SAOIRSE Irish Freedom October 2000

England, Scotland, Wales

ANYONE wishing to contact Republican Sinn Féin in England, Scotland or Wales should write to: PO Box BM1798, London WCIN 3XX.

West Limerick organising

REPUBLICAN SINN FÉIN in Limerick is hoping in the near future to start a new Cumann in West Limerick. SAOIRSE is now being sold there. Limerick Republican Sinn Féin would like to hear from anyone interested in joining from the Newcastle West, Abbeyfeale and Rathkeale areas. Contact Christy Dunne, telephone 061-312694.

£49,861
Éire Nua Building Fund
Belfast / Derry

Republican Sinn Féin has secured a premises at 229 Falls Road, Belfast as the organisation's public office in the city. This excellent location near the city centre will give a much-needed focus and morale boost to our growing membership in Belfast and throughout Ulster.

The initial cost of the office was £60,000 (punts) and since it was acquired major refurbishment has been carried out on the building. Added to that is the cost of security to protect it and those using it from the British Crown Forces, loyalist death squads and others who would threaten true Republicans. This,and currency fluctuations. have added another £15,000 (punts) to the cost.

Over £20,000 has been contributed to the fund to date and the committee is very grateful for the valuable support of members and supporters. The debt is now reduced to £49,861.

Contributions, which will be gratefully acknowledged, can be made:

To the following: Mary Ward, Co Donegal; Frank McCarry, Co Antrim; Jimmy McElhinney, Co Tyrone; Geraldine Taylor, Belfast; Michael McGonigle, Co Derry; Joe O'Neill, Co Donegal; Mick McManus, Co Fermanagh; Larry McMahon, Co Monaghan

By sending a donation to: Ard Oifig, 223 Parnell Street, Dublin 1 or to 229 Falls Road, Belfast.

or send a donation to:
Éire Nua Building Fund, Bank of Ireland, Main Street, Limavady, Co Derry, a/c number 49431733, quoting the Branch code 90-50-96 or donate by Standing Order.

Privatisation protest

TWO hundred people protested outside City Hall in Limerick against the privatisation of refuse charges at the September meeting of Limerick Corporation. John Ryan was heckled and a coin thrown at him by the crowd.

Republican Sinn Féin condemned the introduction of £120 for refuse collections as another attack on the already hard hit PAYE sector and the elderly.

Mayor John Ryan (former Stickie) now a member of the 26-County’s Labour Party and his colleague Jan Sullivan voted for privatisation. Some socialists!

Raids and harassment in Strabane, Co Tyrone

IN A statement on September 22 Republican Sinn Féin in Belfast condemned the raids and high level harassment being carried out against the Republican/nationalist community of Strabane.

“Since September 6 whole areas of Strabane have been under a state of siege by British Occupation forces. In one incident in particular a flat was raided for three days with the RUC gaining entry by breaking down doors.

“Relatives of the flat owner were not allowed to enter the flat. Before the RUC left the Housing Executive replaced broken locks at the flat and handed keys for the replacement locks to the RUC. Republican Sinn Féin questions this action.

“One man, Patrick McGlinchy, was arrested on a trumped-up charge of kidnapping a bank official; there is no evidence to connect Mr McGlinchy to the charge. He is now being held at Maghaberry prison.

“Republican Sinn Féin calls on everyone to support Patrick McGlinchy, another Irish victim of British injustice,” the statement ended.

SAOIRSE - Irish Freedom The Voice of the Republican Movement
Issue number 162 October, 2000 PROVO HOPES DASHED	Current news http://saoirse.rr.nu Back issues

Republican
Sinn Féin,
223 Parnell St, Dublin 1

Tel Dublin 872 9747
Fax: 872 9757
e-mail: saoirse@iol.ie

229 Falls Road, Belfast

Tel Belfast 319 004
Fax: 319 863

SEÁN KEENAN
1914-1993
MEMORIAL
UNVEILING
DERRY
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8
Assemble: Celtic Park
2pm
Speaker: Ruairí Ó Brádaigh * * * * EDENTUBBER MARTYRS
COMMEMORATION
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Assemble: Border Inn, Co Louth, 2.30pm
Speaker: Ruairí Óg Ó Brádaigh * * * * KEVIN BARRY
COMMEMORATION
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3
RATHVILLY, CO CARLOW
3pm
* * *

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Bloody Sunday tape made available in 1973

IN A statement on September 29 Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin, said:

“Speaking on RTÉ Radio on Friday, September 29 in reference to the Bloody Sunday tape recording played on UTV television on September 28, journalist Éamonn McCann mentioned a tape being played at a Sinn Féin press conference in Dublin in 1973.

