Web layout by SAOIRSE -- Irish Freedom
December 7, 1998
Send links, events notifications, articles, comments etc, to the editor at: saoirse@iol.ie marked "attention web-editor".
All States have their own currencies and all currencies belong to States. By ceding to Brussels and Frankfurt the power to control credit in the economy, decide interest rates and the currency exchange rate, the politicians of our main parties are abandoning fundamental instruments for advancing the Irish people’s welfare.
They are ensuring thereby that our economy is henceforth run primarily in the EU’s interests, not in Ireland’s. The Republic thus effectively becomes an economic province of the EU, while the EU takes a giant step towards becoming a centralised Superstate.
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty referendum, from which the euro currency stems, was one by methods — the expenditure of public funds to finance one-sided and misleading propaganda — which the Supreme Court subsequently judged to be unconstitutional. This national surrender therefore lacks true popular legitimacy.
The only successful, because long-lasting, monetary unions in history have been part of State-building processes. European examples are Italy, Germany and Switzerland. Our politicians have not been honest with the public that EU-State building is what is at issue in this project, which is overwhelmingly driven by political considerations, not sound economics.
This Republic cannot become an economic province in an EU-wide monetary union without losing the essentials of its representatives. Yet there is in principle no possibility of democratising the emerging EU Superstate either, for a European demos or people, which could provide a basis for that, does not exist — only European peoples. plural, with their many different national interests and solidarities.
The five years since our 1993 currency devaluation have been the only period in the history of the Irish State in which it has followed an independent exchange rate policy, permitting the punt to float rather than tying it to sterling or the Deutschemark. The resulting highly competitive exchange rate is the most important single reason for the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic boom, which coincides exactly with that period.
Yet having unwittingly demonstrated how successful can be an independent currency and exchange rate, our political leaders are now abandoning control of them to others, in principle for all future time.
The manifest unsuitability of a one-interest-rate-fits-all economic policy inside the eurozone is shown by our recent interest rate reductions to get in line with the EMU. These further boost soaring house and asset prices here. They are precisely the opposite of what the Irish public welfare needs, although low interest rates, do suit recession-locked Germany and France.
Yet in two or three years time inside the eurozone, unlike now, the Irish economy may really need the stimulus of lower interest rates, just at the time when the European Central Bank decides that higher interest rates are needed to cap a German-French economic revival. And that could happen just when the euro gives us an uncompetitive exchange rate vis-a-vis the bulk of our trading partners, who will be outside the eurozone. What happens to the ‘Celtic Tiger’ then?
By tying our currency to the eurozone, with which we do only one-third of our trade, while leaving the UK outside it, with which we do another third, our politicians are drawing a new economic Partition between North and South. This North-South division will be aggravated if, as looks likely, the EU moves before long to harmonise taxes for the eurozone members.
Finally, the transition to the euro for retail transactions in 2002 is likely to be a rip-off fir Irish consumers, putting in the shade the price-rises that accompanied the introduction of decimal currency in the 1970s.
If New Year’s Day sees the launch if this anti-democratic, reactionary and economically perilous project, it also marks the commencement, in Ireland and accross the EU, of the international fight-back to restore the national currencies of the eurozone countries, and the sound democracies and sound economies that independent currencies are essential to underpin.
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Leonard Peltier is a well-known victim of human rights abuses by the US judicial system. Convicted in 1976 of murdering two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, Peltier has maintained his innocence and human rights groups and civil rights leaders have cited his case as a grave injustice. Amnesty International cited the Peltier case as a glaring example of FBI tampering with judicial process in a political trial; Federal prosecutors have admitted that they cannot prove that Peltier was responsible for the agents’ deaths and an appeal’s court judge who upheld Peltier’s conviction later called for him to be freed, saying the FBI was equally responsible for the agents’ deaths.
Despite evidence of witness-tampering by the prosecution and a lack of direct evidence of Peltier’s guilt, he remains in prison after 22 years. Meanwhile, Leonard Peltier’s health is deteriorating and many people around the world are concerned for his life.
More than five years ago Leonard Peltier applied for Executive Clemency, citing his support from such leaders as Reverend Jesse Jackson, 55 members of Congress, the European Parliament, Nelson Mandela with about 35 million signatures written on his behalf.
