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News about the Irish & Irish American culture, music, news, sports. This is hosted by the Irish Aires radio show on KPFT-FM 90.1 in Houston, Texas (a Pacifica community radio station)
February 28, 2005
02/28/05 – McCartney Murder Campaign Goes To US
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Table of Contents - Overall
Table of Contents – Feb 2005
TE 02/28/05 McCartney Murder Campaign Goes To US
AB 02/28/05 St Patrick's Day At White House Minus Sinn Fein
UT 02/28/05 Ahern's McCartney Call
IT 03/01/05 Opin: Unmasking The IRA Mindset
IT 03/01/05 Opin: Myth Of IRA's Role Exposed
CP 02/28/05 Canadian Gets 2-Yr More As Overseer Of Police Reform
IT 03/01/05 Hunger Strike Deal Claim Denied By Ex-IRA Prisoners
UT 02/28/05 Gregg Feared Assassination Attempt
IT 03/01/05 On Law And Order Trail
IT 03/01/05 Search For Home For The Abbey Returns To Docklands
NW 02/28/05 The Boat Show 2005 Gets Under Way In Dublin -VO
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On March 1, 1981, Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands began a hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland; he died 65 days later.
The Boat Show 2005 Gets Under Way In Dublin
http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0228/nationwide/nationwide56.smil
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/01/nira01.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/01/ixhome.html
McCartney Murder Campaign Goes To US
By Thomas Harding
(Filed: 01/03/2005)
The pressure on republicans to hand over the IRA killers of Robert McCartney will increase dramatically after his sisters announced yesterday that they planned to lobby politicians in Washington.
The visit, which is being arranged by local politicians in Northern Ireland, could include a trip to the White House.
Donna, Catherine, Paula and Claire McCartney outside their home in Short Strand, east Belfast
President George W Bush has the power instantly to cut off American funding to Sinn Fein, worth millions of dollars, by denying its leaders entry visas, according to security sources.
The five sisters of the 33-year-old forklift driver who was murdered outside a bar in Belfast by a gang of IRA men a month ago, said they would continue campaigning until the killers were brought to justice.
The negative publicity on Sinn Fein has already resulted in the IRA expelling three members. But the McCartneys, who yesterday entertained the Speaker of the Irish parliament at their terrace home in Short Strand, east Belfast, are frustrated that no witness has contacted the authorities amid rumours of IRA intimidation.
"The fear is that people know what the IRA is capable of doing. Their presence alone is enough to intimidate people," said Claire McCartney, 26.
Her sister Gemma McCartney, 41 added: "If the IRA are an army, an army can order people to do something. They should order them to hand themselves in."
While several hundred people turned up at a rally on Sunday, there is speculation that the numbers would have been higher had not a whispering campaign gone round that it was "anti-Sinn Fein, anti-IRA".
"These people are murderers and need to be taken out of society but intimidation is still happening and ultimately the police cannot work on their own," said a police source.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=539586
St Patrick's Day At White House Minus Sinn Fein
Feb 28, 2005 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is likely to celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year without inviting members of Sinn Fein or any other political parties from Northern Ireland, Irish and U.S. government sources said on Monday.
Dublin and London blame the Irish Republican Army for a $50 million (26.5 million pound) bank robbery in Belfast in December and accuse leaders of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, of sanctioning the raid. Sinn Fein and the IRA deny involvement in the robbery.
The White House was expected to make a final decision this week, but it was likely to decide against inviting leaders of Northern Ireland's political parties, including Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, for the traditional St. Patrick's Day reception.
"We're thinking about that in view of what's been happening, in view of some of the unfortunate events," a senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity, referring to not inviting Adams.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will meet with President Bush as usual on the morning of St. Patrick's Day, March 17, and attend the White House reception which will also include Irish-American guests.
"It is expected none of the (Northern Ireland) parties will be invited," the Irish source said.
Both Irish and U.S. sources said Sinn Fein's expected exclusion from White House festivities did not signal a disengagement on the part of the United States from the Northern Ireland peace process, to which it remains committed.
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http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=57269&pt=n
Ahern's McCartney Call
Bertie Ahern today called on the IRA to assist the Police Service of Northern Ireland in their investigation into the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney.
He said that all parties who were present on the night when the father-of-two was stabbed to death should cooperate to ensure successful prosecution.
"The only people who have the authority under law and the ability to deal with that is the PSNI. They need cooperation to do that and if the IRA can assist in all of that, then that`s part of the answer," he said.
The family of Mr McCartney have criticised the IRA for failing to cooperate fully, despite the expulsion of three of its members last week for their involvement in the stabbing.
At the launch of a new bus depot in Dublin, Mr Ahern said he was encouraged by the positive comments made by Democratic Unionist leader the Reverend Ian Paisley at the prospect of resuming power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
Mr Paisley has said he would be prepared to re-enter a power-sharing agreement with Sinn Fein if there was an end to IRA activity and criminality.
Mr Ahern said this had been the consistent position that the DUP had articulated at the talks before Christmas, which failed to reach agreement.
"What Dr Paisley is saying is that if we can get those elements that we are trying to do right, his position is the same as it was. I said before the 8th December that I believed Dr Paisley was up for a comprehensive agreement and I`m glad now again he has confirmed what he told me privately," he said.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2005/0301/856672287OPLEAMCCARTNEY.html
Opin: Unmasking The IRA Mindset
The warped, bizarre and peculiar mindset of the Provisional IRA has been unmasked for all to see in the McCartney case. Its grudging response to the brutal murder of Robert McCartney by its members in Belfast is manifestly inadequate to quell the growing demand within the nationalist community for justice, normal policing and the rule of law.
A point has been passed in Northern Ireland. IRA members who were once reluctantly accepted as the protectors of Catholic enclaves are being increasingly seen as self-serving thugs and bully-boys.
After nearly 11 years of formal ceasefire, the IRA is discovering that it has no positive role to play within nationalist communities. Yet, it continues to recruit and train members and to engage in criminality.
Its failure to formally accept the terms of the Belfast Agreement, as the basis of an agreed and lasting political settlement, is fundamental. It is determined to control nationalist areas and to dispense its own law, its own perverted order.