“I was one of the people who gave that press conference at a hotel in Parnell Square. We played a tape which came from Derry and recorded British Army personnel’s reaction to the massacre.

“Relatives of the Bloody Sunday dead were present. Vincent Browne was among the journalists in attendance and Éamonn McCann must also have been present since his recollection of the occasion is so clear. Other than that the British personnel were gung-ho about the killings and that there was a lot of static on the tape, I cannot recall further its contents.

“As President of Sinn Féin at the time, having been released from the Curragh Glasshouse in mid-May of that year, I know that the then leadership did all it could to put that particular tape into the public domain,” Ruairí Ó Brádaigh concluded.

» Provo hopes dashed
» Seán Keenan Memorial unveiling
» Six-County State irreformable In a statement on September 22 Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin said that the UUP excuse for their loss of the South Antrim by-election to Paisley’s DUP is that the Patten Report which seeks to reform the RUC is the cause . . .
» Families fire-bombed
» CABHAIR slams misuse of name in US appeal
» Amnesty for Provos? A FORMER member of the Provisionals, John O’Shea from Ballylongford, Co Kerry was summoned to court in September following a protest against the extradition of Angelo Fusco to the Six Counties on January 14 . . .
» Dublin/Monaghan relatives confront British RELATIVES of the victims of the 1974 Dublin/Monaghan bombings met the Six-County British security minister on September 12 to push for an inquiry into the atrocity . . .
» ÉIRE NUA: the alternative to the Stormont Agreement RUAIRÍ Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin replies to Denis Bradley’s recent Irish News column on ÉIRE NUA . . .
» Housing picket in Ennis THE James Connolly Cumann of Republican Sinn Féin, Ennis, Co Clare, have strongly condemned the appalling living conditions of the residents of Drumbiggle Flats in Ennis and urgently asked the Urban District Council to re-house these people, whose health is being threatened by the very condition they are living under . . .
» Eve-of-All-Ireland rally call for political status A LARGE turn-out of Republicans attended the traditional eve of All Ireland rally in Dublin on September 23. Led by a Fianna Éireann colour party the rally marched from Middle Abbey Street to the GPO in O’Connell Street to be addressed by speakers from Republican Sinn Féin. The marchers carried posters demanding political status for Tommy Crossan, among them Josephine Hayden, recently released Republican prisoner . . .
» Na Fianna Éireann: Beware of imitations IN A statement on August 31, the Patsy O’Connor Sluagh, Na Fianna Éireann, Dublin said: "It has come to the attention of Na Fianna Éireann that the 32-County Sovereignty Movement has conjured up people who claim to be Na Fianna Éireann but who in actual fact support the group of Provisional dissidents that split from the mainstream Provisionals in 1997 . . ."

PRISONERS

» White-line protests return to Belfast On Saturday, September 2 Republican Sinn Féin held a white line protest on the Falls Road, the protest followed a week when hundreds of posters demanding the return of political status as a right were posted all over Belfast. The protest was part of the stepping up of the political status campaign and will take place every Saturday from 1pm to 2pm. The protest itself was well attended and received good support from people on the Falls. The protest was held by Republican Sinn Féin members calling for the return of political status lost with the signing of the Stormont Agreement; others carried posters with the name of Tommy Crossan, an Irish Republican political prisoner who is suffering the full force of England’s criminalisation policy . . .
» Mobilising support IN A statement Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin said that Tommy Crossan, a Republican prisoner at Maghaberry prison, Co Antrim had had two months remission of sentence taken from him by the prison governor, 28 days on Monday, September 4 and another 28 days on Tuesday, September 5 . . .
» Key component won IN a statement on September 9 the Republican Sinn Féin POW Department said that Tommy Crossan, the Republican prisoner fighting for political status in Maghaberry jail, has secured a victory on the issue of prison work . . .
» Concern growing for prisoner’s health ON September 11 Republican Sinn Féin POW Department in Belfast voiced growing concern for the health of Republican political prisoner Tommy Crossan from west Belfast . . .
» British perfidy FOLLOWING on the decision by Maghaberry prison authorities on September 8 to allow Republican prisoner Tommy Crossan to take an education course in place of performing prison labour, Tommy Crossan had another 28 days remission taken off his sentence on September 11, Republican Sinn Féin said in a statement . . .
» Clare support for Crossan REPUBLICAN Sinn Féin spokesperson in Clare, Paddy Kenneally, told SAOIRSE that the organisation are launching a county-wide campaign to highlight the Republican prison protest of Tommy Crossan . . .
» Open letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair The Republican Sinn Féin POW Department in Belfast said in an open letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair on September 12: “In 1976 a Labour government set out to criminalise Irish Republican POWs as part of their Ulsterisation policy. They thought criminalisation would break Republicans both inside and outside the prisons and would bring resistance to British rule to an end . . ."

