocks (n): The burning bits of hash/paper that flake off from the business end of a joint.
How are the men? (phr): said on entering a non-local pub (usually in the country) when there are a few of the locals present. It breaks the ice apparently.
How's the form? (phr): how are you?
How's the talent? (phr): Is there anyone good looking/ interesting about?
Howya : "how are you?" - typical greeting
Hump, the (n): sulking
Hunkers, on your (n): crouching down (squatting)
I
I am in me wick (phr): you must be joking!
I could eat a baby's arse through the bars of a cot (phr): I'm hungry
I could eat the lamb o' Jayjus through the rungs of a chair (phr): I'm very hungry
I'd eat a farmer's arse through a blackthorn bush! (phr): I'm hungry
If I were mad, I would! (phr): I certainly won't
I've a mouth on me (phr): I'm hungry
I've a throat on me (phr): I'm thirsty
I will in me brown (phr): I won't!
I will in me ring (phr): certainly not!
J
Jabs (n): breasts
Jackeen (n): a culchie's name for a Dubliner
Jacked (a): tired
Jack in the box (n): A dead Dublin man
Jacks (n): toilet
Jaded (a): very tired, knackered
Jammer(n): stolen car
Jammers (a): very crowded, busy
Jammin (v): having your period
Jammy client (n): class A fool
Jam on your egg (n): wishful thinking; will never happen
Jam Rags (n): sanitary towels aka brillo pads
Jammy (a): lucky
Janey Mack! (exclam): Gosh, really?
Japers! (exclam): Gosh, really?
Jar (n): A pint
Jaysus (exclam): Jesus
Jibber (n): person afraid to try new things
Jip (n): sperm
Jo Maxi (n): taxi
Johnny (n): condom
Johnny-jump-up (n): pint of guinness mixed with Bulmers (cider)
Joyce (n): ten pounds in money
Juicy (a): cute
K
Kick in the bollocks, a (n): a laming blow to the male genitalia with a foot or very bad news
Kimberley's (n): local biscuits, used to be made by Jacob's
Kip (n): a dump or a dive
Kip, to have a (n): short sleep, nap
Kisser (n) mouth
Knacker (n): gypsy, travelling person
Knackered (v): very tired
Knackerette (n): gypsy, travelling person of the female variety
Knacker's yard (n): The abattoir
Knickers (n): ladies' underwear also Don't get ur knickers in a twist (phr): don't worry yourself
Knick-knacking (v): ringing a doorbell and running away
Knicks (n) sports shorts
Knob (n): penis
Knobs (n): breasts
Knocked up (v): pregnant
Knock someone up (v): call around to someone's house on business
L
Lack (n): girlfriend/sex slave
Ladhb (n): awkward looking lad.
Lady Muck (n): a stuck-up woman
Lamped him out of it, I (phr): I really hit the guy hard, knocked him out
Langer (n): penis
Langers (a): drunk
Large Lad (n): mickey, willy, penis
Lashing (v): raining hard
Lashings (n): a lot i.e. lashings of food
Laudy daw (n): snob
Lay off! (exclam): leave me alone, stop it!
Layin' a cable (phr) : taking a crap
Legger, do a (phr): to abscond from the scene
Legging (it) (v): moving at pace!
Letting on (v): pretending
Life of Reilly (phr): carefree, hedonistic
Lift (n): elevator
Like a blue-arsed fly (phr): running around, hectically busy
Little green man (phr): a small bottle of Jameson's
Loaf (v): to head butt someone
Local, the (n): the nearest pub
Locked (a): very drunk
Lock in (n): when a pub locks people in after hours so the pub looks closed from the outside.
Longers (n): long trousers
Loopers (a): nuts - It was 'loopers'; that auld one is 'loopers'. She's 'looped out of it'
Lose the head (n): to lose control and start a fight
Low babies (a): junior infants' school
Lurching (v): slow dancing up close
Lush (n): a bit of a drinker
M
Ma (n): mother
Maggot, Stop acting the ... (ph): stop messin' around
Mala (n): plasticine
Malarky (n): tomfoolery
Mangled (a): drunk
Manky (a): filthy dirty
Mantelpiece (n): ornamental area around a fireplace
Mary Jane (n): women's privates
Mary Hick, Mary Banger (n): unfashionable female
Massive (n): brilliant, deadly
Master (n): the best, expression of approval. "It's the master"
Me arse and Katty Barry! (phr): yeah sure!
Mebbs (n): genitals
Melted (a): very tired
Mentaller (a): crazy guy
Me ould segotia, me ould sweat, me ould flower (n): best friend
Messages (n): shopping, groceries
Messing (v): playing around
Mickey (n): child's name for a penis
Mickey Márbh (n): Irish language for Stillorgan, a suburb if Dublin (i.e. still organ, márbh means dead in Irish)
Midden (n): a sloppy person
Middling (a): so-so, neither good nor bad
Millie up! (phr): a fight going to start
Milling (v): fighting
Mind yer house! (phr): warning that one is going to be tackled from behind (sport)
Mind yourself (v): be careful
Minerals (n): soft drinks in the US, cool drinks in South Africa
Mingin' (a): dirty, manky
Mink (n): traveller
Missed by a gee hair (ph): just missed; can be used to describe a near accident or a missed shot in soccer etc.
Mitch (v): bunk school, playing truant
Molly (n): effeminate
Molly coddle (v): over protect
Mortaller (n): mortal sin
Mortified (a): embarassed, usually said by your ma
Mot (n): girlfriend
Motherless (a): drunk
Mouldy (n): lousy/rotten
Mountainy (a): as in "She's a bit mountainy"; term of abuse for women from the country denoting big and rough like a mountain.
Muck (n): soil
Mucker (n): either a culchie or sometimes, a friend i.e. someone you muck around with.
Muck Savage (n): mountain man culchie
Muck-truck (n): culchie school bus
Mulchie or Munchie (n): Somebody who lives in the country
Muppet (n): fool, idiot
Murder (n): tough going/difficult
Muzzy (n): a little brat
N
Narky (a): cranky
Nat-king (n): dole; comes from nat king Cole (rhyming slang)
Nawful (n): terrible
Ned (n): excrement sim. to dump
Nicker (n): money; 50 nicker=50 quid/pounds
Nickser, Nixer (n): a job done on the quiet so that no tax has to be paid on the wages.
Nifty (n): very useful
Nifty 50 (n): a Honda 50cc motorcycle
99, a (n): ice cream cone with a chocolate flake
Ninty to the dozen, going (v): going very fast
Nip (n): nude, as in 'I saw her in the nip'
Nits (n): head lice
Noggin (n): head
Norrier, the (n): The North Circular Road - [dublin]
Numbs (n): drunk, e.g. I was in the numbs last night
Nunny bunny (n): five pounds in money
Nuts (a): mad
O
Odds (n): loose change
Off licence (n): liquor store, place to buy take away booze
Off the drink (phr): means you're not drinking for a while. Typically lasts as long as the hangover!
Off me face (phr): really high on drugs or alcohol
Off your nut (v): crazy - 'That fella's off his nut'
Oinseach (n): an eejit; from old Irish meaning scabby old woman
Oirish(n): typically, clichéd Irish(ness)
Old Lady (n): mother
Old Man (n): father
Omadhaun (n): bit of a fool
On the never never (n): On Hire purchase
On the ockie (phr): on the hop, playing truant from school, work
On the piss (phr): pub crawl, out drinking
One and One (n): fish and chips i.e. One and One Cod
Ossified (v): drunk
Oxters (n): armpits
P
Package of crips (n): a packet of potato crisps
Pain in the hole (n): Pain in the ass
Paralytic (a): very drunk
Pave (v): to rob something
Pavey/ Pikey (n): gypsy (they were specifically travelling sellers of fabric)
Pedal and crank (n): wank
Peeler (n): policeman
Pelt (n): skin
Pelting (v): throwing objects or pelting with rain
Perishing (a): ...are very cold
Petrified (a): drunk
Pictures (n): movies
Pint of plain (n): a pint of Guinness
Piped telly (n): cable television
Piss (v): urinate
Piss in the Beds (n): dandelions
Pissed off (a): angry
Pisser (n): going out for a night of big drinking.
Pisshead (n): someone who's always drunk
Piss up (n): getting drunk. Let's all go on a big piss up
Plankin' it (phr): very nervous
Plastered (a): drunk
Plastic Paddy (n): someone of Irish descent who has all the accoutrements of Irishness - ends up being a cliché
Plonker (n): idiot
Pogue (n): kiss
Pogue Mahone (phr): kiss my arse
Polluted (a): drunk
Poof (n): homosexual
Poppies (n): potatoes
Porter, a rake of (n): a lot of stout
Posser (n): when you get a wet foot from walking in a puddle of water
Poteen (n): illegal spirits
Powerful (a): great, excellent, grand
Praities (n): potatoes
Pram (n): go-car, baby's pushchair
Press (n): cupboard
Pruning (v): when you get your testicles grabbed and squeezed hard usually by a few guys holding you down or sometimes suddenly by one bully!
Provo (n): a member or supporter of the (Provisional) IRA
Puck (n): punch
Puke (n): get sick, vomit
Pull (v): Vague verb popular in Belfast that means, generally, to have some manner of success with a woman. "I pulled last night" or 'do you think he'll pull?' can refer to anything from a snog to the beast with two backs.
Pulling me plum (v): doing absolutely nothing
Pullin' me wire (v): having a wank
Pull your socks up (phr): get to work/get busy
Put a gap in the bush (phr): close the door
Put the heart crossways in someone (phr): you'll give me a heart attack i.e. "Jasus, don't do that. You'll put the heart crossways in me"
Putting it on the long finger (phr): putting it off, procrastinating
Puss (n):face, usually sulky
Q
Quare (n): contrary to popular belief this does not mean queer or strange but great! - it's irish irony
Quare hawk (n): odd fella
Quern (a): used only in wexford it means "very" i.e. "I'm quern tired."
Queue up (v): to queue
Qweer bit of skirt / talent (n): a really attractive woman / man.
Quid (n): pound(s); 50 quid=50 pounds
R
Rabbit on (v): talk a lot
Rag order (n): disorganised
Rake (n): a great amount of anything
Rapid (a): amazing
Rashers (n): pieces of bacon; female genetalia
Rat (n): squealer; some one who tells on you.
Re-calibration (n): any amount of time spent with the AA - (Alcoholic's Anonymous)
Reddener (n): blush
Red neck (n): anyone who isn't from Dublin [ came from the parents hitting their children on the back of the neck, saying 'Get up to Dublin and get a job' ]
Redser (n): somebody with red or ginger hair
Reef (v): beat (a person) up
Ride: (n) an attractive person (v) to have sex
Ri-Ra (n): fun and excitement
Riverdance (n): The act of commiting suicide in the Shannon. "so and so did The Riverdance"
Rock 'n' roll (n): having sex, 'did you get your rock'n'roll' (get yer hole)
Ronnie (n): moustache - after movie star, Ronald Coleman
Root (v): search
Rosie Lee (n): tea
Rossie (n): brat
Row (rhymes with cow) (n): fight
Rub-a-dub-dub (n): the pub
Rubber (n): pencil eraser
Rubber as in "I was rubber last night" (phr): my legs were made of rubber I had so much to drink
Rubber Dollies (n): running shoes
Rubber Johnny (n): condom
Ructions (n): Loud arguing or commotion - 'There were great ructions at our house last night'
Runners (n): trainers, everyday sports shoes
the Runs (a): another term for the scutters
Rushers/wellies (n): wellington boots
S
Sally (n): head; comes from Sallynoggin (Dublin suburb) you take out the noggin part which is head.
Sambos (n): sandwiches
Sap (n): wimp
Savage (a): very severe or excellent
Scab (n&v): one who scabs (constantly borrows or tries to get freebies); scabby, stingy
Scab (n): ugly woman/man
Scaldy (n): scabby, stingy
Scallion (n): spring onion
Scalped (v): to get a short haircut
Scanger (n): stupid female
Scarlet (a): blushing
Scatter (v): run away from something
Scon (n): amorous encounter (Kilkenny Origin)
Score (n): twenty; Four score=80; lend us a score=20 pounds
Score (v): as in to succeed in getting a one night stand
Scram! : go away!
Scran (n): food
Scrap (n): fight
the Scratch (a): dole, social security
Scratcher (n): bed
Scrawbed (n): scratched by fingernails - usually in a fight
Screwed (v): fecked, in trouble
Scrubber (n): female of low morals
Scuttered (n): drunk
Scundered/scunderated (v): embarrassed
Scutters/Squitters (n): diarrhoea
Scutting (v): catching a ride by hanging from the back of a moving truck and then jumping off
Session (n): Drinking all day long, typically starting before noon
Shades (n): police
Shag, to (v): have sex
Shagged (a): tired
Shaggin' (a): general adjective used like Feckin'
Sham (n): used by a man from a rural area when addressing one from the city e.g. How's it goin', sham?
Shaper (n): young guy who takes up a lot of space when he struts around.
Shattered (a): exhausted
Shenanagans (n): carry-on/horse-play
Shift (n): kiss
Shiner (n): black eye
Shite hawk (n): general term of abuse
Shitter (n): toilet
Shittin' bricks (phr): very nervous
Shlossed (a): very drunk
Shook (a): looks very unwell e.g. "he looked shook"
Shore (n): outside ( your kitchen door) drain !
Shorts (n): liquor drinks (spirits) - shots or mixed drinks
Shower of savages (n): a crowd, out to have a raucous time but being a bit of a nuisance!
Shrapnel (n): loose change
Silko (n): similar to gouger except less offensive
Single (n): packet of chips (french fries)
Six o' one, half a dozen o' the other (phr): exactly the same
Skawly (a): horrible, not good
Sketch (n): usually a girl who looks a state
Skin (n): friend
Skinny (n): lowdown, gossip e.g. gis the skinny on me ol' mate
Skins (n): the papers used to roll a joint or a cigarette
Skiver (n): someone who avoids work
Sky diver (n): a fiver (5 pounds)
Slag (n): same as scrubber
Slagging (v): having someone on, making fun of them
Sláinte = Cheers (literally Health!)
Slapper (n): scrubber or a slut
Slash (n&v): "to take a slash"= to piss, to urinate
Sleeveen, Slinkeen (n): a sly type, pinch the eyes out of your head
Slinjing (v): dragging your heels
Slug (n): mouthful of a drink - gis a slug
Snapper (n): child
Snaps (n): photographs
Snared rapid (v): caught doing something one shouldn't have been doing
Sneachta (n): cocaine (snow)
Snitch, Squealer, Squaler (n): informant
Snobby Weather!! (phr): "are you choosing to ignore me?" (usually meant in humour)
Snog, Shift (v): make out with or get off with (someone)
Snot (n): nasal discharge
Snot rag (n): handkerchief
Snug (n): pub booth
Soft as shite (n): soft in the head
Soft auld day, it's a (phr): usually said by old people when referring to a typically Irish day, i.e. a soft rain falling
Soother (n): pacifier, dummy
Sore Finger (n): Salt and vinegar (in Chinese take-away accent)
Sound (a): really good
Spa (n): someone who hasn't got good co-ordination
Specky Four-Eyes (a): anyone who wears glasses (kid's nickname)
Speedy (n): police motorbike
Sprog (n): kid
Spud (n): typical nickname for someone with the surname Murphy
Spuds (n): potatoes
Squealer (n): baby; someone who tells on you
Squid (n): same as quid
Squizz (n): a look-see
Stabber (n): the last 1/4 of a cigarette - "leave us a stabber"
Stalk (n) penis
Stay easy (v): relax
Steamed, Steamboats (v): very drunk - "we're getting steamed (steamboats) tonight"
Steever (n): a kick in the backside
Stinky/Stinkies (n): shit
Stop the lights! : jayzuz, really?!
Stocious (a): drunk as a lord
Strand (n): beach
Strides (n): trousers
Streal (n): looking down and out; Like a streal
Stung (a): embarrassed after getting caught doing something ye shouldn't
Suckin' diesel (v): having a good time
Swimming trunks (n): mens' bathing suit
Swiss (a): Arse (swiss roll - hole) as in 'Up your swiss'
T
Tackies (n): runners/trainers
Taig (n): catholic
Tan (n): an English person
Tenner (n): 10 pound note
That's Right (phr): to agree with someone
Thick (n)/(a): idiot/stupid
Thick as a ditch (phr): really stupid person
Thick as a brick (phr): stupid
Thick as a (short) plank (phr): stupid
3m (n): a young male who's only cares are his ma, his moth and his moustache
Throwing Shapes (v): what a shaper does...see above.
Thunder & Lightning (n): knock like thunder, run like lightning: knocking at a door and running away. Also Knick-knacking
Tiddler: reference to small fish or child
Tinker (n): gypsy/travelling person/insulting term for a low-class female
Tip (n): Garbage dump/dirty, messy place - 'That pub is an awful tip'
Toe-rag (n): a useless bollix
Togs (n): swimming trunks
Tonne/ton (n): one hundred; doing a ton = driving at 100 mph or to owe someone a ton=to owe 100 pounds
Tool (n): idiot, penis
Tosser(n): wanker
Toucher (n): someone who is always looking for a handout
Touched (a): a strange individual
Touchin' cloth (phr) : dying for a crap
Traipse (v): walk aimlessly
Trap (n): mouth
Trick-acting (v): horse-play, messing about, showing off
Tripe (n): bullshit; [in an American context] menudo served on Saturdays at your local Mexican Restaurant in AZ.
the Trots (n): a.k.a. the scutters
Turf Accountant (n): a.k.a. bookie / betting shop for horse or greyhound racing
Twisted (a): very drunk
Twistin' hay (v): means you're starting trouble, usually in a playful way
Two-bulb (n): squad car
Tyre biter (n): related to Bowler [ugly females, i.e. dogs chasing cars]
U
Undy-grundy (n): wedgie
Up 'a duff : pregnant
Up the flue / In the family way (n): pregnant
Up the pole : pregnant
Up the yard! : be off with ya!
Up to ninety : (as in so 'n' so is ...) near boiling point, ready to explode
V
Vexed (v): upset
Vixen (n): cute woman
W
Wafer (n): ice cream sandwiched between two flat wafers
Wagon (n): ugly female
Walrus (n): fifty pounds in money
Wall-falling (a): knackered, exhausted
Wanker (n): an uninteresting person, usually someone you can't stand
Want in him, there's a (phr): he's a bit slow
Warped (a): very drunk
Warped, F%$ked up, Twisted (a): strange
Weapon (n): it's great i.e. it's a weapon. i.e.
Wear (v) & (n): a very deep heavy kiss, with full tongue action - stuck into somebody so much it's like you're wearing them. Common phrase, 'to wear the head off somebody' is to give them an extremely long and hard 'wear' Common in Dublin. In danger of being replaced by the English 'To Snog'
Wee Folk (n): Leprechauns of course
West Brit (n): excessively anglophile
Wet the tea (v): make tea (comes from the practice of wetting the leaves in the bottom of the pot
Whaya looking at? (phr): usually said by a gang member and sometimes a precusor to getting a clatter - there is no right answer!
Whiff or Whack (n): a smell
Whist (v): keep quiet
Wick (a): crap
There'll be wigs on the green (phr): there'll be a big ruckus or fight; also, there'll be hell to pay
Wire (n): mickey, penis
Wise Up, Kop On (phr): use your head, wake up!
Wojus (a): poor or bad; "That tea is wojus."
Wrecked (a): tired
X
a gaelic filler until you send something in!
Tripe (n): ruipleog
Y
Y-Fronts (n): Men's briefs
Yockers (n): Balls
Yoke (n): a thing (pass me that yoke) or (ya feckin yoke)
Yonks (n): a long time
Youngfella (n): generic term for a youth (male)
Youngwan (n): generic term for a youth (female)
You couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo (phr): bad aim, woeful hurler/darts player/soccer player etc.
Your head's a marley (phr): Belfast phrase for "You don't know what you're talking about" ( marley= marble)
Your head's up your arse (phr): "You don't know what you're talking about"
Your hole (a): having sex, as in ' did you get your hole last night?'
Yoyo (n): euro
Z
Z (n): when you need to get some sleep you need to get some zeds.
a final gaelic filler
Zero (n): nialas

Rhymin' Slang
• apple tart : fart
• apples and pears : stairs
• arabs knees : keys
• arthur power : shower
• barney dillons : shillings, sheckels, moolah, money
• barry white : going for a shite eg. I'm going in to see barry white
• battle cruiser : boozer otherwise known as pub
• bill murray : curry
• bill skinner : dinner
• boat race : face
• bottle of water : daughter
• bread and honey : money
• bucket of dirt : shirt
• chicken's neck : check
• chicken's hash : cash
• cock and hen : ten
• current bun : son
• daisy roots : boots
• daniel day : luás, pronounced lewis - the new tram line
• davy crockett : pocket
• dick van dyke : bike
• dog and bone : phone
• far east : priest
• garden hose : nose
• gary glitter : your shitter or arse
• george raft : draught (breeze from an open window/door)
• gregory peck : neck
• gregory pecks : specs
• half scotch : watch
• hambone : phone
• horses and asses : glasses
• house of wax : jacks
• indian joes : toes
• jam jar : car
• jimmy joyce : voice
• johnny ray : head honcho/boss
• kitchen sink : chink
• mince pie : eye
• mi-wadi : body
• north & south : mouth
• oil riggers : niggers [ not my particular type of word but to be comprehensive, I should include it :( ]
• oliver twist : wrist
• one and other : ur brother
• ones and twos : shoes
• peggy dell : (the) smell
• raspberry tart : heart
• rosie-lee : tea
• scooby doo : clue
• scotch peg : leg
• skin and blister : sister
• struggle and strife : wife
• tennis racket : jacket
• thruppenny bits : tits
• two by four : door
• uncle ned : head
• vera lynns : skins

posted in Clann na hEireann - 9 replies

Innocents were 'shot dead on Bloody Sunday'

2008-08-09T21:27:04Z

No shit sherlock!

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/innocents-were-shot-dead-on-bloody-sunday-678189.html

posted in Clann na hEireann - 5 replies

Dhia dhuit A Chairde!

2008-08-03T07:15:06Z

Just wanted to take the time to say Hello and God Bless to all members. Not too much activity here of late but just wanted to say Hi anyway.

Is mise,

Seosamh

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Thousands mourn ex-IRA chief Brendan Hughes

2008-02-21T17:45:10Z

Thousands mourn ex-IRA chief Brendan Hughes
February 20, 2008

DUBLIN - Brendan "The Dark" Hughes, a one-time Irish Republican Army commander who broke with former comrades when they pursued peace in Northern Ireland, was cremated yesterday after a funeral that briefly unified both sides of the split.

Hughes, 59, died Saturday. He had spent his final years criticizing Sinn Fein leaders for accepting Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord and said that while the IRA should not return to violence, its political leaders made people suffer needlessly for decades when the British government had offered similar peace terms as long ago as 1975.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, a longtime comrade inside and outside prison, helped carry Hughes' coffin outside St. Peter's Cathedral in Catholic West Belfast, where both men joined the IRA as teenagers. Adams declined to comment yesterday but issued a statement after Hughes' death calling him "a very good friend and comrade over many years of struggle."

Veterans of the IRA and dissident groups were among more than 2,000 mourners. Sinn Fein officials appealed successfully for no politically divisive comments during the funeral.

Hughes, who was known by the nicknames "The Dark" and "Darkie" because of his Mediterranean appearance and to distinguish himself from other Belfast men with the same name, specified before dying that he wanted to be cremated rather than buried in the IRA's roll of honor section in Milltown Cemetery, West Belfast, where dozens of his comrades lie. The cause of death was not disclosed, but his family said he never recovered fully from the effects of a 1980 hunger strike.

Hughes and Adams were arrested together in July 1973 and jailed without trial. Hughes, reputed to be one of the IRA's most determined gunmen and bank robbers, escaped six months later. He returned to Belfast and directed IRA operations there. Police arrested him in May 1974 and seized weapons and ammunition.

Hughes became the IRA's commanding officer inside the Maze prison, where he oversaw a six-year campaign to force British authorities to concede them status as "political prisoners." The protest involved going naked rather than wearing prison uniforms, smearing their own excrement on cell walls - and finally mounting a 1980 hunger strike. Hughes and six others refused food for 53 days before he ordered the hunger strike to end in disputed circumstances.

Hughes was replaced as IRA commander in the prison by Bobby Sands, who starved to death with nine other inmates in a 1981 hunger strike that also failed to achieve their demands.

Hughes resumed IRA activity after his 1986 parole, but grew disillusioned when former colleagues turned full time to politics and pursued compromise after the 1997 IRA cease-fire. He said Sinn Fein leaders had turned their backs on the working class, preferring to take good-paying government jobs in a Northern Ireland that remained British territory.

Hughes said colleagues with political ambitions should have said so far sooner, and called the IRA's 1975 cease-fire an opportunity lost. "Think of all the lives that could have been saved had we accepted the 1975 truce," he said in 2000. "That alone would have justified acceptance. We fought on and for what? What we rejected in 1975."

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Gerry Adams lauds IRA veteran

2007-11-09T03:19:57Z

BELFAST -- More than 1,000 supporters of Sinn Fein and the outlawed Irish Republican Army showed up for the funeral of Martin Meehan.

The casket bearing the 62-year-old Meehan, one of the IRA's best-known figures, who died Saturday of a heart attack, was carried through the streets of his native north Belfast before the burial in Milltown Cemetery, where the IRA honors its own.

Like IRA funerals in the old days, the coffin was draped in an Irish flag and topped with a black beret and gloves, part of the underground group's informal uniform. But, reflecting the IRA's 2005 decision to abandon violence and disarm, the pallbearers included no masked men in camouflage uniforms, nor did anybody fire a volley over the grave.

In his graveside oration, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams — a former IRA commander who, like Meehan, joined the group in 1966 — lauded his longtime colleague as a true believer in the cause of uniting the two parts of Ireland.

"If he could speak now, he would tell us he is still an IRA volunteer," Adams said.

He listed landmarks of Meehan's IRA career: a daring Belfast prison escape in 1971, myriad convictions for everything from riots to kidnapping, a 66-day hunger strike and more than 18 years behind bars, and his conversion upon his 1994 release into a persuasive advocate for negotiations and compromise.

Adams said it was "obvious that his life was a hard life. Yet in my opinion he would have chosen no other."

Adams and two other longtime senior IRA officials — Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness and Brendan "Bik" McFarlane, who directed the IRA's 1981 prison hunger strike that left 10 men dead — carried the coffin together following Meehan's Requiem Mass at Holy Cross Catholic Church.

Many other veterans — including Sean Kelly, who survived a botched IRA bombing in 1993 that killed nine Protestant civilians and an IRA colleague — took turns bearing the casket.

In his sermon, Rev. Aidan Troy referred to Meehan's early days as a senior IRA gunman in his native Ardoyne, an embattled Catholic enclave of north Belfast that, during the high point of bloodshed during the early 1970s, feared being overrun by Protestant mobs. IRA snipers in those days killed both Protestants during riots and British troops on patrol.