The IRA statement on the murder of Robert McCartney fully reflects that mindset. The notion of a state within a state, with kangaroo courts, standing orders and codes of conduct that operate within an IRA twilight zone, is at the heart of it. Three members involved in the killing of Mr McCartney were dismissed from the organisation for bringing the IRA into disrepute. They were instructed to take responsibility for their actions. But they have declined to do so. And nothing has happened to the nine other republicans who, the McCartney family say, are implicated in their brother's death.
The SDLP has dismissed the action as a cynical exercise. And nobody is in any doubt the IRA would have sat it out, had it not been for the courage of the McCartney family in publicly demanding truth and justice and the prosecution of those responsible. They challenged the hegemony of the IRA and led public protests. And they will receive formal support for their campaign in the Dáil today when Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny proposes a motion of solidarity.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair will review developments this week. And while there is no prospect of negotiations resuming at this time, the stated willingness of DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley to share power with Sinn Féin in the absence of the IRA is a positive development.
The confluence of recent events exposing IRA criminality in all of its manifestations has moved centre stage on both sides of the Border. It has challenged this State, its institutions, its police force and its courts. It remains the primary obstacle to implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
The unprecedented pressure, primarily from within its own ranks, has led Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams to recognise the need for "hard decisions" to create the conditions under which the IRA will cease to exist. We have heard such talk before and we are weary of it now. There is another opportunity for greater clarity at the Sinn Féin Ardfheis in Dublin this weekend.
© The Irish Times
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2005/0301/3889290345OPFINTAN.html
Opin: Myth Of IRA's Role Exposed
Fintan O'Toole
Last weekend, like the weekend before, Gerry Adams was out on the circuit, honouring the IRA dead. While the people of the Short Strand were rallying against the killers of Robert McCartney, Gerry Adams was in Creggan in south Armagh, presiding over a commemoration for Brendan Burns and Brendan Moley, who blew themselves up with their own bomb in February 1988.
The events might seem discordant, and it was certainly no fun for the Sinn Féin president to have to devote his speech to a desperate attempt to distance his movement from the butchery. But they were in fact two facades of the same edifice.
When Adams says that no republican worthy of the name could be involved in criminal acts, he was relying on a contrast between noble, courageous heroes like Brendan Burns and the bad people who killed Robert McCartney. There are cowardly thugs who gang up on a defenceless man and stern warriors who confronted the might of the British army.
As it happens, Brendan Burns was one of the most effective IRA operatives of the entire conflict. But it's not at all clear that he ever put himself in personal danger, except from his own bombs.
His 10-year career, indeed, is emblematic of the gap between the IRA's heroic self-image and its great skill in inflicting more suffering than it endured. What Brendan Burns was very good at was placing bombs on roadsides and getting the hell out of there before they exploded.
He is widely believed to have planted the IRA bombs that killed 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint in 1979 and five soldiers at Camlough two years later. Most of those who died in these explosions were in their late teens or early twenties.
They were, by the IRA's logic, legitimate targets, though, of course, IRA men killed by the British army were victims of a vile shoot-to-kill policy. It is perhaps naive to expect that a commemoration like Sunday's would have heard some reminder that the photographs of the aftermath of the Warrenpoint explosion were so horrific that the coroner at the inquest instructed that they not be shown to female members of the jury.
Such complexities have to be filtered out of the collective memory of Sinn Féin and the IRA, all the more so when the movement's involvement in thuggery and criminality is being exposed as never before.
Ask an apologist for the IRA about its continued existence nearly seven years after its demand for an act of self-determination by the Irish people was met, and you will get two answers. The first is that the IRA is essentially defensive, that it did and does protect the Catholic people from aggression. This is a straightforward lie.
The IRA has killed around 90 Catholics in west Belfast, and its various offshoots around another 40. The UDA killed 10, the UFF 22, the UVF 37, the British army 82, the RUC 14. And after the initial phase of the conflict, when the IRA arguably helped to fight off large-scale assaults on Catholic areas, there is not a shred of evidence that the IRA ever protected Catholic civilians.
The other line of defence is the H-Block hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981, whose importance for the self-justification of the movement was evident when Mitchel McLaughlin, in his now infamous remarks that the killers of Jean McConville were not criminals, immediately asked "Was Bobby Sands a criminal?". But this line, too, is beginning to crumble with the publication of Richard O'Rawe's book Blanketmen. O'Rawe was one of the IRA leaders in the H-Blocks at the time of the hunger strikes.
His account contrasts sharply with the official version constructed by Gerry Adams. In his autobiography, Gerry Adams says of the hunger strikes that "My role now was to chair Sinn Féin's hunger strike committee". O'Rawe makes it clear that Adams represented, not Sinn Féin, but the IRA army council.
Adams says of the hunger strikers that "there was very good liaison with them, but in the final analysis, although we gave the families what help was within our power, it was up to the prisoner to work out the consequences of the hunger strike with his family; it wasn't up to us."
The whole tenor of his account is that the hunger strike was run entirely by the prisoners. O'Rawe says that Adams, on behalf of the army council, effectively prevented the prisoners from accepting a deal offered by the British after four hunger strikers had died.
He writes that the army council, at best, miscalculated in a way that cost another six lives, and, at worst, kept the strike going long enough to ensure Owen Carron's election in Fermanagh/South Tyrone. Either way, "there can be no doubt that the army council called the shots".
Thus, even the most heroic and self-sacrificing moment of the IRA campaign begins to look like a murky, calculating and perhaps cynical strategy to gain the moral high ground.
It is not surprising that O'Rawe, when he raised his concerns with a senior IRA figure in 1991, was warned that he "could be shot" if he spoke out in public. Back then, intimidation worked. Now the McCartney family have given the IRA a lesson in real bravery: the courage to defy threats and speak the truth.
© The Irish Times
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http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=c6361a1b-d9e5-42ca-a085-e74910642f29
Canadian Gets 2-Year Extension As Overseer Of Northern Ireland Police Reform
Canadian Press
February 28, 2005
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) - The Canadian policing expert who is overseeing the revamping of Northern Ireland's police force will get another two years to monitor the controversial project, Britain announced Monday.
Britain said Oversight Commissioner Al Hutchinson's job is to confirm whether more than 700 reforms - proposed in 1999 by a police commission led by former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten - have been achieved.
