From Free Marian Price Now!
A Chairde,
a new mural for Marian has been painted on the International Wall on the Falls Road in Belfast.
A Chairde,
a new mural for Marian has been painted on the International Wall on the Falls Road in Belfast.
Amongst the slingers, to varying degrees, are Nazis, racists, cranks, crackpots, sexual fetishists, trolls, sockpuppets, hate purveyors, obituary defacers, obsessives, stalkers, whisper weasels, misogynists, smear merchants, personal abuse vendors, bullies, psychobabblers, religious whack jobs, tyre kickers, the perpetually offended, finger wagging bores fluent in bollix and long on prolix, monikers launching personal attacks rather than exchanging ideas, dark hour drunks, and a sundry of others whom we generally ignore.
Often, we hit the delete button the minute a comment from them appears without even reading the content.
At times some contributors or commenters display extreme discomfort upon finding their opinions opposed. They are unable to cope with disagreement, even to the extent of appearing to go into meltdown. This is not the type of site for them. If being offended by an alternative idea is psychologically damaging, best to avoid the blog. We seek to protect people from abuse but never from difference. TPQ is not about making people comfortable but about facilitating those ideas that can make us all uncomfortable.
TPQ hosts a wide range of discussion which is sometimes heated as perspectives and opinions clash. It is not a gable wall where the parade of the pariahs is asked to assemble with a license to spray hate graffiti or work out their fetishes.
Before anything else it is a free inquiry blog. Free speech matters to it only insofar as it is necessary to facilitate the unhindered flow of ideas and sustain a culture where free inquiry can flourish. It values the idea not the insult. Ideas and insults each depend on freedom of expression to get across the line but which uses such expression for different purposes. The gratuitous insult invariably seeks to dissuade ideas from emerging and functions as a form of censorship. The authentic idea, as obnoxious as it frequently can be, still operates within the schema of free inquiry and allows alternative ideas to develop in a way that insults are averse to. Comments will be published where they constitute an idea rather than a personal insult. They will not be published where their purpose is to gratuitously insult rather than ideationally engage.
Nobody comes here with an automatic right to have what they write published. That is the prerogative of TPQ. If the material is suitable for the site it will feature. If not, it will not. The blog is not beholden to anyone who posts or comments on it. TPQ is free to publish or not to publish. It will always afford the right to reply to any named individual whose ideas have been subject to criticism. Bottom line is that where TPQ operates as a free speech blog it is for me, not for you. I am free to say what I want on it. You are free to say what you want on your own blog, Facebook page or Twitter, but not on TPQ. That said, no one will be shown the door for expressing a different point of view. The ethos is always to protect those who avail of the site from abuse.
TPQ will permit a broad range of opinion others might regard as offensive. Too often 'I am offended' has been a weapon of censorship. The latitude to express disagreeable opinions increases proportionally to the willingness of people to stand over what they say. Ultimately, the principle of invisible people having invisible rights shall apply. Commenters who prefer not to reveal their own identity will not be denied access. Use of a moniker for commenting, however, will not be permitted if the intention is to hide behind a pen name to abuse others.
We already have a page, In the Sewer With Der Stürmer, to where we re-direct the racists and Nazis. There, visitors can observe them thrashing around in their own muck. Now we have decided to create a new page, a sort of Crank's Corner where the rest who, whatever their hatreds, don't necessarily fit into the Der Stürmer category.
If commenters end up in this new page, it is a three strikes, get out policy. Their comments will not appear again on the blog proper, although they can wallow on Bates and Wilkes Central to their heart's content.
We have named it Bates and Wilkes Central. Norman Bates and Annie Wilkes were two obsessive stalkers created by Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King respectively. The older film buffs amongst us should have little difficulty in recalling the films Psycho
and Misery.
All comments from the Cranks Contingent will be re-directed to this page. A word of advice to our normal readers who might come along for the fun: treat it like a visit to the zoo - look, but feed at your own risk.
We have named it Bates and Wilkes Central. Norman Bates and Annie Wilkes were two obsessive stalkers created by Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King respectively. The older film buffs amongst us should have little difficulty in recalling the films Psycho
and Misery.
