Cartoon by John Kennedy
Cartoon by John Kennedy

Ten years ago this month the Provisional IRA gunned down a member of the Real IRA, Joe O’Connor, in the West Belfast constituency of Gerry Adams, MP. It was a public execution designed to put manners on those deemed pretenders to the throne of Sinn Fein’s sponsored army. The organisation had just emerged on the losing side of a long war against the British state and had now accepted, through the Good Friday Agreement, the victor’s alternative to republicanism. It did not want any rival body feeding on the deficit or usurping its authority. As the writer Eamon McCann said at the time of the O’Connor killing it was an assertion by the Provisional IRA that it alone was the one true IRA and would have no false IRAs before it.

Ten years after the event it is evident just how ineffectual the Provisional IRA attempts to suppress its Real IRA rival were. This was made thunderously manifest in the recent bomb attack by the ‘Reals’ against the premises of the Ulster Bank in Derry, the home city of Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s deputy First Minister. The attack acquired added spice due to Derry having been recently named UK Capital of Culture for 2013.

Today’s republican political violence is the legacy of the failure of the Provisional IRA armed struggle. A vacuum has been created which some are striving to fill with explosives. The gap between the lofty objectives of the Provisional IRA campaign and its meagre achievements is becoming increasingly difficult to paper over. The political arrangement that now exists in British Northern Ireland possesses not the slightest resemblance to the British-free united Ireland the Provisional IRA waged its war to achieve. The comments by Prime Minister David Cameron at the Tory Party annual conference that the North of Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, and has political-strategic value previously thought to be lacking, is grist to the armed republican mill.

In seeking to calm political jitters the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has released figures to underscore its claims to be coping with armed republicanism. The force has charged 59 people so far this year compared with 17 people last year. Their Garda Siochana counterparts in the Republic of Ireland have brought 22 suspected armed republicans before the courts. Yet according to the Irish Times:

security and intelligence sources estimate that there are now some 600 people linked to the dissident paramilitaries with a "small hard core" prepared to plant and detonate the bombs or carry out the gun attacks.

Perhaps more ominous for the peace is the degree of support for armed activities that appears to exist. The PSNI Derry’s commander mines the same vein of reasoning as his predecessors in the RUC did in their day when confronted by Martin McGuinness and his comrades: the ‘terrorists’ labour without either or support or legitimacy. Professor Jon Tonge casts doubt on this perspective with his survey based findings which point to a level of support substantive enough to sustain armed republicanism for some time to come. Writing in the Belfast daily, the News Letter, Professor Tonge said:

One of the mantras of the peace process is that 'dissident' republicans have no support ... Yet the assumption that dissidents have no support has been precisely that – an assumption, untroubled by actual evidence either way.

He found that 14 per cent of nationalists surveyed ‘have sympathy for the reasons why some republican groups continue to use violence.’

Today’s armed republicans are motivated to a large extent by an ideology inherited from the Provisional IRA. They employ all the tactics and discourses of the Provisionals. This has prompted the characterisation of them as ‘born again Provos’ from SDLP luminary Pat Ramsey.

This stings Sinn Fein who want no points of comparison to be drawn between the IRA it sponsored and the current crop of armed republicans. The party’s logic is weak. Martin McGuinness, a former Provisional IRA chief of staff, condemns the bombers as Neanderthals and conflict junkies determined to take Derry back to the past, forgetting in the process that it was a past he helped create. In earlier years he could be found bragging that:

we are prepared to bomb any building that will cause economic devastation and put pressure on the government. The aim of ‘our campaign is to cripple the city economically.

His party colleague, Martina Anderson, herself a former bomber, unpersuasively dismissed comparisons between today’s armed republicans and the Provisionals, arguing that it offered only ’a degree of comfort’ to those using her old methods. For her, the justification for the Provisional IRA campaign lay in structural inequality which has now been removed. Few buy into such a rationale, knowing only too well that the Provisional IRA justified its political violence on the same grounds as the Real IRA does its own. As Eamon McCann contends, ‘it's pointless demonising the dissidents as gangsters with no politics. There are clear parallels between their campaign and the Provos'. Seemingly, Sinn Fein make poor ambassadors for condemnation.

Exploiting the thread of continuity, armed republicans in directing their violence against the British state are aware that Sinn Fein gets uncomfortably trapped in the backwash. That Martin McGuinness should denounce them from the same Tory conference as David Cameron delighted the bombers. In a statement to the Sunday Tribune a Real IRA spokesperson said:

It was entirely appropriate that Martin McGuinness's condemnation of the IRA operation came from the Tory conference …The contrast between McGuinness and those still committed to the republican struggle couldn't have been greater.

And so it is likely to continue: armed republican violence more annoying to Sinn Fein than effectively subversive of British rule.