Hutchinson, a former assistant commissioner of the RCMP, has helped to monitor the painstaking process since 2000, including for the last 15 months in the top post. He was supposed to step down in May 2005, but Britain said it would need his services until May 2007.
"We are well along the road to the full implementation of the Patten recommendations, but we have not yet completed the journey," said Britain's governor, Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy. "In order to do so, I am extending the terms of the Office of the Oversight Commissioner so that the implementation of the outstanding recommendations will be independently verified."
Reshaping Northern Ireland's predominantly Protestant police force has been a particularly contentious goal of the 1998 peace accord in this British territory.
Many Protestants have criticized the changes as going too far to placate Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party, which represents most Catholics. But Sinn Fein continues to reject the police's authority and boycotts community panels designed to foster better community-police relations.
Protestants and moderate Catholics welcomed the extension of Hutchinson's role. They said it reflected the reality that the proposed changes were never going to be completed by this year.
"Transforming this organization has been an enormous task and the time scale set down just wasn't long enough," said Fred Cobain, a Protestant member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the main civilian panel that now scrutinizes police policies as part of the reforms.
Alex Attwood, a moderate Catholic on the Policing Board, praised Huchinson's work and took a swipe at Sinn Fein's refusal to participate.
He said Hutchinson "has reported major change across policing and good progress on implementing Patten."
"This is in stark contrast to others who demonize police officers . . . and cling to outworn slogans on policing."
The IRA killed about 1,800 people, including 300 police officers, before calling a 1997 ceasefire. In 2000 the police force changed its name from the Royal Ulster Constabulary to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and launched an affirmative-action hiring policy designed to boost Catholic numbers. In the last four years Catholic staffing has increased to 15 per cent from eight per cent of the force.
© The Canadian Press 2005
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0301/2018111909HM6HUNGERSTRIKE.html
Hunger Strike Deal Claim Denied By Ex-IRA Prisoners
Gerry Moriarty
Former H-Block republican prisoners have angrily denied an allegation by a fellow former inmate of the Maze prison that the IRA army council blocked a deal that could have saved the lives of six of the 10 dead hunger strikers.
Former IRA prisoner Richard O'Rawe stood over his claim, contained in his book Blanketmen, published yesterday, that the prisoners' leadership accepted a deal in July 1981 to end the fast but that this decision was over-ruled by the IRA army council.
At that stage in early July 1981, Bobby Sands and three other prisoners had died. Six more died before the hunger strike ended in October 1981.
Mr O'Rawe wrote that at the time, Gerry Adams was acting as liaison between the army council and a senior British foreign office official known as "the Mountain Climber". Former Sinn Féin publicity officer Danny Morrison also liaised with the prisoners and the IRA leadership.
The claims by Mr O'Rawe generated a heated debate on BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme yesterday. Mr Morrison and Brendan "Bik" McFarlane, IRA commander in the Maze during the hunger strikes, angrily rejected what Mr O'Rawe said and accused him of causing great hurt and distress to the hunger strikers' families. Mr O'Rawe insisted his account was true and that the families also deserved to know the truth.
Mr O'Rawe also wrote that he was warned in 1991 that he "could be shot" for airing these views, although he now felt there was no such threat against him. He wrote the book to try to set the historical record straight, he said.
He said the British intermediary effectively conceded most of the prisoners' five demands for special status.
He said the army council acted in an "inexcusable manner" and suggested in his book that the purported IRA decision rejecting the deal could have been taken to facilitate the election of republican candidate Owen Carron in the Fermanagh/South Tyrone byelection of 1981.
The hunger strikes are generally accepted as the trigger for Sinn Féin electoral successes, which in turn helped create the climate to allow the IRA call its ceasefire in 1994.
In the book, Mr O'Rawe, who was the IRA public relations officer in the Maze during the hunger strikes, said he and Mr McFarlane agreed that the offer from "the Mountain Climber" should be accepted. "I thought that the offer was sufficient for us to settle the strike honourably."
Mr O'Rawe said he and Mr McFarlane were shattered by the army council's response but that they felt bound to accept the IRA's findings. "A more sceptical view would be that perhaps they didn't miscalculate at all."
But Mr McFarlane said: "As the officer commanding in the prison at the time, I can say categorically that there was no outside intervention to prevent a deal."
© The Irish Times
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http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=57266&pt=n
Gregg Feared Assassination Attempt
Loyalist paramilitary chief John Gregg feared he was going to be assassinated, a Belfast inquest heard today.
Just days before he was gunned down on his way home from a Glasgow Rangers soccer match, the 45-year-old told friends he felt his life was under threat.
It followed a TV programme in which a bitter enemy claimed: "Those that live by the sword..."
Derek Ramsey, treasurer of the Rangers club to which Gregg belonged, told the inquest that the UDA chief was concerned about a TV appearance by John White, a former ally of Ulster Freedom Fighters leader Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair.
"Gregg was especially wary after the comments made about him by John White on the Wednesday before the match," he said.
"Because of the feud going on at the time, he had bodyguards with him. He feared for his life."
The families of Gregg and 33-year-old Robert Carson, who also died in the attack, today slammed the police probe into their deaths.
In a joint statement they questioned the investigation into the double murder, which was blamed on Adair`s "C" Company, based in the Shankill area of Belfast.
"We would wish to point out that the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) investigation leaves a lot to be desired. No-one has ever been charged with the murders yet most people know who the killers were.
"We were extremely concerned that the CCTV footage did not provide sufficient evidence and the absence of security in the area of Docks on that Saturday would not be normal, given that Rangers fans were coming home and Celtic fans were going away at the same time."
The two dead men, along with Gregg`s teenage son Stewart and another man, Adam Creighton, were in a taxi which was intercepted in the Belfast Docks area as they were travelling home from the match.
Gregg, who served a prison sentence for shooting Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, died almost instantaneously from a bullet wound to his brain, while Carson died later in hospital from head and chest wounds.
The vehicle involved in the murder was one of two taxis hijacked on the Shankill a few hours earlier.
Two weeks after the killings, 20 of Adair`s supporters, including his wife Gina and his close associate John White, fled to Scotland after the Ulster Defence Association attacked homes in the Lower Shankill. They later settled in Bolton, Lancashire.
Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Maxwell, who headed the murder investigation, said a number of attempts had been made on Gregg`s life.
His home at Nendrum Gardens on the loyalist Rathcoole Estate in Newtownabbey was pipe-bombed a few weeks before he was shot dead.
A total of 15 people have been arrested in connection with the murders but to date no-one has been charged, he said.
"The attack on the occupants of the taxi was the culmination of a number of incidents between "C" Company of the UDA and other members of the UDA.
"It was a power struggle within the organisation," he added.
Mr Maxwell said the intelligence services had identified the killers but there was no physical evidence tying them to the crime.
Answering the families` criticism of police action, he said there had been no intelligence that Gregg was going to be attacked that night.
"He was out of the country and it would have been impossible for police to give him protection throughout that day.
William McKnight, the driver of the taxi which was riddled with bullets in the attack, said he had felt uneasy about driving a high-ranking paramilitary.
Mr McKnight, who was shot eight times, described in detail his efforts to escape as a car rammed him and the occupants began firing indiscriminately into his cab.
"I hit the car on the front offside wing and door. The fellas were shooting into my car. It was chaos. I then hit my foot to the floor and hit the car on the back offside."
Eventually his car spun 180 degrees and crashed into railings as the killers drove off.
Fearing he was going to be finished off, he got out of his vehicle and began running away from the scene. He returned to the vehicle and saw that two of his passengers were
dead or dying.
"I just felt total disbelief. I collapsed and everything went black. I could hear sirens and shots and could hear someone saying `He`s still alive`."
Belfast Coroner John Leckey, presenting his findings, said hoped the murderers would be brought to justice.
"It was nothing short of a miracle that others weren`t killed, particularly Mr McKnight who appears to be in some discomfort and still in pain after sustaining eight gunshot wounds.
"I hope the police investigation is successful but the police do need help. They can`t do it all on their own," he added.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0301/3506026974HM7COLOUR.html
McDowell On Law And Order Trail
Frank McNally
Campaign trail: Being Minister for Justice is a bit like serving a suspended prison sentence. Everywhere you go you have to report to the local Garda station. Michael McDowell reported to no fewer that six of them yesterday, as part of his punishment for aiding and abetting the PD byelection canvass in North Kildare.
Most of the stations had never seen a serving justice minister before. But in Naas, where Máire Geoghegan-Quinn once paid a visit in that role, a search for the distinguished visitors book proved fruitless. Gardaí had to make do with taking a photograph.
There was an added reason for the itinerary in that the party's candidate - Senator Kate Walsh - is the widow of a former Garda sergeant in Celbridge, one of the stations visited. If nothing else, the PDs' Kildare campaign is on the right side of the law. But despite being one of the outsiders, Senator Walsh insists she has a realistic chance of switching chambers in Leinster House later this month.
A community activist in Celbridge for 30 years, she was a reluctant convert to party politics when Mary Harney twisted her arm in 2002. The decision to join the PDs cost her some of the supporters who had made her an Independent councillor, she admits. But she still polled 4,000 votes in the general election, "and if it had been a four-seater, I was in".
She concedes too that decades of fundraising for schools and delivering meals on wheels for the elderly did not make her a natural PD candidate. But she is a big admirer of the Tánaiste, and craves the honour of succeeding Charlie McCreevy - long portrayed as the PD wing of Fianna Fáil. "There will never be a greater minister for finance," she says.
Ms Walsh drives her own campaign vehicle - a white tradesman's van - and had Mr McDowell as a passenger throughout yesterday's tour. Suffice to say her driving incurred no penalty points. In fact, her insistence on observing speed limits and showing courtesy to other road users must have puzzled those who didn't know that White-van Man in this case was the Minister for Justice. On the steps of yet another Garda station, in Clane, Mr McDowell returned to his favourite theme of late - praising the McCartney family for their stand against the IRA, and saying it was up to Sinn Féin now to make a decision on the "Siamese twin" relationship with its armed wing. But Sinn Féin has no candidate in North Kildare, and beyond a few people saying "well done", the Minister admits that local issues will decide the byelection.
Senator Walsh expects the fall-out from the recent Supreme Court judgment to dominate when Ms Harney joins her for a tour of nursing homes later this week.
© The Irish Times
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0301/1978856522HM3ABBEYSITE.html
Search For Home For The Abbey Returns To Docklands
Liam Reid
The search for a new home for the Abbey Theatre has returned to Dublin's docklands, four years after the area was ruled out following an intervention by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
The Department of Arts has confirmed that, as part of a continuing search for an alternative site, officials have held exploratory talks with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
It has been stressed, however, that the talks are at a very early stage.
The re-examination of the docklands as a potential venue follows the collapse last year of a plan to relocate the theatre to Coláiste Mhuire, Parnell Square, after an adjacent site needed for the redevelopment became too expensive.
The former Carlton Cinema on O'Connell Street, seen by the city council and other interested parties as the ideal location, has also been ruled out for the time being because of long-running litigation involving a proposed compulsory purchase order on the site.
Both venues were on a shortlist of a number of sites identified by a working group, involving representatives from the theatre, the Office of Public Works, and the Department of Arts.
A new home for the Abbey is considered necessary because the existing building is too small, outmoded and outdated for continued use. Redevelopment of the existing site is seen as too expensive, if not impossible.
Following the collapse of negotiations on the Parnell Square site, the group will now look at the docklands to see if they can identify a viable site.
Officials were anxious yesterday to play down speculation that a definitive proposal would emerge out of the discussions.
"It's at very early stages yet," said one.
"There's very little to go on. Exploratory talks have taken place, but not on the basis that any site is up for consideration."
Four years ago the Abbey board said it favoured moving to a site at Grand Canal docks across the Liffey, after Dublin Docklands offered it a free site, along with an annual subsidy of over €600,000.
Mr Ahern, in whose constituency the Abbey is located, reacted with "surprise" and "disappointment" to the announcement and described it as a U-turn and a serious mistake.
The plan was dropped following his statement and an internal report from the then minister for arts, Síle de Valera, which recommended that the theatre remain in the city centre. That site is now earmarked for a centre for the performing arts.
There is speculation that if the current group was to recommend a docklands site, it would have to be on the north side of the Liffey, closer to the current site and close to the proposed Luas line and Spencer Dock train station, which is in Mr Ahern's constituency.