All comments from the Cranks Contingent will be re-directed to this page. A word of advice to our normal readers who might come along for the fun: treat it like a visit to the zoo - look, but feed at your own risk.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Priority Questions
Northern Ireland Issues
5. Deputy Clare Daly (Ind) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the steps he has taken in his dealings with the Northern Ireland and British authorities to highlight the wide-spread concern that exists in relation to persons (details supplied) being in prison without knowing the charges against them and without an open trial.
Deputy Eamon Gilmore (Lab): I am very aware of the cases to which the Deputy refers and my officials monitor these and other cases very closely. The first individual referred to has been detained since 13 May 2011, following the revocation of her life licence by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Genuine concerns about several aspects of this case have been raised by Deputies on many occasions, and I have raised them very frankly with the British Government, most recently when I met the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on Monday, 11 February. I have been advised that the Parole Commissioners for Northern Ireland will determine in March on the issue of her continued detention.
In relation to the second individual referred to, the British authorities have confirmed that he was released under licence in 1992. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland revoked that licence in April 2010 and the individual, has as a result, been in custody for the past two years and nine months. I understand that an appeal on the case will be heard by the Supreme Court in Belfast shortly. As the case is the subject of an ongoing legal process, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.
Deputy Clare Daly: I appreciate that the Tánaiste has raised those matters but all of us need to do more. We were among a cross-party delegation that went to Maghaberry Prison where we visited both Martin Corey and Marian Price in recent weeks. The health of Marian Price in particular is a cause of grave concern. We all have a role in putting pressure, not just on the British authorities but also on the Northern Ireland Administration. Deputy O’Sullivan is correct; the Minister, Mr. Ford, could release the two individuals on compassionate grounds at the stroke of a pen.
The issue is a serious one. I am shocked that the media have not taken it up to a greater extent. The cases involve two people who have been in prison for almost two and three years, respectively. They do not know the charges against them. Their solicitors are not entitled to the evidence against them. In the case of Marian Price’s parole commission hearing, a representative is being appointed on her behalf to represent her. This is a person she cannot meet, who cannot discuss matters with her or talk to her. This person will attend her hearing, which will be held behind closed doors, which she herself is not allowed to attend. If that was taking place in a tin-pot African dictatorship, we would be banging our drums demanding justice. It is happening on this island and it is absolutely unlawful and disgraceful. I echo the point made previously on whether we can get an official from the southern Government to be a public voice at the hearing. Could we demand that the case is held in public and that Marian Price and her solicitor could attend? Could we begin to address the issues in the broader European Union community because it is a serious erosion of human rights?
Deputy Eamon Gilmore: Two cases were referred to in the question. In one case a Supreme Court case is shortly to be held on it so I cannot say anything much further in that regard.
In the second case the individual was sentenced to two life terms of imprisonment – 20 years imprisonment to run concurrently. In March 1975 the individual concerned was transferred from prison in England to Armagh Prison. On 30 April she was released from Armagh on humanitarian grounds. The release was on licence and the licence was then revoked on 15 May 2011 by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. An issue arose about the terms of the revocation. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Office inform us that the parole commissioners considered the terms of the royal prerogative of mercy after receiving submissions on behalf of the prisoner, that the Secretary of State ruled that the life sentences were not remitted by the royal prerogative of mercy, and that the individual remained subject to the life sentence.
The prevailing policy within prisons themselves is a devolved matter which is the responsibility of the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Prison Service is an executive agency of the Department and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I have received a briefing on the assessment of the parliamentary delegation which visited Maghaberry Prison. My officials are monitoring the situation closely. It is the subject of discussion between the Secretary of State and I and between officials of my Department and corresponding officials in the Northern Ireland Office. That will continue to be the case. I am very much aware of what is going on.
Deputy Clare Daly: If people have done something wrong and have broken the law, they should of course be brought to justice and to trial. This is the opposite case where people are imprisoned for a period of years whose cases have been heard in open court. They have been found to have no case to answer and then secret evidence has been introduced behind closed doors. That is a fundamental attack on human rights and civil rights for everyone in Irish society and beyond.
We do not know that the royal pardon did not cover the sentences because the official excuse is that the pardon has gone missing. Therefore, how do we know what was specified in it?