"He loved this community of Ardoyne ... and would have done anything to make sure it was safe," Troy said.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Story of my friend Terry Kirby...

2007-11-04T03:21:02Z

Maze Prison escape

The Maze Prison escape (known to Irish republicans as the Great Escape took place on 25 September 1983. In the biggest prison escape in British history, 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners escaped from H-Block 7 (H7) of the maximum security HM Prison Maze (also known as Long Kesh) in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, which at the time was considered one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe.

• 1 Previous escapes
• 2 1983 escape
• 3 Reaction
• 4 Escapees
• 5 References

Previous escapes
During the Troubles, Irish republican prisoners had escaped from custody en masse on several occasions. On 17 November 1971, nine prisoners dubbed the "Crumlin Kangaroos" escaped from Crumlin Road Jail when rope ladders were thrown over the wall. Two prisoners were recaptured, but the remaining seven managed to cross the border into the Republic of Ireland and appeared at a press conference in Dublin. On 17 January 1972, seven internees escaped from the prison ship HMS Maidstone by swimming to freedom, resulting in them being dubbed the "Magnificent Seven". On 31 October 1973, three leading IRA members, including former Chief of Staff Seamus Twomey, escaped from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin when a helicopter landed in the exercise yard of the prison. Irish band The Wolfe Tones wrote a song celebrating the escape called "The Helicopter Song", which topped the Irish popular music charts. 19 IRA members escaped from Portlaoise Jail on 18 August 1974 after overpowering guards and using gelignite to blast through gates, and 33 prisoners attempted to escape from Long Kesh on 6 November 1974 after digging a tunnel. IRA member Hugh Coney was shot dead by a sentry, 29 other prisoners were captured within a few yards of the prison, and the remaining three were back in custody within 24 hours. In March 1975, ten prisoners escaped from the courthouse in Newry while on trial for attempting to escape from Long Kesh.[8] The escapees included Larry Marley, who would later be one of the masterminds behind the 1983 escape. On 10 June 1981, eight IRA members on remand, including Angelo Fusco and Joe Doherty, escaped from Crumlin Road Jail. The prisoners took prison officers hostage using three handguns that had been smuggled into the prison, took their uniforms and shot their way out of the prison.
1983 escape
HM Prison Maze was one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe. In addition to 15-foot fences, each H-Block was encompassed by an 18-foot concrete wall topped with barbed wire, and all gates on the complex were made of solid steel and electronically operated. Prisoners had been planning the escape for several months. Bobby Storey and Gerry Kelly had started working as orderlies in H7, which allowed them to identify weaknesses in the security systems, and six handguns had been smuggled into the prison. Shortly after 2:30 pm on 25 September, prisoners seized control of H7 by taking the prison officers hostage at gunpoint. One officer was stabbed with a craft knife, and another was knocked down by a blow to the back of the head. One officer who attempted to prevent the escape was shot in the head by Gerry Kelly, but survived. By 2:50 pm the prisoners were in total control of H7 without the alarm being raised. A dozen prisoners also took uniforms from the officers, and the officers were also forced to hand over their car keys and details of where their cars were, for possible later use during the escape. At 3:25 pm, a lorry delivering food supplies arrived at the entrance to H7, where Brendan McFarlane and other prisoners took the occupants hostage at gunpoint and took them inside H7. The lorry driver was told the lorry was being used in the escape, and he was instructed what route to take and how to react if challenged. Bobby Storey told the driver that "This man [Gerry Kelly] is doing 30 years and he will shoot you without hesitation if he has to. He has nothing to lose".
At 3:50 pm the prisoners left H7, and the driver and a prison orderly were taken back to the lorry, and the driver's foot tied to the clutch. 37 prisoners climbed into the back of the lorry, while Gerry Kelly lay on the floor of the cab with a gun pointed at the driver, who was also told the cab had been booby trapped with a hand grenade. At nearly 4:00 pm the lorry drove towards the main gate of the prison, where the prisoners intended to take over the gatehouse. Ten prisoners dressed in guard's uniforms and armed with guns and chisels dismounted from the lorry and entered the gatehouse, where they took the officers hostage. At 4:05 pm the officers began to resist, and an officer pressed an alarm button. When other staff responded via an intercom, a senior officer said while being held at gunpoint that the alarm had been triggered accidentally. By this time the prisoners were struggling to maintain control in the gatehouse due to the number of hostages. Officers arriving for work were entering the gatehouse from outside the prison, and each was ordered at gunpoint to join the other hostages. Officer James Ferris ran from the gatehouse towards the pedestrian gate attempting to raise the alarm, pursued by Dermot Finucane. Ferris had already been stabbed three times in the chest, and before he could raise the alarm he collapsed.

Map of HM Prison Maze showing the escape route
Finucane continued to the pedestrian gate where he stabbed the officer controlling the gate, and two officers who had just entered the prison. This incident was seen by a soldier on duty in a watch tower, who reported he had seen prison officers fighting to the Army operations room. The operations room telephoned the prison's Emergency Control Room (ECR), who replied that everything was all right and that an alarm had been accidentally triggered earlier.[13] At 4:12 pm the alarm was raised when an officer in the gatehouse pushed the prisoner holding him hostage out of the room and telephoned the ECR, however it was not in time to prevent the escape. After several attempts the prisoners had opened the main gate, and were waiting for the prisoners still in the gatehouse to rejoin them in the lorry. At this time two prison officers blocked the exit with their cars, forcing the prisoners to abandon the lorry and make their way to the outer fence which was 25 yards (23 m) away.[13] Four prisoners attacked one of the officers and hijacked his car, which they drove towards the external gate. They crashed into a car near the gate and abandoned the car. Two escaped through the gate, one was captured exiting the car, and another was captured after being chased by a soldier.[13] At the main gate, a prison officer was shot in the leg while chasing the only two prisoners who had not yet reached the outer fence. The prisoner who fired the shot was himself shot by a soldier in a watch tower, and the other prisoner was captured after falling. The other prisoners escaped over the fence, and by 4:18 pm the main gate was closed and the prison secured, after 35 prisoners had successfully breached the perimeter of the prison.[13] The escape was the biggest in British history, and the biggest in Europe since World War II.
Outside the prison the IRA had planned a logistical support operation involving 100 armed members, but due to a miscalculation of five minutes the prisoners found no transport waiting for them and were forced to flee across fields or hijack vehicles. The British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary immediately activated a contingency plan, and by 4:25 pm a cordon of vehicle check points were in place around the prison, and others were later in place in strategic positions across Northern Ireland, resulting in the recapture of one prisoner at 11:00 pm. Twenty prison officers were injured during the escape, thirteen were kicked and beaten, four stabbed, two shot, and another, James Ferris, died after suffering a heart attack during the escape.
[edit] Reaction
The escape was a propaganda coup and morale boost for the IRA. Leading Unionist Ian Paisley called on Nicholas Scott, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, to resign. The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a statement in Ottawa during a visit to Canada, saying "It is the gravest [breakout] in our present history, and there must be a very deep inquiry". The day after the escape, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Prior announced an inquiry would be headed by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, James Hennessy. The Hennessy Report was published on 26 January 1984 and placed most of the blame for the escape on prison staff. The report also placed blame with the designers of the prison, the Northern Ireland Office and successive prison governers who had failed to improve security. James Prior said there would be no ministerial resignations as a result of the report's findings. Four days after the Hennessy Report was published, then Minister for Prisons Nicholas Scott dismissed allegations from the Prison Governors Association and the Prison Officers Association that the escape was due to political interference in the running of the prison. On 25 October 1984, nineteen prisoners appeared in court on charges relating to the death of prison officer James Ferris, sixteen of them charged with his murder. A pathologist stated that the stab wounds Ferris suffered would not have killed a healthy man, and the judge acquitted all sixteen as he could not be satisfied that the heart attack was caused by the stabbing.
[edit] Escapees
Fifteen escapees were captured on the first day, including four who were discovered hiding underwater in a river near the prison using reeds to breathe. Four more escapees were captured over the next two days, including Hugh Corey and Patrick Mclntyre who were captured following a two-hour siege at an isolated farmhouse. Out of the remaining 19 escapees, 18 ended up in the republican stronghold of South Armagh where two members of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade were in charge of transporting them to safehouses, and they were given the option of either returning to active service in the IRA's armed campaign or a job and new identity in the United States.
Escapee Kieran Fleming drowned in the Bannagh River near Kesh in December 1984, while attempting to escape from an ambush by the Special Air Service (SAS) in which fellow IRA member Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde was killed. Gerard McDonnell was captured in Glasgow in June 1985 along with four other IRA members including Brighton bomber Patrick Magee, and convicted of conspiring to cause sixteen explosions across England. Séamus McElwaine was killed by the SAS in Roslea in April 1986, and Gerry Kelly and Brendan McFarlane were returned to prison in December 1986 after being extradited from Amsterdam where they had been arrested in January 1986, leaving twelve escapees still on the run. Pádraig McKearney was killed by the SAS along with seven other members of the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade in Loughgall in May 1987, the IRA's biggest single loss of life since the 1920s. In November 1987 Paul Kane and the mastermind of the escape Dermot Finucane, brother of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane who was later killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989, were arrested in Granard, County Longford on extradition warrants issued by the British authorities. Robert Russell was extradited back to Northern Ireland in August 1988 after being captured in Dublin in 1984, and Paul Kane followed in April 1989. In March 1990 the Supreme Court of Ireland in Dublin blocked the extradition of James Pius Clarke and Dermot Finucane on the grounds they "would be probable targets for ill-treatment by prison staff" if they were returned to prison in Northern Ireland.
Kevin Artt, Paul Brennan, James Smyth and Terrence Kirby, collectively known as the "H-Block 4", were arrested in the United States between 1992 and 1994 and fought lengthy legal battles against extradition. Smyth was extradited back to Northern Ireland in 1996 and returned to prison, before being released in 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement. Tony Kelly was arrested in Letterkenny, County Donegal in October 1997, and fought a successful battle against extradition. In 2000 the British government announced that the extradition requests for Brennan, Artt and Kirby were being withdrawn as part of the Good Friday Agreement. The men officially remain fugitives, but in 2003 the Prison Service said they were not being "actively pursued". Dermot McNally, who had been living in the Republic of Ireland and was tracked down in 1996, and Dermot Finucane received an amnesty in January 2002, allowing them to return to Northern Ireland if they wished to. However Tony McAllister was not granted an amnesty which would have allowed him to return to his home in Ballymurphy. As of September 2003 two escapees, Gerard Fryers and Séamus Campbell, had not been traced since the escape. Up to 800 republicans held a party at a hotel in Donegal in September 2003 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the escape, which was described by Ulster Unionist Party MP Jeffrey Donaldson as "insensitive, inappropriate and totally unnecessary".

-from Wikipedia

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Irish History - Monsignor O'Neill (Flight of the Earls).

2007-11-01T20:55:24Z

A short talk by Monsignor O'Neill on the anniversary of the "Flight of the Earls" which took place throughout 2007 in Dungannon. Monsignor O'Neill, who currently resides in San Diego Califonia, was invited to speak at the commemoration in Dungannon on the count that he is a direct descendant of the 'Great O'Neill' and that the Monsignor, who was born in 1915, is possibly the oldest living O'Neill in the world.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EER85WbI28

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyucnqf-8a8

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnVq1Bgof10

Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6thpKz-AdqM

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Fight of the Earls (on youtube)

2007-09-26T22:38:06Z

Irish history with Pat Flannery. This was filmed in 9/3/07, appropriately in the month of Sept. at 400th year aniversary. Pat gave Irish history with Pat Flannery. This was filmed in 9/3/07, appropriately in the month of Sept. at 400th year aniversary. Pat gave a great presentation of the event which signaled the final blow to the Gealic world in Ireland and it's aristocracy in particular.

Part 1

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=5CtZzusd-gg

Part 2

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu_AxnHkRNc

Part 3

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIbEJOs8jk

Part 4

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=LO7l7D1jxws

Part 5

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=PogEk8RHf8I

Part 6

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Of5B5eUCF5o

Part 7

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=g8IQjWWeJuY

Part 8

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=E-gv2BVxsHU

Part 9

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=ofc78OYj9x8

Part 10

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=QgFMXZDaySg

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Niall of the Nine Hostages on (YouTube).

2007-09-07T01:15:31Z

Irish history with Pat Flannery. This was filmed 7/2/07. Pat continues on the theme of the history of the O'Neill with one of their greatest ancestors, Niall Noigíallach, better known as "Niall of the Nine Hostages." The O'Neill theme will culminate with a talk on "The Flight of the Earls" in September (which will be the 400th aniversary of the event). Again, Monsignor O'Neill contributes to the lecture with his unique insight.

Part 1
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=R9aoc6_zLtQ

Part 2
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cLYFiIXsY

Part 3
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yt8auMFFdI

Part 4
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=3Duly1CNntI

Part 5
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=e2gP_Y2ZhI4

Part 6
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=rxZVtFlZk_U

Part 7
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=b0K8aPTuklk

Part 8
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=QNzlzGPn0x0

Part 9
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=E1g5NsuxHws

Part 10
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=aAmt-zvUzj4

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

BRITISH ARMY DOCUMENT SAYS IRA UNDEFEATED

2007-09-01T07:51:37Z

BRITISH ARMY DOCUMENT SAYS IRA UNDEFEATED 07/06/07 10:40 EST

An internal British army document examining 37 years of
deployment in Northern Ireland contains the claim by one
expert that it failed to defeat the IRA.

The admission is contained in a discussion document released
by the Ministry of Defense after a request under the Freedom
of Information Act.

The 100 page document analyzes in detail the British army's
role over 37 years.

It focuses on specific operations and gives an overview of
its performance.

The six-month study, covering the period 1968-2005, was
prepared under the direction of the then chief of general
staff, General Sir Mike Jackson.

The document, obtained by the Pat Finucane Centre, points to
a number of mistakes, including internment and highlights
what lessons have been learned.

It describes the IRA as "a professional, dedicated, highly
skilled and resilient force", while loyalist paramilitaries
and other republican groups are described as "little more
than a collection of gangsters".

It concedes for the first time that it did not win the
battle against the IRA - but claims to have "shown the IRA
that it could not achieve its ends through violence".

In a statement, the Pat Finucane Centre - the Derry-based
human rights group - said the document "betrays a profoundly
colonial mindset towards the conflict here and those
involved in it".

"Loyalist violence and the links between loyalist
paramilitaries and the state has been airbrushed out of this
military history," it said.

In a statement issued on Friday, an Army spokesman said:
"This publication considers the high level general issues
that might be applicable to any future counter-terrorist
campaign that the British Armed Forces might have to undertake."

"It is critically important to consider what was learned by
those who served in Northern Ireland."
__________________________________________________________

The Irish American Information Service is a non-profit organization
providing up-to-the-minute political news from Ireland to the world.
The IAIS is funded entirely by your contributions. Please send your
tax-deductible contributions to IAIS at 505 S East St, Culpeper VA 22701
You can visit us on the Web at http://www.iais.org

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Slightly older news...

2007-08-27T18:59:03Z

DOVER, New Hampshire (AP) -- Irish singer, songwriter and storyteller Tommy Makem, who teamed with the Clancy Brothers to become stars during the folk music boom, has died of cancer. He was 74.

Makem died Wednesday in Dover, where he lived for many years, his son Conor said Thursday. He had battled lung cancer.

The Irish-born Makem, who came to America in the 1950s to seek work as an actor, grew to international fame while performing with the band The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. The brothers, also from Ireland, were Tom, Liam and Paddy Clancy.

Armed with his banjo, tinwhistle, poetry, stagecraft and his baritone voice, Makem helped spread stories and songs of Irish culture around the world.

He brought audiences to tears with "Four Green Fields," about a woman whose sons died trying to prevent strangers from taking her fields -- a metaphor for Ireland and its struggles. Other songs included "Gentle Annie" and "Red Is the Rose."

"He just had the knack of making an audience laugh or cry. ... holding them in his hands," Liam Clancy told RTE Radio in Dublin, Ireland.

The New York Times wrote in 1967 that the group was "an eight-legged, ambulatory chamber of commerce for the green isle they love so well. ... At one point, Irish teenagers were paying as much homage to them as to the Beatles."

After touring for about nine years as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, he struck out on his own, but he remained friends with the brothers. Tom Clancy died in 1990 and Paddy in 1998.

Back in the 1950s, Makem and his friends saw their first few albums -- "The Rising of the Moon" and a collection of drinking songs -- as a fluke.

In a 1994 Associated Press interview, Makem recalled he was astonished when a Chicago club offered him more money to sing for a week than he was getting for acting with a repertory company.

"I was the opening act for Josh White. I felt sort of silly, coming out and singing unaccompanied, and then Josh coming out and almost making the guitar talk," he said.

As their fame spread, the band appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other major TV shows, and headlined concerts at Carnegie Hall and London's Royal Albert Hall.

A young Bob Dylan was one of the folk singers who got to know Makem and the Clancys during the early 1960s.

"Topical songs weren't protest songs," Dylan wrote in his memoir "Chronicles Volume One." "What I was hearing pretty regularly, though, were rebellion songs, and those really moved me. The Clancy Brothers -- Tom, Paddy and Liam -- and their buddy Tommy Makem sang them all the time."

In 1992, Makem and the Clancys were among the stars performing in a gala tribute to Dylan at New York's Madison Square Garden. Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Tracy Chapman and Dylan himself also took part.

President Mary McAleese of Ireland led the tributes to Makem after his death. "Always the consummate musician, he was also a superb ambassador for the country, and one of whom we will always be proud," McAleese said.

Even while battling cancer, he was maintaining a performance schedule, and he visited Belfast last month to receive an honorary degree and returned to his native Armagh.

"He had very much wanted to get over there," said his son, Conor. "I think he knew it might have been his last time over."

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Intermediate Irish leson # 9 (youtube)

2007-08-26T23:30:28Z

Lesson 9 is reading a book by Y.B.Yeats in Irish.

Here's the first of 10 parts from which you can link to the rest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94dEsPMpFM

Study sheets are here, under (Intermediate Irish Gaelic Class).
www.hofshi.net

Cáemgen

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-08-20T22:07:08Z

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070731/ap_on_re_eu/nireland_british_army

posted in Clann na hEireann - 6 replies

Irish History - Gráinne Mhaol "The Pirate Queen" (youtube)

2007-08-02T17:51:04Z

Irish history with Pat Flannery. This was filmed 4/2/07. Pat gives a fascinating account of the larger than-life 16th century personality - Gráinne Mhaol (anglizied as Grace O'Malley), also known as "The Sea Queen Of Connemara".

The talk is in 12 parts. Here's the link to the first and from which you can access all 12.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9xnfV9hd0

Cáemgen

posted in Clann na hEireann - 3 replies

Nothing much to say, so...

2007-05-31T00:39:52Z

Blessings to you all!

posted in Clann na hEireann - 3 replies

Hi

2007-04-29T06:02:10Z

I'm Ifan, and I just joined da group. I wanted to stop by and say hello :-)

Slan go foill,
Ifan

posted in Clann na hEireann - 8 replies

Ian Paisley & Gerry Adams - Pigs Fly In Northern Ireland !

2007-04-23T09:03:34Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de4yUUud3Sc

Wow, never thought I'd see the day...

What are Clann na hEireann's thoughts?

posted in Clann na hEireann - 8 replies

The Wearin' o' the Green...

2007-03-17T05:25:22Z

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig agat!

Bhí Seosamh anseo!!!

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Original Pictures Liberated from the Damp of a soon to be demolished site. Read on ...

2007-03-10T23:47:44Z

http://irishtribe.tribe.net/thread/ec229d26-2043-4c03-a82d-530299d40c84

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Oldie but a goodie...

2007-03-08T07:42:22Z

The Leprechaun and Jack Fox

Every Imbolc thousands of people visited Tobar Muire (Mary's Well), near Dundalk. They crept around the well on their knees, nine times in a westerly direction. This they believed, would cure all their ailments. Then they would go away and begin their harvest. A man called Jack Fox had just completed this ritual and was heading for his fields with his scythe on his back.

From the hedgerow he heard a chirrup sound like that of a cricket. He wondered if it was a horse-chaffinch but it was too late for their song. He walked on but he heard the sound again. This time it sounded more distinct. 'Tic-Tac-Too, Tic Tac Too.' Slowly it began to dawn on Jack what the noise might be, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He rose up on his tip-toes and peeped over the hedge and saw nothing and it had gone quiet all of a sudden. He walked on further and soon he heard the tapping sound again, he pushed the bushes aside and saw a little man sitting by a last no bigger than a farthing, shaping a tiny shoe that shone like gold. The hammer with which he worked was the size of a pin. As he tapped, his pointed cap waved backwards and forwards almost hypnotising Jack, but not enough to divert his attention from the shoe-maker.

Jack knew he was looking at a leprechaun and he remembered that the fairy could lead him to a crock of gold if he made sure to keep his eyes on him. He laid his scythe down and crept closer. 'Bail ó Dhía ar an obair,' said Jack and quickly added in English 'God bless the work' in case the fellow did not know Irish.

'Go raibh maith agat, and thank you too' the shoe-maker answered smiling. 'It's a hot day. Would you take a sup?' he said reaching for a jar that lay by his stool. He hoped Jack would look towards the vessel but instead Jack fixed his gaze more intently and asked 'What is that you're drinking?'

'Best of Gorse whiskey, the Water of Life Uisce Beatha!' replied the leprechaun.

'You'd never get whiskey made from gorse, maybe a sweet wine, but not whiskey.'

'Give it a try, if you doubt me' replied the leprechaun. 'Just reach down and hand me up a glass.'

Jack was smart again and resisted looking away from the leprechaun but kept his eyes firmly on him.

The leprechaun tried everything. He told Jack that his cattle were breaking out of the field behind him. He shouted that Jack's scythe was going to fall and cut his neck. He said he had heather beer as well as whiskey and that if he drank that he would live forever. 'The recipe had been handed down in my family for generations. The Milesians brought if over to Ireland and gave it to us.'

'And what is your name?' Jack asked.

'Night and day and far away.'

'That's a strange name.'

'So is yours, Jack Fox. Do you live in a covert up on the Cooley Mountains or what?' joked the leprechaun.

'How is it you know my name?' demanded Jack.

'Why wouldn't I know it, sure I've been living on your farm for longer than you yourself.'

Jack felt he ought to broach the subject of the crock of gold. 'Well, you had better bring me to the end of the rainbow where your pot of money lies,' he ordered.

The leprechaun laughed. 'Where did you hear that nonsense?'

'Come on now, I know it's true, bring me to your crock of gold immediately!' said Jack making his face as angry looking as possible.

The little man began to look frightened and Jack threatened to roast him over a griddle if he didn't hurry up.

'Alright then, I'll tell you where it is, but it isn't at the end of the rainbow, come on then and follow me' said the leprechaun and he made to go on ahead.

Jack quickly grabbed him and held on tight keeping his eyes still fixed on the leprechaun. And so they made their way over stiles, and across streams and fields practically glued to each other until at last they came to a field covered in dandelions. 'There you are,' said the leprechaun pointing to one flower, 'it's under that caisearbhán there that you must dig, but I must be on my way now for I have many more shoes to make for the ceilí tonight and I'll be in trouble if no one has any shoes to dance in.

'Hold it now,' said Jack 'swear on your honour, that the crock is under there, and then I'll let you go.'

'I swear on my honour and on all my ancestors, that it is there.'

'Alright, then away you go and slán!' said Jack.

'Slán is beannacht, health and a blessing,' said the leprechaun, and Jack thought he caught a glint in his eye.

Jack had nothing else but his stocking with which to mark the flower so he took it off and put it over the dandelion. Then he went off home to fetch a spade. When he got back he told his wife the story and said that they would be rich and they need never work again. He whistled with delight as he grabbed his spade and returned to the field of dandelions. When he got there he screamed with anger. On every dandelion in the fifty acres there was a sock exactly the same colour as his own.

'That cleasaí has fooled me rightly!' bewailed Jack 'I could dig for a hundred years and still never find the right place.'

A flurry of wind rose behind him and blew across the expanse of stockings they fluttered in the same hypnotising way that the leprechaun's hat had done when Jack had first seen him working at his last. Jack swore he could hear hundreds of dandelions laughing. Dejected and downcast, he returned home and told his wife of his failure.

'Well, at least I won't have to knit you another stocking for donkeys years!' and with that they both burst out laughing and saw the humour of it all.

Source: Traditional Folk Tale

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Have they no honor? [PAINT ATTACK ON REPUBLICAN GRAVES IN BELFAST]

2007-03-01T22:07:58Z

PAINT ATTACK ON REPUBLICAN GRAVES IN BELFAST 02/27/07 10:39 EST

The graves of nearly 40 people have been desecrated by
vandals in an overnight attack on the republican plot at
Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast.

Paint was thrown over the headstones, including those of
hunger striker Kieran Doherty and three IRA members killed
by the SAS in Gibraltar.

The main memorial defaced contained a copy of the 1916
proclamation of Irish independence and it will need special
treatment to return it to its original condition.

It is the fourth attack on the plot in the last six years.

In 2004, there was a series of attacks on the graves of
republicans, including that of hunger striker Bobby Sands.

Bobby Sands, an IRA prisoner, died in 1981 aged 27 after
refusing food for 66 days in a protest over political status
for republican prisoners in the Maze prison. He was the
first of ten men to die.

On this occasion, Bobby Sands' grave, as well as that of
fellow hunger striker Joe McDonnell, was left undamaged.

Padraic McCotter, chairman of the Belfast National Graves
Association said three or four republicans were buried in
each of the 12 plots.

"It is just wrong," he said, as experts worked to try to
remove the gloss paint from the plot.

"Sixty-six British soldiers are buried in Milltown and not
one of their graves is touched. That is the way it should
be. The Republican graves should be treated in just the
same way."

Mr McCotter said the yellow paint which had been poured over
the 1916 Irish Proclamation of Independence on the central
monument at the plot was proving difficult to move.

He said that certain graves had been deliberately untouched.
__________________________________________________________

The Irish American Information Service is a non-profit organization
providing up-to-the-minute political news from Ireland to the world.
The IAIS is funded entirely by your contributions. Please send your
tax-deductible contributions to IAIS at 505 S East St, Culpeper VA 22701
You can visit us on the Web at http://www.iais.org

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

IRA play to be shown next month

2007-02-28T23:04:54Z

IRA play to be shown next month

Andersonstown News

By Evan Short

26/02/2007

The last hours of a West Belfast IRA volunteer's life are to be acted out in a moving play to be shown next month in the Roddy McCorley club on the Glen Road.
Written and directed by former prisoner Roseleen Walsh, 'Death of an IRA Volunteer' tells the story of West Belfast man Seán McDermott who was fatally injured after being shot by the RUC during an operation.
Seán had been on active service with his girlfriend, Mairead Farrell, who was later shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988, and Kieran Doherty, who was later to die in the 1981 hunger strike, when he was shot trying to hijack a car.
The house he had entered was that of an RUC reservist who lured Seán into his bedroom and shot him with his personal protection weapon. Seán returned fire injuring the policeman in the hand. As he lay dying he called to Kieran Doherty not to follow him upstairs because the RUC man had the door covered, thereby saving his comrade’s life.