© The Irish Times
Table of Contents - Overall
Table of Contents – Feb 2005
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Table of Contents - Overall
Table of Contents – Feb 2005
TE 02/28/05 McCartney Murder Campaign Goes To US
AB 02/28/05 St Patrick's Day At White House Minus Sinn Fein
UT 02/28/05 Ahern's McCartney Call
IT 03/01/05 Opin: Unmasking The IRA Mindset
IT 03/01/05 Opin: Myth Of IRA's Role Exposed
CP 02/28/05 Canadian Gets 2-Yr More As Overseer Of Police Reform
IT 03/01/05 Hunger Strike Deal Claim Denied By Ex-IRA Prisoners
UT 02/28/05 Gregg Feared Assassination Attempt
IT 03/01/05 On Law And Order Trail
IT 03/01/05 Search For Home For The Abbey Returns To Docklands
NW 02/28/05 The Boat Show 2005 Gets Under Way In Dublin -VO
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On March 1, 1981, Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands began a hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland; he died 65 days later.
The Boat Show 2005 Gets Under Way In Dublin
http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0228/nationwide/nationwide56.smil
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/01/nira01.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/01/ixhome.html
McCartney Murder Campaign Goes To US
By Thomas Harding
(Filed: 01/03/2005)
The pressure on republicans to hand over the IRA killers of Robert McCartney will increase dramatically after his sisters announced yesterday that they planned to lobby politicians in Washington.
The visit, which is being arranged by local politicians in Northern Ireland, could include a trip to the White House.
Donna, Catherine, Paula and Claire McCartney outside their home in Short Strand, east Belfast
President George W Bush has the power instantly to cut off American funding to Sinn Fein, worth millions of dollars, by denying its leaders entry visas, according to security sources.
The five sisters of the 33-year-old forklift driver who was murdered outside a bar in Belfast by a gang of IRA men a month ago, said they would continue campaigning until the killers were brought to justice.
The negative publicity on Sinn Fein has already resulted in the IRA expelling three members. But the McCartneys, who yesterday entertained the Speaker of the Irish parliament at their terrace home in Short Strand, east Belfast, are frustrated that no witness has contacted the authorities amid rumours of IRA intimidation.
"The fear is that people know what the IRA is capable of doing. Their presence alone is enough to intimidate people," said Claire McCartney, 26.
Her sister Gemma McCartney, 41 added: "If the IRA are an army, an army can order people to do something. They should order them to hand themselves in."
While several hundred people turned up at a rally on Sunday, there is speculation that the numbers would have been higher had not a whispering campaign gone round that it was "anti-Sinn Fein, anti-IRA".
"These people are murderers and need to be taken out of society but intimidation is still happening and ultimately the police cannot work on their own," said a police source.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=539586
St Patrick's Day At White House Minus Sinn Fein
Feb 28, 2005 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is likely to celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year without inviting members of Sinn Fein or any other political parties from Northern Ireland, Irish and U.S. government sources said on Monday.
Dublin and London blame the Irish Republican Army for a $50 million (26.5 million pound) bank robbery in Belfast in December and accuse leaders of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, of sanctioning the raid. Sinn Fein and the IRA deny involvement in the robbery.
The White House was expected to make a final decision this week, but it was likely to decide against inviting leaders of Northern Ireland's political parties, including Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, for the traditional St. Patrick's Day reception.
"We're thinking about that in view of what's been happening, in view of some of the unfortunate events," a senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity, referring to not inviting Adams.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will meet with President Bush as usual on the morning of St. Patrick's Day, March 17, and attend the White House reception which will also include Irish-American guests.
"It is expected none of the (Northern Ireland) parties will be invited," the Irish source said.
Both Irish and U.S. sources said Sinn Fein's expected exclusion from White House festivities did not signal a disengagement on the part of the United States from the Northern Ireland peace process, to which it remains committed.
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http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=57269&pt=n
Ahern's McCartney Call
Bertie Ahern today called on the IRA to assist the Police Service of Northern Ireland in their investigation into the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney.
He said that all parties who were present on the night when the father-of-two was stabbed to death should cooperate to ensure successful prosecution.
"The only people who have the authority under law and the ability to deal with that is the PSNI. They need cooperation to do that and if the IRA can assist in all of that, then that`s part of the answer," he said.
The family of Mr McCartney have criticised the IRA for failing to cooperate fully, despite the expulsion of three of its members last week for their involvement in the stabbing.
At the launch of a new bus depot in Dublin, Mr Ahern said he was encouraged by the positive comments made by Democratic Unionist leader the Reverend Ian Paisley at the prospect of resuming power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
Mr Paisley has said he would be prepared to re-enter a power-sharing agreement with Sinn Fein if there was an end to IRA activity and criminality.
Mr Ahern said this had been the consistent position that the DUP had articulated at the talks before Christmas, which failed to reach agreement.
"What Dr Paisley is saying is that if we can get those elements that we are trying to do right, his position is the same as it was. I said before the 8th December that I believed Dr Paisley was up for a comprehensive agreement and I`m glad now again he has confirmed what he told me privately," he said.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2005/0301/856672287OPLEAMCCARTNEY.html
Opin: Unmasking The IRA Mindset
The warped, bizarre and peculiar mindset of the Provisional IRA has been unmasked for all to see in the McCartney case. Its grudging response to the brutal murder of Robert McCartney by its members in Belfast is manifestly inadequate to quell the growing demand within the nationalist community for justice, normal policing and the rule of law.
A point has been passed in Northern Ireland. IRA members who were once reluctantly accepted as the protectors of Catholic enclaves are being increasingly seen as self-serving thugs and bully-boys.
After nearly 11 years of formal ceasefire, the IRA is discovering that it has no positive role to play within nationalist communities. Yet, it continues to recruit and train members and to engage in criminality.
Its failure to formally accept the terms of the Belfast Agreement, as the basis of an agreed and lasting political settlement, is fundamental. It is determined to control nationalist areas and to dispense its own law, its own perverted order.