Why does Martin Corey have to go to the Supreme Court? An open court has already said he has no case to answer. These are serious matters. It is 41 years since Bloody Sunday when people marched against internment. Now there is a new Administration and a new power structure but people are in prison who do not know the reason they are there. The Northern Ireland Minister for Justice could release those two people at the stroke of a pen. I hope that when we have next month’s ministerial Question Time, we do not have to raise the two cases in question because if Marian Price is not released soon on compassionate grounds, given her ill health, it will lead to a seriously destabilising situation in the North for the foreseeable future.
Deputy Eamon Gilmore: In one case, as I said, there will be a Supreme Court hearing and my information is that it is due to be held shortly. A date was set for it earlier in the month but the hearing was not held on that date. I understand a new date will be set for it shortly.
My understanding is that the parole commissioners will hear the Marian Price case in early March. Three dates have been indicated to me as to when the case will be held and it has been indicated to us that there will be a decision shortly after that. Clearly, we cannot prejudge what that decision is likely to be and I will certainly be keeping a very close watch on what is happening and my officials will be doing that on my behalf.
Other Questions
Northern Ireland Issues
9. Deputy Gerry Adams (SF) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his attention has been drawn to the various legal proceedings currently being taken by persons (details supplied) to set aside the indeterminate sentence being imposed on them by the British Secretary of State, Ms Theresa Villiers, without access to judicial proceedings in which they can see, hear and challenge the evidence against them; and if he has expressed his abhorrence of the denial of fair judicial procedure to these two Irish citizens
29. Deputy Mick Wallace (Ind) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in view of the fact that Marian Price has been interned without trial for a period of nearly two years, if he will consider raising the matter at a European level; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
30. Deputy Frank Feighan (FG) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will provide an update on the Marian Price case; and the action he is taking to advance the case
33. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his attention has been drawn to the deterioration of the physical and mental health of a person (details supplied); his views on their prison conditions; and if he has discussed them with British Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers.
63. Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan (Ind) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Office and the Secretary of State with regard to Marian Price; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
66. Deputy Damien English (FG) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Stormont Assembly Minister, David Ford, denied until the last minute compassionate parole to persons (details supplied); if he will raise with Minister Ford at their next meeting the need to address compassionately requests from both in view of the limbo position in which they have been placed, having being neither charged with an offence, nor given a release date, granted bail or seeing the evidence against them; and his views on a royal pardon issued to one of the persons in the 1970s being conveniently misplaced.
67. Deputy Martin Ferris (SF) asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he has raised with the British authorities the continued detention-internment without trial of two Irish citizens (details supplied) in prison; and if he has demanded their immediate release.
Deputy Eamon Gilmore: I propose to take Questions Nos. 9, 29, 30, 33, 63, 66 and 67 together.
I am very aware of the cases to which the Deputy refers and my officials monitor these and other cases very closely. The first individual referred to has been detained since 13 May 2011 following the revocation of her life licence by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Genuine concerns about several aspects of this case have been raised by Members on many occasions, and I have raised them very frankly with the British Government, most recently when I met the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland last Monday, 11 February. I have been advised that the parole commissioners will determine in March on the issue of her continued detention.
In relation to the second individual referred to, the British authorities have confirmed that he was released under licence in 1992. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland revoked that licence in April 2010 and the individual has as a result been in custody for the past two years and nine months. I understand an appeal in relation to the case will be heard by the Supreme Court in Belfast shortly. As the case is the subject of an ongoing legal process, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.
Deputy Seán Crowe: There has been some discussion of this but I want to add a few points. The nature of these cases involves unseen and unknown evidence, so it is difficult for people to defend themselves when they do not know what evidence has been presented against them. The common denominator is the involvement of shadowy figures in the background from MI5 and MI6 who are not friends of the Irish peace process. The Minister said he would get the report of the delegation that visited Marian Price. That delegation has stated that her health is getting worse and we know she is only allowed to exercise in a corridor late at night, with no access to the fresh air or the environment. She is also concerned that there is talk of closing the wing she is on and returning her to what she described as the dungeon. She said that part of the problem with the dungeon was that she was refused access to medication. The Red Cross has been refused access to Hydebank where she is being held. Will the Minister raise that with the British Government?