Bravery
It was this incident that inspired Roseleen to write the play, so she could tell a new generation the story of Seán McDermott.
"My aim is to bring Séan to the attention of people to perpetuate the republican cause and the memory of the patriot dead. I want to bring to the attention of people the life and death of an IRA man and the cause of Irish freedom.
"Seán was a revolutionary who instructed his comrade to go and leave him because he knew the RUC man had the door covered.
"It must have been very hard for Seán, it was a terrible situation but he was a soldier and saved the life of his comrade."
Taking on the role of Séan is Conall McCorry. A student studying acting at BIFHE, at 21 he is a year older than Seán McDermott when he died. He said it was a difficult prospect playing a character who many in the audience were friends with, and even related to.
"This is very different to anything I have done before because he is a real person whose friends will be watching. But that also helped me develop the character because I could use their knowledge.
"Although I don't look anything like him I have been told my stubbornness goes well with the character."
19-year-old Angela Morris plays the role of Marian, a close friend of Seán’s in the period in which the play is set.
Death of an IRA Volunteer is at 7.30pm on March 26. Tickets, priced £5, are available now from the Roddy’s, Kolormaster and the Andersonstown Social Club.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

If MI5 rules, What was the 30-year war all about?

2007-02-28T06:09:01Z

If MI5 rules, What was the 30-year war all about?

John Kelly • Irish News, 5 February 2007

Policing is and has been the defining issue for the Provisional movement because it is the last obstacle on their tortuous, deceitful, scheming and politically unscrupulous journey away from the core valves of republicanism to the values of constitutional nationalism, values they derided in the recent and distant past as being second class in the context of this nation's struggle for its sovereignty and independence.

And the Provos transformation from actively opposing the PSNI to actively endorsing it was internally painless and externally acclaimed in London, Dublin and the White House.

So while the new soldiers of the new De Valera's 'soldiers of the rear guard' at the provo ard fheis waved their voting cards and cheered and stamped their feet in a stupor of triumphalism, the mandarins of the British securocrat establishment were raising their glasses to celebrate another victory over Provo republicanism.

The problem for the Provo leadership at the ard fheis was not about struggling with a republican conscience but about devising a political sleight of hand to make defeat sound like victory.

It was a political device that is symptomatic of a political culture that is driven by the pursuit of political opportunism and expediency that is underpinned by a narrow and selfish interest in a self-advancement that feeds on the cult of personality.

It is a political culture that is inimical to the best ideals of Irish Republicanism.

And with this political culture and with their political deceits this Provo leadership have drained the dignity from the sacrifices of the last 35 years, and terminally degraded Provisional republicanism.

However, in the Provos' history of deceits their deceits on policing are overshadowed by a more grievous and damning deceit that in many ways makes their deceits on policing a distraction.

And it is their deceits around MI5.

At St Andrews the Provos' much-vaunted negotiators did a shabby side deal with Tony Blair. This sidedeal marked a new low in Provo negotiations with the British.

We don't know what the side deal entailed.

We do know that without any explanation to the republican-nationalist community this deal gave carte blanche political and security control to MI5 over the PSNI.

Political and security control by MI5 without MI5 accountability. This deal has such sinister political and security implications for all the people of this part of Ireland - and in particular for the PSNI - that it demands from the Provo negotiators a detailed explanation of how this side deal was arrived at.

And when one adds to that the Provo negotiators' deafening silence over the British securocrats establishment constructing a £100 million-plus espionage octopus at Holywood, Co Down the plot thickens.

And when we recall that in November 1990 in another piece of political choreography between the Provo negotiators and the British security establishment, the then British secretary of state, Peter Brook, declared that 'Britain had no selfish or strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland', we have to ask those same Provo negotiators why they did not make the deliberate choice of Holywood by the British to house MI5 a deal breaker.

I can only conclude that in not making the physical manifestation of MI5 in Co Down a deal breaker, the Provo negotiators were conceding to the British political establishment its right to assert political and strategic control over this part of Ireland.

The republican and nationalist community are entitled to ask if the struggle wasn't about the removal of the British presence from Ireland, the ending of partition and the establishment of a sovereign and independent state on the whole of the island, what was it all about?

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Hmmmm? Do I sense discontent?! Doesn't everyone love Gerry Adams?

2007-02-28T05:09:32Z

The Struggle in Ireland is Not Over!
by Turlough McManus

Recently, headlines around the world announced that the former guerillas of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and their political wing, Sinn Féin, had broken the final link to their anti-imperialist past by voting at a special party congress to endorse the colonial, paramilitary, racist police force they spent decades fighting against in a bloody struggle that forced a stalemate.

Of course this was no surprise to many anti-imperialists and socialists in Ireland who fully expected this disgrace. This was merely the final act of treachery by the former republican movement, following repeated sellouts and capitulations to bourgeois nationalism. There are many indications on the ground that the Provisionals have gone too far for their own support base to accept, and are now losing support. It has been said that the conflict between English imperialism and Ireland's working class is over, but this interpretation, while popular, is incorrect. The struggle has merely adopted new forms of resistance.

Following close on the heals of the "historic" announcement that Sinn Féin would back the British colonial police, the contradictions inherent in British misrule of Ireland manifested themselves dramatically. A large crowd of people commemorating the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972 in Derry city were forced to engage in street fighting with the paramilitary police to defend themselves. As if to show their contempt for Sinn Féin's humiliating submission to their rule, the police had arrived in riot gear spoiling for a confrontation. It was yet another reminder that the British are not in Ireland for peace, but to suppress the democratic will of the Irish people for self-determination.

As the riot escalated local youth heroically confronted the colonial police with stones and fire bombs. Members of New Sinn Féin then moved in to actually remove and confiscate the fire bombs from the locals defending themselves! The struggle against British rule is continuing in mass struggle, and will continue to assert itself despite the Provisional's attempts to suppress it.

The Irish people are strongly in favour of peace; yet British occupation cannot deliver stability, let alone peace. The imperialists are tied to the most reactionary political movement in Europe with any mass support: the colonial-minded and paranoid Irish Unionist bigots who regard any equality with Nationalists (let alone immigrant workers or othe minorities!) as unacceptable. Therefore, the British are not in a position to democratise the Six County state, even if they wanted to do so.

There is a growing alternative to the US-brokered pacification process in Ireland. Although the PIRA was successful at suppressing the Irish Republican Socialist Party’s message for decades, the amount of discontent with their betrayal has become too much to contain. The policing issue appears to have provoked it to boil over the pot. Sinn Féin’s political transformation from anti-imperialist force to reformist Catholic Nationalist party has proved the Republican Socialist Movement's Good Friday Agreement (also known as the ‘Peace Process’) analysis correct. We are seeing more republicans openly questioning and even opposing the current sell out. Peggy O’Hara, the courageous mother of INLA hunger strike martyr Patsy O’Hara, has announced that she will run in the upcoming elections to oppose Sinn Féin. She has received the full backing of the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

Only by combining the struggle for workers’ liberation and the campaigns regarding issues that effect our class such as privitisation, policing, etc., with the struggle for national liberation can we move forward. There is no other way to progress but to build the party and ‘to mobilise our class towards the objective of dis-establishing the Northern colonial and Southern neo-colonial statelets on this island, thus ending imperialism and capitalism, and preparing the basic structures for an Irish Workers' Republic’. Any movement that is not led by the working class will always hesitate and ultimately compromise the full freedom of Ireland as the middle class nationalists have done yet again.

Turlough McManus is a comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).

The IRSP can be reached by writing: “The Secretary,” Irish Republican Socialist Party, 392 Falls Road, Belfast, BT12, Ireland, or on the internet at: www.irsm.org

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

BLOODY SUNDAY - January 30, 1972

2007-02-01T14:13:13Z

A moment of silence for the fallen innocents on a tragic day. There can be no excuse, ever. For those that fell and those that were injured, and for those that showed bravery and selflessness in the midst of tragic confusion. Will there ever be anyone held accountable for these war crimes upon these un-armed civilians?

Tiocfaidh ar la...

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

Just thought I'd share

2007-01-28T12:30:48Z

A really good article about the irish language and the stigma still attatched to it..I nearly cried at the part with the kids..one of the best articles about the irish language I've ever read! ..I cross posted this some other places too...so you might see it more than once

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1983434,00.html

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

NI Police colluded with killers

2007-01-26T02:37:38Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6286695.stm

This has always been a well known fact, especially for those of us who got "The Committee" sent from the US. It was banned in Ireland and the UK. It's good to see it officially recognised, even though it has taken so long.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Rememberence of the Hunger Strikers-1981

2007-01-24T11:55:15Z

Just wanted to give voice to the memory of MP Bobby Sands who died on Hunger Strike in Long Kesh Prison [The Maze, H-Blocks, etc...] on May 5 1981. The first of ten Martyrs who gave their all for Irish Freedom and Justice. Not only for the Irish but for all peoples seeking the dignity and humanity that we SHOULD treat each other with.
I hope Sinn Fein truly remembers what they stood for and fought for. Have we reached those goals or have we compromised?
What do you think?

Tiocfaidh ar la!

posted in Clann na hEireann - 3 replies

Frank Stagg...what a (true) story!

2007-01-24T11:16:40Z

Frank Stagg, of Hollymount, County Mayo, came from a long line of Irish republicans. His father had fought in both the War of independence and later on the Anti-Treaty side in the Civil War. By the 1970s, Frank, who like so many from the west of Ireland had emigrated to England, worked as a bus conductor in North London. He joined Sinn Féin in Luton in 1972 and shortly afterwards joined the IRA.

In April 1973, he was arrested in Coventry and charged under the 19th Century Conspiracy Laws, which were used to convict all members of an IRA unit of the same crime, regardless of degree of involvement. Frank Stagg and six others were convicted of conspiracy to commit arson. He was given a ten-year sentence.

Frank was taken first to Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight, where, demanding that he was a political prisoner, he refused prison work and was frequently punished with solitary confinement. In March 1974, having been moved to Parkhurst Prison, he and fellow Mayo man Michael Gaughan joined a hunger strike begun by the sisters Marion Price and Dolours Price in Brixton and their comrades Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly, demanding repatriation to Ireland.

All were force fed by the authorities, despite the fact that such methods were being condemned by Amnesty International and the Court of Human Rights. The Price sisters, Kelly, and Feeney succeeded in achieving repatriation to Northern Ireland but Stagg and Gaughan were refused.

Frank suffered force feeding for 70 days. Following Michael Gaughan’s death, negotiations were begun and the hunger strike was called off. But the talks were deemed a ruse by Frank Stagg and his supporters to halt the strike and prevent further highly publicised deaths.

Instead of meeting the demands, the authorities moved Frank to a solitary confinement punishment cell, where he remained under 23-hour lockdown. He was allowed no furniture, radio, newspapers or cigarettes, and prevented from sleeping by a bright light in his cell day and night.

In Wakefield Prison, on 14 December 1975, Frank Stagg began his fourth and final hunger strike, with the demand again for repatriation. Frank battled against starvation for 62 days before he died on 12 February 1976. He last request was “to be buried next to my republican colleagues and my comrade, Michael Gaughan”.

Michael Gaughan had been buried in Ballina, County Mayo in a highly politisced funeral and in which the IRA has taken a promiment role. This had embarrassed the the Irish government of the day, a Fine Gael/Labour Government under Liam Cosgrave. Now they faced the prospect of another high-profile funeral of an IRA member.

The plane carrying the coffin was diverted from Dublin, where Stagg’s widow and friends were waiting, to Shannon, and the body was taken by the Gardaí. It was taken by helicopter to the cemetery at Ballina and buried in a plot and covered over in concrete. A 24-hour guard was placed to prevent the family from exhuming the coffin. A Requiem Mass was allowed to the family, but they boycotted it in protest at not being allowed to have the funeral that Frank Stagg wanted.

The following Sunday, the republican movement held its own ceremony at the republican Plot, despite a massive police presence. A volley was fired and following an oration by Joe Cahill, a pledge was made that Stagg’s body would be moved to lie beside his fellow IRA comrades in accordance with his wishes.

Some six months later, when the guard had been removed, since the expense could not have been justified indefinitely, a party of IRA Volunteers tunnelled into the concrete under cover of darkness and buried him as he wished, next to Michael Gaughan. In his honour, Seamus Robinson of Belfast, composed the song "BRAVE FRANK STAGG". Seamus had also written "TAKE ME HOME TO MAYO" for Michael Gaughan.

Frank Stagg's brother, Emmet, is Labour TD for Kildare North.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Nollaig Shona Duit

2006-12-24T19:55:23Z

A Chairde;

MERRY X-MAS TO ALL!!!

Hope you have a good one...

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

Spellbound....by the light of the ancients

2006-12-23T23:53:58Z

© Irish Independent
www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & www.unison.ie/

Friday, December 22nd, 206

A GOLDEN sliver of sunlight edges its way into the ancient tomb at Newgrange, Co Meath, marking the winter solstice.

For 17 magical minutes yesterday, starting at 8.58am, the chamber, believed to date from 3,200 BC, was illuminated on the shortest day of the year.

Inside, a small group of 18 officials, academics, scientists,dignitaries and members of the public watched enthralled on a cloudless morning as the rising sun's rays crept along the 19-metre long passage way before bursting brightly into the cavelike centre.

Photographer Martin Nolan's picture shows the scene as the sun crept into the chamber yesterday.

Up to 50,000 people applied to be included in the occasion but only a lucky few had their names drawn for the privilege by local schoolchildren. A further 80 won places in the chamber over two days, each side of yesterday's event, giving them a good insight into the annual experience.

Newgrange was built 500 years before Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza and is 1,000 years older than England's Stonehenge.

Archaeologists believe the builders of the grass-covered 'passage tomb', where the remains of the dead were placed, did so after precise astronomical observations over many years.

According to leading academic Edwin Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, the people who built Newgrange "knew about the winter solstice - knew when it occurred and knew where the sun would rise".

They had constructed a monument that both took advantage of and celebrated the all-important, life-giving return of the sun.

FRANK KHAN

© Irish Independent
www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & www.unison.ie/

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Funny ....In an american sorta way

2006-11-19T04:04:15Z

The Irish daughter had not been home for over 5 years. Upon her return, her father cursed her; " Where have you been all this time, you ingrate! Why didn't you write us, not even a line to let us know how you were doing? Why didn't you call? You little tramp! Don't you know what you put your Mum through??!!"

The girl, crying, replied, "Sniff, sniff... Dad... I became a Prostitute..."

"WHAT!!? Out of here, you shameless harlot! Sinner! You're a disgrace to this family - I don't ever want to see you again!"

"OK, Dad - as you wish. I just came back to give Mom this luxury fur coat, title deeds to a ten bed-roomed mansion, plus a savings account certificate for $5 million. For my little brother, this gold Rolex, and for you Daddy, the spanking new Mercedes limited edition convertible that's parked outside plus a lifetime membership to the Country Club...(takes a breath)...an invitation for you all to spend New Years' Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera, and...."

"Now what was it you said you had become?" asked her dad.

The girl, crying again, "Sniff, sniff... A prostitute Dad! . Sniff, sniff"

"Oh! Be Jesus! - you scared me half to death, girl! I thought you said "a Protestant". Come here and give your old man a hug!"

posted by:
Mark
Seattle
2 friends

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Survey confirms we have brains to burn in Kerry

2006-11-16T00:07:46Z

I couldn't resist posting this
Mise le meas
Tracy

Survey confirms we have brains to burn in Kerry
Meanscoil na Toirbhirte, Dingle, principal Tom Crowley.

Thursday November 9th 2006
By Aidan O’Connor

Kerry is at the top of the class when it comes to the number of Leaving Cert pupils who go on to university and third-level education.

Some of the county’s 27 secondary schools have scored well above the national average when it comes to the number of pupils attending third level, according to The Sunday Times ‘Guide to Secondary Education’ in Ireland which shows that Kerry secondary schools send an average of over 62 per cent of their pupils to third level.

Out of 743 schools in the country, four of Kerry’s schools rank in the top 100, while Coláiste Íde in West Kerry ranks fourth in the small schools category.

When compared to other counties with a similar secondary school population, Kerry students fare particularly well. Kerry has over 10,000 pupils in secondary schools and well over half of these go on to further education. Wexford, for example, has a similar number of pupils attending secondary school, yet its schools only send one in four pupils to university and 56.6 per cent go on to third level.

Meánscoil na Toirbhirte in Dingle is Kerry’s top school when it comes to progression rates to third level. Over 59 per cent of the school’s Leaving Cert students went on to university last year while over 81 per cent are in some form of third level education. The school is ranked 56 in the entire country.

The Irish-speaking Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí in Tralee ranked second in the county and 71st overall in the country.

Meánscoil Phádraig Naofa in Castleisland and Presentation Secondary School in Tralee also made the top 100 list. Schools like Scoil Phobail Sliabh Luachra in Rathmore and Presentation Secondary School in Listowel also performed extremely well and are among the best schools in the country.

However, the guide does not spell entirely bad news for schools like Tralee Community College, which had less than ten per cent of its pupils going on to university. The guide comments that this school, for example, caters for students of all abilities and therefore ranks below the county average. The guide acknowledges that schools offering the Leaving Cert Applied are militated against because not all of their curriculum is aimed at points for university entry.

© Kerryman
& http://www.unison.ie/

posted in Clann na hEireann - 5 replies

Your Birthday Tree [Celtic Astrology?]

2006-11-14T20:30:36Z

Your Birthday Tree

What tree did you fall from? Find your birthday, find your tree and then
scroll down...This is really cool and somewhat accurate, also is in line
with Celtic astrology.

Jan 01 to Jan 11 - Fir Tree
Jan 12 to Jan 24 - Elm Tree
Jan 25 to Feb 03 - Cypress Tree
Feb 04 to Feb 08 - Poplar Tree
Feb 09 to Feb 18 - Cedar Tree
Feb 19 to Feb 28 - Pine Tree
Mar 01 to Mar 10 - Weeping Willow Tree
Mar 11 to Mar 20 - Lime Tree
Mar 21 - Oak Tree
Mar 22 to Mar 31 - Hazelnut Tree
Apr 01 to Apr 10 - Rowan Tree
Apr 11 to Apr 20 - Maple Tree
Apr 21 to Apr 30 - Walnut Tree
May 01 to May 14 - Poplar Tree
May 15 to May 24 - Chestnut Tree
May 25 to Jun 03 - Ash Tree
Jun 04 to Jun 13 - Hornbeam Tree
Jun 14 to Jun 23 - Fig Tree
Jun 24 - Birch Tree
Jun 25 to Jul 04 - Apple Tree
Jul 05 to Jul 14 - Fir Tree
Jul 15 to Jul 25 - Elm Tree
Jul 26 to Aug 04 - Cypress Tree
Aug 05 to Aug 13 - Poplar Tree
Aug 14 to Aug 23 - Cedar Tree
Aug 24 to Sep 02 - Pine Tree
Sep 03 to Sep 12 - Weeping Willow Tree
Sep 13 to Sep 22 - Lime Tree
Sep 23 - Olive Tree
Sep 24 to Oct 03 - Hazelnut Tree
Oct 04 to Oct 13 - Rowan Tree
Oct 14 to Oct 23 - Maple Tree
Oct 24 to Nov 11 - Walnut Tree
Nov 12 to Nov 21 - Chestnut Tree
Nov 22 to Dec 01 - Ash Tree
Dec 02 to Dec 11 - Hornbeam Tree
Dec 12 to Dec 21 - Fig Tree
Dec 22 - Beech Tree
Dec 23 to Dec 31 - Apple Tree

APPLE TREE (Love) - of slight build, lots of charm, appeal, and
attraction, pleasant aura, flirtatious, adventurous, sensitive, always in
love, wants to love and be loved, faithful and tender partner, very
generous, scientific talents, lives for today, a carefree philosopher
with
imagination.

ASH TREE (Ambition) - uncommonly attractive, vivacious, impulsive,
demanding, does not care for criticism, ambitious, intelligent, talented,
likes to
play with fate, can be egotistic, very reliable and trustworthy, faithful
and prudent lover, sometimes brains rule over the heart, but takes
partnership very seriously.

BEECH TREE (Creative) - has good taste, concerned about its looks,
materialistic, good organization of life and career, economical, good
leader, takes no unnecessary risks, reasonable, splendid lifetime
companion,
keen on keeping fit (diets, sports, etc.)

BIRCH TREE (Inspiration) - vivacious, attractive,
elegant,friendly,pretentious, modest, does not like anything in excess,
abhors the vulgar, loves life in nature and in calm, not very passionate,
full of imagination, little ambition, creates a calm and content
atmosphere.

CEDAR TREE (Confidence) - of rare beauty, knows how to adapt, likes
luxury, of good health, not in the least shy, tends to look down on
others,
self-confident, determined, impatient, likes to impress others, many
talents, industrious, healthy optimism, waiting for the one true love,
able
to make quick decisions.

CHESTNUT TREE (Honesty) - of unusual beauty, does not want to impress,
well-developed sense of justice, vivacious, interested, a born diplomat,
but
irritates easily and sensitive in company, often due to a lack of self
confidence, acts sometimes superior, feels not understood, loves only
once,
has difficulties in finding a partner.

CYPRESS TREE (Faithfulness) - strong, muscular, adaptable, takes what
life has to give, content, optimistic, craves money and acknowledgment,
hates
loneliness, passionate lover which cannot be satisfied, faithful,
quick-tempered, unruly, pedantic, and careless.

ELM TREE (Noble-Minded) - pleasant shape, tasteful clothes, loudest
demands, tends not to forgive mistakes, cheerful, likes to lead but not
to
obey,
honest and faithful partner, likes making decisions for others,
noble-minded, generous, good sense of humor, practical.

FIG TREE (Sensibility) - very strong, a bit self-willed,independent, does
not allow contradiction or arguments, loves life, its family, children and
animals, a bit of a social butterfly, good sense of humor, likes idleness
and
laziness, of practical talent and intelligence.

FIR TREE (Mysterious) - extraordinary taste, dignity, sophisticated,
loves anything beautiful, moody, stubborn, tends to egoism but cares for
those close to them, rather modest, very ambitious, talented, industrious,
uncontested lover, many friends, many foes, very reliable.

HAZELNUT TREE (Extraordinary) - charming, undemanding, very
understanding, knows how to make an impression, active fighter for social
cause, popular, moody, and capricious lover, honest, and tolerant partner,
precise sense of judgment.

HORNBEAM TREE (Good Taste) - of cool beauty, cares for its looks and
condition, good taste, is not egoistic, makes life as comfortable as
possible, leads a reasonable and disciplined life, looks for kindness and
acknowledgment in an emotional partner, dreams of unusual lovers, is
seldom
happy with its feelings, mistrusts most people, is never sure of its
decisions, very conscientious.

LIME TREE (Doubt) - accepts what life dishes out in a composed way, hates
fighting, stress, and labor, dislikes laziness and idleness, soft and
relenting, makes sacrifices for friends, many talents but not tenacious
enough to make them blossom, often wailing and complaining, very jealous
but loyal.

MAPLE TREE (Independent) - no ordinary person, full of imagination and
originality, shy and reserved, ambitious, proud, self-confident, hungers
for new experiences, sometimes nervous, has many complexities, good
memory,
learns easily, complicated love life, wants to impress.

OAK TREE (Brave) - robust nature, courageous, strong, unrelenting,
independent, sensible, does not like change, keeps its feet on the
ground, person of action.

OLIVE TREE (Wisdom) - loves sun, warmth and kind feelings, reasonable,
balanced, avoids aggression and violence, tolerant, cheerful, calm,
well-developed sense of justice, sensitive, empathetic, free of jealousy,
loves to read and the company of sophisticated people.

PINE TREE (Particular) - loves agreeable company, very robust, knows how
to
make life comfortable, very active, natural, good companion, but seldom
friendly, falls easily in love but its passion burns out quickly, gives
up
easily, everything disappointments until it finds its ideal, trustworthy,
practical.

POPLAR TREE (Uncertainty) - looks very decorative, not very
self-confident, only courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant
surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, artistic nature,
good organizer, tends to lean toward philosophy, reliable in any
situation, takes partnership seriously.

ROWAN TREE (Sensitivity) - full of charm, cheerful, gifted without
egoism, likes to draw attention, loves life, motion, unrest, and even
complications, is both dependent and independent, good taste, artistic,
passionate, emotional, good company, does not forgive.

WALNUT TREE (Passion) - unrelenting, strange and full of contrasts, often
egotistic, aggressive, noble, broad horizon, unexpected reactions,
spontaneous, unlimited ambition, no flexibility, difficult and uncommon
partner, not always liked but often admired, ingenious strategist, very
jealous and passionate, no compromise.

WEEPING WILLOW (Melancholy) - beautiful but full of melancholy,
attractive, very empathetic, loves anything beautiful and tasteful, loves
to
travel,
dreamer, restless, capricious, honest, can be influenced but is not easy
to live with, demanding, good intuition, suffers in love but finds
sometimes
an anchoring partner

posted in Clann na hEireann - 7 replies

Samhain!!!

2006-11-03T16:35:58Z

My favorite day of the year! Hope yours is great. Thank God for the Irish!!!

posted in Clann na hEireann - 12 replies

New Anarcha-feminist Magazine from Dubiln, Ireland

2006-10-21T02:41:32Z

RAG magazine, by anarcha-feminist women in Dublin

The RAG is a magazine produced by a diverse group of anarcha-feminist women in Dublin. We are all feminists, united in our recognition that women's subordination exists. Our struggle needs to be fought alongside the struggle against other forms of oppression, not treated as an afterthought or as a distraction. We are all anarchists, united in our belief for the need to create alternatives to this capitalistic, patriarchal society wherein all are dominated and exploited.

Although anarchism is, in theory, inherently feminist, the reality is often quite different. RAG was created out of a need to bring feminist issues into mainstream anarchist sphere. We hope the magazine will contribute to a change in anarchists' organising, on all levels. We desire a fully participatory role for women in anarchism.

This first issue of the magazine has taken over a year to produce, and has been an important and fulfilling process. We have taken time to get to know one another, to become comfortable talking in groups and to discuss and develop our ideas. While some women in RAG have been long-time political organisers, others have approached the group from a range of diverse backgrounds.

We have remained committed to non-hierarchical structures within the collective, with revolving facilitators, skill sharing, group editing, mutual support and respect, and, whenever possible, consensus decision making.

As time goes by members come and go but the spirit of the collective remains constant and, we hope, welcoming, involving and empowering. Over the past year and a half we have held discussions on a variety of topics from motherhood to the sex industry, watched feminist films, had a pro-choice stickering campaign, organised an
anarchist assembly and workshops, swapped and shared books and zines, built friendships and supported one another.