Article first published in Parliamentary Brief, 29th October

The Thorn in Sinn Fein's Side

Cartoon by John Kennedy
Cartoon by John Kennedy

Ten years ago this month the Provisional IRA gunned down a member of the Real IRA, Joe O’Connor, in the West Belfast constituency of Gerry Adams, MP. It was a public execution designed to put manners on those deemed pretenders to the throne of Sinn Fein’s sponsored army. The organisation had just emerged on the losing side of a long war against the British state and had now accepted, through the Good Friday Agreement, the victor’s alternative to republicanism. It did not want any rival body feeding on the deficit or usurping its authority. As the writer Eamon McCann said at the time of the O’Connor killing it was an assertion by the Provisional IRA that it alone was the one true IRA and would have no false IRAs before it.

Ten years after the event it is evident just how ineffectual the Provisional IRA attempts to suppress its Real IRA rival were. This was made thunderously manifest in the recent bomb attack by the ‘Reals’ against the premises of the Ulster Bank in Derry, the home city of Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s deputy First Minister. The attack acquired added spice due to Derry having been recently named UK Capital of Culture for 2013.

Today’s republican political violence is the legacy of the failure of the Provisional IRA armed struggle. A vacuum has been created which some are striving to fill with explosives. The gap between the lofty objectives of the Provisional IRA campaign and its meagre achievements is becoming increasingly difficult to paper over. The political arrangement that now exists in British Northern Ireland possesses not the slightest resemblance to the British-free united Ireland the Provisional IRA waged its war to achieve. The comments by Prime Minister David Cameron at the Tory Party annual conference that the North of Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, and has political-strategic value previously thought to be lacking, is grist to the armed republican mill.

In seeking to calm political jitters the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has released figures to underscore its claims to be coping with armed republicanism. The force has charged 59 people so far this year compared with 17 people last year. Their Garda Siochana counterparts in the Republic of Ireland have brought 22 suspected armed republicans before the courts. Yet according to the Irish Times:

security and intelligence sources estimate that there are now some 600 people linked to the dissident paramilitaries with a "small hard core" prepared to plant and detonate the bombs or carry out the gun attacks.

Perhaps more ominous for the peace is the degree of support for armed activities that appears to exist. The PSNI Derry’s commander mines the same vein of reasoning as his predecessors in the RUC did in their day when confronted by Martin McGuinness and his comrades: the ‘terrorists’ labour without either or support or legitimacy. Professor Jon Tonge casts doubt on this perspective with his survey based findings which point to a level of support substantive enough to sustain armed republicanism for some time to come. Writing in the Belfast daily, the News Letter, Professor Tonge said:

One of the mantras of the peace process is that 'dissident' republicans have no support ... Yet the assumption that dissidents have no support has been precisely that – an assumption, untroubled by actual evidence either way.

He found that 14 per cent of nationalists surveyed ‘have sympathy for the reasons why some republican groups continue to use violence.’

Today’s armed republicans are motivated to a large extent by an ideology inherited from the Provisional IRA. They employ all the tactics and discourses of the Provisionals. This has prompted the characterisation of them as ‘born again Provos’ from SDLP luminary Pat Ramsey.

This stings Sinn Fein who want no points of comparison to be drawn between the IRA it sponsored and the current crop of armed republicans. The party’s logic is weak. Martin McGuinness, a former Provisional IRA chief of staff, condemns the bombers as Neanderthals and conflict junkies determined to take Derry back to the past, forgetting in the process that it was a past he helped create. In earlier years he could be found bragging that:

we are prepared to bomb any building that will cause economic devastation and put pressure on the government. The aim of ‘our campaign is to cripple the city economically.

His party colleague, Martina Anderson, herself a former bomber, unpersuasively dismissed comparisons between today’s armed republicans and the Provisionals, arguing that it offered only ’a degree of comfort’ to those using her old methods. For her, the justification for the Provisional IRA campaign lay in structural inequality which has now been removed. Few buy into such a rationale, knowing only too well that the Provisional IRA justified its political violence on the same grounds as the Real IRA does its own. As Eamon McCann contends, ‘it's pointless demonising the dissidents as gangsters with no politics. There are clear parallels between their campaign and the Provos'. Seemingly, Sinn Fein make poor ambassadors for condemnation.

Exploiting the thread of continuity, armed republicans in directing their violence against the British state are aware that Sinn Fein gets uncomfortably trapped in the backwash. That Martin McGuinness should denounce them from the same Tory conference as David Cameron delighted the bombers. In a statement to the Sunday Tribune a Real IRA spokesperson said:

It was entirely appropriate that Martin McGuinness's condemnation of the IRA operation came from the Tory conference …The contrast between McGuinness and those still committed to the republican struggle couldn't have been greater.

And so it is likely to continue: armed republican violence more annoying to Sinn Fein than effectively subversive of British rule.