Deputy Eamon Gilmore: I have already brought to the attention of the Secretary of State the previous visit that was undertaken by a group of Oireachtas Members whom I subsequently met and whose report and assessment I was given. On a continuing basis, we have raised with the Minister for Justice in the Northern Ireland Executive the conditions in which Ms Price is being held. The immediate focus is on the hearing by the parole commissioners that is due in early March.
Remembering cartoonist Brian Mór on the first anniversary of his death.
View Brian's cartoons on The Pensive Quill
to scroll through all of them, use the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of each page.
to scroll through all of them, use the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of each page.
A small selection of his work:
The following infograph has been submitted to TPQ by Alexandra Campbell of the College@Home group which campaigns on education. It initially featured on the College@Home site.
"Give it the ol’ college try.”
We’ve all heard it. Whether from a coach, a parent or other authority figure, the phrase is often used as encouragement when one is faced with a seemingly insurmountable task. It instructs us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and do our best, even in the face of possible, or even likely, defeat.
"Give it the ol’ college try.”
We’ve all heard it. Whether from a coach, a parent or other authority figure, the phrase is often used as encouragement when one is faced with a seemingly insurmountable task. It instructs us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and do our best, even in the face of possible, or even likely, defeat.
Last Monday when we placed Dolours Price in the cold forbidding clay of a Belfast cemetery, I had no sense that the earth was enriched by absorbing her, just that we had been impoverished by relinquishing our grip on her as she passed into the ground. It marked the final goodbye in stark contrast to first hello that heralded a friendship 14 years earlier. Comradeship had long preceded friendship. People don’t need to know each other to be comrades, merely to be part of the same insurrectionary enterprise. Platonic relationships frequently grow from comradeship but cannot be reduced to them. When comradeship forged by conflict moved rapidly into friendship in a less bellicose world I felt immensely honoured. As a teenage republican I was inspired by the raw courage of two West Belfast siblings, often referred to as the Venceremos Sisters, putting it up the might of what Ian Cobain has termed Cruel Britannia.
It would be a quarter of a century after her epic hunger strike that I first met Dolours. The location, Dublin 1999. Along with her sister Marian, whom I had previously been introduced to in Belfast at another political event, she was attending a discussion in the Teacher’s Club at which I spoke along with Tommy McKearney, himself a survivor of a prolonged hunger strike. We had gathered to muse on the Good Friday Internal Solution which fell so far short of republican goals Sinn Fein’s Jim Gibney had earlier told his audience in a college on Belfast’s Whiterock Road that, from a republican perspective, it could easily be thrown in the bin; its only redeeming factor was that it could advance the nationalist agenda which at that time republicanism was deferring to. Gibney was commenting on what should have been a clear blue sea divide but would soon grow blurred under the mist and myth of the peace process as republicanism came to embrace, even celebrate, its own oceanic failure.
It was evident then that as DNA republicans neither Dolours nor Marian Price could ever buy into anything that resembled the Treaty of 1922. They were not the type of children prepared to devour the revolution and as such would in some ways come to be devoured by it. They came equipped with the right amount of prescience to grasp that as a consequence of accepting an agreement that the party had never actually negotiated, but would later claim ownership of, Sinn Fein would come to behave in a fashion that would suggest its origins lay in Cumann na nGaedheal rather than any anti-Treaty composition. A well read articulate and intelligent woman, she was too instinctive a republican to buy into Treaty politics which had been bequeathed to Ireland by a Blue shirt mindset. She would have subscribed to the view of Padraic Pearse that:
The Man who, in the [matter] of Ireland, accepts as a “final settlement”, anything less by one fraction of an iota than separation from England - is guilty of so immense an infidelity, so immense a crime - that it were better for than man - that he had not been born.
Dolours, the consummate entertainer, was at ease with all manner of opposition, being more than capable of holding her own intellectually. I once introduced her to a loyalist friend at Dublin airport, where she held court, enchanting us with her wit and acerbic thrusts at those who scorned the ‘reviled and spat upon’ whose company she was content, in that resigned sense that was her way, to be part of. My friend, I believe, was more charmed than he was persuaded.