We hope that this magazine will provide food for thought and provoke discussion. We hope that readers will be inspired to set up their own feminist collectives, organise workshops, start and continue writing, and otherwise bring the anarcha-feminist gospel to the streets where they live. Please contact us with your feedback and ideas to tell us what you think about the magazine, and what you would like to see addressed in future issues. If you are a woman* living in our area interested in writing or organising for the revolution, please come get involved.

This is just the beginning!

Love and Solidarity,

RAG

http://www.ragdublin.org/text.html

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Irish political prisoner Noel Maguire refused repatriation.

2006-10-21T02:28:28Z

A Chara,

In recent days an Irish political prisoner in England, Noel Maguire,
has been
notified by the Minister for Justice and Law Reform, Michael McDowell
TD -
that the reason for his refusal to agree to Repatriate Noel is because
in his
view Noel 'hasn't sufficient relatives' living in the 26 Counties to
warrant
repatriation!

The October Fifth Association, a network of civil rights veterans, and
various
other groups concerned with human rights and civil liberties, are fully
aware
this to be a blatant lie. Noel's wife and two children live only an
hour’s drive
from Portlaoise Prison in Co Laois - and have confirmed on more than
one
occasion, with representatives from the Justice Ministry, they are
willing to
visit him should he be repatriated to Ireland.

Noel also has a brother, two sisters and uncles and aunts living in
Ireland who
are willing to visit him. Noel has NO relatives living in Britain!

Could it be that Noel is now being detained as some kind of political
hostage?
It would seem so. He has all the credentials and qualifications under
European Union legislation to avail of the agreement that enables
nationals of
any EU state to be repatriated to country of origin.

Noel is from Co Fermanagh - part of the 32 counties of Ireland - holds
a
current Irish passport (issued in Dublin in 1999) so is therefore a
bona fide
Irish citizen.
If Noel is being denied repatriation on the grounds he's from 'Northern
Ireland,' and not the 'Irish Republic' then the man from the ministry
is in
essence saying the Irish government recognises Britain's right to
ownership of
part of Ireland - namely the 6 Counties.

Minister McDowell needs to make the position clear regarding the
nationality
of people who are born in occupied Ireland and those born elsewhere in
the
country. Written in the Irish Constitution it is claimed 'the people of
Ireland
are cherished equally.'
Could it be some are more equal than others?

Fionnbarra O’Dochartaigh,
Co-founder, N. Ireland Civil Rights Assoc.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Anarchism Not Chaos mini-festival in Derry, Ireland

2006-10-07T08:18:49Z

Saturday 30th of September saw Derry's Dunlgoe bar play host to a day of anarchist talks, films and music hosted by the Workers Solidarity Movement. The event which was organised by a local Derry WSM member saw people from Dublin, Switzerland, Copenhagen and Belfast as well as locals gather to discuss anarchist ideas.

Gregor Kerr, Secretary of the Federation of Dublin Anti-Water Charge Campaigns, kicked things off with a discussion on how the water charges were defeated in the Republic and the role anarchists played in that struggle. The current campaign in the North to defeat the tap tax was discussed with updates on the campaign provided by a comrade from the Belfast anarchist group Organise! and Eamonn McCann of the SWP. Julia Doherty of the wsm then gave an introductory talk on Anarchism covering history, theory and practice and a lively debate ensued over violence, white-male dominance of anarchism and republicanism.

Stalls by Just Books, WSM and Mujeres Libres Derry were on hand stocking everything from pamphlets and books to flags and t-shirts. The mujeres libres had the most creative stall offering t-shirts commemorating free Derry, the Paris commune, Spain 1936 and the limerick soviet as "temporary autonomous zones" with cool front and back logos.

Ramor Ryan, author of "Clandestines: The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile" gave a reading of his book to a packed upstairs room with a discussion afterwards. The book covers his life from the squats of west-Berlin to Chiapas via a number of hairy and exciting situations, well worth checking out when it's launched in Dublin this Thursday.

A Swiss comrade put on a "comedy" show about police violence which was very informative and gruesome although I didn't really see the comedy aspect. The dangers of baton rounds, tear gas and other "less lethal" weapons were explained and the gory reality of the damage these weapons cause was project on a six foot screen. The message was all the more relevant in Derry where many of these weapons are still in use.

A benefit gig for Belfast's Just Books collective finished off the night with Anti-State and Tin Pot Operation playing to a packed out bar. Hundreds of stickers and anarchist papers were distributed to the crowd as well as leaflets detailing the Justice for Terrence Wheelock campaign.

This was the WSM’s second public event in Derry and the positive reaction we received from many people attending was encouraging. Although anarchism is still a very small political current in Ireland it is currently growing and chaotic cities like Derry need a strong, organised and united working class to get beyond the dead end of both republican and loyalist ideas.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Bartender taken into custody

2006-09-23T17:37:43Z

Bartender taken into custody
By David Rogers, Staff writer
LONG BEACH PRESS TELEGRAM
A Seal Beach bartender was taken into custody by federal immigration officials after an appeals board ruled that he could be deported for his alleged role in the 1988 killings of two soldiers in the Northern Ireland city of Belfast, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said Saturday.

Sean O'Cealleagh (pronounced O'Kelly) was taken into custody Friday morning and was being held at the ICE detention facility at Terminal Island in San Pedro, said spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

On Wednesday, the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned a 2004 decision by an immigration judge that O'Cealleagh's conviction in Northern Ireland was "purely political." The case was returned to Judge Rose Peters, Kice said.

"We will press ahead with our efforts to obtain order of removal (of O'Cealleagh)," said Kice. She declined to say how long that might take, noting that O'Cealleagh could still appeal the ruling.

O'Cealleagh, who has maintained his innocence in the killings, was jailed for eight years before he was freed as a political prisoner as part of the Good Friday Accords. He was never acquitted or exonerated. He immigrated to the United in 1999 and became a permanent legal resident in 2001. He is married and has a son.

But on Feb. 25, 2004, O'Cealleagh was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport after attending a nephew's christening in Northern Ireland. He was detained at Terminal Island until he was released on bond after a deportation hearing in April of that year.

O'Cealleagh testified that he was coming home from babysitting and literally stumbled into a large funeral procession where undercover British Cpls. Derek Wood and David Howes became ensnared.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

Short poem...

2006-09-18T06:55:17Z

Bombay Street

August 1969
In the midst of flame
There! The Phoenix! Arise!
Command justice in this place
Cry vengeance. Take wing and fly
Spawned in ashes of ruin
Such hatred did create
From the violence, a bird of freedom
Gave cry & seized the day
The start of ‘The Troubles’
Pains of birth
Clonard, West Belfast
Ballymurphy & Lower Falls
Short Strand, Andytown
Ardoyne & New Lodge
The Belfast Brigades
Of the IRA
1st Battalion, 2nd Battalion
And 3rd makes 3
Young & old
Provo men & Provo women
A common desire to be free
With justice & equality

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

IRA statement...

2006-08-29T23:46:49Z

So what are the opinions of Clann na hEireann? Please feel free to express your views on the subject. It would be interesting to know.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

Dia Dhuit

2006-08-04T11:54:56Z

Lads, how're things?

Hope ye are well

Just joined and tis great to know that I am not alone in my hopes for home

Go raibh maith agat

Trasa Ni Shiochan

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Legalize the Irish

2006-07-29T02:19:30Z

Want to help someone you know? Or perhaps you just want to help.... www.legalizetheirish.org

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Indigenousness

2006-07-21T19:52:23Z

Does anyone here consider the Irish to be an indigenous people? In my opinion it is, as Ireland was violently invaded and held as a colony and under military occupation for hundreds of years, as is still going on in the north. The Irish are the islands native peoples and have been oppressed under colonialist terms. What do y'all think?

posted in Clann na hEireann - 10 replies

Roll Call...

2006-07-20T12:26:14Z

Who are my comrades that pop in here time to time?

I know not much goes on here but I'd like to know who you are? What's your take on Politics of the North at present? Sound off a chairde...

Tiocfaidh ar la!

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

"This is a Rebel Song" by Sinead O'Connor LIVE...beautiful!

2006-07-18T06:20:25Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbrDlVl3Ul8

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Death where is thy sting-a-ling

2006-03-13T21:53:00Z

Death where is thy sting-a-ling

Satirist George Ade once said that in the city, a funeral is just the interruption of traffic whereas in the country, it is a form of popular entertainment.

Things have changed mightily in rural Ireland in the past twenty years in relation to wakes and funerals and the emergence of the funeral home has accelerated that change dramatically. The older generation have mourned the passing of the old customs (no pun intended) and on closer inspection it’s easy to see why.

In the not too distant past, many rural Irish folk called the say a person died his “third birthday”. Their reckoning was that natural life began on the first day of birth, supernatural life on the second day when they received the sacrament of Baptism, and the third when they died and entered eternal life. Waking the dead was almost a festive occasion in many parts of Ireland, provided the occasion was not too austere. This would be if the deceased was a young person or the death was the result of a tragic accident. If the dead person had lived a long and productive life, this was the forerunner to two or three days of unbridled fun and entertainment. People regarded it as a fitting farewell to a loved one, and , believing that they had gone to a better life, they celebrated. One old south Donegal character, just recently deceased himself told me that he always attended a wake “fully armed”, i.e., a bottle in every pocket. A common belief or perhaps the most plausible excuse for frivolity was that liveliness was important because excessive grieving over a departed soul could give it a tormented afterlife.

TOOLS FOR THE JOURNEY
The first duty of the chief mourner was to stop the clock at the time of death, to answer the most frequently asked question. “What time did he/she die?” Up to the late 1950’s, white clay pipes were pre-filled with tobacco, and all mourners were excepted to “take a pull”, whether they were a smoker or not. Many older women especially, took advantage of the situation and sucked the pipe for most of the night. It was frowned on at other times. The Rosary is almost mandatory at wakes and in many cases, the “trimmings’ were as long as the prayer itself.

These include intercessional prayers that implore the saints in intervene on everyone’s behalf. The response in usually “ Pray for us”. Weariness at one wake in Co. Derry prompted some improvisation among a section of the men when they responded “ make tae for us”. Strange customs and practices prevailed at Irish wakes, many only dying out in the last thirty years. Older people in north Derry told of the practice of putting a hammer, flint and tinder into the coffin before the lid was secured. The hammer was for knocking on Heaven’s door, the flint and timber for lighting the way through the “valley of shadows”. In the same part of Derry, the large toes of the corpse were tied together to prevent the ghost from walking. A widespread practice, not that long abolished, was to give the dead person’s clothes to a deserving person known to the deceased’s family. The recipient was required to wear them to Mass for three consecutive Sundays and should illness prevent him from attending, the clothes were sent along to the church in a bundle. The belief was that the dead person would be more regally clothed in the next life because of their generosity in this one.

SNUFF AT A WAKE
Many old sayings given birth at wakes prevail to the present day. In some cases, when a person was buried, a piece of string was attached to one of the fingers and passed up through a pipe to the surface where it was attached to a bell. If the person in the coffin regained consciousness and moved, the bell would ring and alert a guardian, paid by the family for such an eventuality, and he would raise the alarm. This was the origin of the saying “saved by the bell”. Only wealthy families could afford to pay watchers at graves. It was also customary for a bowl of snuff to be placed on the chest of the dead person. This had a dual function in the snuff being a desirable commodity, brought the mourners close to the coffin to say a prayer for the deceased . Should the person in the coffin not be dead, the bowl on his or her chest would be seen to rise and fall, though no record exists of anyone being rescued by snuff. So many came forward that the bowl had to be replenished regularly, giving rise to the saying “disappeared like snuff at a wake”. A variation of this theme was in vogue in the 1880’s in other parts of the British Isles when, instead of snuff, a bowl of salt and some bread were placed on the dead person. The bread was eaten by a depraved person known as a “sin eater”, the belief being that the sins of the dead person was absorbed into the body of the “sin eater” with the bread. The salt was a protection against evil spirits.

FUN AND GAMES
Wakes were frequently used as occasions of great merriment and games playing. In the 1930s in west Donegal, there were not enough chairs at a wake to accommodate the large numbers of mourners. One of the families hit on the ideal of bringing in bags of potatoes from a barn to be used as seats. The younger lads gave up their seats to the older folk and sat on the potatoes. As the night wore on and a fair amount of alcohol had been consumed, events became quite boisterous. The young bucks started throwing potatoes at other mourners when they were not looking in their direction. As the only light was the Tilley lamp, the semi-darkness was their favour. The banter only stopped when a spud hit the dead person in the coffin, and another hit a clay pipe being “reddened” for the corpse by an elderly neighbour, who then wanted to fight with all the young lads.

In 1908, a cobbler from Co. Monaghan was known far and wide for his lenient attitude to those who were slow to pay him for work done. At his wake, the house was full to overflowing as the countryside came to the final respects. Nearing midnight, the deceased’s wife went inside and called all to come inside to join the others. Thinking that another Rosary was to be recited, all duly flocked in. The house was absolutely packed and to everyone’s surprise, the wife locked the door and put the key into the pocket of her apron. She then proceeded to pull a stool from under a table, stand on it, and from another pocket, brought out two pages from which she started to read the names of all those who owed her husband money, and the amount each owed. The list was as long as undertaker’s overcoat.

Co. Sligo fared no better. One of two bachelor brothers died, leaving the other heartbroken. On the first night of the wake, things started off quite dignified, but as the night wore on, the drink took hold and the craic became mighty. Unable to contain himself any longer, the other brother jumped up and shouted, “it wasn’t for sport that poor Seamus died”. At most wakes, the faults and failings of the deceased are forgotten, temporarily at least, as his good points are paraded openly. Two brothers attending a wake in Co. Tyrone in the 1930’s, paid their respects and sat down to enjoy a cup of tae. One of the brothers, not having lived in the locality for some considerable time, asked one of the locals about the character of the dead man. “Would he have been the kind of man who would steal money”, he enquired.The other thought for a moment, looked up at the ceiling and then asked “How much”.

CHURCH INTERVENES
Games made up the best form of amusement at wakes and many of them ended up in fights. In the 1880’s, a common game was “hearing confessions”. A selected man would put a red ribbon or a straw collar around his neck and sit in a corner to “hear confessions”, The rest of the company looked on as the “penitent” confessed his sins. Nobody heard what those sins were as he mostly mumbled gibberish but the “priest” would act horrified from time to time. He imposed a severe penance, which had to be performed in the wake house, causing much enjoyment because of the embarrassing nature of the penance. Should things get completely out of control, the host would place a candle in the corpse’s hand because, according to tradition, that would make everybody fall asleep. There were almost two hundred recorded wake games, with names like The Burning Toothache, Kissing the Goat and the Red Thief of the Horses. The church intervened at intervals and many pronouncements were made banning all unchristian like activities at wakes. In 1927, the Synod of Maynooth “forbade absolutely”, all such activities and any unseemly practices were a corpse was present.

Fears and obscure customs were treated with a marked reverence at many wakes. In south Donegal and many parts of Co. Derry the windows and doors were opened when the sick person entered their final hours. This was to allow the soul of the dying person free and unhindered passage to leave the body. Candles burning in a wake house were watched with trepidation. It the wax formed a distinctive pattern, it was known as “the silent shroud” and further death would visit the area again very soon. A generation ago, cats were rigidly excluded from the room were the corpse lay. It was genuinely believed that they had the ability to steal the soul of the deceased person.

The peculiarities of the time were not confined solely to the wake house. Funeral processions on their way to the graveyard, stopped at any crossroads, these representing the cross of Christ, and prayers were said. One of the worst fates that could befall a family, according to beliefs of not too distant past, was to have a relative the last one to be interred in a cemetery. Tradition had it that the last person buried in a graveyard had to “wait” on all the other occupants, bringing them water at specific times.

LAMENT OF THE DEAD
One of most sombre of exercises associated with wakes in the past was the keening, or lamenting of the dead. This was invariably, though not exclusively, carried out by women, and only then when the deceased had been formally laid out. This is explained in folk belief that the Devil’s dogs lay in wait for passing souls, and might be roused from their sleep by the premature keening of the relatives. Once the body was laid out for the wake, the danger had passed. Keening was a loud wailing that expressed the grief of the family and was soul wrenching in its intensity. The more the deceased was held in esteem, the greater the volume of the keening.

The old ways have now yielded to the new, and a solemn dignity has replaced the excesses of times long gone. It is, nonetheless, an entirely fascinating experience to look back at the customs and beliefs that were held in such esteem by generations past and which may seem so strange to our modern concept of behaviour and decorum.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Gill & Mac Millan for access to some material in the compilation of this article.

Courtesy of the Derry Journal
By Laurence Moore
December 2004

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Dia duit a chara...

2006-03-13T21:23:49Z

Hi all. Went to an event the other night [3/1] at the Liberties in San Francisco. It was an evening of resistance music to commemorate the 1981 Hunger Strikers of Long Kesh. My friend Pat Hamilton was there with a few other guys to play some great ol' rebel songs. One of the other musicians was a man from famous Irish Band, The Barleycorns.
Also, my good friend Terry Kirby former blanketman and escaped prisoner from the Great 1983 escape out of Long Kesh [largest prison escape in British History!] was there to do a speech. Seems appropriate as he was with those guys during the Hunger Strikes a new most of them well.
Terry lives about a mile from my house and I see him at least 1 a week. He is a real character with many interesting stories to tell.
Anyway, it was a grande time. Wish you all could have been there...

Slainte!

ps-I'll post some pix I took of the event.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

Dia duit a chairde...

2005-12-13T15:06:44Z

Just wanted to say Nollaig shona duit to all the Clann na hEireann out there. Hope you have a Merry Season!

Slainte

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Self-Determination, Ireland, Basques, ect.

2005-11-14T09:15:14Z

CELTIC LEAGUE - PRESS INFORMATION

REJECTION OF BASQUE PLAN HAS IMPLICATIONS FOR ALL EUROPES MINORITIES

Events in Ireland, with a series of statements from the IRA indicating
a frustration with the peace process and the duplicity of Unionists
and the British government, to a certain extent have overshadowed
a much greater threat to self-determination for minority peoples.
For the past century since the Irish nationalist movement set its
goal of an independent sovereign State many others in Europe have
mirrored that aspiration. During this period two schools of thought
have developed. One holds that the 'Nation States' such as the United
Kingdom, Spain and France will only give up their grip on power over
minorities if forced to do so. Another, and in recent years more
populist, school of thought favoured the road of constitutional
change.

Events over the past fifteen years have certainly lent credence to
the idea of constitutional change bringing self-determination. In
Scotland, Wales, Catalonia, the Basque country and many other
countries it appeared that erstwhile immovable obstacles to political
change by the respective 'Nation States' could disappear.

In Ireland, where a partial statelet born out of the unsatisfactory
settlement of the 1920s had uneasily coexisted for decades before
the latest outbreak of a more sustained campaign of thirty years
duration, there were those who also advocated constitutional
political change as a means to achieve that which armed struggle had
so far failed to achieve. As the true intentions of the UK towards N.
Ireland became apparent this week this objective seems more in doubt.

But it was in Spain that the true face of implacable opposition to
democratic change was evidenced. Attempts by the moderate Basque
party, the PNV, to achieve a formula for self-determination were
overwhelmingly rejected. Despite over a decade of devolved government
it seems that the Nation States are saying 'so far and no further'.
This position has major implications for those in other areas of
Europe who have clung to the belief that reasoned argument and
political dialogue will bring freedom.

The Spanish parliaments decision was not just a black day for the
Basques. It would seem to signal that devolved government has given
a false promise to those who aspire to democratic change throughout
Europe.

The United Kingdom, France and Spain clearly still wish to exercise
a control over national minorities within their boundaries. Despite
all the International rhetoric over the past fifty years about self-
determination the Basques, Scottish, Catalans, Welsh, Manx and many
other minorities in Europe will remain colonised well into the twenty-
first century. If this were not the case it is these States which
would be setting the timetable for democratic change.

Those in Ireland who were outspokenly sceptical of the peace process
there can allow themselves a wry smile at events this week!

J B Moffatt
Secretary General
Celtic League

05/02/05

The Celtic League has branches in the six Celtic Countries of the
western British Isles and Brittany. It works to promote cooperation
between these countries and campaigns on a broad range of political,
cultural and environmental matters. It targets human rights abuse
and monitors all military activity within these areas
TEL (UK)01624 877918 MOBILE (UK)07624 491609
Internet site at
http://www.manxman.co.im/cleague
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/celtic_league/

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

visit from the FBI

2005-11-05T17:54:11Z

Yesterday, after leaving a diner in downtown Hobart, Indiana, I was confronted by three men who claimed to be from the FBI, and who then preceded to question me about certain Irish friends of mine. Some of the people they mentioned are people I know personally in both Chicago and New Orleans, others are people I know only online from Seattle and San Francisco. I refused to speak to them, saying over and over again that I do not speak to law enforcement without my lawyer being present. The conversation lasted approximately 5-10 minutes. What was scariest about the whole thing was the comment the biggest guy---the only one who ever spoke---made as I walked away: "It's too bad about your car. You should get it fixed." Anyway, words to that effect. Y'see, someone shot the windows out of my car about 4 months ago, and the police never caught anybody---not like they tried either. As I have thought about the incident over the last 24 hours, I have come closer to the conclusion that these guys were not FBI. Who they were I cannot say... but, I can sure as hell speculate.

I post this just as a heads up and a warning.

Take care, comrades.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

The Irish Soldier

2005-08-14T07:55:45Z

The Irish Soldier

Ever since Finn McCool and his Fianna exercised on the Curragh of Kildare in mythological times soldiering has been a popular profession in Ireland.

That Brian Boru was killed by the Danes, as he was praying the rosary during the battle of Clontarf in 1014, confirmed the native character of spirituality and ferocity, and ever since then Irishmen have gone into battle at home and abroad for God and Country.

Even if the soil they were fighting on was in Europe or America, and the banner they rallied behind was on Spain, France, Ecuador, or England, their hearts were in Ireland. A celebrated painting shows the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers of the British army kneeling at prayer, with their chaplain mounted on a horse, before the slaughter at Aubers Ridge during the Great War of 1914-1918, when over 200,000 Irish men fought for the Empire.

It was the opinion of Fr. Willie Doyle, chaplain to the 16th (Irish) Division of the British Army, that it was ‘an admitted fact that the Irish Catholic soldier is the bravest and best man in a fight but few know that he draws his courage from the strong faith with which he is filled up and the help which comes from the exercises of his religion.’

From the 16th century Irishmen had served in European armies, and the Wild Geese, as the soldiers who left Ireland after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 are called, rallied to the flags of Spain, France, Sweden, Russia and Austria.

Many of the officers were from old landed families, such as the Chevalier Charles Wogan and Major Richard Graydon. Their exploits in rescuing in 1717 the noble Clementina, the proposed bride of the Pretender James Stuart, were the subject of much romance, and a novel by A.E.W. Mason. Many of the exiles settled in their adopted lands, and married into aristocratic families, There are still O’Donnells in Spain, and Hennessys, distillers of the famous brandy, in France, descended from Wild Geese. During the American Civil War Irishmen fought on both sides, and Thomas Connolly from Kildare kept a diary of his experiences there, which has been published.

The modern Irish Army has its roots in Oglaigh na hEireann (The Irish Volunteers), which were formed in 1913. During the war of Independence they became known as the Irish Republican Army. In January 1922, following the Treaty with Britain and the withdrawal of the British army from Ireland, the Civil War erupted and the National Army was formed from the men of the Republican forces who had accepted the Treaty.

Many of the soldiers had served in the British Army and they brought their professional skills with them to the new army.

Several legal officers had been in the service of the Crown, and an ex-soldier of the Royal Artillery was to be a Director of the Artillery Corps. Capt. J.C Fitzmaurice, a former RAF officer, was a founder of the fledgling Air Corps. He was to become famous, when as co-pilot with two German officers, he achieved the first east to west crossing of the Atlantic in 1928.

General Michael Costello was sent to the United States to visit training centres there prior to the establishment of a cadet training school on the Curragh.

Capt. Fritz Brase came from Germany to set up the Army School of Music. Within a few years of the formation of the Army Equitation School riders were competing in Europe, and in Boston, New York and Toronto.

The new army occupied the barracks built by the British army over a hundred years before, but with no requirement for a colonial strength force, many of the barracks had small garrisions, and those burnt during the ‘Troubles’ were not rebuilt. Faithful to the old traditions, a battalion as nominated for the recruitment of Gaelic speakers, and in later years the army was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

As a neutral state during the Second World War it was imperative that a substantial military force should be created, and once again the big barracks and other requisitioned buildings were full to capacity. But thousands of men elected to join the British Army, and not only the sons of the Anglo-Irish families rallied to the royal standards.

The Army acquired an International status in the 1950s when, for the first time, it sent officers to participate as Observers in United Nations missions in the Middle East.

Within a few years requests came for officers to serve in missions in the West Indies, Dutch New Guinea, India and Pakistan. From 1960 onwards contingents of Irish troops joined those of other nationalities in the Congo, Cyprus and the Lebanon.

The first casualties of UN service were experienced in 1960 when Balubas attacked a foot patrol in the Congo and nine men were killed.

Irish generals have commanded UN forces in the Congo, Cyprus and Lebanon, and other officers have been attached to UN headquarters in New York, the Organisation on Security & Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, Bosnia and Georgia, and with the European Community Monitor Mission (ECMM) in the former Yugoslavia.

During my own service I spent several years in the Headquarters on UN missions in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel.

It was professionally rewarding to work with officers of many other armies, including Australia, Canada and the United States, Senegal, Nepal, Ghana and Scandinavia, and to be known that Irish soldiers were highly appreciated as peacemakers. 80% of the army has now had service with the United nations.

The peace process in Northern Ireland, and the participation of Ireland in the European Community, have created different defence policies.

Currently the army is being re-organised and in the process more of the old British army barracks are being evacuated. With a strength of 12,000 Regular and 16,000 Reserve (male and female) troops the Permanent Defence Forces, comprising the Air Corps an the Naval Service as well as the Army, are adapting to the new political situations at home and in Europe.

As internal security duties diminish, involvement with the United Nations and NATO require more attention.

The Air Corps and the Naval Service have ever-increasing duties with fishery patrols, and search and rescue operations, while the Army elite Ranger Wing is always on standby to aid the civil power in any emergencies that might arise.

The new organisation will ensure that the men and women of the army will happily continue the long tradition of Irish soldiering, and carry the flag of Green, White and Orange proudly into the new millennium.

Courtesy of the Leinster Leader
December 2002

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Bandit Country

2005-08-14T07:51:57Z

Bandit Country

By John Graham

Count Redmond O’Hanlon was the original Irish bandit. He gave ‘Bandit Country’ its name and his ghost still rides those dangerous highways of South Armagh ... or so they say.

Crossmaglen, the small village that is known globally, a village in Ireland that is known as much for the prowess and success of its footballers as for any other reason. But it is also known as the village in Bandit Country, the name given to the rough terrain that surrounds this border enclave.

For many people, this name is only associated with that area in recent times but that is far from the truth, that area of South Armagh that borders on Monaghan has been known as Bandit Country for centuries as the following tale of one of the most famous highwaymen of all time will show. All counties have their famous place names so too they all had famous highwaymen, rapparees or Tories as they were also known. These are names that ring with romance and danger and the stories abound of these dashing heroes willingly risking life and limb to help the poor and the downtrodden.