Usually the process for the review of clemency takes six to nine months. However, Peltier has only received a form letter response that states his application is still under review. With his appeals through the courts exhausted, Peltier holds out the hope that President Clinton will do the right thing and reverse generations of injustice to American Indian people by granting him his freedom this holiday season.
Local people hope their action will build awareness of the case and highlight the importance of justice for Peltier for all Americans. One organiser of the Leonard Peltier Support Group in western Massachusetts, Jonathan Mark, said, “ What better way can I support my country, family and freedom this holiday season than by supporting Leonard Peltier? Sure, getting arrested is a hassle, but it is really minor compared to the suffering of this man in prison for decades.”
Besides Main Street, Greenfield, MA, more than 30 other non-violent civil disobedience actions took place, including in Washington, DC, Lawrence, Kansas, San Francisco, Boston, Melbourne, Australia, Brussels, Belgium and New York city.
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The activists barricaded themselves into the offices and refused to leave in solidarity with indigenous resistance to oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell in Nigeria and to give a foretaste of direct action to come. Januarey 4 was the first day of work in the last year before the new Millenium. The activists have chosen this day to send a message to Shell and other transnational corporations that 1999 will be a year of increased globalisation of protest, and the turning point that they say will see the end of corporate dominance.
January 4 is also Ogoni Day, celebrated since 1993 when Shell was forced from Ogoni in the oil-rich Niger Delta by non-violent mass mobilisation. Throughout 1997-98, occupations of oil facilities by the Ijaw ethnic group of southern Nigeria have grown in number and degree, cutting Nigeria’s oil output by up to one third. Now the Ijaws have told Shell and other oil companies to quit their land by January 11, 1999 — or face eviction by the people. Killings by Shell-backed troops have already claimed the lives of at least 20 Ijaws since the first deadline expired on December 30.
The protesters in London demanded compliance with the Ijaw’s demands to leave their traditional lands and for an end to corporate-backed military repression. Live footage of the protest was relayed directly from Shell’s own offices to an internet website at http://www.kemptown.org/shell>www.kemptown.org/shell using a lap-top computer and mobile phone.
A spokesperson said, “The violent militarisation of the oil-producing areas in Nigeria are indicative of the global militarisation of commerce. Moreover, oil industry-derived climate change is causing more global disruption, and restructuring and oil mergers are causing massive job losses. Shell and the other oil transnationals are bad news for everyone ultimately even for shareholders. We call for no more oil.”
Meanwhile hundreds of people signed a petition outside Dunnes Stores in the St Stephen’s Green shopping centre in Dublin on Monday, January 4 requesting the company, in the light of its arrangement with Shell on accumulating loyalty points, to investigate Shell’s operations in the Ogoni region of Nigeria.
Ogoni Solidarity Ireland, which organised the petition, said Shell’s current advertising campaign emphasised the purity of its product and its respect for the environment. However the group says this is not borne out by its extraction activities in Ogoni.
“Shell have destroyed much of the land they use through negligence and inadequate and faulty equipment. The ecosystem of the Ogoni area is on the brink of disaster because of environmental destruction.”
The group also points to widespread human rights violations by successive Nigerian military regimes in Ogoni.
Ogoni Solidarity Ireland can be contacted at PO Box 6089, Dublin 1.
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“Regarding the airstrikes on Iraq by American Imperialism aided and abetted of course by the thrice-accursed British empire of hell, I feel it is necessary to make the following statement, both as a socialist and one who has been active for a lifetime in the centuries-old struggle to rid Ireland of British rule:
“I condemn the airstrikes without any reservations as acts of international imperialist terrorism. The leaders of imperialism talk about terrorism, our answer is that they are the real terrorists. They also talk of disarmament, our answer is let the armies of imperialism commence the process by disarming themselves.
“The final solution is Brits Out of Ireland like they left Hong Kong; US imperialism and capitalist freebooters out of the Middle East.”
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“Republican Sinn Féin in Ireland sends its solidarity and support to Mumia Abu-Jamal, the most prominent death row prisoner in the United States, as he again faces an immediate threat of death by state executioners in Pennsylvania.
“We call for his freedom and urge an international campaign such as was organised in the summer of 1995 to stay the hand of the executioners and expose the frame-up.
“We congratulate all those gathered in his support in the Irish Arts Centre.
Beir Bua! (Victory!)”