On another occasion both of us made the trek to Derry to stand shivering outside a voting booth canvassing for the Derry socialist Eamonn McCann, for whom she had enormous admiration of considerable longevity, and who would on the day deliver her funeral oration. At that time a number of republicans including the late Brendan Hughes anticipated Sinn Fein embracing some aspects of Tory Party economics, and felt it important to lend their support to something that had more resemblance to the politics that sustained us through the years of conflict and jail endurance rather than identify with the neo liberal ethos of the party that had sought to crush the republican struggle.
It was a strange day. Despite the mutual antipathy between us and Sinn Fein, it was their party members whom I had known from jail that kept us supplied with ready cups of tea and snacks throughout our sojourn. It was as bitterly cold as the day we buried her. When Raymond McCartney came into the polling station that evening his wife, a former republican prisoner who had served time in the same wing as Dolours, was genuinely pleased to see her, embracing her warmly, while myself and Raymond chatted. Derry was a cold place that day but not as cold as a Belfast summer where the chill was perennially and perniciously pumped the way of those who refused to profess a belief in what they clearly did not believe.
On a different occasion I ended up alongside Dolours outside Belfast City Hall where PSNI members were pummelling people for sitting on the road at an anti war rally shortly after the US invasion of Iraq. She turned up at these things. That was her, one apple that never fell too far from the radical tree within which she had bloomed.
As Brendan Hughes lay dying, she called to our home and we sat together awaiting the dreaded word from Belfast. We saw the hole coming yet still fell through it as the terra firma gave way beneath our feet when confirmation of Brendan’s passing came. The following day she drove me to Belfast on a solemn journey. The next such journey would see me without her but for her.
Then Dolours was fairly robust and not yet near the shell that she slowly morphed into as the years took their toll. The demons that haunted her were not yet beyond a command that would keep them at a safe distance. But it was a losing battle. She was at pains to work out how so many could with consummate ease perform a volte-face on the politics they had sometimes killed for, and march in the opposite direction away from republicanism and into the Treaty camp where the entrance sign clearly states ‘abandon all republican hope all ye who enter here.’ Was the motivation for killing so shallow and self serving?
As the political-moral construct through which she interpreted the world was deconstructed piece by piece, and as profanity after profanity took root in ground she held sacred, the dyke could no longer be plugged. In my affidavit submitted to a US court I expressed the view that the course being pursued by the British police aided by the US was potentially deleterious to the psychological wellbeing of Dolours. The same prosecutorial zeal and harsh indifference that hounded Aaron Swartz to his death would prove far from sated.
On the Sunday prior to her burial I travelled up to Belfast with my children. My wife had been there since the Friday before. In the wake house I kissed her cold forehead while my son, her god child, held his hand over his mouth mesmerised by my act.
The following morning republicans and others descended on a windblown and rain swept Andersonstown to fall in behind the funeral cortege as it would begin its journey to the Church and from there on down the Andersonstown Road to Milltown Cemetery. I met ex prisoners I had not seen in almost four decades. It was the wettest funeral I recall ever attending. There was virtually no respite from the relentless rain as it sought to penetrate the phalanx of umbrellas that seemed to move as one, Dolours leading the way to her final resting place. We were drenched as the skies seemed to cry above our heads.
In ways she was an enigmatic woman who had an ability to discern. The hard exterior which she sometimes projected never deflected me away from grasping that beneath it all was a sensitivity not at all cut out for the type of conflict she ended up being central to. The road of conflict was stony and she walked it barefooted. She was condemned to suffer and carry the burden that others more liable, more culpable, were only too willing to pass onto her. She fully accepted her role in the political violence that consumed the North. What she could not abide by was the fact that others who had given her orders throughout her very active IRA life seemed eager to adopt the politics of Gethesemane and deny her, disown the IRA, shift the blame for its activities onto subordinates, and mendaciously brand her a liar. It was a burden that grew no lighter as the years grew heavier and her wearier.
As we carried her along the road where she had seen so many carried before her, the coffin probably heavier than she was, I sensed that the burden of pall bearing her mortal remains was ultimately the price to be paid to secure her own unburdening. For Dolours, republican life had indeed been the Via Dolorosa.
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