The IRA statement on the murder of Robert McCartney fully reflects that mindset. The notion of a state within a state, with kangaroo courts, standing orders and codes of conduct that operate within an IRA twilight zone, is at the heart of it. Three members involved in the killing of Mr McCartney were dismissed from the organisation for bringing the IRA into disrepute. They were instructed to take responsibility for their actions. But they have declined to do so. And nothing has happened to the nine other republicans who, the McCartney family say, are implicated in their brother's death.
The SDLP has dismissed the action as a cynical exercise. And nobody is in any doubt the IRA would have sat it out, had it not been for the courage of the McCartney family in publicly demanding truth and justice and the prosecution of those responsible. They challenged the hegemony of the IRA and led public protests. And they will receive formal support for their campaign in the Dáil today when Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny proposes a motion of solidarity.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair will review developments this week. And while there is no prospect of negotiations resuming at this time, the stated willingness of DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley to share power with Sinn Féin in the absence of the IRA is a positive development.
The confluence of recent events exposing IRA criminality in all of its manifestations has moved centre stage on both sides of the Border. It has challenged this State, its institutions, its police force and its courts. It remains the primary obstacle to implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
The unprecedented pressure, primarily from within its own ranks, has led Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams to recognise the need for "hard decisions" to create the conditions under which the IRA will cease to exist. We have heard such talk before and we are weary of it now. There is another opportunity for greater clarity at the Sinn Féin Ardfheis in Dublin this weekend.
© The Irish Times
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2005/0301/3889290345OPFINTAN.html
Opin: Myth Of IRA's Role Exposed
Fintan O'Toole
Last weekend, like the weekend before, Gerry Adams was out on the circuit, honouring the IRA dead. While the people of the Short Strand were rallying against the killers of Robert McCartney, Gerry Adams was in Creggan in south Armagh, presiding over a commemoration for Brendan Burns and Brendan Moley, who blew themselves up with their own bomb in February 1988.
The events might seem discordant, and it was certainly no fun for the Sinn Féin president to have to devote his speech to a desperate attempt to distance his movement from the butchery. But they were in fact two facades of the same edifice.
When Adams says that no republican worthy of the name could be involved in criminal acts, he was relying on a contrast between noble, courageous heroes like Brendan Burns and the bad people who killed Robert McCartney. There are cowardly thugs who gang up on a defenceless man and stern warriors who confronted the might of the British army.
As it happens, Brendan Burns was one of the most effective IRA operatives of the entire conflict. But it's not at all clear that he ever put himself in personal danger, except from his own bombs.
His 10-year career, indeed, is emblematic of the gap between the IRA's heroic self-image and its great skill in inflicting more suffering than it endured. What Brendan Burns was very good at was placing bombs on roadsides and getting the hell out of there before they exploded.
He is widely believed to have planted the IRA bombs that killed 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint in 1979 and five soldiers at Camlough two years later. Most of those who died in these explosions were in their late teens or early twenties.
They were, by the IRA's logic, legitimate targets, though, of course, IRA men killed by the British army were victims of a vile shoot-to-kill policy. It is perhaps naive to expect that a commemoration like Sunday's would have heard some reminder that the photographs of the aftermath of the Warrenpoint explosion were so horrific that the coroner at the inquest instructed that they not be shown to female members of the jury.
Such complexities have to be filtered out of the collective memory of Sinn Féin and the IRA, all the more so when the movement's involvement in thuggery and criminality is being exposed as never before.
Ask an apologist for the IRA about its continued existence nearly seven years after its demand for an act of self-determination by the Irish people was met, and you will get two answers. The first is that the IRA is essentially defensive, that it did and does protect the Catholic people from aggression. This is a straightforward lie.
The IRA has killed around 90 Catholics in west Belfast, and its various offshoots around another 40. The UDA killed 10, the UFF 22, the UVF 37, the British army 82, the RUC 14. And after the initial phase of the conflict, when the IRA arguably helped to fight off large-scale assaults on Catholic areas, there is not a shred of evidence that the IRA ever protected Catholic civilians.
The other line of defence is the H-Block hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981, whose importance for the self-justification of the movement was evident when Mitchel McLaughlin, in his now infamous remarks that the killers of Jean McConville were not criminals, immediately asked "Was Bobby Sands a criminal?". But this line, too, is beginning to crumble with the publication of Richard O'Rawe's book Blanketmen. O'Rawe was one of the IRA leaders in the H-Blocks at the time of the hunger strikes.
His account contrasts sharply with the official version constructed by Gerry Adams. In his autobiography, Gerry Adams says of the hunger strikes that "My role now was to chair Sinn Féin's hunger strike committee". O'Rawe makes it clear that Adams represented, not Sinn Féin, but the IRA army council.
Adams says of the hunger strikers that "there was very good liaison with them, but in the final analysis, although we gave the families what help was within our power, it was up to the prisoner to work out the consequences of the hunger strike with his family; it wasn't up to us."
The whole tenor of his account is that the hunger strike was run entirely by the prisoners. O'Rawe says that Adams, on behalf of the army council, effectively prevented the prisoners from accepting a deal offered by the British after four hunger strikers had died.
He writes that the army council, at best, miscalculated in a way that cost another six lives, and, at worst, kept the strike going long enough to ensure Owen Carron's election in Fermanagh/South Tyrone. Either way, "there can be no doubt that the army council called the shots".
Thus, even the most heroic and self-sacrificing moment of the IRA campaign begins to look like a murky, calculating and perhaps cynical strategy to gain the moral high ground.
It is not surprising that O'Rawe, when he raised his concerns with a senior IRA figure in 1991, was warned that he "could be shot" if he spoke out in public. Back then, intimidation worked. Now the McCartney family have given the IRA a lesson in real bravery: the courage to defy threats and speak the truth.
© The Irish Times
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http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=c6361a1b-d9e5-42ca-a085-e74910642f29
Canadian Gets 2-Year Extension As Overseer Of Northern Ireland Police Reform
Canadian Press
February 28, 2005
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) - The Canadian policing expert who is overseeing the revamping of Northern Ireland's police force will get another two years to monitor the controversial project, Britain announced Monday.
Britain said Oversight Commissioner Al Hutchinson's job is to confirm whether more than 700 reforms - proposed in 1999 by a police commission led by former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten - have been achieved.
Hutchinson, a former assistant commissioner of the RCMP, has helped to monitor the painstaking process since 2000, including for the last 15 months in the top post. He was supposed to step down in May 2005, but Britain said it would need his services until May 2007.