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Bertie Ahern produced emergency laws of Israeli-like dimensions that scared the shite out of everyone but Ruairí Ó Brádaigh.
— The Phoenix Christmas Annual 1998, Page 27.
No Republican ever asked for the creation of a Partition-based assembly which would confer the appearance of legitimacy on the Six-County state. When the Belfast Agreement was published we said that it represented a bad deal for nationalists. It was a bad deal then, and it is a bad deal now.
— The Sunday Business Post, Editorial, December 6, 1998.
We have an agreement that the Border is secure . . .
— Dermot Nesbitt UUP Assembly member, Good Morning Ulster, BBC Radio Ulster, December 16, 1998
[Provisional] Sinn Féin negotiates transitional agreement in advance of British withdrawal.
— Jim Gibney, Six-County Director of publicity for the Provisional AP/RN, December 17,1998. Fair play to ya, Jim — not even your party leader would dare to put that spin on the Stormont sell-out.
It is surely the greatest irony of the Troubles that the party that began its existence pledged to destroy forever the local parliament, now depends entirely on it for the achievement of its ambitions.
— Ed Moloney, the Sunday Tribune, December 20, 1998, describing the Provisionals. Of course that party in its ‘constitutional’ guise was founded in 1986.
The Orange Order is a disgraceful, bigoted, evil, sectarian body (and it should be said that it does Trimble no credit to be a member of it). To qualify as a member one cannot be a Catholic, or be married to one, and cannot be a female. Substitute the word “black” for “Catholic”, and it becomes no exaggeration to compare it to the Ku Klux Klan. It is supremacist in its actions and in its rules.
— Editorial in the Sunday Tribune, December 20, 1998.
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair deserve our respect for the action [bombing Iraq]. We know that basically they are both good men . . . who are working tirelessly at making the world a better and safer place for all our children.
— Liam Hayes, Editorial comment, Ireland on Sunday, December 20, 1998. We can only assume that Liam was confused between December 25 and April 1. Either that or the man in naive.
Gerry Adams and his [Provisional] Sinn Féin/[Provisional] IRA comrades have had to renege on practically all their hard-line Republican aims. They have forsaken the armed struggle and left Northern Ireland [sic] still firmly part of the UK. Coincidentally, they have abandoned their primary objective of forcing British military withdrawal from the North. Instead, they have tamely taken their places in a Partitionist parliament at Stormont, and they have finally committed themselves to the reformist strategies of their once reviled rivals for nationalist hearts and minds, the SDLP. Well may these who followed them through thick and thin over the bloody years ask — “Was it for this that the flower of our young volunteers gave their lives on active service and in a prison cell?”
— ‘Tallyman’, the Sunday Tribune, December 27, 1998, highlighting a few home truths which Adams and company would rather forget.
They [Provisional leadership] haven’t got another game plan and they’re not going back to war. They have nice suits, fancy invitations everywhere, and respectability. You can’t underestimate that.
— UUP member Steven King, The Sunday Tribune, December 27, 1998. The man may be a unionist, but he has Adams and Co sussed out better than most of the Provo members!
Internal Sinn Féin analysis showed that as many as 4,000 traditional Sinn Féin voters in West Belfast had refused to vote for Adams in the assembly election, providing any organised dissident movement with significant growth potential.
— Ed Moloney, Sunday Tribune, December 27,1998.
And while the six cross-border bodies are minimal in remit and practical strength, [Provisional] Sinn Féin is happy to go along with the Irish government and SDLP analysis that they are all that can be expected for the present, and that the deal offers the prospect of deeper and more dynamic all-island co-operation in the longer term.
— Sez Who? Frank Connolly, Sunday Business Post, December 27,1998.
What are they going to apologise for? Are they apologising for the government of the day? The military political machine of the day? Are they trying to apologise on my behalf and my soldiers? I would have to warn them not to do so. They cannot apologise for me.
— British Parachute Regiment Commander in Derry on Bloody Sunday, Lieutenant Col Derek Wilford, referring to the British government, the Irish Times, December 29, 1998
The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 gave us the present county-based system of local admin-istration and the elected councils that came with it. But all the fanfares at the Burlington could barely conceal the fact that real power is more centralised now than it was even in the reign of Queen Victoria.
— Frank McDonald on the “splash” in Dublin’s Burlington Hotel in mid-December by councillors and officials to mark the centenary of local government in this country, Irish Times, December 29, 1998.