Often they had slightly more mundane reasons for their activities but ultimately they grew out of a need, a need that the country had at that time, in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, for heroes. Life for the native Irish at that time in our history was miserable, often brutal and the introduction of the penal laws spelled the end for a whole way of life.

All counties had their own adventurers and depending on your point of view they were either brave highwaymen or blackguards, Dudley Costello was known as The Scourge of Mayo, The three Brennans, Patrick, Tall James and Little James and another Brennan, Willie, probably no relation, whose deeds are remembered in that famous Irish ditty, Brennan on the Moor, Captain Power, the Genteel Robber who operated in Munster, Daniel “Galloping” Hogan from Tipperary, Edmund O’Ryan, “Ned of the Hill”, Big Charlie Carragher, from South Armagh, Captain McNamara of Cong in County Mayo, Shane Crossagh, the Derry outlaw, William Crotty, the Comeragh Highwayman, Captain Jeremiah Grant and one of the most famous of them all and a man who helped earn the Bandit Country title for South Armagh, Count Redmond O’Hanlon, the Irish Scanderbag.

COUNT REDMOND O’HANLON
The story of Count Redmond 0’Hanlon is one that has been handed down over the generations and no doubt some of his activities in the 1660’s have been embellished a little but he was by any standards Ireland's most celebrated highwayman.

The title was no affectation as up until the plantation of 1609 his family had ruled large tracts of land in what are present day Armagh and part of North Louth. His date of birth is given as both 1640 and 1620 but there is no doubt that he was born at Pontzpass in County Armagh midway between Newry and Portadown. The fortunes of the family had changed over the years and when Redmond was born his parents had been reduced to living on a very small portion of the land once ruled by his ancestors.

Despite their state of near penury they still found sufficient money to have Redmond sent to England for what was then a classical education and he became fluent in French but more importantly in English as that language was not generally spoken by the native Irish and that knowledge of the English language was to serve him well in future years.

When his education was complete he returned to Armagh and was employed as foreman by the Acheson family of Markethill but later had to leave their service as a result of a misdemeanour, attempting to sell a stolen horse.

When he judged it safe to return home he then took up a position as a collector of poll taxes, an occupation that, at that time, could be very dangerous, but it was an experience that was to later prompt him to offer protection services to people in the South Armagh area.

Having joined a uniform religious organisation, Redmond went on to become a minister of that church and later married a very rich lady although shortly afterwards he lost both his wife and his fortune too, his wife dying and the fortune lost on gambling.

Around this time in the early 1640’s the Irish chieftains in Ulster, Connaught and Leinster were beginning to form into an organised group to try and recover lands which had been taken from them in the plantation so Redmond joined the forces of this new Confederation and fought in the battle of Benburb in 1646 under the command of Owen Roe O’Neill.

Even after the death of O'Neill, Redmond continued to campaign but when the insurrection petered out in the mid 1660’s he joined the mass exodus to the continent where he joined the French army and so distinguished himself that he was awarded the title Count of the French Empire, one of the highest honours that could be bestowed at that time.

At this time, around 1653, while Redmond was winning accolades in European wars the remainder of the O’ Hanlon lands was being confiscated by Cromwell and settled by his parliamentarians as a result of the family’s open support for the Confederation, something that was to lead directly to O’Hanlon's later life of crime. No evidence exists as to the exact date when O’Hanlon returned to Ireland but it is possible that it was around 1660, and discovering, as did many others, that there was no general restitution of confiscated lands he felt he was left was no alternative but to take to the hills and highways in order to right the wrong.

At first the outlaw operated around Slieve Gullion and the hills of South Armagh near Forkhill, Mullaghbawn and Lislea and extended his operations to running a “protection racket” where he demanded of the settlers that they “each paid him half a crown per annum” and for this sum his contributors “lived in perfect security requiring neither bolt nor bar.”

When the final disaster of the Cromwellian wars overtook the Catholic landowners the most active young men did not all go into exile but some remained and formed themselves into groups under the leadership of some local chieftain and waged guerrilla war on those who had dispossessed them. This was the perfect platform for Redmond O’Hanlon and his operations in this regard led to him being described as “the scourge of the military”. He got ready support and formed his men into military style companies and widened his “theatre of violence and terrorism” to include the English and Scottish settlers in counties Down, Monaghan and Tyrone.

He gained the increasing support of the population and as his fame and notoriety spread throughout the land tales of his exploits were even recounted in a French Gazette as he became a truly romantic figure. He thumbed his nose at the authorities and continued to attack British troops that were stationed in a series of outposts between the borders of Armagh and Monaghan.

It is said that history repeats itself and Bandit Country can really attest to this as the British army barracks of recent times, indeed some still exist, that marred much of South Armagh's beautiful scenery can be interpreted as eerie echoes of the military outposts erected in Redmond's time. Folklore records that there were more than a dozen of them thrown up at remote sites throughout the country and from these daily patrols went out to scour the countryside in search of the outlaw but to little avail.

By this time the plantation landlords of Ulster had had a belly full of the outlaw and in 1675 they came together and employed a group of 40 hand-picked mercenaries who were to each receive the then princely sum of “nine pence per day for a period of three months” in the hope that they would rid the country of the O ‘Hanlon gang but by the end of the summer of 1675 their “tour of duty” was over and they left without their prize.

Further efforts were made to secure his arrest by the offer of generous rewards with one such proclamation in 1676 offering a “100 pounds bounty for his head” but even that or the proclamation that “four men from the locality would be transported to the plantations in America should the outlaws guilty of outrages not be apprehended within 28 days” had no effect. Nevertheless a massive military operation was now in place in Ulster and it was proving ever more difficult for the outlaw to remain one step ahead of the law. The net however was closing and one incident which led to the death of Henry St. John was to eventually lead to O’Hanlon's downfall.

By this time the outlaw’s family had been forced to leave the Armagh of their ancestors and flee to County Donegal where they “purchased a house and business premises in the town of Letterkenny,” which Redmond visited in the summer of 1680. In the spring of 1681 the plot that was to eventually lead to his capture was put in place when the Viceroy of Ireland selected one of his Dublin spies and ordered him “to find an army man in the Armagh area with the credentials to carry out a dangerous undercover task”. The chosen man was Lieutenant William Lucas of Drumintine near Newry and by buying the loyalty of one of Redmond's personal bodyguards the plan was put in place and it came to fruition on April 25th when Redmond O’Hanlon, accompanied by Art O’Hanlon and William Shiels, his bodyguards, set out for Hilltown in the Mourne mountains.

The purpose of their journey was to ambush the local landowners and gentry as they returned home from the fair in Banbridge laden with money and purchases and escorting their prize animals. The outlaws arrived early in the afternoon and decided to snatch a few hours sleep and when Art, who had accepted the bribe, saw Redmond O’Hanlon asleep he simply shot him dead. Hearing the shot William Shiels rushed inside but was knocked unconscious. Lieutenant Lucas, who had been hiding nearby then appeared with a body of men as the sound of the gunshot had been the signal he was waiting for. Lucas drew his sabre, deciding that the head alone would be sufficient proof that the outlaw was dead and that the Viceroy's orders had been carried out.

Art O’Hanlon, despite his treachery, showed that he had some humanity left as he buried his foster brother’s headless corpse in the little Catholic graveyard in Ballynabeck on the road from Tandragee to Scarva. Lucas took the head of Redmond O’Hanlon to Downpatrick and had it spiked on the gates of the jail, the traitor Art O’Hanlon collected his 200 reward and a pardon for his part in the murder while Lucas was rewarded with a promotion.

Tradition has it that when news of the killing reached him Sir John Coynyngham dispatched an escort of troops from Letterkenny to accompany the O’Hanlon family as they went to exhume the body and bring it back to Donegal for burial in the Conwall parish Church. In the 1930’s a worn and weather beaten tombstone was discovered at Conwall parish church bearing the O’Hanlon Coat of Arms indicating that this could be the final resting place of the outlaw, Count Redmond O’Hanlon “who banked his treasure in the hearts of the people and whose ghost,” local folklore claims, “is still seen riding the highways of Armagh and south Monaghan.”

Taken from Monaghan's Match
December 2003

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

The Poet and Warrior

2005-08-14T07:24:50Z

The Poet and Warrior

The short stories of Padraig Pearse are astonishingly poetic and gentle, and reading them he seems a most unlikely candidate for revolution. In the short story “Eoghainín na nEan” (‘Eoineen of the Birds’) he writes beautifully ‘Bhí duan dá canadh ag na tonntracha ar an trá’ - ‘The waves were chanting a poem on the strand.’ In ‘Iosagán’ (Little Jesus’) he says ‘Bíonn na daoine fásta dall’: ‘Grown people are blind.’

This statement is filled with melancholy and can only be understood by the creative section of our craniums; our analytical side collapses and can not grasp it. And when you use the creative, mystical side of your brain then you understand and agree: Adults are indeed spiritually blind - they have inured themselves to a refreshing joy and gentleness, hardened their hearts and closed down their higher selves. This leaves us with a bleak landscape, through which those of us who are different have to travel with stoutheartedness.

In other words, you can’t let the b••••••• get you down.

But to be serious again, Pearse’s characters are not stage Oirish and mercifully he does not propagandise, he does not give us brave, upright and pure Irish people suppressed by the awful sasanach: In ‘Na Bóithre’ (‘The Roads’) Nora slaps her baby brother just because she is irritated, not because he merits a slap. Her family lives a hard life and there is anger in the home:- ‘Several times before Nora had thought of what a fine life she would have as a tramp, independent of everybody! Her face on the roads of Ireland before her, and her back on home and the hardship and anger of her family! To walk from village to village and from glen to glen, the fine level road before her, with green fields on both sides of her and small well-sheltered houses on the mountainslopes around her!’

So Nora sets off and Pearse describes really well the sense of superstition and fear in the young girl’s mind when walking a dark road at night. On benighted boreens you begin to see things and imagine things are following you. ‘She sharpened her pace and began running. She imagined that she was being followed, that there was a bare-footed woman treading almost on her heels and that there was a child with a white shirt on him, walking before her on the road.’

In ‘An Bhean chointe’ (The Keening Woman) Coleen is glad he doesn’t have to go to school on one particular day: ‘I was more than satisfied, for I always had trouble with my lessons and the master had promised me a beating the day before unless I’d have them at the tip of my tongue today.’ Pearse was against corporal punishment and preached a more enlightened educational system.

‘The English have established the simulacrum of an education system, ‘he wrote, ‘but its object is the precise contrary of the object of an education system. Education should foster; this education is meant to tame. The English are too wise a people to attempt to educate the Irish, in any worthy sense.’

Pearse held that if a child didn’t know his lessons it was the teacher’s fault for not teaching him properly.

Pearse was born in Dublin on November 10th, 1879 to an English father (he was a sculptor) and an Irish mother. His parents named him after an American patriot who once cried, ‘I know not what course others might take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!’ Pearse began his life-long study of the Irish language at the age of eleven and perhaps his strident nationalism was a by product of the language which the British had tried so hard to destroy over the centuries. He joined the Gaelic League in 1895, a group founded to preserve the Irish language. In order to promote the League’s cause, Patrick changed his anglicised name to the Irish version, Pádraic. He quickly became known as the leader and spokesman for the League and became editor of the group’s weekly newspaper, ‘An Claidheamh Soluis’ (‘The Sword of Light’), which is a good description of what he did and what he stood for as the light of culture shone brightly within him but he turned to the sword to effect his ideals.

One writer commented that the title of the paper seemed to symbolise Pearse as a man in his early years of battling the British. ‘He tried numerous ways to defeat the British intellectually. He used knowledge, not force, in attempts to liberate Ireland. Some of Pearse’s tactics included publishing old tales from ancient manuscripts and also publishing his own works in Irish rather than English.

Although he started out as a literary warrior, he soon found that intellect alone would not rid Ireland of the English. Pearse became involved in militant groups as both a poet and a warrior and benefited Ireland immensely in both ways.’ He added that Pearse wrote his short stories with ‘pure emotion and passion,’ which was ‘the stepping stone for Irish literature and its launch in to the international realm.’
In 1908 along with friends Thomas MacDonagh (from Cloughjordan, North Tipperary), Con Colbert, and his brother William Pearse, he founded an Irish language school called St Enda’s in Rathmines outside Dublin. The school prospered, was taught under enlightened principals and the pupils adored Pearse.

However, a change in Pearse’s thinking occurred and he went from a supporter of home Rule to a republican. In 1913 he was one of the founders of the Irish Volunteers, a native Irish militia that would evolve into the Irish Republican Army. He was now willing to die for his beloved Ireland, to die a rebel fighting against tyranny, to perish for freedom. ‘There are many things more horrible than bloodshed,’ he wrote, ‘and slavery is one of them.’

The Easter Rising began on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916 and, hugely outnumbered, the rebels surprised many by holding out for an entire week.

However, under heavy artillery and out of ammunition, the Irish surrendered to the British on April 30th. 15 of the insurrection’s leaders, including Pearse, were executed by firing squad on May 3, 1916. As an interesting footnote, Pearse knew that so many Irish risings had been defeated due to informants and resistance within the Irish themselves. For this reason, only about 30 people knew about the rising until a few days before it was to take place. Another interesting footnote; the man in charge of the leader’s trials was a General Blackadder and he told a friend afterwards: ‘I have just performed one of the hardest tasks I ever had to do. Condemned to death one of the finest characters I ever came across. A man named Pearse. Must be something very wrong in the state of things, must there not, that makes a man like that a rebel?’

Finally, in his famous and very powerful poem ‘The Rebel’ Pearse concluded:
‘And I say to my people’s masters: Beware,
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people, Who shall take what ye would not give. Did ye think to conquer the people, Or that Law is stronger than life and than men’s desire to be free?
We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held, ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!’

Courtesy of the Midlands Tribune
November 2004

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Irish Men...

2005-07-30T08:08:19Z

I want one....and all he has to do is speak to me in that beautiful voice...and I will be his slave.......

posted in Clann na hEireann - 5 replies

Irish women.........................

2005-07-26T04:11:53Z

Never had the privalige' to be with one - same taste, kinky, fun?

posted in Clann na hEireann - 3 replies

New tribe: Diasporan Gaelic Living

2005-06-27T22:45:02Z

A tribe for those who want to learn about and reclaim the traditional cultures and beliefs of the ancient Scots and Irish.

http://diasporagael.tribe.net

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Tuatha Dé Danann

2005-06-06T17:30:37Z

The Tuatha Dé Danann (which means the people of Danu) arrived in Ireland bearing with them their stone of destiny called the Lia Fail which they placed on the mound of Tara and ever after the rightful kings of Ireland were chosen when it called out. They also brought the spear of Lugh which ensured victory to whoever wielded it, The Sword of Nuada from whom none could escape and the Cauldron of the Dagda from which none would go unsatisfied.
There is a story that they came to Ireland in flying ships but could not land as the Fomorians had set up a great energy field that they could not penetrate. So they had to circle Ireland nine times before finding a breach in the energy field and setting down on Sliabh an Iarainn (The Iron Mountains) in Co. Leitrim.
They clashed with the Fir Bolg (the men of the bags or pot-bellied ones) who they defeated at the first battle of Magh Tuiredh (Moytura) and routed towards the West of Ireland where they allowed them to stay. After defeating the Fir-Bolg they were challenged by the Fomorians and had to fight another battle this time in Co. Roscommon, which became known as the second battle of Magh Tuiredh, they defeated the great Fomorian warrior Balor, and so laid undisputed claim to the land.
They prospered under their two great heroes Nuada of the Silver Arm and Lugh of the Long Arm. They were eventually defeated by the Milesians at Teltown. As they were a magical people they decided to go underground into another dimension of space and time the entrances to which are at many sites around Ireland; one of the most famous being Brugh na Boinne (Newgrange).
It was reputed that only iron weapons could injure them. They became like gods to the later Celtic people and were worshipped as such. They became known as the people of the Sidhe (mounds) and there are many Faery Mounds in existence in Ireland today.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Clann na hEireann Newsletter

2005-04-03T09:58:58Z

If any are interested in our amateur production please feel free to send me your snail mail address and we will get one out to you as we produce them.
Also, if you have any stories or ideas for columns, jokes, recipies, ect. or just want to put your two cents in, please by all means feel free to contribute. We welcome different perspectives and even light-hearted debate [as long as I'm right!] :)

Send any entries to:
H.B. O'Keady
President-Clann na hEireann
P.O. BOX 2044
Walnut Creek, CA 94595

or

Seosamh O' Dalaigh
V.P.-Clann na hEireann
clann_na_heireann@att.net

We are only limited by ourselves; our fears. Be strong! As One we will accomplish great things. Let's make our voices heard...

Tiocfaidh ar la...

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Republican Newspapers

2005-04-02T04:01:32Z

Anyone reading the Daily Ireland? If you do, how do people feel it compares to the Irish News?

--Kat

posted in Clann na hEireann - 5 replies

What sound does a pig make?

2005-04-01T23:30:05Z

A primary school teacher in Belfast decided to teach city kids what sounds
farm animals made. She asked the kids to put their hands up if they knew
the correct sounds.
"Who knows what sound a cow makes?" she asked.
Mary put her hand up and said, "Mooooo!"
"Very good," replied the teacher.
"What sound do sheep make?"
"Baaaa," answered Billy.
"Excellent, now what sound does a pig make?"
All the hands in the class went up. She chose little Sean at the back of
the class. He stood up, took a
deep breath and screamed, "Up against the wall, ya Fenian bastard!"

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

any knowledge of US position on Dual citizenship

2005-04-01T03:02:22Z

Hello I have recently finsished the first leg of getting my Irish Citizenship via Foreign Birth Registration. IN this process i am filing for this through my grandparents, who were both born in Ireland. The process only requires that one parent or grandparent was born in Ireland.
Now I am wondering if I am taking any risks by going through this process. MY many cousins back home do not know and I have not found anything on line to say there is a risk of endangering my US citizenship. Word of mouth has reached me that once I declare myself as a citizen of anywhere other then US that US will require I choose one and surrender the other. I would hate to move to Galway in these means.
So if u have any info on this please post.
KR
Coinneach Seamus Ruadhain

posted in Clann na hEireann - 9 replies

What are you? Squirrel...

2005-03-31T23:48:55Z

The RUC
The CIA, FBI and the RUC were on a weekend training course and
to see which group was the best they decided to have a competition.
The group who went into the woods and who returned with a
rabbit won. In the event they all returned with a rabbit, the commander,
who was leading the training course, had decreed that the most
effective method of capturing the rabbit decided the winner.
The CIA went first and after 30 minutes a single shot rang out. A
few minutes later the CIA guys returned with a rabbit shot neatly
between the eyes. Very impressive was the general concensus.
Next up were the guys from the FBI. The sounds emanating from the
woods indicated a slash and burn policy was being pursued. After half a day
they returned with a live rabbit, albeit slightly charred!!
The other two groups were very impressed by the fact that the
rabbit was still alive. However the competition was there for the
winning by the RUC chaps, who entered the woods highly confident that they
could secure victory. The following two days were punctuated by much
discharging of arms.The peacefulness of the woods was pierced on many
occasions by horrific screaming. Finally the RUC chaps
emerged from the woods holding a live squirrel upside down!
The americans looked quizzically at each other and at the RUC
chaps who were looking very proud. Finally the commander, who was to
judge the competition, overcame his confusion and asked the RUC
chaps.. Commander - "What on earth do you think you are doing?
You were supposed to get a rabbit." In reply one of the RUC chaps held
up the squirrel and said to it -"What are you?" Squirrel -
"I'm a rabbit, I'm a rabbit"

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Easter message from Provisional IRA

2005-03-30T23:33:58Z

The following is the full text of this year's Easter message
from the Provisional IRA.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
On this, the 89th anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916,
we remember the men and women of every generation who have given their lives in the struggle for Irish freedom.
The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann extends solidarity to
the families of our comrades who have fallen during this phase of
the struggle. We remember those comrades with honour and
pride.
We send solidarity to our Volunteers and to our friends and
supporters at home and abroad. We think of our imprisoned
comrades and their families at this time also.
Over ten years ago, the leadership of the IRA declared a
complete cessation of military operations. We did so to
enhance the development of the Irish peace process.

From then until now we have, on a number of occasions,
demonstrated our continuing support for this process.
At times of significant crisis or political impasse, we have
taken initiatives to move the situation forward.
Our approach has been premised on the belief that the
achievement of a just and lasting peace requires constant
forward momentum in the peace process.
For the past two years, the peace process has been locked in
stalemate and has slipped backwards into deepening crisis.
During that period, specifically in October 2003 and in
December 2004, we agreed to significant initiatives as part of an
agreement to break the logjam. On each occasion, other
parties reneged on their commitments.

An unprecedented opportunity to transform the situation on
the island of Ireland was thrown away by rejectionist unionism,
aided and abetted by the two governments.
The DUP attempted to turn the initiative of December 2004
into a humiliation of the IRA. The concerted efforts of both
governments since then to undermine the integrity of our
cause, by seeking to criminalise the republican struggle, is clear
evidence that our opponents remain fixated with the objective
of defeating republicans rather than developing the peace
process.
The sustained campaign directed against the republican people
over recent months is nothing new. We have seen and heard it
all before.
Those who opted to follow the Thatcher path will not succeed.

Our patriot dead are not criminals. We are not criminals.

Republican men and women suffered deprivation and torture to
defeat attempts to criminalise our struggle. Ten of our
comrades endured the agony of hunger strike and died defeating the criminalisation strategy.
We will not betray their courage by tolerating criminality
within our own ranks. We will not allow our opponents to
further their own petty self-interests by levelling false allegations
against Oglaigh na hEireann.

The IRA has spelt out its position in relation to the killing
of Robert McCartney. It was wrong, it was murder, it was a
crime. But it was not carried out by the IRA, nor was it carried out on behalf of the IRA.

The IRA moved quickly to deal with those involved. We have
tried to assist in whatever way we can. Unfortunately, it would
appear that no matter what we do it will never be enough for some.
Those in the political and media establishments who have been
so quick to jump on the bandwagon have again laid bare their own
hypocrisy.
This causes justifiable resentment among republicans. But it
must not cloud the issue. Oglaigh na hEireann expects the
highest standards of conduct from our Volunteers.
Struggle requires sacrifice and discipline. It promises
hardship and suffering. Our fallen comrades rose to those challenges
and met them head on.

The discipline and commitment of our Volunteers and the wider
republican base have been the backbone of our struggle. In
these testing times, that steadfastness and determination are
needed more and more.

We salute you and urge you to remain strong and united.

The crisis in the peace process and the reinvigorated
attempts to criminalise us have not diminished in any way our
determination to pursue and achieve our republican
objectives.
Irish unity and independence provides the best context for
the people of this island to live together in harmony.

The primary responsibility now rests with the two
governments. They must demonstrate their commitment to a lasting peace.
Pandering to the demands of those who are opposed change is
not the way forward.

P O'Neill,
Irish Republican Publicity Bureau,
Dublin

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

SDLP paper calls for "GREEN PAPER" on unity.

2005-03-22T10:23:28Z

Interesting read but I'm not sure what to make of it yet. Wadda ya think?

(stolen from IAIS)
REYNOLDS CALLS ON IRISH GOV.T FOR GREEN PAPER ON UNITY
03/21/05 23:46 EST

The nationalist SDLP (Social, Democratic and Labour Party)
has said that the threshold for a united Ireland must be a
majority of the people in Northern Ireland voting for it
rather than unionists consenting to unification.

In its unity document, A Better Way to a Better Ireland,
published yesterday in Belfast, Dublin and Newry, the SDLP
urged the creation of a united Ireland based on the
principles and protections of the Belfast Agreement.

The key proposals in the document are that in a united
Ireland the Assembly would remain as a regional parliament
of a united Ireland rather than of the United Kingdom, that
the Northern Executive would continue, and that the equality
and human rights provisions of the agreement would be
maintained.

People in Northern Ireland could still identify themselves
as British or Irish or both and hold Irish or British
passports. TD's (Irish Parliamentarians) from the North
would be elected to the Dáil (Dublin Parliament) to
represent Northern Ireland constituencies.

And while MPs would no longer be returned from Northern
Ireland to London's House of Commons, Northern politicians,
if they wished, could be represented in the House of Lords,
just as Northern Irish representation is permitted in the
Seanad (Upper House of Irish parliament).

A high level of British-Irish co-operation would be maintained.

"In particular, just as the Irish Government has a say in
the North now, the British government would have a say in
the North in a united Ireland," the paper states.

A united Ireland could only come about by a majority of
people in the North backing unification in a Northern
referendum which should take place "once the agreement's
institutions have bedded down and are operating stably".

A Northern result in favor of unification would have to be
backed by a similar outcome in a referendum in the Republic,
according to the SDLP proposals.

The SDLP states that "uniquely" among Northern parties it
favors a united Ireland if a simple majority in the North
votes for it.

"The SDLP recognises that it would be wrong to force
Northern Ireland into a United Ireland without the consent
of a majority. We are equally opposed to any suggestion that
Northern Ireland should be kept in the United Kingdom
despite the vote of a majority," according to the unity
document.

"We cannot agree with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams that
unionist 'consent and assent' would be required to bring
about a united Ireland. Nor can we agree with Jeffrey
Donaldson and other unionist politicians who have advocated
the same position. The threshold for a United Ireland cannot
be any higher than for a United Kingdom. We are emphatic
that unity must not be about the entrapment of a new
minority," it says.

The document says that the Belfast Agreement enjoyed more
support than either the continuation of the United Kingdom
or a United Ireland.

"It is a democratic common denominator between nationalists
and unionists. It would be perverse for the agreement not to
endure in a united Ireland," it adds.

"It is also right in practice. Those who rely on demographic
change alone must realise that it will not deliver unity any
time soon. Nor will it deliver stability.Census politics
will never do away with the need for consensus institutions
of government. Voters in the southern referendum will also
want to be assured that a united Ireland will not bring
instability or uncertainty. They will not want to see the
Good Friday agreement undone."

The paper says unity would require changes to the Irish
Constitution to ensure it offered an "inclusive home" for
everyone.

The SDLP insisted it was the party of "true republicanism"
and the only party that could achieve a united Ireland.

The unity document describes the agreement as "a covenant of
honor between nationalists and unionists that should endure".

Meanwhile, former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds last night
called on the Dublin government to publish a green paper on
Irish unity.

Mr Reynolds was speaking to the new Belfast newspaper, Daily
Ireland, ahead of today’s launch of a the SDLP document on
Irish unity.

Sinn Féin last month published its own policy document on
how it sees a united Ireland operating.

The fact that the two nationalist parties in the North have
now published unity documents last night prompted calls for
the Irish government to follow suit.

Mr Reynolds, one of the key architects of the peace process
in Ireland, said he believed it was the way forward.
"I think the time is right for the Irish government to
launch a paper on Irish unity now that the two main
nationalist parties in the North have put forward policy
documents on a united Ireland," said the former Taoiseach.