Article first published in Parliamentary Brief, 29th October

108 comments:

  1. Incidentally, has anyone here read the book "Killing Rage" by Eamon Collins? Like Joe O'Connor, he too was killed by the Provos (I think), but for entirely different reasons. I'm nearly halfway through his book and it makes for grim reading - the IRA men he describes are often callous and sectarian. I was just curious if anyone else here is familiar with the book and knows how credible it is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alfie I read that book a lot of years ago now,at the time I had a predetermined attitude towards Eamon Collins and his book which wasnt in all honesty favourable,after all he was a f##king tout. but as I read the book the intelligent and articulate man that Collins was came through,he had credibility Alfie beccause he was there, he was stupid in returning to this part of the world at that time and his mistake cost him his life, Frank Haggerty should have been a lesson he should have learnt,yes from memory it is a book well worth reading. GREAT to see that other Master BACK ie., John Kennedy like Brian Mor the man is mighty thorn in the ass of psf,great to see John back again and hopefully we will be seeing much more of him.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alfie,
    really not sure about Eamon Collins, he had a serious issues with the Movement and he was apparently dodgy which really does not make for plausable reading.
    I read the book several years ago, I actually still have it here, however I don't honestly know if I could read it again.
    The problem with that whole scenario is, they killed Eamon Collins for a variety of things that they are now actually encouraging.
    Mc Guinness helped lure home Hegarty and he was then questioned and shot by Stakeknife, hypocricy in full throttle!

    Here in the West, elements of 'Dissident' republicans are actually cleaning the place up.
    Dealing with the shit and dirt that were left to crucify people for years. Only people who have never experienced this type of torment could condemn them for that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alfie,

    An excellent critique of the life and death of Eamon Collins was written by Kevin Toolis.

    It was published in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday 3 July 1999 under the title 'Death foretold'. It is an excellent article that I would recommend you read. Its theme(s) is alas not unique.

    I am sorry that I cannot post the link, I am a wee bit of a technophobe when it comes to such matters.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Here's the link mentioned above:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/1999/jul/03/weekend7.weekend2

    ReplyDelete
  6. Read that book in the late 90's and same as marty, I had an attitude towards Collins at the time. But S. Armagh and the way they treated him, or was that scap i wonder? sounded spot on. One minute he's reading the Easter message in Xmaglen the next he's being mentally tormented.
    Agree with marty, and to be fair after goin grass he was given more than a fair chance to 'split'. Those border boys may be lethal dangerous but they were never psycho's. He withdrew as a supergrass and was ok, but went to court in Dublin and followed through. END OF.
    Book was a decent read at the time, i will not return to it. Fact is he just wouldn't get out of peoples faces. Countless dodgy bollox's do what he did in lurgan and strabane and derry and walk about like they own the place, coz they do, them and the RUC who pay them; mr Collins wasn't living in any of those shit-holes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Just watched meely mouthed McGuinness on the news with Peter the punt.(Wonder how much the tax payers have forked out for latters wife's little adventures?)
    McGuinness stood unusually quiet while Peter congratulated the Garda on the recent republican arrest.
    Talk about a turn coat. Mc Guinness has went from luring people to their death for informing,
    To applauding the arrest of republicans.

    ReplyDelete
  8. pitty the election in louth wasn't shortly, might be a few miffed 'braves' about there just now.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anthony points to the increasingly apparent failure of Provisional republicanism as part of the legacy from which dissident republicanism sprang.

    Another, and related, part of the story involves the peace initiatives that have been developed in the past 15 years. The Good Friday Agreement and related agreements required the defeat of Provisional republicanism and, in that sense, guaranteed both that dissident republicanism would emerge and that political violence would become one of its dominant forms of struggle.

    The essential logic of the GFA is partitionist, with the north-south arrangements a small and meaningless hook on which Provisional republicanism could hang its public relations campaign about the peaceful road to Irish unity. Both the obvious lack of any progress towards unity and the complete absence of any meaningful explanation from Provisionalism about how the peace structures are to achieve unity belie Sinn Fein’s analysis of the endgame.

    Provisional republicanism was defeated the moment it accepted the imposed logic of the peace process. That says something about the limitations of Provisionalism. But it also says something about the British and Irish governments (and their supporters), who insisted that peace “negotiations” have a pre-determined outcome and cynically used the peace process as a means of helping Provisional republicanism manage defeat.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bob doh brains weighs 20 stone,so his doctor puts him on a diet "I want you to eat properly for 2 days,then skip a day,eat for 2 days skip a day and so on for 2 weeks,you should lose about 5 lbs.when Bob returned he shocked the doctor by having lost 4 stone "thats amazing" says the doc Bob nodded " I,ll tell you bejaysuss I thought I was gonna die by the 3rd day" "what from hunger" asks the doc.....No from the f##king skipping DOH!!!! The wife has been missing for 2 weeks now.The police have told me to prepare for the worst.....so I went to the charity shop and got her clothes back.!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Marty,

    Praise the good lord that you were joking about the wife missing. When women go missing I tend to think of the Master

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mackers we should have a christmas bash, Marty can do stand-up. With michaelhenry too.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anthony

    You wouldn’t be alluding to the great master magician who has made many things disappear all but the one thing British rule.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I have just finished reading Richard O'Rawes book 'Afterlives'.