Gearrscéalta

Provo front shoots man

THE Provisionals are believed to have been responsible for the killing on September 29 in Co Derry of a nationalist man suspected of being involved in the drugs trade.

The killing occurred when two men went into the Depot Bar on Union Street in Magherafelt and singled out Patrick Gerard Quinn, whom they shot.

Quinn (32) was originally from Ardboe, Co Tyrone but is believed to have been forced out of that area because of involvement with drugs. He is also believed to have been associated with Brendan Campbell, a drug dealer who was killed by the Provos in Belfast earlier this year.

While neither killing has been claimed they are both believed to have been carried out by the Provisionals, operating under their cover-name of Direct Action Against Drugs.

» RUC files in loyalist hands
» Intimidation in Limerick
» Special Branch raid in Dublin
» Boy (9) shot in north Belfast
» Two brothers targeted by loyalists TWO nationalist men escaped injury in a sectarian gun attack by loyalists in Belfast on September 21. The attack took place while the two brothers, both in their late thirties, were at work in Bryson Street in east Belfast around 4pm. A gunman entered the premises where they were working on a car and fired a number of shots at them . . .
» British to fly Union flags over Stormont ministries THE green-ribbon unionists (the Provisionals) are in something of a quandary (an embarrassment of riches -- Brit salaries et al) following the September 9 announcement that the British Union flag may be flown alone or alongside the EU flag above all Stormont departments on 17 designated days . . .
» Nazi at loyalist funeral PROMINENT among mourners at the funeral of leading death-squad figure, Stephen McKeag, was a man bearing a wreath from the British nazi group, Combat 18. McKeag was found dead on his Florence Court home off Belfast’s Crumlin Road on September 24, sparking fears that he was a victim of the loyalist feud, but apparently his death was due to a mixture of drugs and alcohol . . .

WORLD NEWS

» Plan Colombia -- An ecological activist’s view ANNE Barr is a 44-year old Irish-woman, a member of the Atlantis ecological community that has been living and working in the forested, guerrilla-run mountains of Colombia for the last 12 years. The group has been twice displaced by the guerrilla in these past two years. On July 9, 2000 two of the young men of the group, Tristan James, grandson of the founder of the group, Jenny James, who lives in Colombia, and Javier Nova, the boyfriend of one of Jenny‘s young daughters, were brutally murdered by a renegade group of FARC rebels when they returned to the area they had both lived in for most of their 18 years to visit relatives there . . .

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the Editor should be as short as possible and written or typed in double-spacing on one side of the page. Name and address must be included, but on request will not be published.

Postal address: 223 Parnell Street, Dublin 1. Letters may also be faxed to Dublin 872 9757 or by e-mail to saoirse@iol.ie.

» Prisoners Still Need Support
PEIG KING
Dublin
» Support The Political Prisoners
DECLAN Mac GABHAIN
229 Falls Road
Belfast
» Political Status Will Not be Given Away
NORA LYNCH
Limerick
» Republicans Won’t Be Fooled!
NED O’SULLIVAN
South Kerry
» Brits Out of Ireland
JOHN HORAN
PRO
Comhairle Ceantair Átha Cliath
Republican Sinn Féin
» Collusion With British Terror
S CARTHY
Kilburn, London
» EU Police Force
PETER MOORE
Dublin

» Mac Cool: Loyalist death squad leader's stocks and bonds
» Fenian Notes
» 50 Years Ago: Last prisoner released: End of an era

Brón ar an mBás

» Jack Weir "I WAS sorry to hear of the passing of Dr Jack Weir, former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and hasten to express sympathy to his family and friends and to his associates in the Presbyterian Church" . . . by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh.
» Alfie LaneAT his funeral held recently in Cork, comrades of Alfie Lane paid their respects to him, remembering him as a courageous soldier who spent his life as a Republican, whose ambition was the re-establishment of the All-Ireland 32 County Republic and the driving out of the British Army of occupation in our six north-eastern counties . . .
» Michael Ward Republicans in Co Tyrone were saddened by the death in mid August of Michael Ward, Brackey, Sixmilecross, Co Tyrone . . .

» Comhbhrón
» I gCuimhne
» Beannachtaí
» What They Said

SAOIRSE November edition published November 6

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