"I wouldn’t like to lecture the Irish Government in what
they should have in the policy document but I do think that
now would be a good time for it to be brought forward,"
Reynolds said.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Smell This...Irish terror groups 'to hit London' says Guardian

2005-03-20T23:55:44Z

Now in the States the Guardian can be a usefull tool in receiving news that doesn't filter in but this caught my eye. It has the distinct odor (swamp gas ambiance) of being POLITICALLY MOTIVATED.lol
These are interesting times, no?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1441975,00.html?=rss

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

An interesting read from Counterpunch.

2005-03-18T22:02:38Z

From yesterday's CounterPunch website:

March 17, 2005

Irish Republicanism at the Crossroads

The St. Patrick's Day Coup

By ALEXANDER BILLET

Gerry Adams used to represent high hopes for the people of Northern Ireland. In the 80s, he was the most outspoken and charismatic leader calling for a free and unified Ireland, a constant thorn in the side of Margaret Thatcher and other defenders of the British Empire. In the 90s, his willingness to back the peace process made him a mainstream hero as well.

Now, seven years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Adams is being treated like he ordered a black and tan in a Belfast pub. The Sinn Fein president is coming under increasing pressure to separate from the Irish Republican Army after the killing of Robert McCartney, a Catholic father of two from Derry, which involved senior members of the IRA. Sinn Fein has long been considered the political wing of the IRA, with both organizations working together in order to free the North from British rule and join the rest of Ireland in a unified republic. The slaying of McCartney, along with the robbery of the Northern Bank in December attributed to the IRA, has meant that both branches are coming under huge public scrutiny among Irish citizens; North and South, Catholic and Protestant.

And it doesn't stop at Ireland's green shores either. In Adams' yearly St. Patrick's Day visit, George W. Bush has refused to meet with him, as have all politicians and public figures. Republican Senator George Mitchell, a main player in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, has also had harsh words for Adams and Sinn Fein. Even Ted Kennedy, a long-time figurehead for the Irish American community, jumped ship on Adams, citing "the IRA's ongoing criminal activity and contempt for the rule of law," as reasons.

For sure, the IRA's actions are inexcusable. But as for "the rule of law," one might want to look closely at what this new "law," has really meant for the people of Northern Ireland, in particular its long oppressed Catholic minority.

A Loaded Deck

Catholic and Protestant both celebrated the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. When then-President Bill Clinton visited to oversee negotiations and the subsequent signing of it, he was greeted with a large parade. With over thirty years of brutal violence during "the Troubles" behind them, Catholic and Protestant both were eager to grasp any sign of peace. The Agreement, along with its accompanying ceasefire between pro-British (Loyalist or Unionist) and Republican forces, was to formally end sectarian violence, and provide a way to relax Britain's rule with a Northern Ireland Assembly. It was also supposed to end the racist laws used by the British government to persecute Catholics and deny them political and civil rights, supposedly on behalf of the Protestant majority.

It proved to be an empty promise. Tony Blair caved almost any time there was unionist opposition, such as from David Trimble's racist Ulster Unionist Party. For example, when unionists argued that Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam was too "pro-Catholic," Blair quickly sidelined her then removed her from that position in 2000. Any time there was opposition from the republican side, they were ignored. The loyalists were allowed time and again to derail the peace process, and the British government dragged its feet implementing many of the civil rights laws. Though the language seemed truly progressive on paper, the Blair government failed to translate any of it into practical measures to protect the rights of Catholics. Moreover, according to a Human Rights Watch report:

"[R]ights groups criticized the [British] government for failing to bring the UK into compliance with existing international obligations in areas not directly addressed in the agreement. The continuation of draconian emergency laws intimidation of defense lawyers; allegations of security force collusion in loyalist paramilitary murders; routine police abuse; and the indiscriminate use of plastic bullets remained serious human rights concerns."

The report goes on to describe how less than six months after the signing of the Agreement, parliament passed a law which lessened the amount of evidence needed to convict someone for membership in an illegal organization. The new law now stated that as long as a senior police officer was able to name someone as a member of said organization, it was enough to put them away.

Sectarianism was not only not put down by the Agreement, one might say it was almost encouraged. The agreement allowed for the continuation of Catholic or Protestant only institutions such as schools. This, in essence, is like saying Jim Crow laws don't exist anymore but the "white only" signs can stay up. Meanwhile, Blair's spinelessness toward the unionists meant that he was unable to present the Agreement as a viable alternative to unionism and loyalism, and he failed to win significant sections of Protestants away from sectarian violence.

Catholics have suffered the brunt of a vast majority of attacks since the beginning of the ceasefire. Though there has been sporadic internal fights between separate republican groups, the IRA has for the most part obeyed the conditions of the ceasefire. But loyalist groups such as the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) or Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), despite their official recognition of the ceasefire, have carried out several attacks with the intention of provoking republicans back into violence since the beginning of the Agreement. A brief list includes the following:

July 4th, 2001- Cieran Cummings, a 19 year old Catholic man, is shot and killed on his way to work in County Antrim

July 29th, 2001- An unnamed 18 year old male gunned down in front of a Catholic soccer club in north Belfast.

July 29th, 2001- Gavin Brett, an 18 year old Protestant, is mistaken for a Catholic and shot dead

September 28th, 2001- Martin O'Hagan, a journalist investigating possible links between loyalist groups and British security forces, is shot and killed outside his home in Lurgan, County Armagh

January 3rd, 2002- William Moore Campbell, a 19 year old Protestant man, is blown up while constructing a pipe bomb in County Derry. According to the town's mayor, John Dallat, "the UDA has never been on ceasefire in this area. There have been well over 100 attacks in this area over the past two and a half years." That same night a bomb was thrown through a Catholic woman's window, sparking fear of a new wave of violence.

January 12th, 2002- Daniel McColgan, a twenty year old Catholic postal worker is shot while on his route in north Belfast.

July 22nd, 2002- Gerard Lawlor, a 19 year old Catholic man is shot and killed in a drive-by shooting. UDA leaders claim responsibility and call the death "regrettable" but refuse to apologize for or condemn it.

November 2nd, 2002- Harry McCartan, a 23 year old Catholic man, is found nailed to a fence by his hands, "crucifixion style" in a field near the Protestant neighborhood of Seymour Hill in Belfast. He barely survives.

And this is only a sampling of the worst. There were plenty of other non-lethal attacks during this period. During the three month period from May to July 2002, for example, 363 non-lethal attacks were carried out by loyalist forces against Catholics, including 144 bombings, 25 shootings, and 43 personal assaults.

It is worth pointing out that there was violence coming from republican groups during this period. But mostly from dissident, non-IRA splinter groups, not the Provisional IRA, and not from groups that were observing the ceasefire. The UDA and UFF were, at least officially, observing the ceasefire. It is also worth pointing out that while Gerry Adams now faces public pressure to formally break with the IRA in light of the McCartney murder, this kind of pressure was never hiked up on the likes of Trimble, who throughout all this simply screamed that the IRA wasn't decommissioning its arms quickly enough, or demanded that Sinn Fein be kept out of the executive of the Assembly.

Little changed in the way that police, army or security forces conducted themselves in relation to these. Loyalist forces have been allowed to operate relatively unimpeded, if not directly aided by the authorities. A July 2002 British television documentary revealed that the British Army's Force Research Unit and the Special Branch of Northern Ireland's police force (then the Royal Ulster Constabulary, or RUC) supplied lists of names to Loyalist paramilitary groups, allowing the groups to carry out a slew of murders starting in 1989. One FRU officer, Ned Greer, was even allowed to be a member of the UDA and ascend the organization's ranks, even while his cell was orchestrating the deaths of at least six Catholics. To assume that the British government itself would simply about-face and remedy this kind of lop sided corruption would be naïve.

Even when there was violence on the side of the republicans, it was manipulated in a cynical attempt to re-instigate violence between the two sides. On August 15th 1998 an IRA splinter group known as "the Real IRA" set off a bomb in Omagh, County Tyrone in symbolic protest of the Good Friday Agreement, killing 29 people. In December 2001 it was found that the RUC had received warnings of the bombing up to 11 days beforehand. These warnings went so far as to give the exact date and location of the bombing, yet the RUC did not release any details to the public, or anything to ensure the safety of the people of Omagh.

Catholics who were at risk of sectarian violence received little more than lip service. When a homemade bomb went off near a Catholic children's school in September 2001, most likely carried out by a loyalist group, many British politicians criticized Catholic parents for refusing to bring their children to school through the back door!

In short, Britain invited Catholics to the table to play cards, handed them a loaded deck, and then scolded them for not winning.

Living standards in Northern Ireland are relatively low for both sides. While there is a strong tradition of "Protestant privilege" that runs through Northern Irish society, the budget cuts and privatizations that were carried out directly following the Agreement have affected all workers, Catholic and Protestant. The discrimination against Catholics can only be seen as a divide and rule strategy, and republicanism, because it seeks to improve Catholics second-class status, presents a threat to that order.

The Bankrupt Opposition

Though how much of a threat is up for debate. Those same budget cuts weren't fought at all by Sinn Fein. This goes directly against what the party's supposed platform, seems to understand the connection between national liberation and economic justice for all workers in Northern Ireland. Their website still extols the need for "a 32 county workers republic." Indeed, their rhetoric has been quite radical over the years. But their role as "the political wing" of the struggle for a unified Ireland has meant they have been forced to make concessions time and again so as to not risk their chances of getting into and retaining office. Over the past several years, while participating in Northern Ireland's Assembly, they have retreated on a woman's right to choose, and lead the way for privatizing hospitals and schools. In the South, the party has been in negotiations with current Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's center-right Fianna Fail party about a possible coalition in the future. And when the possibility of water charges arose earlier this year, spokesperson for Sinn Fein Francie Malloy claimed that "they would have to be introduced."

Predictably, this has led to the party trying to distance itself from the IRA and armed struggle in general. Gerry Adams has been increasingly critical of militant action over the past decade, and most governments and mainstream media have heaped praise on him for this. But the time has never quite been right for Adams to completely break with the IRA. McCartney's murder has provided that golden opportunity. This is hardly Adams' effort to turn to a more effective strategy, such as mobilizing the Irish workers around key demands, but another concession in order to further legitimize Sinn Fein as a business-friendly party.

In other words, Sinn Fein has backed themselves into a corner by trying to play both sides. They have two choices; either abandon the IRA and continue swinging to the right, or defiantly scrap any hopes of entering into the government in favor of resuming guerrilla warfare (which would be an unpopular and laughable move seeing as how they have spent the past seven years praising the benefits of the Agreement).

This represents a fundamental contradiction in the philosophy of Irish Republicanism. Its inherent elitism leaves it unable to organize the majority of people around its demands. According to Irish writer and activist Kieran Allen:

"They [republicans] share a fervent belief that the mass of people are fundamentally passive and that it requires a committed minority to achieve gains. This heroic myth of 1916 is drummed into every republican. The mass of Dublin workers were 'corrupted' by empire and only 'woken up' by the brave action of the martyrs."

Ever since before the Easter Uprising of 1916 (referred to above), republicans have rejected the idea of mass struggle. This is the backbone of Sinn Fein's electoral strategy and the IRA's militarism. After all, if they are two sides of the same coin, it makes sense that their tactics reflect each other.

The IRA, from its inception, has sought to foment struggle through conspiratorial means. Individual assassinations and car bombings (intended to carry the struggle forward) require intense secrecy. For that reason, they have never been accountable to the Catholic communities they are fighting on behalf of. In the 1970s, this meant that they were made out to be "protectors" of these communities. Says Eamonn McCann, an Irish socialist and founder of the 1960s civil rights movement:

"The IRA may on occasion have given the community physical protection but it was never answerable or accountable to the community. It has sometimes styled itself as the 'people's army.' But it organizes and operates out of sight of the people It's members are oath-bound to give total allegiance to paramilitary chiefs who, far from finding validation in endorsement by the people, must keep their very identities hidden from the people."

This protector role, because of it's lack of accountability, has easily degenerated in times of low struggle into simply policing over the Catholic communities in order to enforce an authority over them. Youth are expected by IRA members to "show respect" and avoid "anti-social behavior" (a term being used by Blair right now to scapegoat teenagers of color in London).

"When there is no real struggle, paramilitary organizations become self serving," says Allen. "The have huge organizational resources- but little to fight for beyond periodic elections." This can result in tactics as varied as having interests in small capitalism such as taxi businesses or pubs, having ties to the FARC in Colombia, to engaging in bank robberies in Belfast. For these reasons, the IRA finds its support waning to its lowest level in 35 years.

Whither Northern Ireland?

Robert McCartney's sister put her finger on the problem when she contrasted the "Old IRA" with the "New IRA," but she doesn't see the connection between the elitism of both. What she does, however, speak to, is the need for a real solution in Northern Ireland.

Like an onion, this whole fiasco contains several layers.

On the first we have the opportunism of Bush and George Mitchell. Bush has invited the McCartney family to the White House in lieu of Adams, where, as Harry Browne points out, he will "try to convince them of the benefits of secret tribunals and capital punishment." This can't be seen as anything more than imperialist meddling on the part of Bush, Mitchell, Kennedy or anyone else. The administration that now occupies Iraq in the same manner that Britain occupies Northern Ireland cannot be taken seriously.

On the second layer we have Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein's sure shift to the right. Whether Sinn Fein will take this opportunity to legitimize itself and integrate into the world of capitalist rule. Adams should be defended against the kind of hand forcing he is now experiencing from Bush and company, but Sinn Fein's neo-liberal agenda eliminates it as any kind of viable alternative for the people of Ireland.

The third and final layer presents us with the crux of the matter. What happens on the streets of Northern Ireland is the real question here. The IRA's guerrilla-turned vigilante police squad tactics provide no way forward either.

The present crisis in Irish Republicanism presents questions for all people who seek liberation for Northern Ireland. That liberation will come not from elitism, be that the elitism of electoral opportunists or heavy-handed guerrilla tactics. Rather, it lies in defining the struggle along class lines, not religious ones. The Protestants may constitute a majority, but that majority is slim. The 2001 census found that 46% of Northern Irish are Catholic, and suggested that they may soon be the majority. The solution lies in the contradictions of an increasingly globalized society, where the bottom line is the only line that matters. Capitalism doesn't care whether a worker is Catholic or Protestant, it only cares about squeezing both to get the most out of them.

Right now that squeeze has taken its toll on both sides. Since the beginning of the Agreement, living standards and wages have fallen for both Catholic and Protestant, and this makes the potential for workers to see each other as allies even greater. The liberation of Northern Ireland is in the streets, but until those streets see every worker, both Catholic and Protestant, marching arm-in-arm for self-determination and against British control, both will remain in chains.

Alexander Billet is an actor, writer, and socialist living in Syracuse, NY. He is currently working on a production of Brian Friel's Freedom of the City, a play based on the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry, 1972.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Be Aware of what is happening now in U.S.

2005-03-18T10:37:09Z

BEWARE is more like it!

According to Reuters...

LONDON (Reuters) - Sinn Fein, the political ally of the Irish Republican Army (news - web sites) (IRA) has been banned from fundraising in the United States, The Times newspaper reported on Monday, citing diplomatic sources.

It said the order, passed to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams via State Department channels, followed White House anger over accusations the IRA was continuing criminal activity.

The paper did not say how long the ban would last.

Adams is currently on a week-long tour of the United States and has come under fire for his party's ties to the IRA, which has been accused of robbing a bank and shielding the killers of a Roman Catholic man in Northern Ireland, Robert McCartney.

McCartney's five sisters and fiancee have mounted a high profile campaign to bring his killers to justice, and have been invited to meet President Bush (news - web sites) at the annual St Patrick's Day reception at the White House on Thursday.

For the first time in a decade Northern Ireland's political leaders have not been invited to the White House to celebrate the feast day of Ireland's patron saint.

The Times also reported that Britain had raised the threat level for Irish republican guerrilla activity in Britain for the first time since Northern Ireland's " Good Friday" peace agreement in 1998.

A Home Office spokeswoman declined to comment. "We don't give a running commentary on our assessment of threat levels," she said.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 8 replies

Dad, why do they make such a production of St. Patrick's Day

2005-03-18T05:32:24Z

JOHNNY COME LATELY -- INDEED!

Dad, why do they make such a production of St. Patrick's Day
When the Irish are really Johnny Come Latelys to the USA?
They didn't arrive until about eighteen forty-eight,
After Eire's potato crop failed and they had to emigrate.
They had no choice, it was leave home or die of starvation,
So they came in steerage by the thousands to our nation.

Son, obviously what your history books fail to say,
Is, the Irish have been around forever and a day.
When Columbus first landed on the shores of our land,
Patrick McGuire was the first to make footsteps on the sand.
And when you scan the roster of the Santa Maria's crew,
You find many, many more Gaelic names on that list too.

Half of the soldiers in the Colonial Army were born in Ireland,
Many Murphys, 230 O'Briens, 872 Kellys, were in Washington's command.
Eleven of his Generals had fighting Irish blood in their veins,
John Barry, our first Commodore controlled the sea lanes.
Washington himself belonged to the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick,
He knew the British and the Hessians, The Irish Brigade would lick.

Now, run your eye down the signers of the Declaration of Independence,
Thornton, Wilson, Taylor and Smith were born Irish, thanks to
Providence.
McKean, Read and Rutledge were of pure Gaelic parentage,
Whipple and Hancock had Irish mothers, Lynch and Carroll, Celtic
lineage.
The first Continental Congress addressed Ireland in the year 1775,
To say that thanks to the help of the Gaels, America would survive.

An ancient leprechaun told me one soft summer day in Kildare,
That Paul Revere never would have made it without his fine mare.
She was an Irish hunter from Lismore by the.name of Shamrock,
With great stamina and grand conformation from withers to fetlock.
She hated tyranny, the Crown and the tangled webs they spun,
So she ran like a whistling wind from River Charles to Lexington.

So, Son, I see nothing wrong in a big celebration on March seventeen,
With all our nationalities, waving and wearing the green.
Let McNamara lead his band, let Clancy lower the boom,
Let the thunder of marching feet wake Cromwell in his tomb.
For if it wasn't for the help of the clans from the Irish Sea,
America might not be the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Author Unknown

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!!!!

-quoted from Irish Heritage Email Group

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

we celebrate the land that makes us refugees....

2005-03-18T05:29:05Z

so here it is another 17th o' march. are we celebrating the green man, the children of eirn or that society stealing culture killing saint patrick? what "snakes" were in eirn's land anyway? the scaled kind or the pagan? how we celebrate and drink to remember the tuatha we have lost.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 5 replies

Reading a book called, 'Trinity'.

2005-03-14T07:39:43Z

'Trinity' written by a Jewish fellow, Leon Uris. Once I got over the cheesy book cover, it turns out it's actually very enthralling. Very insightful perspective as he is not of the sod or the blood. The man definately did his research to be able to bring such life and believablity to these pages. I'm thouraghly enjoying it and think he did a great job on our own history...

Read it...

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

N.I. bank heist loot found in...

2005-02-20T17:14:26Z

hang on...

wait for it....

wait for it.....

an RUC toilet! HA hahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

NORTHERN BANK LOOT FOUNF IN RUC ATHLETIC FACILITY
02/19/05 11:55 EST

Money discovered in a police sports club in Northern Ireland
was stolen in the £26.5m Northern Bank robbery, detectives
have confirmed.

Police discovered GBP £50,000 in new Northern Bank notes at
the Newforge Country Club in Belfast.

Five shrink-wrapped packages each containing £10,000 were
found in the toilets of the facility. It is the first cash
from the robbery to turn up.

A police spokeswoman said the notes had consecutive serial
numbers and corresponded with the numbers given to the PSNI
by the bank.

A man rang the Police Ombudsman on Friday claiming to be a
PSNI officer and told them where to find the money. The RUC
Athletics Association has blamed outsiders for leaving the cash.

A police spokesperson said of the Belfast find: "Initial
checks would suggest that this incident is an effort to
distract the police investigating the Northern Bank robbery
and also to divert attention away from events elsewhere over
the last two days. However, police are taking the find
seriously and the material recovered will be examined as
part of police efforts to find those responsible for the
robbery."

New Forge Country Club is owned by the RUC Athletic Association.

The complex is used by former RUC officers and serving
Police Service of Northern Ireland officers.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Resolution of the most tender of subjects

2005-02-17T01:55:38Z

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 18:00:16 +0000 (GMT)
From: Sean MacAodh <tiocfaidharlaa@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Resolution of the most tender of subjects

Resolution of the most tender of subjects
Daily Ireland
10 Feb 2005

In our paper today, a number of people who have
suffered grievously at the hands of the British state
say that, for them, an apology would be not be enough.
Included in that number are members of the Birmingham
Six and relatives of some of those killed on Bloody
Sunday.
Johnny Walker, who spent 16 years in English jails
after being wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub
bombings in 1974, said, “any verbal gesture by a
British prime minister would never bring back the 16
years of my life that I lost”. Meanwhile, John Kelly,
whose brother Michael was shot dead on Bloody Sunday,
said that what he and the other families need is not
an apology, but a declaration of innocence.
Yesterday’s apology by British Prime Minister Tony
Blair was magnanimously received by the Maguire and
Conlon families and therefore was extremely welcome.
That some families might warmly welcome an apology,
while others would angrily slap it away, is not
surprising – it is merely another indication of the
sensitivities that surround the issue of
reconciliation and forgiveness.
But to say it is a difficult issue is not to say that
we should shy away from it – if it is not tackled
head-on then we are building up a vast reservoir of
hurt and pain whose banks cannot forever hold.
The maelstrom of emotions that we have seen in the
past few hours – joy, elation and relief from the
Maguires and Conlons; anger, disappointment and
resentment from members of the Birmingham Six and
relatives of the Bloody Sunday dead – were evident in
the words and faces of people whose ordeals began many
years ago, but whose suffering is as deep today as
ever it was.
And for every high-profile media case, there are
hundreds of other victims who have, down through the
years, lived lives of quiet anguish behind drawn
curtains.
Clearly, apologies will not be forthcoming for every
victim, for every family. Worse, justice will not be
forthcoming either.
Having accepted that, it then becomes clear that the
issue is going to require some imagination and some
lateral thinking, none of which has been evident to
date in the ineffectual workings of the Victims
Commission, the Victims Minister, the Victims Liaison
Unit or the Victims Unit. Indeed, most victims, most
families, have probably been getting on with their
lives totally unaware that any such bodies exist even
though some of them have been on the go for fully
eight years.
It goes without saying that now is not the time to
apply ourselves fully to this vexed issue – there’s
hardly a difficulty facing us that could effectively
be tackled today given the seemingly intractable
political mess we find ourselves in.
But if the scenes in London yesterday as the Conlons
and Maguires were finally able to exorcise some of the
ghosts that have haunted them for so many years are
anything to go by, then it’s clear that a resolution
of this most tender of subjects – or even a meaningful
tilt at addressing it – would represent a giant leap forward.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 3 replies

I like them Russkies, I do...

2005-02-13T19:27:10Z

Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 00:11:58 -0000
From: Seán Mac Aodh <tiocfaidharlaa@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Russia angers Britain over N. Irish abuse charges

Russia angers Britain over N. Irish abuse charges
Fri Feb 11, 2005 08:47 PM GMT
By Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) - Russia has angered Britain by saying a fact-finding
mission should look into the "disproportionate" use of force by police
and soldiers in Northern Ireland, documents obtained by Reuters show.

Russia's remarks to a closed-door meeting at the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna were its latest
criticism of what it sees as double standards towards Moscow among
Western countries at the OSCE.

Diplomats say Russia dislikes the OSCE's criticism of its democratic
and human rights record and feels the organisation, Europe's biggest
security and human rights watchdog, focuses too much on countries
"east of Vienna".

"An OSCE fact-finding mission should be sent to Northern Ireland for
the purpose of conducting an in-depth study of all the circumstances
surrounding the current exacerbation of this long-standing conflict,"
Russia's acting permanent envoy to the OSCE, Boris Timokhov, said in a
statement obtained by Reuters.

Human rights bodies have criticised Russia for its rights record in
the southern republic of Chechnya, where it is fighting separatist rebels.

The European Union has in the past condemned what it called abuses by
Russian security forces in Chechnya, including forced disappearances,
extrajudicial executions and torture.

Timokhov told the OSCE on Thursday that Russia was concerned at the
situation in Northern Ireland after the Irish Republican Army withdrew
an offer to disarm earlier this month,

The mission should consider "the acts of terrorism and the instances
of a disproportionate use of armed force by the army and the police
that have occurred there", he said, adding that the findings could
help mediators involved in the province.

Britain's ambassador refuted Timokhov's statement on excessive force.

"There are many problems in Northern Ireland, but use of excessive
force is not one of them," British Ambassador Colin Munro said in his
response, also obtained by Reuters.

While Russia said it was acting out of concern for European security
and stability, one diplomat said it was simply angry at the 55-nation
OSCE, which has denounced elections in Russia and neighbouring
countries as falling short of democratic standards.

"They're fed up with the Western countries lecturing them about human
rights, especially since not all Western countries have perfect
records in that department," an OSCE diplomat said.

Ireland's ambassador said in his response that the added value of an
OSCE mission was "not immediately apparent".

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Remember Pat Finucane today ...

2005-02-13T09:59:36Z

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:05:58 -0500
From: Dawn <sunnydee@adelphia.net>
Subject: Remember Pat Finucane today - gunned down in his own home in 1989

On Sunday, 12 February 1989, lawyer Pat Finucane was gunned down in his
own home in North Belfast as he sat eating a meal with his family. His
wife was wounded in the process. The couple's three children witnessed
the 1989 attack. The murder was finally solved in 2003 and Special
Branch informer Ken Barrett was charged. Barrett was sentenced to 22
years in September 2004 after pleading guilty. For more information,
visit
See http://britishcollusion.com/finucanepat.html.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Stone may have to reinburse British government

2005-02-12T09:02:52Z

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 18:03:38 +0000 (GMT)
From: Sean MacAodh <tiocfaidharlaa@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Stone may have to reinburse British government

FRIDAY 11/02/2005 12:55:30 UTV
Stone may have to reinburse British government

Milltown cemetery killer Michael Stone may be forced
to reimburse the British government the £30,000
compensation it paid to the widow of one of his
victims.

This follows a ruling in the High court today when Mrs
Ann-Marie McErlean, whose husband was one of three men
killed by when Stone attacked mourners in the cemetery
in 1988, was granted leave to apply for a judicial
review of the
Compensation Agency`s decision not to pursue him.

At an earlier hearing it was claimed that Stone had
substantial assets arising from the sale of his
autobiography and paintings.

But the Compensation Agency said there was nothing to
indicate they would make a substantial recovery.

The case was adjourned until today so that further
inquiries could be made about Stone`s assets.

Frank O`Donoghue, QC, told the court that the Agency
had been asked to investigate Stone`s financial
affairs and had written back to say that they could
not identify any assets to justify making an
application for reimbursement.