    If there is anyone out there who has not read this book then do so immediately. It is one of the most important books that I have read in relation to the conflict in the north of Ireland.

    I was heartened by O'Rawe's determination to get the truth out despite facing opprobrium from the 'committee'. Reading of their attempts to discredit him brought a quote from Orwell's 1984 to mind:

    "Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

    But the truth will out comrades....

    ReplyDelete
  15. Larry if I was to do a stage act with Mickeyboy it would be a blindfolded knifethrowng act and I,d do the throwing!!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Skin your are spot on mo cara but I think Padraig Pearse,s oration at O Donovan Rossa,s graveside said it all and foretold where we are today.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks to everyone for the feedback on Eamon Collins's book. The article by Kevin Toolis is a good one and provides some outside perspective on the man and his story. I was sad to read of how viciously he was killed - stabbed repeatedly in the head and beaten to a pulp. How could those who did that still claim to be human beings, let alone honourable republicans? Anyway, I'm finding his book a compelling and credible account, though I am a bit dubious about how he could have been able to recall all those IRA operations in such detail so many years after they happened. My memory of the past is fragmentary at best; I don't remember even important periods in my life with the same precision and continuity that Collins can recall banal intelligence-gathering operations.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Alfie believe me mo cara some events in life stay so ingrained you couldnt forget them if you tried,

    ReplyDelete
  19. Alfie-

    i would liked to have given a better account of the "killing rage" but can not find the book,
    searched the house up and down even went to the library- no luck

    anyway what i do remember is that
    eamon collins named the volunteer
    who shot dead two r.u.c members-
    and he still thought that he could take his dog out for walkies.

    there were a few other details but
    would need to check the book again.

    ReplyDelete
  20. michealhenry, your leaders were recently calling on people to give the names of volunteers involved in IRA operations to the PSNI.
    Could I pass on information now and be safe walking my dog?
    I don't agree with what Collins did, not for a second, however people like Martin Mc Guinness lured an informer home via his mother for a 'chat'
    He ended murdered by the bold Scap an even big tout, I really can't believe you cannot see through this.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Check the attic Mickeyboy thats where Mrs Mickeyboy keeps your other toys!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Think michaelhenry is like internment, 1st of april, draw a line and everything changes to suit after that date.
    The only way i can get my wee fried napper round that.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Fionnuala-

    A dissident is not and never will be a I.R.A volunteer

    don't know the reason anybody would
    support a armed group that killed no brits or cops [ i know i have said this before ]

    the dissidents are opposed to war
    so they will not fight-

    dissidents- they could have been a
    contender- some hope

    ReplyDelete
  24. Marty-

    checked the attic, looked everywhere, must have lent that book to some one but can't remember who, never got it back anyway

    P.S- i hate you [ wanted to use that statement for a while now but never got the opportunity ] lol

    ReplyDelete
  25. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  26. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Michael Henry,

    Eamon Collins was killed in 1999, long after Sinn Fein signed up to the Good Friday Agreement. There was no military/strategic reason to kill him since the war was over. It's clear that Collins was killed in revenge for writing a book that was critical of the IRA and taking the stand against Slab in the latter's libel trial. And Michael, even if you believe he ought to have been killed, surely you must object to the brutal manner in which his killing was carried out? Stabbed in the head and beaten to a pulp - surely nobody deserves that? What kind of people could do that? And would anyone want to be part of the same political movement as them?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Alfie
    The killing of Eamon Collins shocked me at the time. It resembled a frenzied insane attack. I wasn't suprised that he got killed so much as the wild and crazy way 'he got it'.
    I think he drove the wrong people in that area 'insane' by hanging around; because there was psychopathy in the way he was killed.
    Looking at the situation now, can you imagine him articulating about the futility of the 30 wasted years and all those lives?
    I can.

    michaelhenry
    i think stiffing people is only ever ok in your book if SF require it to be done.
    The dissidents were lined with agents from day one, you would probably need a reference from the RUC to join.
    Any future threat if it emerges will come from a fresh uncontaminated source. Then watch your roadblocks return when the peelers aren't pulling the strings any more.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Alfie-

    I can only answer in my way-

    the movement is on a process that
    won't stop for anyone

    a few can shout on the sidelines all they want
    but if they stand in front then the process will run them over

    does not matter how hardline some might think they are
    the peace process is more mighty than the sword.

    ReplyDelete
  30. mise eire-

    All having assissted the enemy must be shot without delay-

    the continuity assissted the enemy by killing no brit soldiers in their 24 years
    r.s.f assissted the continuity brit lovers-

    the brits returned the favour and
    no member of the continuity was ever killed by the crown
    no member of r.s.f was killed by the loyalists

    hows that for a certain pattern
    mise eire
    over a 24 year period [ 1986-2010 ]

    ReplyDelete
  31. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  32. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  33. michaelhenry
    to a point i agree with you regarding the varios 'dozen' IRA factions out there. But to my mind the brits moved very quickly to place their people/agents in them. These outfits are merely a conduit to syphen off anyone who may effectively oppose the SF unconditional surrender. It also keeps the peelers and prison service in work, and the prods happy work wise.
    Adams and mi6 martin decided if we can't beat em we'll join em and get popular in the 'process'.
    Michaelhenry, you are now officially british, you are going to stay british and YOU know it.