"We are well along the road to the full implementation of the Patten recommendations, but we have not yet completed the journey," said Britain's governor, Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy. "In order to do so, I am extending the terms of the Office of the Oversight Commissioner so that the implementation of the outstanding recommendations will be independently verified."
Reshaping Northern Ireland's predominantly Protestant police force has been a particularly contentious goal of the 1998 peace accord in this British territory.
Many Protestants have criticized the changes as going too far to placate Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party, which represents most Catholics. But Sinn Fein continues to reject the police's authority and boycotts community panels designed to foster better community-police relations.
Protestants and moderate Catholics welcomed the extension of Hutchinson's role. They said it reflected the reality that the proposed changes were never going to be completed by this year.
"Transforming this organization has been an enormous task and the time scale set down just wasn't long enough," said Fred Cobain, a Protestant member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the main civilian panel that now scrutinizes police policies as part of the reforms.
Alex Attwood, a moderate Catholic on the Policing Board, praised Huchinson's work and took a swipe at Sinn Fein's refusal to participate.
He said Hutchinson "has reported major change across policing and good progress on implementing Patten."
"This is in stark contrast to others who demonize police officers . . . and cling to outworn slogans on policing."
The IRA killed about 1,800 people, including 300 police officers, before calling a 1997 ceasefire. In 2000 the police force changed its name from the Royal Ulster Constabulary to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and launched an affirmative-action hiring policy designed to boost Catholic numbers. In the last four years Catholic staffing has increased to 15 per cent from eight per cent of the force.
© The Canadian Press 2005
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0301/2018111909HM6HUNGERSTRIKE.html
Hunger Strike Deal Claim Denied By Ex-IRA Prisoners
Gerry Moriarty
Former H-Block republican prisoners have angrily denied an allegation by a fellow former inmate of the Maze prison that the IRA army council blocked a deal that could have saved the lives of six of the 10 dead hunger strikers.
Former IRA prisoner Richard O'Rawe stood over his claim, contained in his book Blanketmen, published yesterday, that the prisoners' leadership accepted a deal in July 1981 to end the fast but that this decision was over-ruled by the IRA army council.
At that stage in early July 1981, Bobby Sands and three other prisoners had died. Six more died before the hunger strike ended in October 1981.
Mr O'Rawe wrote that at the time, Gerry Adams was acting as liaison between the army council and a senior British foreign office official known as "the Mountain Climber". Former Sinn Féin publicity officer Danny Morrison also liaised with the prisoners and the IRA leadership.
The claims by Mr O'Rawe generated a heated debate on BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme yesterday. Mr Morrison and Brendan "Bik" McFarlane, IRA commander in the Maze during the hunger strikes, angrily rejected what Mr O'Rawe said and accused him of causing great hurt and distress to the hunger strikers' families. Mr O'Rawe insisted his account was true and that the families also deserved to know the truth.
Mr O'Rawe also wrote that he was warned in 1991 that he "could be shot" for airing these views, although he now felt there was no such threat against him. He wrote the book to try to set the historical record straight, he said.
He said the British intermediary effectively conceded most of the prisoners' five demands for special status.
He said the army council acted in an "inexcusable manner" and suggested in his book that the purported IRA decision rejecting the deal could have been taken to facilitate the election of republican candidate Owen Carron in the Fermanagh/South Tyrone byelection of 1981.
The hunger strikes are generally accepted as the trigger for Sinn Féin electoral successes, which in turn helped create the climate to allow the IRA call its ceasefire in 1994.
In the book, Mr O'Rawe, who was the IRA public relations officer in the Maze during the hunger strikes, said he and Mr McFarlane agreed that the offer from "the Mountain Climber" should be accepted. "I thought that the offer was sufficient for us to settle the strike honourably."
Mr O'Rawe said he and Mr McFarlane were shattered by the army council's response but that they felt bound to accept the IRA's findings. "A more sceptical view would be that perhaps they didn't miscalculate at all."
But Mr McFarlane said: "As the officer commanding in the prison at the time, I can say categorically that there was no outside intervention to prevent a deal."
© The Irish Times
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http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=57266&pt=n
Gregg Feared Assassination Attempt
Loyalist paramilitary chief John Gregg feared he was going to be assassinated, a Belfast inquest heard today.
Just days before he was gunned down on his way home from a Glasgow Rangers soccer match, the 45-year-old told friends he felt his life was under threat.
It followed a TV programme in which a bitter enemy claimed: "Those that live by the sword..."
Derek Ramsey, treasurer of the Rangers club to which Gregg belonged, told the inquest that the UDA chief was concerned about a TV appearance by John White, a former ally of Ulster Freedom Fighters leader Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair.
"Gregg was especially wary after the comments made about him by John White on the Wednesday before the match," he said.
"Because of the feud going on at the time, he had bodyguards with him. He feared for his life."
The families of Gregg and 33-year-old Robert Carson, who also died in the attack, today slammed the police probe into their deaths.
In a joint statement they questioned the investigation into the double murder, which was blamed on Adair`s "C" Company, based in the Shankill area of Belfast.
"We would wish to point out that the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) investigation leaves a lot to be desired. No-one has ever been charged with the murders yet most people know who the killers were.
"We were extremely concerned that the CCTV footage did not provide sufficient evidence and the absence of security in the area of Docks on that Saturday would not be normal, given that Rangers fans were coming home and Celtic fans were going away at the same time."
The two dead men, along with Gregg`s teenage son Stewart and another man, Adam Creighton, were in a taxi which was intercepted in the Belfast Docks area as they were travelling home from the match.
Gregg, who served a prison sentence for shooting Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, died almost instantaneously from a bullet wound to his brain, while Carson died later in hospital from head and chest wounds.
The vehicle involved in the murder was one of two taxis hijacked on the Shankill a few hours earlier.
Two weeks after the killings, 20 of Adair`s supporters, including his wife Gina and his close associate John White, fled to Scotland after the Ulster Defence Association attacked homes in the Lower Shankill. They later settled in Bolton, Lancashire.
Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Maxwell, who headed the murder investigation, said a number of attempts had been made on Gregg`s life.