He said his instructing solicitors, Kevin Winters and
Co., had suggested making inquiries with the Land
Registry to see if Stone owned property, his
publishers to inquire if there had been an advance
payment in respect of his book, and the Inland Revenue
concerning his tax returns.

The Agency`s response, said Mr O`Donoghue, was that
such inquiries raised issues of confidentiality.

"This is an issue of public importance and the
Agency`s decision is irrational," said Mr O`Donoghue.

Mr Justice Weatherup said he could not accept that non
disclosure of assets was a stopping point and granted
leave for the case to proceed.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

IRA STATEMENT DENIES NORTHERN BANK HEIST

2005-02-11T02:50:44Z

IRA STATEMENT DENIES NORTHERN BANK HEIST
01/19/05 09:23 EST

The Provisional IRA has issued a statement denying any
involvement in the robbery of GBP£26.5 million (€37.85) from
the Northern Bank in Belfast last month.

A two-sentence statement released late last night said, in
full: "The IRA has been accused of involvement in the recent
Northern Bank robbery. We were not involved."

The statement was signed "P O'Neill", the usual signatory of
official statements issued by the IRA.

The statement follows an assertion by the PSNI Chief
Constable, Mr Hugh Orde, on January 7th that he believed the
IRA was behind the largest robbery of banknotes in British
or Irish history. He claimed his belief was backed by
intelligence reports.

Last night, following the IRA statement, the Chief Constable
referred to his own statement and said: "That remains my
position."

Mr Orde's claim and the IRA contradiction may now give rise
to theories that the raid was some kind of "rogue operation"
not sanctioned by the IRA leadership.

Both the Irish and British governments have accepted Mr
Orde's assertion, with both the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul
Murphy, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern,
stating as recently as last Monday that they fully believed
the IRA to be responsible.

The IRA had already stated it was not behind the robbery - a
claim supported on a number of occasions by Sinn Féin.

On Sunday, Mr Martin McGuinness said that if the IRA had
carried out the raid, it would have been "unacceptable". He
again said he believed IRA assertions that its volunteers
were not involved in the robbery.

There was no immediate Irish Government reaction to the IRA
statement. The Taoiseach is leading an Irish trade mission
in China this week, and was expected to comment on the
matter at a press conference in Beijing early today.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said today that Mr. Ahern needs
to explain to Sinn Fein why he made "offensive" claims that
senior leaders in the party knew that the IRA carried out
the raid.

"What the Taoiseach (Mr Ahern) has accused me and Martin
McGuinness of doing is being involved in a conspiracy, to be
involved in the prior knowledge of the largest bank robbery
in the history of these islands," he told reporters in Belfast.

"That is what he has accused us of being involved in and I
find that highly offensive. I believe in straight talking on
these issues. Some days we are a bit muted in how we deal
with these issues, given our relationship with various
parties to this process who have played, including the
Taoiseach, a very important role in the whole development of
the peace process."

"But when it comes down to it, when such an allegation is
made with nothing to back it up and it is totally wrong, we
need and we deserve both an explanation and some sense of
where this path takes us."

In Dublin, a spokeswoman for Ireland's Minister for Justice,
Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, said he would not be
making any response last night.

Speaking in Beijing last night before the IRA statement was
issued, the Taoiseach said the Government would reopen
contacts with Sinn Féin early next week, despite its belief
that the IRA was involved in the Northern Bank robbery.

He said: "I have to make a calculated judgment: is
non-engagement better? My sense is that non-engagement has
never worked in my lifetime, even if I don't feel at most
enthusiastic. My sense is that I have to engage," he said.
__________________________________________________________

The Irish American Information Service is a non-profit organization
providing up-to-the-minute political news from Ireland to the world.
The IAIS is funded entirely by your contributions. Please send your
tax-deductable contributions to IAIS at the 907 F st NE, Washington
DC 20002. You can visit us on the Web at http://www.iais.org

posted in Clann na hEireann - 4 replies

There is a way !!!!

2005-02-02T01:29:52Z

To win this damn war !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Think peace might work, Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !

posted in Clann na hEireann - 9 replies

BLOODY SUNDAY - January 30, 1972

2005-02-01T02:46:39Z

Yesterday was the 33rd anniversary of this tragedy.
Never Forget!

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

The Necessity of De-Aglicising Ireland.

2005-01-27T07:46:50Z

Taken from an address by Douglas Hyde from over 100 years ago that's even more relavent today then it was in 1892.

~Kevin

The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland

by Douglas Hyde

Delivered before the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin, 25
November
1892.

When we speak of 'The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation',
we
mean it, not as a protest against imitating what is best in the
English
people, for that would be absurd, but rather to show the folly of
neglecting
what is Irish, and hastening to adopt, pell-mell, and
indiscriminately,
everything that is English, simply because it is English.

This is a question which most Irishmen will naturally look at from a
National point of view, but it is one which ought also to claim the
sympathies of every intelligent Unionist, and which, as I know, does
claim
the sympathy of many.

If we take a bird's eye view of our island today, and compare it with
what
it used to be, we must be struck by the extraordinary fact that the
nation
which was once, as every one admits, one of the most classically
learned and
cultured nations in Europe, is now one of the least so; how one of
the most
reading and literary peoples has become one of the least studious and
most
un-literary, and how the present art products of one of the quickest,
most
sensitive, and most artistic races on earth are now only
distinguished for
their hideousness.

I shall endeavour to show that this failure of the Irish people in
recent
times has been largely brought about by the race diverging during this
century from the right path, and ceasing to be Irish without becoming
English. I shall attempt to show that with the bulk of the people this
change took place quite recently, much more recently than most people
imagine, and is, in fact, still going on. I should also like to call
attention to the illogical position of men who drop their own
language to
speak English, of men who translate their euphonious Irish names into
English monosyllables, of men who read English books, and know
nothing about
Gaelic literature, nevertheless protesting as a matter of sentiment
that
they hate the country which at every hand's turn they rush to imitate.

I wish to show you that in Anglicising ourselves wholesale we have
thrown
away with a light heart the best claim which we have upon the world's
recognition of us as a separate nationality. What did Mazzini say?
What is
Goldwin Smith never tired of declaiming? What do the Spectator and
Saturday
Review harp on? That we ought to be content as an integral part of the
United Kingdom because we have lost the notes of nationality, our
language
and customs.

It has always been very curious to me how Irish sentiment sticks in
this
half-way house -- how it continues to apparently hate the English,
and at
the same time continues to imitate them; how it continues to clamour
for
recognition as a distinct nationality, and at the same time throws
away with
both hands what would make it so. If Irishmen only went a little
farther
they would become good Englishmen in sentiment also. But -- illogical
as it
appears -- there seems not the slightest sign or probability of their
taking
that step. It is the curious certainty that come what may Irishmen
will
continue to resist English rule, even though it should be for their
good,
which prevents many of our nation from becoming Unionists upon the
spot. It
is a fact, and we must face it as a fact, that although they adopt
English
habits and copy England in every way, the great bulk of Irishmen and
Irishwomen over the whole world are known to be filled with a dull,
ever-abiding animosity against her, and right or wrong -- to grieve
when she
prospers, and joy when she is hurt. Such movements as Young
Irelandism,
Fenianism, Land Leagueism, and Parliamentary obstruction seem always
to gain
their sympathy and support. It is just because there appears no
earthly
chance of their becoming good members of the Empire that I urge that
they
should not remain in the anomalous position they are in, but since
they
absolutely refuse to become the one thing, that they become the other;
cultivate what they have rejected, and build up an Irish nation on
Irish
lines.

But you ask, why should we wish to make Ireland more Celtic than it
is --
why should we de-Anglicise it at all?

I answer because the Irish race is at present in a most anomalous
position,
imitating England and yet apparently hating it. How can it produce
anything
good in literature, art, or institutions as long as it is actuated by
motives so contradictory? Besides, I believe it is our Gaelic past
which,
though the Irish race does not recognise it just at present, is
really at
the bottom of the Irish heart, and prevents us becoming citizens of
the
Empire, as, I think, can be easily proved.

To say that Ireland has not prospered under English rule is simply a
truism;
all the world admits it, England does not deny it. But the English
retort is
ready. You have not prospered, they say, because you would not settle
down
contentedly, like the Scotch, and form part of the Empire. 'Twenty
years of
good, resolute, grandfatherly government', said a well-known
Englishman,
will solve the Irish question. He possibly made the period too short,
but
let us suppose this. Let us suppose for a moment -- which is
impossible --
that there were to arise a series of Cromwells in England for the
space of
one hundred years, able administrators of the Empire, careful rulers
of
Ireland, developing to the utmost our national resources, whilst they
unremittingly stamped out every spark of national feeling, making
Ireland a
land of wealth and factories, whilst they extinguished every thought
and
every idea that was Irish, and left us, at last, after a hundred
years of
good government, fat, wealthy, and populous, but with all our
characteristics gone, with every external that at present
differentiates us
from the English lost or dropped; all our Irish names of places and
people
turned into English names; the Irish language completely extinct; the
O's
and the Macs dropped; our Irish intonation changed, as far as
possible by
English schoolmasters into something English; our history no longer
remembered or taught; the names of our rebels and martyrs blotted
out; our
battlefields and traditions forgotten; the fact that we were not of
Saxon
origin dropped out of sight and memory, and let me now put the
question --
How many Irishmen are there who would purchase material prosperity at
such a
price? It is exactly such a question as this and the answer to it
that shows
the difference between the English and Irish race. Nine Englishmen
out of
ten would jump to make the exchange, and I as firmly believe that nine
Irishmen out of ten would indignantly refuse it.

And yet this awful idea of complete Anglicisation, which I have here
put
before you in all its crudity is, and has been, making silent inroads
upon
us for nearly a century.

Its inroads have been silent, because, had the Gaelic race perceived
what
was being done, or had they been once warned of what was taking place
in
their own midst, they would, I think, never have allowed it. When the
picture of complete Anglicisation is drawn for them in all its
nakedness
Irish sentimentality becomes suddenly a power and refuses to
surrender its
birthright...

So much for the greatest stroke of all in our Anglicisation, the loss
of our
language. I have often heard people thank God that if the English
gave us
nothing else they gave us at least their language. In this way they
put a
bold face upon the matter, and pretend that the Irish language is not
worth
knowing, and has no literature. But the Irish language is worth
knowing, or
why would the greatest philologists of Germany, France, and Italy be
emulously studying it, and it does possess a literature, or why would
a
German savant have made the calculation that the books written in
Irish
between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries, and still extant,
would fill
a thousand octavo volumes.

I have no hesitation at all in saying that every Irish-feeling
Irishman, who
hates the reproach of West-Britonism, should set himself to encourage
the
efforts, which are being made to keep alive our once great national
tongue.
The losing of it is our greatest blow, and the sorest stroke that the
rapid
Anglicisation of Ireland has inflicted upon us. In order to de-
Anglicise
ourselves we must at once arrest the decay of the language. We must
bring
pressure upon our politicians not to snuff it out by their tacit
discouragement merely because they do not happen themselves to
understand
it. We must arouse some spark of patriotic inspiration among the
peasantry
who still use the language, and put an end to the shameful state of
feeling -- a thousand-tongued reproach to our leaders and statesmen --
which
makes young men and women blush and hang their heads when overheard
speaking
their own language. Maynooth has at last come splendidly to the
front, and
it is now incumbent upon every clerical student to attend lectures in
the
Irish language and history during the first three years of his
course. But
in order to keep the Irish language alive where it is still spoken --
which
is the utmost we can at present aspire to -- nothing less than a
house-to-house visitation and exhortation of the people themselves
will do,
something -- though with a very different purpose -- analogous to the
procedure that James Stephens adopted throughout Ireland when he
found her
like a corpse on the dissecting table. This and some system of giving
medals
or badges of honour to every family who will guarantee that they have
always
spoken Irish amongst themselves during the year. But unfortunately,
distracted as we are and torn by contending factions, it is
impossible to
find either men or money to carry out this simple remedy, although to
a
dispassionate foreigner -- to a Zeuss, Jubainville, Zimmer, Kuno
Meyer,
Windisch, or Ascoli, and the rest -- this is of greater importance
than
whether Mr. Redmond or Mr. MacCarthy lead the largest wing of the
Irish
party for the moment, or Mr. So-and-So succeed with his election
petition.
To a person taking a bird's eye view of the situation a hundred or
five
hundred years hence, believe me, it will also appear of greater
importance
than any mere temporary wrangle, but, unhappily, our countrymen
cannot be
brought to see this.

We can, however, insist, and we shall insist if Home Rule be carried,
that
the Irish language, which so many foreign scholars of the first
calibre find
so worthy of study, shall be placed on a par with -- or even above --
Greek,
Latin, and modern languages, in all examinations held under the Irish
Government. We can also insist, and we shall insist, that in those
baronies
where the children speak Irish, Irish shall be taught, and that
Irish-speaking schoolmasters, petty sessions clerks, and even
magistrates be
appointed in Irish-speaking districts. If all this were done, it
should not
be very difficult, with the aid of the foremost foreign scholars, to
bring
about a tone of thought which would make it disgraceful for an
educated
Irishman especially of the old Celtic race, MacDermotts, O'Conors,
O'Sullivans, MacCarthys, O'Neills -- to be ignorant of his own
language --
would make it at least as disgraceful as for an educated Jew to be
quite
ignorant of Hebrew...

I have now mentioned a few of the principal points on which it would
be
desirable for us to move, with a view to de-Anglicising ourselves; but
perhaps the principal point of all I have taken for granted. That is
the
necessity for encouraging the use of Anglo-Irish literature instead of
English books, especially instead of English periodicals. We must set
our
face sternly against penny dreadfuls, shilling shockers, and still
more, the
garbage of vulgar English weeklies like Bow Bells and the Police
Intelligence. Every house should have a copy of Moore and Davis. In a
word,
we must strive to cultivate everything that is most racial, most
smacking of
the soil, most Gaelic, most Irish, because in spite of the little
admixture
of Saxon blood in the north-east corner, this island is and will ever
remain
Celtic at the core, far more Celtic than most people imagine,
because, as I
have shown you, the names of our people are no criterion of their
race. On
racial lines, then, we shall best develop, following the bent of our
own
natures; and, in order to do this, we must create a strong feeling
against
West-Britonism, for it -- if we give it the least chance, or show it
the
smallest quarter -- will overwhelm us like a flood, and we shall find
ourselves toiling painfully behind the English at each step following
the
same fashions, only six months behind the English ones; reading the
same
books, only months behind them; taking up the same fads, after they
have
become stale there, following them in our dress, literature, music,
games,
and ideas, only a long time after them and a vast way behind. We will
become, what, I fear, we are largely at present, a nation of
imitators, the
Japanese of Western Europe, lost to the power of native initiative
and alive
only to second-hand assimilation. I do not think I am overrating this
danger. We are probably at once the most assimilative and the most
sensitive
nation in Europe. A lady in Boston said to me that the Irish
immigrants had
become Americanised on the journey out before ever they landed at
Castle
Gardens. And when I ventured to regret it, she said, shrewdly, 'If
they did
not at once become Americanised they would not be Irish.' I knew
fifteen
Irish workmen who were working in a haggard in England give up
talking Irish
amongst themselves because the English farmer laughed at them. And yet
O'Connell used to call us the 'finest peasantry in Europe'.
Unfortunately,
he took little care that we should remain so. We must teach ourselves
to be
less sensitive, we must teach ourselves not to be ashamed of
ourselves,
because the Gaelic people can never produce its best before the world
as
long as it remains tied to the apron-strings of another race and
another
island, waiting for it to move before it will venture to take any step
itself.

In conclusion, I would earnestly appeal to every one, whether
Unionist or
Nationalist, who wishes to see the Irish nation produce its best --
surely
whatever our politics are we all wish that -- to set his face against
this
constant running to England for our books, literature, music, games,
fashions, and ideas. I appeal to every one whatever his politics --
for this
is no political matter -- to do his best to help the Irish race to
develop
in future upon Irish lines, even at the risk of encouraging national
aspirations, because upon Irish lines alone can the Irish race once
more
become what it was of yore -- one of the most original, artistic,
literary,
and charming peoples of Europe.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

SINN FEIN ~ WHAT THE US WON'T TELL YOU

2005-01-17T17:53:10Z

Achairde All:

In all the years that I have been active in the process to peacefully re-unite Ireland I have learned that the American media actively censors anything that has to do with the foreign occupation or the part the American Government plays in it.

Below you will find the full text of Gerry Adams speech at national launch of the C éad Bliain/Sinn F éin 100 event. You won't find it in the U.S. media so I have taken the liberty of using Sinn Fein USA to print it here.

Remember that tyranny requires silence to flourish. If you are interested in the truth about the situation you can go to:

Sinn Fein
www.sinnfein.ie/

Thank you.

Slan leat,
Elaine M. Hinchey

An C éad - Toward a United Ireland:

Let me commend all those people who, under Catriona Ruane's leadership, have organised An Cead - our year long celebrations of the centenary of our party. And let me thank you. Republicans too often take each other for granted.

So I want to launch An Cead by commending and thanking all of you and all our friends and comrades across this island, and around the world for your great commitment, idealism and contribution to our struggle. L áBreithe shona do gach duine agaibh. Happy birthday to you all.

What is this year about? It is about education and debate. It is about the re-popularising of republicanism. It is about learning the lessons of a century of struggle. It's also about taking pride in what we are about. And what we have achieved. But most important of all this year is about Sinn F éin taking more decisive steps forward toward our goal of a united, free and independent Ireland.

Predictably enough the year begins with Sinn F éin once again under attack. Can any one here remember a time - any time - when the usual suspects weren't lined up against us. The political establishment was at it 100 years ago. The media establishment was at it 100 years ago. If those who founded Sinn Fein were alive today and watching recent events they would conclude that the more things change the more some things remain the same.

For example; the very first editorial in the Irish Independent after the 1916 Rising was entitled "Criminal Madness". It said:"No terms of denunciation that pen could indite would be too strong to apply to those responsible for the insane and criminal rising of last week."

As James Connolly lay wounded in hospital, the same paper declared: "Let the worst of the ringleaders be singled out and dealt with as they deserve." But for tonight let us ignore the begrudgers. Tonight is about our agenda - no one elses. So let us look to our vision of the future ˆthe vision of a free Ireland, united in peace and justice.

"The achieveable vision".

Over the past century Sinn F éin has been an idea, a name, a federation of political societies, a national independence movement, a republican campaigning organization.

And, in 2005, the only all-Ireland political party and the fastest growing party in the country. The words Sinn F éin have been described as "the title deeds of a revolution". And as we reflect on a century of Sinn F éin we should reflect on the meaning of those words. When the idea of Sinn F éin was conceived Ireland was awakening from the nightmare of the 19th century. There was the Great Hunger, the millions forced to emigrate and the land war. But even in the midst of these horrors some dared to dream of a different Ireland - a free Ireland.

The tragic fate of Parnell had shown the limits of a so-called constitutional nationalism that depended on the good will of British political parties or British governments to grant as concessions the inalienable rights of the Irish people. The most important principle of Sinn F éin was self-reliance. Only the people of this island can secure our liberation and mould our society to suit our unique heritage, our character, our economic needs and our place in the wider world. And that is still true today. And from the beginning Sinn F éin extended a hand of friendship to unionists, while always asserting that the end of the Union was in the interests of all the people of this island.

The Sinn F éin Policy as outlined by Arthur Griffith at the first convention in the Rotunda in November 1905 stated:

"For the Orangeman of the North, ceasing to be the blind instrument of his own as well as his fellow-countrymen's destruction, we have the greeting of brotherhood as for the Nationalist of the South, long taught to measure himself by English standards and save the face of tyranny by sending Irishmen to sit impotently in a foreign legislature whilst it forges the instruments of his oppression".

It was a time of renewal and rebirth in Ireland. Sinn F éin was the political expression of that dram, that blossomed in Conradh na Gaeilge, Cumann L úhchleas Gael, the Trade Union movement, the Co-Operative movement, the development of Irish industries and agriculture, Ingh ínne na hEireann and the movement for Women's Suffrage, Irish Womens Workers Union of Ireland.

From the beginning women were centrally involved in this organisation. It was a woman, M áire de Buitl éir, who first proposed the name Sinn F éin for the new political movement. Constance Markievicz, Minister for Labour in the First D áil, was one of the first women Cabinet ministers in the world. Margaret Buckley was President of Sinn F éin from 1937 to 1950.

But too often women have been the workers in the background, the often invisible foundation of this party and this struggle. We have made progress in redressing the balance but much more needs to be done and one of our key aims in this centenary year must be to increase the number of women in Sinn F éin and the number of women in positions of leadership, including more republican women standing for elected office in winnable seats across this island.

Gan Conradh na Gaeilge n íbheadh Sinn F éin ann. Mar a d úirt P ádraig MacPiarais, nuair a buna íodh Conradh na Gaeilge cuireadh t ús le r éabhl óid na h Éireann. Thug Gluaiseacht na Gaeilge f éin-mheas ar ais do mhuintir na h Éireann. Ón t ús bh ísl án úna Gaeilge mar chusp óir ag Sinn F éin. Ba ch óir d úinn deis na bliana seo a ús áid chun obair ár bpairt íar son na Gaeilge a mh éad ú, chun an pairt íf éin a Ghael úchomh fada agus is f éidir agus chun pl éle pobal na Gaeilge conas is f éidir linn uile dul ar aghaidh sa ch éad nua seo go dt ín áisi ún d á-theangach.

Defining Independence

The first objective in the first Constitution of Sinn F éin was simply stated as "the re-establishment of the independence of Ireland". Political events soon required a clearer definition of what that independence would mean. The political pendulum had swung towards constitutional nationalism. Irish hopes rested once more on the good will of a British political party. The Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster reduced the national demand for freedom to the polite request for limited Home Rule within the British Empire. But even this was not conceded as the British government acted, as always, first and last, in its own interest.

It was Tory England, in alliance with Irish Unionism, that brought the gun into Irish politics in the 20th century - not republicans, not the Irish Volunteers, not Sinn F éin. With the Tory-Unionist gun came the concept of Partition. In the words of James Connolly, the republican who most clearly defined what the dream of a free, just and equal Ireland should be, they placed Ireland upon the dissecting table. And so the political pendulum swung back towards that element in Irish politics which, since the days of the United Irishmen, had always demanded national sovereignty and an Irish Republic.

There were many Republicans involved in the formation of Sinn F éin. They played a pivotal role in founding the Irish Volunteers. Many of them actively supported the workers in the Great 1913 Lockout in Dublin. This was a great period of debate, of exchanges of ideas as leaders and thinkers and activists, dreamers all, met and influenced each other. It was the time when the tributaries of separatism, anti-sectarianism, feminism, cultural revival, socialism and the physical force tradition flowed into the river of Irish Republicanism.

The Proclamation - a promise to every Irish citizen

The result was the 1916 Rising and the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, the founding document of modern Irish Republicanism and a charter of liberty with international as well as national importance. The great phrases of that document resonate around this hall 80 years after the First D áil met here.

The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty; equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens; cherishing all the children of the nation equally. Its anti-sectarianism is evident in the words; oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past. And at a time when women in most countries did not have the vote, the government of this new republic will be elected by the suffrages of all her men and women.

N ífocail glice n áfocail folaimh iad seo.

These are not just clever words or empty rhetoric. This was the dream taking shape.

Ta na focail agus na smaoint íseo iontach. T ás émar c úram orainn ˆmar dualgas ˆéa chur I gcr ích.

These are great words - great ideas - which it is our task - our responsibility - to see implemented. These words are a promise to every Irish citizen that she and he can share in the dignity of human kind, as equals with equal opportunity. That we can enjoy freedom, educate our children, provide for our families, and not exploit our neighbours.

The Irish people endorsed the Republic at the ballot box in 1918. D áil Éireann was established and in this room, in this month in 1919, the D áil declared the independence of the Republic and published its Message to the Free Nations of the World and the Democratic Programme. Maire Comerford wrote of the athmosphere in this room that day, „never was the past so near or the present so brave or the future so full of hope. We know what England's answer was. We are still living with the consequences of that British denial of Irish democracy, the unfinished business of Irish history.

From the high water mark of united national resistance, Republicans faced a counter revolution and long decades of struggle. It is a source of strength and encouragement that Republicans have survived undefeated in spite of all that has been thrown against us. We continued to dream. But we did more. We emerged as the leadership of a Risen People, that Risen People referred to by Maire Drumm, our murdered vice-president, whose words we have recalled tonight. It is not just Republican rhetoric to say that the refusal of successive British governments to recognise Irish democracy made armed conflict inevitable.

Let it not be forgotten that for decades, including all the years of the Civil Rights movement and in the most intense period of the conflict from 1969 to 1974, Sinn F éin was banned under British law in the Six Counties. Sinn F éin was censored. Sinn F éin members, elected representatives and our families were killed. We were banned from this building.

For generations of young nationalists and republicans there was a British Army roadblock at the bottom of every political route to change. And here in this state the Special Branch was busy as well. Well, those who vilified and excluded us need look no further than tonight as evidence of the failure of their strategy. We are back in the Mansion House bigger and stronger; and better than ever.

The Stalwarts

In this hall tonight are generations of activists, generations of dreamers and do-ers, who braved the reverses and hardships, the failures and the mishaps, who refused to despair and surrender and who risked life and liberty in pursuit of our republican goals.Is iad seo na daoine calma. Is iad seo na daoine a d ‚fhulaing sna blianta gann agus a choinningh an tine beo- an tine saoirse. They are the stalwarts. Those who endured in the lean years and who guarded the flame of freedom.

Ta na daoine seo óachan cearn den oile án - an tuaisceart agus an deisceart - an oirthear agus an iarrthar - cathrach agus tuathanach - sean agus óg - fir agus mn á.

They are from every part of this island - north and south - east and west - urban and rural - young and old - men and women.Our bonds of comradeship and friendship have been forged in the crucible of struggle. In this centenary year we remember especially all those republicans who lived, worked and died for freedom. We remember them - we remember them all with great pride and love.

Their absence reminds us of how much we have lost in the course of this struggle. Each one was a unique, irreplaceable human being. The daughter or son of some parents. The mother or the father of some child. The beloved of some man or woman. These were ordinary men and women who in extraordinary and difficult circumstances found the inner strength, determination and courage to stand against injustice and oppression, to demand the rights and entitlements of the Irish people.

Our task - our duty - is to make their vision their dream - a reality.

Defining Republicanism today

That means defining and redefining our republicanism for today ‚s world - for today's Ireland. Those who established Sinn F éin 100 years ago; those who fought on the streets of this city in 1916 and later against the might of the British Empire; and those who raised the flag of resistance in each subsequent generation, did so in circumstances that differed and changed as the years rolled past.

This is not 1905. It is 2005. It is the 21st century.

Republicanism today, and our dream, our vision, our aisling of the future reflects our contemporary experience; the inspiration provided by the heroes of this phase of struggle - Maire Drumm and Bobby Sands, Eddie Fullerton and Sheena Campbell and John Davey and many others; and by our political objectives for this time.