Like many Irish people reared in England and a supporter of the old Labour Party, I have been deeply suspicious of the whole New Labour project. The emphasis on style rather than substance, the jettisoning of so many of Labour’s traditional values, the cosying up to big business and free market values, have often been hard to stomach.
— Mary Holland in the Irish Times, December 31,1998.
Suddenly after a year which has brought a series of resignations and political recourses, Tony Blair looks uncertain and vulnerable. That must have serious implications for this island and for the still fragile political progress in the North.
— Mary Holland.
As 1998 ends, we are being forced to take stock of how very much the peace process has depended on two politicians from outside Ireland. Both have been damaged by the events of the past year, deservedly perhaps, in ways which must be a cause for concern. The first, more serious casualty, is Bill Clinton.
— Mary Holland.
Is it too optimistic to say that this year has been the political, historical and cultural triumph of constitutionalism? Is it naive to acclaim the final victory of the principles of [Edmund] Burke over [Wolfe] Tone, the bicentenaries of whose deaths have passed in the last year or so?
— Kevin Myers in the Irish Times, December 31.
However, as a people we have become almost obsessed with money and self-interest; everything, including our time, is costed and measured in money. The old Irish philosophy and tradition of caring and sharing is being replaced by a new code of making and taking for ourselves.
— Capitalism in excelsis! John Lonergan in the Irish Times, December 31,1998
Certainly the aspirations as outlined in the 1916 Proclamation to cherish all our children equally is still, as it was then, just an inspiration.
— John Lonergan.
As we begin the run-in to the new Millennium, we must accept responsibility for the many injustices ingrained in our society. We must all make sacrifices. The social and economic exclusion of so many will only be solved when those who have are prepared to share with those who have not. I live in hope.
— John Lonergan.
None of the weapons I sent to the IRA over a period of 25 years were intended for surrender to the British and Ireland is still not free nor independent.
— George Harrison on Radio Free Éireann, New York, January 2.
Anyone in Ireland who wants to decommission weapons, they should give them to me and I’ll get them to the Continuity Army Council.
— George Harrison
He examines the links these United Irishmen forged with revolutionary and radical politics in America, and their significant contribution to the democratisation of American life. Moving through the social networks built up by earlier immigrants, “they effect-ively took over Irish America and remodelled it according to their own revolutionary, democratic, Republican image.” They worked for a broader political franchise, liberalised naturalisation laws, constitutional reform and a more equitable and accessible legal system.
— Patrick Comerford’s review of United Irishmen, United States, Immigrant Radicals in the Early Republic (Four Courts Press, no price given), Irish Times, January 2, 1999.
In the eighties Goulding on one occasion supported the discredited supergrass trials in the north as a means of defeating the Provisional IRA.
— Séamus Ó Tuathail’s obituary on the late Cathal Goulding in the Sunday Business Post, January 3.
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This fine collection of essays examines the role of women in the events if 1798, looking at how they have been depicted not only in the establishment histories but also in song and story. Among the topics covered are ‘United Irish Images of Women’, female witnesses in the courts martial of 1798 and ‘The Women of 1798 in Folk Memory and Ballad’.
Nancy J Curtin’s ‘Matilda Tone and Virtuous Republican Femininity’ not only deals with the relationship between Theobald and Matilda Tone but also the place of women within the United Irish Movement. As Curtin points out, whilst “Republicanism did not offer a fully liberationist vision to these women, it did offer them along with their men, honour and a certain moral ascendancy”. Indeed, women not only served as activists within the United Irish Movement but served as symbols of an oppressed nation, a theme taken up in more detail by Mary Helen Thuente’s ‘Liberty, Hibernia and Mary Le More: United Irish Images of Women’.
Nancy Curtin paints a picture of Matilda or Martha which in fact was her real name, which reveals a woman of great strength of character and totally dedicated to her family and the ideals which inspired her husband.
In the 1820s, as Daniel O’Connell set about placing himself centre-stage of Irish political life, using the cause of Catholic Emancipation as his means of doing so, Matilda Tone and her son William set about collecting and publishing Wolfe Tone’s memoirs, journals and pamphlets in two volumes which appeared in 1826.