His home at Nendrum Gardens on the loyalist Rathcoole Estate in Newtownabbey was pipe-bombed a few weeks before he was shot dead.
A total of 15 people have been arrested in connection with the murders but to date no-one has been charged, he said.
"The attack on the occupants of the taxi was the culmination of a number of incidents between "C" Company of the UDA and other members of the UDA.
"It was a power struggle within the organisation," he added.
Mr Maxwell said the intelligence services had identified the killers but there was no physical evidence tying them to the crime.
Answering the families` criticism of police action, he said there had been no intelligence that Gregg was going to be attacked that night.
"He was out of the country and it would have been impossible for police to give him protection throughout that day.
William McKnight, the driver of the taxi which was riddled with bullets in the attack, said he had felt uneasy about driving a high-ranking paramilitary.
Mr McKnight, who was shot eight times, described in detail his efforts to escape as a car rammed him and the occupants began firing indiscriminately into his cab.
"I hit the car on the front offside wing and door. The fellas were shooting into my car. It was chaos. I then hit my foot to the floor and hit the car on the back offside."
Eventually his car spun 180 degrees and crashed into railings as the killers drove off.
Fearing he was going to be finished off, he got out of his vehicle and began running away from the scene. He returned to the vehicle and saw that two of his passengers were
dead or dying.
"I just felt total disbelief. I collapsed and everything went black. I could hear sirens and shots and could hear someone saying `He`s still alive`."
Belfast Coroner John Leckey, presenting his findings, said hoped the murderers would be brought to justice.
"It was nothing short of a miracle that others weren`t killed, particularly Mr McKnight who appears to be in some discomfort and still in pain after sustaining eight gunshot wounds.
"I hope the police investigation is successful but the police do need help. They can`t do it all on their own," he added.
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0301/3506026974HM7COLOUR.html
McDowell On Law And Order Trail
Frank McNally
Campaign trail: Being Minister for Justice is a bit like serving a suspended prison sentence. Everywhere you go you have to report to the local Garda station. Michael McDowell reported to no fewer that six of them yesterday, as part of his punishment for aiding and abetting the PD byelection canvass in North Kildare.
Most of the stations had never seen a serving justice minister before. But in Naas, where Máire Geoghegan-Quinn once paid a visit in that role, a search for the distinguished visitors book proved fruitless. Gardaí had to make do with taking a photograph.
There was an added reason for the itinerary in that the party's candidate - Senator Kate Walsh - is the widow of a former Garda sergeant in Celbridge, one of the stations visited. If nothing else, the PDs' Kildare campaign is on the right side of the law. But despite being one of the outsiders, Senator Walsh insists she has a realistic chance of switching chambers in Leinster House later this month.
A community activist in Celbridge for 30 years, she was a reluctant convert to party politics when Mary Harney twisted her arm in 2002. The decision to join the PDs cost her some of the supporters who had made her an Independent councillor, she admits. But she still polled 4,000 votes in the general election, "and if it had been a four-seater, I was in".
She concedes too that decades of fundraising for schools and delivering meals on wheels for the elderly did not make her a natural PD candidate. But she is a big admirer of the Tánaiste, and craves the honour of succeeding Charlie McCreevy - long portrayed as the PD wing of Fianna Fáil. "There will never be a greater minister for finance," she says.
Ms Walsh drives her own campaign vehicle - a white tradesman's van - and had Mr McDowell as a passenger throughout yesterday's tour. Suffice to say her driving incurred no penalty points. In fact, her insistence on observing speed limits and showing courtesy to other road users must have puzzled those who didn't know that White-van Man in this case was the Minister for Justice. On the steps of yet another Garda station, in Clane, Mr McDowell returned to his favourite theme of late - praising the McCartney family for their stand against the IRA, and saying it was up to Sinn Féin now to make a decision on the "Siamese twin" relationship with its armed wing. But Sinn Féin has no candidate in North Kildare, and beyond a few people saying "well done", the Minister admits that local issues will decide the byelection.
Senator Walsh expects the fall-out from the recent Supreme Court judgment to dominate when Ms Harney joins her for a tour of nursing homes later this week.
© The Irish Times
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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0301/1978856522HM3ABBEYSITE.html
Search For Home For The Abbey Returns To Docklands
Liam Reid
The search for a new home for the Abbey Theatre has returned to Dublin's docklands, four years after the area was ruled out following an intervention by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
The Department of Arts has confirmed that, as part of a continuing search for an alternative site, officials have held exploratory talks with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
It has been stressed, however, that the talks are at a very early stage.
The re-examination of the docklands as a potential venue follows the collapse last year of a plan to relocate the theatre to Coláiste Mhuire, Parnell Square, after an adjacent site needed for the redevelopment became too expensive.
The former Carlton Cinema on O'Connell Street, seen by the city council and other interested parties as the ideal location, has also been ruled out for the time being because of long-running litigation involving a proposed compulsory purchase order on the site.
Both venues were on a shortlist of a number of sites identified by a working group, involving representatives from the theatre, the Office of Public Works, and the Department of Arts.
A new home for the Abbey is considered necessary because the existing building is too small, outmoded and outdated for continued use. Redevelopment of the existing site is seen as too expensive, if not impossible.
Following the collapse of negotiations on the Parnell Square site, the group will now look at the docklands to see if they can identify a viable site.
Officials were anxious yesterday to play down speculation that a definitive proposal would emerge out of the discussions.
"It's at very early stages yet," said one.
"There's very little to go on. Exploratory talks have taken place, but not on the basis that any site is up for consideration."
Four years ago the Abbey board said it favoured moving to a site at Grand Canal docks across the Liffey, after Dublin Docklands offered it a free site, along with an annual subsidy of over €600,000.
Mr Ahern, in whose constituency the Abbey is located, reacted with "surprise" and "disappointment" to the announcement and described it as a U-turn and a serious mistake.
The plan was dropped following his statement and an internal report from the then minister for arts, Síle de Valera, which recommended that the theatre remain in the city centre. That site is now earmarked for a centre for the performing arts.
There is speculation that if the current group was to recommend a docklands site, it would have to be on the north side of the Liffey, closer to the current site and close to the proposed Luas line and Spencer Dock train station, which is in Mr Ahern's constituency.
© The Irish Times
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Table of Contents – Feb 2005
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