Sinn F éin is an Irish republican party. Our strategy to achieve a united, independent Ireland marks us out from other Irish political parties. Later this year we will be launching a campaign for the Irish government to bring forward a Green Paper on Irish Unity. Our primary political objectives are; an end to partition, an end to the union, the construction of a new national democracy ˆa new republic ˆon the island of Ireland, and reconciliation between orange and green. But we are not prepared to wait until we have achieved these goals for people to have their rights to a decent home, to a job and a decent wage, to decent public services like health and education, and a safer cleaner environment.

We also want change in the here and now. Irish republicanism has a vision of a new society that is democratic. That is economic as well as political. A society which is inclusive of all citizens, in which there is a redistribution of wealth for the well being of the aged, for the advancement of youth, for the liberation of women and the protection of our children.

It foresees a new relationship between these islands resting upon our mutual independence and mutual respect.

From the beginning, saving the Irish language from extinction and reviving our national language was a key aim of Sinn F éin. We should use the opportunity of this year to increase our party's work on the Irish language - to Gaelicise the party itself to the greatest extent possible and to debate with the Irish language community particularly, and the English language community generally, how we can all move forward in this new century towards a truly bilingual nation.

Our republicanism is about change - fundamental, deep-rooted change. It's about empowering people to make that change. That means we have to be agents of change. This is an enormous responsibility. It is a huge challenge.

Building political strength

Key to achieving this is the hard, tedious, difficult work of building political strength. By building that strength we will build the capacity to move both the British and the Irish governments and the unionists and to influence the political agenda. Since last year Sinn F éin took major strides forward toward achieving our goals.

Just over a year ago, in November 2003, this party became the largest pro Agreement party in the north - a significant achievement. Last June Sinn F éin broke the mould of Irish politics in the European elections by electing Mary Lou McDonald and Bairbre de Br ún to the European Parliament and by electing Councillors right across the southern state. The front page of the Phoblacht then summed it up - 342,000 votes, 2 MEPs, 232 Councillors, 24 MLAs, 5TDs and 4MPs. Sinn F éin is now politically and organizationally stronger than at any time since the 1920s.

We have developed new approaches. We have taken difficult and risky decisions. We have demonstrated time and time again a preparedness to go on the political offensive, to take initiatives and go toe to toe with our political opponents in the battle of ideas, as well as in the hard job of building workable political partnerships. And all of these facts give some explanation why once again we are at the centre of a political storm. Our political opponents, and 5; id éalachas againn. T ána str áit éis íagainn. Ach t áa l án oibre le d éanamh againn chomh maith. N íl muid ag cur I gc éill go bhfuil na freagra ígo l éir againn. Caithfidh muid an taca íocht at áagainn a ús áid chun bogadh chun tosaigh agus f ás ar fud an oile áin. Caithfidh muid I Sinn F éin bheith mar gluaiseacht ar fud an n áisi ún uile.Sinn F éin has dedication and we have commitment. We have idealism. We have a dream. And we have strategies. We also have a lot of work to do. We don't pretend to have all the answers.

We must use our present mandate as a launching pad to grow an island wide, a nation wide mass Sinn F éin movement. Our goal is to have a Sinn F éin cumann in every electoral ward across Ireland. We have to open our party up to women comrades and to people who will bring their own life experiences and values. I particularly want to commend Ógra Sinn F éin for their dedicated work and enormous contribution. We also have to work in partnership with other parties, and people of a like mind, to construct a network ˆan alliance for unity which will act as a catalyst for real change - a coalition for unity which brings people and parties with a similar vision of the future together.

Irish republicans have demonstrated time and time again our capacity to overcome adversity and advance our struggle for freedom and justice against enormous odds. It is not enough to sloganise. We are not verbalised republicans or rhetorical revolutionaries.We are not merely dreamers, though that is important. We are the generation which will win the freedom and independence that those before us struggled hard to achieve.

We in this historic hall, and thousands more throughout this island, are carrying the honoured name of Sinn F éin into the 21st century. And after a century of struggle, we are preparing for success. When will we get our United Ireland? When will Ireland have independence? There's only one answer to that. We will get it when our combined efforts, our combined strength, our determination make its achievement unstoppable. We will not settle for less. And the greater our efforts - the more quickly we will achieve our goals.

So, let us move the struggle forward. Let us continue, despite the difficulties - to reach out to unionism to build a just and lasting peace on our island. Let us continue with our efforts to make the peace process work.

We want to see and end to conflict on our island. We want to see the political institutions re-instituted. We want to see the Good Friday Agreement implemented. We know as the leading nationalist party in the north and the largest pro-Agreement party, that there are huge responsibilities on us. We are up to the task. But we cannot achieve this alone.

So, let us join with those in other parties and none, who share our vision of a new Ireland. Let us ask them to walk with us; to work with us; to move forward with us toward the republican and democratic goals of unity and freedom and equality.

In the course of these remarks I made mention of the dream that motivates us. Anyone who wants to win a struggle has to have a dream. The dream that things can be different. That they can be better. But we are not only dreamers. We are do-ers. We know we can make the difference.

So, let us leave here tonight renewed, reinvigorated, and determined to fulfill the promise of the Proclamation, and the objective for which Sinn F éin was founded - a free, independent, sovereign Ireland.

Ar aghaidh linn le ch éile.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

FLASH NEWS Ciaran Ferry deported...

2005-01-17T13:18:07Z

Irish Echo
Ferry deported, but not before airport fiasco
By Ray O'Hanlon

In a final, Kafkaesque twist to his longrunning battle against deportation from the U.S., Belfast man Ciaran Ferry was prevented from leaving the country last week by law enforcement officials. And this even as he was in the process of being deported under armed federal escort.
Ferry's flight fiasco began after he reached a deal with federal prosecutors.
The former IRA man agreed to end his appeal against deportation if he was able to get a flight back to Ireland in time for Christmas.
Ferry's journey back east began smoothly enough. Escorted by U.S. marshals, he was placed on a plane out of Denver bound for Newark in New Jersey. The flight landed at Newark where Ferry was to be transferred to a Continental Airlines flight to Dublin. However, the wheels came off the flight plan at this point.
According to Ferry attorney Eamonn Dornan, airport security officials boarded the plan and ordered Ferry's removal.
"Ciaran was under armed escort by U.S. marshals, but the security officials said he couldn't fly because his name was on the no-fly list," Dornan said.
The presence of the federal officers did not assuage the officers, described by Dornan as being from the New York/New Jersey Port Authority. Ferry was taken from the plane and confined for the night at the Hudson County jail. Federal agents managed to sort out the situation the next day and Ferry finally flew to Ireland on Wednesday night, Dec. 23. He was freed upon arrival in Dublin and was able to spend Christmas with his family in Belfast.
Meanwhile, Ferry's wife, Heaven, who is a U.S. citizen, and the couple's American-born daughter, Fiona, spent Christmas in Colorado with family members. They are both expected to join Ferry in Ireland in the new year.
Last month, a Colorado judge denied Ferry's habeas corpus plea, which had been before the court for 19 months.
Ferry had argued that his detention violated due process and his right to equal protection. He said he was denied his rights because he was prevented from having a green-card hearing following his marriage to Heaven.
Ferry has been jailed since Jan. 30, 2003. He was detained when he turned up for the green-card interview with his wife.
Ferry was first held at the Federal Corrections Institution in Englewood, Colo. He was transferred at the end of February to the maximum-security wing of Denver County Jail. In September 2003 he was moved to the Jefferson County Jail in Denver. Hudson County turned out to be Ferry's fourth place of confinement in less than two years.
Ferry, through his lawyers, argued that he was treated in an arbitrary fashion by the Department of Homeland Security. He also disputed the government's position that he posed a threat to U.S. security. He was supported in this contention by 12 members of Congress, who wrote to the DHS on his behalf.
However, in his habeas corpus decision, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham ruled that while Ferry had been lawfully admitted to the U.S. under the visa-waiver program, he had, under the rules of the program, effectively waived his rights to legally fight deportation on any basis other than a plea for political asylum.
In his ruling, Nottingham noted that such a plea for asylum had been separately denied by U.S. immigration authorities. Nottingham, in denying habeas corpus, stated that Ferry was "subject to removal" from the U.S.
That decision was still in appeal before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals when Ferry decided to end a legal battle, which had the potential to go on for years.
When he appeared for his green-card interview, Ferry was questioned about a prison term he served in Northern Ireland for IRA-related activities in the early 1990s.
Ferry was arrested in Belfast in 1993 after two guns and ammunition were found in a car in which he was a passenger. He was sentenced to 22 years but was released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday agreement.
Ferry, when he first entered the U.S., did not reveal that he had been in prison. He did, however, admit to IRA membership on his subsequent green-card application.

This story appeared in the issue of December 29, 2004- January 4, 2005

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

4 leaf clover

2004-12-26T19:18:05Z

Are they really lucky?

posted in Clann na hEireann - 9 replies

Nollaig shona duit a chairde

2004-12-23T08:40:22Z

Merry X-Mas my rebel friends!

Is mise le meas,
Seosamh

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Irish in the U.S.

2004-12-02T07:21:23Z

Irish immigrants' plight awaits new president

IRISH NEWS 24/06/2004 17:13:35

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen,
says nothing can be done in the US to deal with
the plight of illegal Irish immigrants until after
the presidential election.

Thousands of immigrants who failed to take up
green cards in the late 1980s have been unable to
return home to Ireland.

Brian Cowen told he Dáil the issue will have to be
raised in the US Congress after the presidential
elections.

"There is no prospect unfortunately of legislation
being introduced this side of the presidential
election. That is an issue, which will have to be
taken up in 2005 with congress."

http://www.irishnews.com

*******************************************

50,000 Irish claimed to be in US illegally

At least 50,000 Irish nationals are currently
living illegally in the US, it was claimed today.
By: Press Association

Fine Gael TD Jimmy Deenihan urged Taoiseach
Bertie Ahern to use US President George Bush`s
visit to Ireland this weekend to seek regularisation
of the status of undocumented Irish citizens.

Mr Deenihan today tabled a parliamentary question
on the issue to the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Brian Cowen, in the Dail.

"I am deeply concerned for the status of Irish
immigrants who arrived in the States after 1995,"
he said.

"The allocation of green cards since that time
has been minimal and has therefore failed to
reduce the number of undocumented Irish,
conservatively estimated to be at least 50,000."

Mr Deenihan said that while many undocumented
Irish citizens make a valuable economic and social
contribution to the US, they face many hardships
under the current immigration legislation.

He said many could not risk travelling home for
significant family occasions for fear of not being
able to return.

"They are also subject to bureaucratic difficulties
in terms of proof of identity when applying for or
renewing a driver`s licence and, in certain states,
may have to have a US citizen sponsor them for the
licence," he said.

"Such difficulties may mean that Irish immigrants
will not be granted or will lose their licences which,
in many cases, would inevitably lead to loss of work."

...

http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=47285&pt=n

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

Homeland security my ass!

2004-12-01T04:46:28Z

Check this out everybody. This infuriates me to no end.
www.freeciaranferry.com/
He has it worse than the prisoners in Guantanamo.

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

35 years is more than enough!

2004-08-15T15:49:48Z

To: Irish Northern Aid Contact List
From: Gerry Coleman, political education director
Re: 35th Anniversary of the introduction of British Troops in north of Ireland

14 August 2004

On the 14th of August 1969, thirty five years ago today, British troops were deployed on Irish soil for the first time in the current phase of the fight for Irish freedom.

They are still there.

At 5 p.m., Sunday, August 14, 1969, British soldiers began patrolling the streets of Derry City. Nationalists and republicans throughout the north soon came to know the British army wasn’t there to protect them.

Today, almost TWICE as many British soldiers lurk in barracks, patrol streets and glens, and spy on Irish people from watch towers and helicopters in the north of Ireland as the British army have in stationed in IRAQ.

After 80 years of illegal partition, violence, and injustice for northern nationalists and 35 years of war, The Good Friday Agreement was supposed to provide a fair opportunity to right the abuses of the past and to allow for democratic change.

The simple fact is that the GFA has not been fully implemented by the British government, including its promises to establish a decent policing service responsible to the people, to provide freedom from sectarian abuse and attack, to provide equality of opportunity and justice, to provide the opportunity for non-violent political progress.

And they have failed to demilitarize their war apparatus as they promised in 1998. Approximately 15,000 British troops are still on duty in the 6 counties of northeast Ireland, compared to 8,000 in Iraq.

When you include the heavily armed, political and sectarian police force, which number 12,500, the one and a half million people of the north of Ireland are still under martial law conditions, complete with juryless courts and draconian emergency laws.

That’s one member of the British army or armed police for every 5.4 man, woman and child!

This is a good time to contact the British embassy, your local consulate, or their boss Tony Blair. Tell them it’s about time to get the hell out. I’m sure you can think of something appropriate to communicate to them.

Contact Information:

The British government: The British Embassy in DC can be reached by phone [202] 588 7800; fax: (212) 745 0359 or e-mailed at ppa@washington.mail.fco.gov.uk. The address is

The British Embassy
3100 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20008.

Contact the Northern Ireland Office while you are at it: press.nio@nics.gov.uk

An easy way to contact Tony Blair is through the Prime Minister’s website. They say these messages are all read and Blair gets a sampling and a breakdown of the topics. You can get to the web site easily enough: <www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp> or go directly to the email section: <www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page821.asp>

You should write to the Prime Minister at this address if you want a better chance for a reply:

10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA.

You can also fax Blair from outside the UK at +442079250918 [inside the UK at 020 7925 0918].

If you no longer wish to receive further e-mail notices from Irish Northern Aid, Inc., please visit the following page on the INA site and follow the instructions provided:
http://www.inac.org/members/change_account_prefs.php

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

C18 = Fascists

2004-08-06T05:28:05Z

This is a beautiful story, revealing once and for all the UDA to be the Fascists we've always known them to be. Why oh why is it so difficult for people to see that the politics of people like Paisley and his ilk is the Ulster parallel of the KKK and other white supremacist southern Protestant rabble? Lousy, stinking Fascist bastards! And still the media demands we must disarm?!

http://republican-news.org/current/news/03race.html

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

DEATH OF VETERAN IRISH REPUBLICAN JOE CAHILL

2004-07-25T23:56:02Z

DEATH OF VETERAN IRISH REPUBLICAN JOE CAHILL
07/24/04 12:43 EST

Tributes have been paid to the veteran republican Joe Cahill
who died in hospital in Belfast late last night, Sinn Fein
announced today.

The father figure of the modern republican movement, Cahill
had been jailed on a number of occasions and was sentenced
to death in the 1940s for the the shooting of a policeman.
The his sentence commuted to life imprisonment after the
intervention of the then Pope.

Cahill (84) was an honorary life vice-president of Sinn
Fein. He died in Belfast where he had been a leading light
in the IRA for many decades, named by the army in the early
1970s as the IRA's chief of staff.

He was released from jail in the early 1950s after serving
only part of his life sentence, but was put back behind bars
in 1973 for gun running.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams paid tribute to Joe and
extended his sympathy and solidarity to Annie and the Cahill
family - Tom, Maria, Stephanie, Nuala, Aine, Patricia and
Deirdre.

Mr. Adams said: "Joe Cahill spent a life time in struggle.
He was both a leader and a servant of the republican cause.
In the difficult years of the 1930s and 1940s he and his
contemporaries stood against the partition of Ireland and
for Irish unity and he was imprisoned on many occasions for
his beliefs."

"He was an unapologetic physical force republican who fought
when he felt that was the only option but he also
significantly stood for peace and was a champion of the Sinn
Féin peace strategy, traveling to the US on many occasions
on behalf of the party."

"In many ways Joe was the father of this generation of
republicans and he had the capacity to relate both to young
people and his contemporaries. His contribution to Irish
republicanism will ensure that he will be remembered for
many generations to come. Joe Cahill will be deeply missed
by all those who knew him. I measc laochra na nGael a raibh sé."
__________________________________________________________

The Irish American Information Service is a non-profit organization
providing up-to-the-minute political news from Ireland to the world.
The IAIS is funded entirely by your contributions. Please send your
tax-deductable contributions to IAIS at the 907 F st NE, Washington
DC 20002. You can visit us on the Web at http://www.iais.org

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

from Irish Republican News

2004-07-24T03:05:18Z

Now, remind me, who is it that's obstructing the peace efforts in Northern Ireland? If you read the US media, you'd be convinced it's the IRA, or the "Real IRA". Read the following, and you'll know otherwise.

>>>>>> 'Real UDA' in attempted murder

Armed unionist paramilitaries who were intent on murder raked the home of a Catholic family with gunfire on Tuesday morning.

A group styling itself the "Real UDA" claimed responsibility in a call to a Belfast newsroom yesterday afternoon.

It is understood that six men, some of whom were masked, had entered the house in the early hours.

The armed gang had been looking for a young man.

When they did not find their intended victim, the gang left the house but fired three shots at it.

They also smashed a door and window of a car parked outside before making off in a dark coloured salon car.

The mother of the family - who did not wish to be identified - said it had been a "terrifying attack by thugs".

It is understood that the family have been targeted before and forced to leave their home in Ballymena.

Sinn Fein North Antrim representative Philip McGuigan said it had been a terrifying experience for the Catholic family, who had been asleep at the time.

"If he (the young man) had been there they would have shot him dead," he said.

"It was a terrifying experience for the family."

Meanwhile, the so-called "Real UDA" also issued a death threat against Mr McGuigan yesterday.

The Sinn Fein man's life has been threatened on several occasions and a parcel bomb was posted to his home last year.

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

posted in Clann na hEireann - 2 replies

A visitor feels the heavy hand of John Ashcroft

2004-07-13T18:22:55Z

From Steeler at Irish Heritage email group...

Post-Gazette.com
Pittsburgh, PA
Sunday, July 11, 2004
A visitor feels the heavy hand of John Ashcroft
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04192/344406.stm

Saturday, July 10, 2004
By Dennis Roddy

Today, Joe Black was supposed to be a lector at his niece's wedding in Crafton.

Instead, he's sitting in a federal prison in Philadelphia, a man transformed by America's post-9/11 obsession from a reader of the Epistle into a prayer for intercession.

Here's how an innocuous man, once caught up in the violent politics of a place where violence and politics were long indistinguishable, ended up in jail on his way to church.

Joseph Henry Black, 47, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, arrived around 3 p.m. Wednesday at Philadelphia International Airport via a British Airways Flight. With him were his wife, Geraldine, their son, two daughters and one daughter's boyfriend.

"We got down the ramp and there were policemen there. They just asked us to show our passes. We showed our boarding passes. One young fellow said, 'That's it. We got them,' " Geraldine Black said yesterday.

What agents of the Joint Terrorism Task Force got was a middle-aged home remodeler with a past. Nearly 30 years ago, he was a soldier in Company D of the Irish Republican Army. Black was arrested at 20 for kneecapping -- firing a shot through the knees of a Belfast man who had run afoul of the IRA.

Three years missing from his life, Black left Long Kesh prison and the IRA simultaneously and got on with the life that this week was interrupted at the foot of the boarding ramp in Philadelphia.

"We didn't know what was happening until one of the policemen explained it to me. He said, 'We have information that your husband served time.' I said, 'Yes, 28 years ago,' " Geraldine recalled. "I said 'Is there not a cutoff period?'

"It is hard to tell if there is a cutoff period. I have personally met with former IRA men who breezed through American airports in recent years. One of them, Alex Maskey, was on an official stop as lord mayor of Belfast. During his Pittsburgh visit, Maskey showed off photos of his former cell in Long Kesh, a prison now closed.

Two things are clear about Joe Black's arrest. The first is that he signed an immigration form with two important boxes checked off falsely. The first, Question B, asked if he'd ever been convicted of an offense or crime involving moral turpitude. Question C asks if he has ever been or ever was involved in terrorist activities.

"I filled out the form," Geraldine Black said yesterday. "I filled it out. I just picked 'no' to everything and had them sign," she said. "I did the same for all the kids. I filled everybody's out. It's my fault.

"Joe Black's problem is that he didn't bother reading the form. He just signed it, right below the line that certifies, among other things, that he has read the form.

The other thing that is clear is that whatever Joe Black signed on that form wouldn't have mattered. Federal agents -- Geraldine counted six in all -- were waiting at the foot of the ramp well before anybody was handed his immigration declaration.

"After 9/11, the message from America was 'Give us every single one of your intelligence files on everybody,' " said his brother-in-law, Sean McClorey, father of the bride. "They had to know.

"What prosecutors also know is that now that they have him charged with giving false information, Joe Black has no room to plead for a deal. Last year, Attorney General John Ashcroft, himself a man fond of reading Scripture, issued a diktat to the offices of U.S. attorneys around the nation telling them that there was to be no more bargaining on charges when they had someone firmly nailed. The office in Philadelphia, headed by U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan, follows it slavishly.

Before leaving Philadelphia for the final leg of the journey, Geraldine Black displayed an optimism the agents must have found startling. The Irish assume that when they are not wanted, they will be ejected forthwith. Under federal procedure, Joe Black will linger in jail as long as a month even to plead guilty, and up to another three months before he's deported.

His wife wanted to leave some money for her husband to pick up the car at the airport when he was sent home. They asked her how long she was staying. She told them 2 1/2 weeks.

"He said, 'That's all right. You'll be home long before him.' "

Note from Steeler:
Enough is enough – Ciaran Ferry, Malachy McAllister, Sean Kelly, Sean Mackin, the 3 in Boston, others and now Joe Black. I call upon all Irish-Americans to write and call the below addresses. All of the men who are either incarcerated or to be deported have similar pasts because they were forced into their past actions because of persecution and oppression. They have led exemplary lives since. Lets all stand together and stop this maddness.

Specter’s Office: DC – Christopher Bradish, John Myers: 202-224-4254 John_Myers@specter.senate.gov

Christopher_Bradish@specter.senate.gov

Curt Weldon – PA Rep 610-259-0700 / 202-225 2011 curtpa07@mail.house.gov – Greg Calhoun – DC office: greg.calhoun@mail.house.gov

Cong. Joe Hoeffel, PA Rep: Elizabeth Young in DC contact – 202 225-6111 elizabeth.young@mail.house.gov

(Note Hoeffel is challenging Specter for US Senate seat in PA)

Rick Santorum – PA Senator – George Bernier DC contact: 202-224-6324

Mike Doyle PA Rep – 412-261-5091, DC: 202-225-2135 – Matt Dinkel is press secretary

Elliot Engel NY – 202-225-2464 – Jason Steinbaum chief of staff DC office: Jason.Steinbaum@mail.house.gov

Timothy Murphy PA Rep 202-225-2301 -

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

A visitor feels the heavy hand of John Ashcroft

2004-07-13T18:22:31Z

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

I like to write. Anyone else?.........

2004-07-05T04:58:03Z

The cause of our pain are eyes that continue to be blind to the crimes of inhumanity, extermination and oppression.
The English talk of bombs and blame it on ‘criminals’; ‘cold-blooded killers’ out to incite terror. They never mention Ireland’s women and children nor the degree of fear which they have suffered. The shed tears or anger over loved-ones that lay dead. Buried and gone forever; murdered by foreign policies. Such tragic loss.
Without mercy or honor they conveniently forget centuries of horror, worry and dread; the cruel legacy of brutality so callously heaped upon our heads.
We are victims with one thing in common-A sad history spent fighting against tyrants that murder and rape our country, so in the end our way of life might survive this chaos, that ‘civilized’ England continues to spread.
What is said to explain the endless list of names? So many names, each with a different face. Irish fathers. Irish brothers. Irish husbands and sons. All laid to waste by the same old enemy; a neighbor, who might have been friend. When will it end?
The fate of any future together rests in their hands. We will wait and watch but never give-in, until the flag comes down and the struggle is won.
We will live in peace or keep dying until the war brings defeat, either way it’s up to them.
With unbreakable spirit, full of the strength of pride, stubborn and faithful we give our lives. To the last man, woman and child the people of Ireland stand true, on the march towards freedom with belief in a cause and in what is right.
The English dog must one day be tamed, and never again must it be allowed to lash out and bite. For how a dog lives is how a dog dies. But, what’s wasted in-between can be counted in human lives.

Seosamh 6/12/00

posted in Clann na hEireann - 0 replies

Most Gaeltacht dwellers do not speak Irish daily

2004-07-04T05:25:32Z

From IrishExaminer.com

Most Gaeltacht dwellers do not speak Irish daily

A study conducted for Nuacht TG4 has reportedly found that up to 70% of people in Gaeltacht areas no longer speak Irish on a daily basis.

Reports this morning said the study found that the current Gaeltacht area of 90,000 people would shrink to 27,000 if criteria for such status proposed two years ago by Coimisiún na Gaeltachta were applied.

The study is based on an analysis of the census figures for 2002. The highest levels of Irish language use were reportedly found in south Connemara and north-west Donegal

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

Army condemned over murder troops

2004-07-03T07:26:06Z

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/19056.html

TWO Scots Guardsmen convicted of killing a Belfast youth while on patrol should not have been allowed back into the ranks, an independent watchdog said yesterday.

Jim McDonald, assessor of military complaints procedures in Northern Ireland, said the Army's decision to let Mark Wright and James Fisher return was wrong and dealt a major blow to the forces' reputation.

He said: "When the Army are dismissing young men for smoking pot, the fact that it has failed to do anything with these two guys undermines its credibility. They should not have been reinstated."

Mr Wright and Mr Fisher were found guilty of murdering Peter McBride, an 18-year-old Catholic father-of-two. He was shot as he ran away from a military checkpoint in the New Lodge district of north Belfast in 1992. Claims by the soldiers that they suspected Mr McBride was carrying a coffee- jar bomb were rejected, and they were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Lord Justice Kelly, the judge, accused Mr Fisher of lying and criticised Mr Wright's evidence. He said he considered both men untruthful and evasive.

His judgment was later upheld when the men's appeal against conviction was dismissed and they were refused the right to take their case to the House of Lords. After serving just three years behind bars, both men were released and allowed to return to the Army.

Since then, Mr McBride's family, amid nationalist fury at the decision, have mounted a campaign to have the soldiers dismissed. Relatives argued that the reinstatement of the men amounted to the state sanctioning of Mr McBride's murder.

Last night, Jean McBride, the victim's mother, said: "The independent assessor appears to be the only person in a position of authority who understands the wrong that was done and continues to be done to our family."

She said John Spellar, the government minister who allowed the soldiers to return to service, had become a Northern Ireland Office minister for human rights, while the pair's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, who she said had accused her son of being a bomber, had been awarded a major private security contract in Iraq.

She added: "One of the soldiers who murdered him has been promoted. Tony Blair knows no shame."

...

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply

I'm Back

2004-06-30T18:14:05Z

A Chairde-Go raibh maith agat!
For your prayers and good thoughts. I might be kind of sporadic at first as I am still getting my health back, but I'm rarin' to get political and back in the Patriot Game.

Special thanks to JR. You're the best!!!

Is mise le meas,
Do chara, Seosamh

posted in Clann na hEireann - 1 reply