Her primary aim in publishing this work was to defend Tone’s reputation and that of the United Irishmen which was being denigrated by O’Connell as he attempted to supplant the revolutionary programme of the United Irishmen with his own reformist agenda which saw Ireland’s place as firmly within the British Empire.
In publishing Tone’s works Matilda once and for all placed on public record “A true and accurate account of his [Tone’s] career and the evolution of his political thinking, reminding the O’Connellites that Theobald Wolfe Tone was an early and eloquent champion in the cause of Catholic Ireland” (p 44).
This was, as Curtin points out, probably Matilda’s last and most significant contribution to the ‘Republican partnership’ which she and Theobald shared. Tone’s ‘Life’ would have a profound effect on Thomas Davis’ inclusive Irish nationalism.
Tone’s conviction “That the influence of England was the radical vice of our government, and that Ireland would never be free nor happy until she was independent, and that independence was unattainable whilst the connection with England existed”, has provided subsequent generations of Republicans who gather annually at his grave with the bedrock of their beliefs.
Matilda Tone died in 1849 having outlived all of her children. A few months before her death Young Irelander Charles Hart visited her in Georgetown: “She chatted very gaily, spoke with great feeling and affection about Ireland . . . I said she had a strong Irish feeling . . .’Ah, it was Tone gave it to me . . . here I am for 30 years in this country and I have never had an easy hour — longing after my native land.’ . . .She spoke approvingly of the men involved in the 1848 Rising as ‘very virtuous’.”
Another icon of the period, Mary Anne McCracken, emerges from John Gray’s pen as a radical political figure in her own right, not simply the sister of Henry Joy, a woman not only committed to the political emancipation of her country but also the social emancipation of its people.
All in all this book goes a long way towards shedding new light on the contribution of women to 1798. As the Wexford local historian Anne Kinsella writes: “The women who fought in 1798 were, for the most part, low on the social scale and all too often their contribution is alluded to in the vaguest terms.”
This book does much to illuminate those heroic women who, with ‘Heart and Hand’ left their indelible mark on the pages of Irish history.
— Deasún Ó Daltún
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The article indicated that 12 members of the National Graves Association, Ireland, including Provisional member Joe Cahill, visited the grave of Vol Tom Williams in Crumlin Road jail, Belfast. Matt Doyle, secretary of the NGA, responded:
“For the record, Mr Joe Cahill has never been a member of the Association and on this occasion no National Graves members were present.
“In 1988, all branches of the Association were disbanded and replaced by representatives and in 1992 the National Graves Association, Ireland became a limited company. These decisions were taken to prevent the Association’s name being used as a flag of convenience.
“In the article it is also claimed that the Association applied for a ‘Royal Pardon’. This is totally incorrect. The Association was responsible for bringing home the remains of Volunteers Dunne and O’Sullivan and Volunteers Barnes and McCormack. On both occasions no Royal Pardon was sought.”
He said that the National Graves Association, Ireland would do everything within its power to have the remains of Volunteer Tom Williams re-interred. The NGA found it sad at this juncture that these people would hijack the well-respected name of the National Graves Association, Ireland.
“Throughout the long, turbulent history of our country, the National Graves Association, Ireland has remained resolute. We have never deviated from our guiding principles and have avoided the splits so many political parties succumbed to. The Committee of the National Graves Association, Ireland feel this to be a sinister development, maybe with some hidden agenda. This unsavoury incident is now in the hands of our legal advisors. We hope that our many friends at home and abroad can now feel reassured of our position.”
For information on the NGA, please contact 74 Dame Street, Dublin 2. Alternatively their Internet Web site is:
http://members.xoom.com/ngaireland.
• See NGA Calendar of Events 1999 below.
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Ballad Night Fund-raiser for the Organisation. Details from Head Office: 01-8321312/8621928
Setting up of course to train Associate Members to act as Guides. Members interested should contact: 01-8321312/8621928
April 24 Easter Commemoration Day Tour. Visit to NGA Easter 1916 Memorials, graves etc. Bus leaving Municipal Art Gallery, Parnell Square, Dublin 10.am sharp. Price £10.
May 1 Weekend Tour to Glens of Antrim. Return train Belfast. Luxury Coach for two days (coach from Belfast). Train: Saturday from Connolly Station. Return from Belfast Sunday, 6.15pm. Booking deposit £15 must be received before end of January. No refund of deposit. Overnight in first-class hotel. All rooms en-suite. Total cost includes B/B/S and two days sightseeing £50. Train fare not included. Senior Citizens Train Pass to apply. May 15 Annual Sponsored Walk. Rain Gear and strong footwear advised. Details of walk nearer date.