    ReplyDelete
  34. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  35. SF are the dissidents, with the timing of a cobra.
    If the hat fits wear it....REPTILES.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Larry-

    You say that the peelers and prods are kept happy work wise

    the r.i.r were given the road from IRELAND-

    p.s.n.i members have been cut down in size from 13,000 to 7,000
    matt faggot has been crying to the media about it
    hardly jobs for the boys or girls anymore

    under the new articles 2&3 in the good friday agreement i am IRISH
    its what my passport says
    its you that sounds the mystery.

    ReplyDelete
  37. michaelhenry
    the RUC did not deminish by half, SF joined it in an unoficial capacity. Ask marty mi6.
    YOU ARE RESIDENT IN THE UK. enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
  38. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Regarding SF representatives around the towns, I would be doubtful if many would have seen too much activity 'outside' a gaol.
    New W. Belfast candidate did two huge sentences for 'attempted' bombings. Am I correct? So he's not technically an X bomber?? He's an X- 'i'd like to have been a bomber' candidate.
    bellow is the work of a bomber.
    Communities need to vote on local not national issues, that's settled for now.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-oqxPrzke0

    ReplyDelete
  40. Larry-

    i did not say that the r.u.c was
    cut in half-
    i said that the p.s.n.i went from
    13,ooo members to 7.000

    SINN FEIN joined the policing board

    i hope you are not talking about
    TPQ marty

    the country is called IRELAND
    I am IRISH
    need to catch up on them laws old hand,

    [ quiet to- day, think theres folks
    still with a sore hang-over ]

    ReplyDelete
  41. mise eire mise eire-

    why do you make it so easy-

    there are two rsf representative
    democrats do they also dissent from the people they claim to represent
    its just that you said all

    mary mcaleese, she was a ff candidate- her party will drag her name in-to the gutter

    what about that group people against poverty- no good either.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Michael Henry,

    "a few can shout on the sidelines all they want
    but if they stand in front then the process will run them over"

    But Eamon Collins was not an enemy of the peace process, he was in favour of it. And anyway, what kind of "peace" process "runs over" dissenters, if by "run over", you mean kill? To my mind, what you've said above implies that you were in favour of the killing of Eamon Collins, Joe O'Connor and other so-called enemies of the Provos. Is that the case?

    ReplyDelete
  43. michaelhrnry
    does your residence have a BT postcode eg BT 67 OBX something like that?
    Does your phone number have a prefix, when you're phoning home from you hollidays to let yer mammy know you're ok, of +44 ??
    Michaelhenry, my mrs has a Philippine passport and resides in Donegal...so what? You have have an Irish passport and you reside in the UK.
    And mi6 marty aint changing that for you.
    He recruited you all to mi6 without even telling ye...
    NOW THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Michael Henry,

    "the country is called IRELAND
    I am IRISH
    need to catch up on them laws old hand"

    I suppose the border is a figment of our imagination then, as is the British statelet with a British police force to the North of that imaginary border. But all of that is irrelevant anyway since the war was only really about ending inequality. Ah well...

    ReplyDelete
  45. mise eire, 

    'If one looks at the Roll of Honour a certain pattern begins to emerge.... from 1986 onwards have a look at the amount of volunteers shot on active service in Tyrone...
    Have a look at Derry and Belfast...
    When one considers that the only place the League of Communist Republicans{Dissidents?} had a presence was Tyrone...'
    For some while now I've been thinking along similar lines. The Brits were playing two hands with the prm, one making a concerted move against the hawks, typified by Jim Lynagh and the East Tyrone Brigade whilst leading the doves by the hand up the path to constitutional nationalism. All this aided on both fronts by touts. Galling thing is the leadership were fully aware of this and knew where they were steering the movement but they still sent volunteers out.
    Look at the ETB now and the 1916 groups that have formed in the county, The Adams family have no say there anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  46. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Alfie-

    i suppose you are right- there are
    those opposed to peace who then
    oppose the PROVO'S

    The war was for a 32 county IRELAND
    the extra bits are a bonus

    larry-

    im a dopey mi6 sell-out next
    water of a ducks back

    your mrs was not born in IRELAND
    [ not her fault ]
    maybe she wants to go home some day
    [ don't know why ]
    but IRELAND is my home, its where i
    was born and where i live
    its the brits who are going bye-bye

    ReplyDelete
  48. martydownunder
    if you wanted to be really cynical and derogatory about it, you could also say that those ex prisoners who served massive sentences, now standing for election, are being put on a pedestal by the very people who put them in jail in the first place...the likes of scap, donaldson, mcguinness... and adams too for that matter. [ Liam never went to jail tho]
    If it sounds too far fetched, maybe it is, but worth thinkin about eh?