June 6 Annual Mass for deceased members, Church Street, Dublin. Light refreshments after Mass. June Michael Gaughan Commemoration, Ballina, Co Mayo. People, interested contact Association nearer date. Tours of Glasnevin at 11.30am every Sunday. Meeting at Main gate. June 13 Bodenstown Commemoration, organised by Republican Sinn Fein
Tours of Glasnevin Cemetery. Meet at Main Gate, Sunday morning, 11.30am.
Tours of Glasnevin Cemetery. Meet at Main Gate, Sunday morning, 11.30am. Saturday, August 14. Day Tour of North County Dublin to include Passage Graves, ‘1798 The Stag of the Naul’. Lusk, Skerries, Balbriggan. Bus leaving from Municipal Art Gallery, Parnell Square, Dublin at 10am sharp. Price £10.
Tours of Glasnevin Cemetery. Meet at Main Gate, Sunday morning, 11.30am.
October 17 Ballad Night, Details nearer date. Contact 01-8321312/8621528.
November 7 Annual Mass for all those who gave their life for the cause of Irish freedom. Day and Weekend Tours 1. All Tours must be pre-booked. 2. Tours leave at time listed. 3. There is no smoking on Bus Tours. Appropriate stops to facilitate smokers are provided. Annual Sponsored Walk Sponsorship cards available nearer date. Commemorations: James Clarence Mangan and James Fintan Lalor. To be arranged through Tours.
A secondary teacher, she was the niece of the famous Fr Michael O’Flanagan, Vice-President of Sinn Féin from 1917 and President 1933-35. He recited the prayers at the inaugural meeting of the first All-Ireland Dáil 80 years ago in January 1919.
Mary O’Flanagan was a staunch nationalist with great love of the Irish language. She founded Meánscoil Ióseph, a private co-educational secondary school in Castlerea in 1939 which was incorporated into the local Vocational School in the 1970s.
As a member of the Co Roscommon Vocational Education Commitee she spoke up fearlessly for Ruairí Ó Brádaigh when the 26-County Department of Education deprived him of his post as a Vocational teacher in 1974.
When she learned that under the Offences Against the State Act he would also be deprived of all pension rights even though he had paid 5% of salary into the fund, Mary O’Flanagan was forthright as expected.
“This is robbery”, she said “and I spit on it”. The Committee refused unamiously to accept the Department directive and the matter remained in dispute.
On the 50th anniversary of the death of Fr Michael in August 1992 Mary represented the family at a commemorative lecture by Fr Dennis Carroll at Crossna, Co Roscommon.
She attended a ceremony at his grave in Glasnevin, Dublin next day which was organised by the Roscommon Association in the capital and sent an apology to the Co Roscommon IRA Commemoration Committee which had another ceremony in Castlerea on the same day.
Sincere sympathy is expressed on the passing of a dedicated Irishwoman and teacher to her sister Bea, nieces, nephews, cousins, relatives and friends.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam dílís cróga.
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He was 53 years of age and had been an active Republican from his early 20s, when he joined the Republican Movement.
Gerry spent a number of terms in jail in 26-County prisons. He spent a year in Mountjoy prison in 1972/73 on a membership charge.
He was again jailed in the late 1970s and early 1980s on a charge of possession of weapons and explosives which were discovered after he crashed his car and was removed to hospital. On this occasion he received a five year term in the non-jury Special Court.
On his release, Gerry returned to his native Tipperary town to continue his commitment to Republicanism. Those who came in contact with him remember him as a hard-working, honest and good-humoured work-mate, committed to his work and family.
The Republican Movement extends its sympathy to his wife Mary and teenage children Elaine and Justin.
At his funeral the coffin was draped in the Tricolour which was presented to his family by Geraldine McNamara, Ard-Chomhairle member of Republican Sinn Féin.
She said that Gerry will be sadly missed by his family and Republicans in his native Tipperary and throughout the whole country.
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Web layout by SAOIRSE -- Irish Freedom December 7, 1998 Send links, events notifications, articles, comments etc, to the editor at: saoirse@iol.ie marked "attention web-editor". |