    ReplyDelete
  49. martydownunder-

    look at the election results in
    south derry, belfast, east tyrone
    and elsewhere this year and next year- SINN FEIN are everywhere

    mise eire-

    it was you who said 1986
    sort of give yoy away but dont worry i'd deny them to.

    ReplyDelete
  50. the extra bits are a bonus?
    ......kilburn? tooting? east glasgow?
    What extra bits michaelhenry? did we secure rockall this weekend?

    ReplyDelete
  51. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Michael Henry
    'look at the election results in
    south derry, belfast, east tyrone
    and elsewhere this year and next year- SINN FEIN are everywhere'

    Thats hardly suprising given the sectarian head count that is politics in the 6 counties, SF top the poles in those areas as they've a nationalist majority and are a slightly greener shade than the stoops. You could put a turkey in a tricolored ribbon and stand it in election and it would win as long as it was a taig. Was talking about the army, the shinners have lost them in those areas (East Tyrone and South Derry anyway) not that they'd be too concerned the were only using them anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Larry- rockall

    you are a gift that keeps on giving
    [ a dig in the ribs ]

    MartyDownUnder-

    Know your past and it will help you figure out the future

    there has not been 1 dissident kill
    in east tyrone or south derry, ever

    if a army is lost what are they doing- because they are not fighting- why not- no one is holding anyone back

    it just looks like the mouths left
    if anyone did

    ReplyDelete
  54. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Michael Henry,

    "i suppose you are right- there are
    those opposed to peace who then
    oppose the PROVO'S"

    I don't think your response deals with the questions I asked, so I'll ask them again: do you think it was right to kill Eamon Collins, Joe O'Connor, and others opposed to the Provisional movement? If you think Collins ought to have been killed, do you condone the brutal manner in which this was done? And lastly, are you happy to be in the same political movement as those who carried out such an horrendous act?

    "The war was for a 32 county IRELAND
    the extra bits are a bonus."

    Micheal, you can't be serious. What you're saying implies that you actually believe a 32-county united Ireland was won, along with "bonus" material. You're not living in the real world.

    ReplyDelete
  56. MichaelHenry,
    You're still equating alternative republicans by the number of kills they've clocked up, like some sort of league table. Go back a few months to the Brian Arthurs/Peter McCaughey interview:
    ' Five Sinn FĂ©in cumainn, and 90% of the East Tyrone brigade, left in the move. Arthurs said: "No one can deny that there have been changes in the North but it is an equality agenda being pursued. People did not die, they did not take up arms, for equality. They did so for Irish freedom. '
    Arthurs also said:
    ' It can be argued that an armed campaign is not advisable at this point in time '
    No mention there of shooting peelers or brits

    ReplyDelete
  57. Alfie-

    I don't want to see any-one beat up or killed now
    SINN FEIN killed no-one and there hands are clean
    peace rules the brits- its what the IRISH people voted for,

    you believe what you want
    thats up to you
    me- i kept my eyes open and my wits about me- i believe.

    ReplyDelete
  58. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  59. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  60. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  61. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Alfie,

    It is a credible book if self serving. I think there was an arrogance to Eamon and because he broke in the barracks and decided to go supergrass for a short time, when others he considered his intellectual inferiors held out under interrogation, he became very unforgiving towards the Provisionals. I read it many years ago and recall writing that it was the best from ‘the testimony of the touts.’ In the same genre we had Gilmore, McGartland and O Callaghan.

    On hindsight he is not somebody I would classify as a tout. He folded under interrogation, signed up to the other side for a while, retracted and gave no evidence. All of it wrong and unjustifiable. A tout is someone I regard as working for them in the manner of Scap. However, for many the distinction is dubious. Marty, I think would see it as an invalid distinction.

    ‘I was sad to read of how viciously he was killed - stabbed repeatedly in the head and beaten to a pulp. How could those who did that still claim to be human beings, let alone honourable republicans?’

    Republicanism’s answer to the Shankill butchers, unfortunately.

    While my memory is like yours, fragmented, and long gone to seed, there are just some people who have an eye for detail. I wouldn’t have grounds to doubt him on that score.

    Marty,

    I think that is a good synopsis of his situation. John is a very witty cartoonist and it is always good to have his output.

    Nuala,

    ‘The problem with that whole scenario is, they killed Eamon Collins for
    a variety of things that they are now actually encouraging.’

    This is a major league problem.

    ReplyDelete
  63. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  64. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  65. mise eire-

    The mother

    Did she fight

    Had she any faithful daughters.

    ReplyDelete
  66. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Yeah, Anthony, I got the feeling from Kevin Toolis's article that Eamon Collins was a little egotistic; I think that comes across a bit in his book, though he does admit to it himself therein. He was a rather snobbish Marxist-republican and looked down on many of his coworkers and IRA comrades. I haven't yet finished his book (I'm a slow reader) but I'd be curious about your reasons for thinking it is self-serving. I mean, in the first half of the book, Collins portrays himself as a cold, callous arranger of killings - that's hardly self-serving.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Michael

    MĂłr mo ghlĂłir:
    MĂ© a rug CĂş Chulainn crĂłga.
    Mór mo náir:
    Mo chlann féin a dhíol a máthair.
    Great my glory:
    I who bore Cuchulainn, the brave.
    Great my shame:
    My own children who sold their mother.
    Pádraic Mac Piarais (1879–1916)
    Mise Éire is an inspirational poem I am just curious as to why you would query the metaphorical as literal it is definitely not the most complicated poem.

    “The mother
    Did she fight
    Had she any faithful daughters.”
    Máthair na hÉireann is used affectionately descriptively to hold a love for ones mother. I am unsure if you are ridiculing the poem are just prolonging your intangible combative views either you are anti woman or perhaps the poem is a ghost of Christmas past as that one line seems to be self-evident and maybe rings of truth?

    Mór mo náir:
    Mo chlann féin a dhíol a máthair.

    How dare the revolutionary cast aspersion from the grave.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Tain Bo
    i just assumed michaelhenry was unfamiliar with the poem. It was on the four green fields album.
    I began to type a queery to him on it, then though....what's the point?

    ReplyDelete
  70. Larry

    The last time I seen the Flying Colum was in Andytown in 72 outside De La Salle the song never entered my mind but I think you are correct maybe Mickey is whistling the wrong tune again.

    What is the point? If you pass by his rants you have to give him credit for posting now if only some of his wiser peers would grace us the fun could begin.

    ReplyDelete
  71. yeah michaelhenry is no worse than most of the rest of us were in the past, blind in his loyalty.

    can't ridicule him too much for that, at least he fights his corner and fronts up as you say.

    ReplyDelete
  72. The Flying Column, now your talking. The Barleycorn (original line up anyway), Wolfhound and the late Seamus Robinson, don't make them like that anymore.
    Be interested in reading that piece by Ray McAreavey about the PD that was mentioned on here a while back.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Michael Henry,

    "I don't want to see any-one beat up or killed now"

    I think the key word there is "now"; it implies you didn't have a problem with Eamon Collins or Joe O'Connor being killed.

    "SINN FEIN killed no-one and there hands are clean"

    But it advocated killings or equivocated on them - its hands are by no means clean.

    "peace rules the brits- its what the IRISH people voted for"

    What are you saying? That the Irish people - albeit within a partitionist framework - voted for partition?

    "you believe what you want
    thats up to you
    me- i kept my eyes open and my wits about me- i believe."

    But what exactly do you believe, Michael? That the Provos won the war and a 32-county Ireland? Surely you are not that deluded.

    ReplyDelete
  74. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  75. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  76. Alfie-

    I believe that the PROVOS won in 1996, politics can be a killer
    thats my opinion but then every-one
    has there own out-look,

    Mise eire

    Volunteer sean McCaughey was sentenced to death [ this was commuted to life in-side ] for
    having caught and detained stephen
    hayes- Volunteer McCaughey thought it was more than whispers-

    After 5 years of prison protest
    Volunteer sean McCaughey died on a
    hunger and thirst strike- i think he is buried in belfast.

    Volunteer Mairead Farrell fought and was killed for Ireland after
    1986- r.s.f do not recognise her-
    none of there cumann can be named
    the Mairead Farrell cumann- they do not recognise any of the Volunteers who fell for Ireland after 1986.

    ReplyDelete
  77. MichaelHenry,
    You're probably correct but I'm fairly sure there is an RSF cumann in Tyrone named after Padraig McKearney and can remember their was a bit of a stink about one being named after Jim Lynagh too.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Alfie

    No one is sure what Mickey believes though it is close to the body count policy during the Vietnam War.
    He who kills the most wins or something along that line anyway good luck with the quest, as he is unmovable from what I gather not only did the PRM win they brought great prosperity to the Island and we all lived happily ever after.
    Any factual events that occurred are nothing but an elaborate hallucination.

    ReplyDelete
  79. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  80. MartyDownUnder-

    PadraiG Mckearney had a Volunteer
    brother who was killed in 1974-
    sean- r.s.f accept his name but
    r.s.f does not accept Padraig's
    or Jim Lynagh's name because both these Volunteers were killed by the s.a.s at loughgall in 1987,
    this was after 1986 to them.

    ReplyDelete
  81. MichaelHenry,
    I understand what you're saying however found this:
    http://www.freewebs.com/rsfeasttyrone/mckearneymccaughey.htm

    ReplyDelete
  82. MartyDownUnder

    You certainly can’t beat the auld chants good on you mucker.

    Slan

    ReplyDelete
  83. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Mike,
    "But it also says something about the British and Irish governments (and their supporters), who insisted that peace “negotiations” have a pre-determined outcome and cynically used the peace process as a means of helping Provisional republicanism manage defeat".

    You forgot to mention the US government's part in that as well. I always felt Clinton's "generosity" in granting Gerry Adams a visa (however never granting RuairĂ­ Ă“ Brádaigh the same consideration especially after Adams made his first appearance on US soil) was the beginning of the sell out. I felt Ruairi had the same right to be given a visa too, so that Irish-Americans could have been exposed to both political sides of the issue. Maybe a more well informed Irish-America could have made a difference. However, we’ll never know. Unfortunately, Sinn Fein vehemently campaigned against him being given a visa to the USA and that is when PSF started to turn me off.

    Another indication that a sell out was coming was when Joe Cahill started making his rounds to various Irish-American groups blowing smoke up our arses about the “new way forward with Sinn Fein”. Yet, when you would ask very direct, serious questions about a possible “sell out” you were told whatever you wanted to hear to keep the support base in America going. I was a Sinn Fein supporter for 30 years, but I knew in ’94 something was very, very wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Tain Bo,

    Check this one, out sure to have your toe tapping, only recently been rediscovered. Written by Pat McGuigan, The Brave United Men


    http://www.youtube.cf/watch?v=egYPy0ez21A

    ReplyDelete
  86. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  87. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Helen
    i was iun shennanigans in S. Boston in the late 90's and a few cork lads were askin me if i thought Adams might be took out of it. i thought they werte a tad OTT but maybe they were on the nail.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Mise eire-

    Why soldiers should become politicians

    Cathal brugha td
    Bobby sands mp
    Jim lynagh councillor
    Kieran doherty td
    Martin mc caughey councillor
    Mairead farrell 1987 td candidate

    you against them

    there are others- but you get my drift.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Nuala,

    Thanks for the compliment. It pleases me immensely that you enjoyed the piece.

    Alfie,

    I think it is self serving because he tries to superimpose an intellectual rationale on his reasons for agreeing to give evidence on behalf of the state. I did not buy into the troubled mind wrestling with the futility of violence.

    ‘Collins portrays himself as a cold, callous arranger of killings - that's hardly self-serving.’

    Not on its own. But it is used to provide context to his decision to abandon the activities he was engaged in.

    ReplyDelete
  91. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  92. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  93. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Mike,

    ‘the increasingly apparent failure of Provisional republicanism as part of the legacy from which dissident republicanism sprang … Another, and related, part of the story involves the peace initiatives that have been developed in the past 15 years.’

    I am not sure you have developed this argument as far as you intended to. I think your overall argument is solid and convincing but I am uncertain as to how it links into the above.

    Mise Eire

    Free state Minister of Defence sent an Irish officer to Derry in 1969
    with an offer of support to the IRA OC in Derry...If you assassinate
    your leadership we'll give youse a few quid...’

    Is this sourced anywhere? It is an interesting account.

    Tain Bo

    ‘the great master magician who has made many things disappear all but the one thing British rule.’

    You are so cynical!!

    Mise Eire,

    It was Stephen Hayes and given the fact that he was tortured his confession can not be taken as reliable.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Anthony

    Louth and the republic need not worry Gerry and “this "great" party of Sinn Fein” is on their way to “replicate the great work done in the north.”
    Can’t remember word for word reading that last week god help the south.

    ReplyDelete
  96. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  97. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Mise Eire,

    all fine. But it does not mean that it caused the split. The ingredients for it were long on the boil.

    ReplyDelete
  99. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  100. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  101. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Mise Eire,

    The split was on the cards long before Fianna Fail made its move.

    ‘the censorship within the movement was appalling’

    And they tell you they were opposed to censorship and Section 31.

    Your description of the bullying, intimidation and censorship was informative. Ta Power and Brendan operated in different environments. I think there was a lack of depth to political thinking in the RSM of Power’s day and his writings acquired a status because they were a molehill on a flat plane. A decent guy nonetheless who wanted better for his community/class.

    ‘the fact that hayes was tortured is immaterial to me.i'm not glad it
    happened but i dont believe for a minute you can honestly believe this
    was beyond the pale to happen again.come on.the intelligence services
    dictated everything for 25 years’

    Hardly the point. If the guy was tortured his confession is meaningless.

    Tain Bo

    ‘Louth and the republic need not worry Gerry and “this "great" party of
    Sinn Fein” is on their way to “replicate the great work done in the
    north”.’

    A parody perhaps! Someone winding them up. Maybe they have a Swift in their midst!!

    ReplyDelete
  103. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  104. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  105. Mise Eire,

    ‘Ta power document - The essay called for the armed aspect of the movement to subordinate itself to the political direction of the party … this was a virtually unheard of concept.’

    It was very much the topic of debate within the prisons which Ta was able to feed into. Ta’s one time comrade and later enemy, Jimmy Brown, was very au fait with the concept.

    The INLA prisoners were no different from the IRA prisoners. Same levels of political awareness and motivation. In both organisations some were politically astute and some were not.

    The best political mind within the INLA in the prison that I came across was Gerard Steenson. Yet he wasted it all in a terrible feud where we saw friends and comrades on both sides gunned down.

    ReplyDelete
  106. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete