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August 07, 2005

Sinn Fein Back in Business

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News about Ireland & the Irish

SB 08/07/05 Poll Shows SF Is Set To Make Political Gains
SB 08/07/05 Sinn Fein Back In Business
SB 08/07/05 Who Will Fill IRA Vacuum?
SB 08/07/05 Mass Attendance Plunging, Says Archbishop
SB 08/07/05 Archbishop Faces Up To Crisis In The Church
SB 08/07/05 Opin: How Do We Define Acts Of Terrorism?
SB 08/07/05 Politics Of Colonisation Come Home To Roost
IT 08/08/05 Dialogue Is Needed, Says Irish Islamic Cleric
EN 08/08/05 Justice, Old Red Lion Theatre, London
IT 08/08/05 Composer Dies In Dublin

RT 08/07/05 IRA Can Be De-Listed As Unlawful Org – AO
RT 08/07/05 Chances Of Decommissioning In Coming Weeks -VO
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This Week: Professor Dermot Walsh of the University of
Limerick says the IRA Can Be De-Listed As An Unlawful
Organisation
http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2065389.smil
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Six One News: Tommie Gorman discusses the Chances Of
Decommissioning In The Coming Weeks
http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2065426.smil

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Poll Shows SF Is Set To Make Political Gains

07 August 2005 By Pat Leahy, Political Correspondent

Almost half of voters say they would be "happy to see Sinn
Féin in a coalition government now' and almost four out of
ten voters say they are "more likely to vote Sinn Féin'' as
a result of the IRA statement.

If these sentiments were replicated in a general election,
they would lead to several more Sinn Féin TDs being elected
to the Dáil. The survey was conducted by telephone among
1,000 adults across the country early last week. There is
still a substantial minority of voters - rising to almost
half on certain questions - who remain hostile to Sinn
Féin, and these numbers rise when voters are questioned
about the IRA.

Some 51 per cent don't believe that IRA members will give
up all criminal activities and nearly as many (47 per cent)
want the state to pursue the IRA for the proceeds of past
criminal activity. However, a large majority (71 per cent)
believe that the IRA should be given time to decommission
its weapons and wind down its organisation.

The acceptance of the prospect of Sinn Féin in government
by almost half of the electorate represents a significant
softening of public attitudes towards the party from
earlier in the year, when the period after the Northern

Bank robbery and the killing of Robert McCartney led to
enormous political and media pressure on the republican
movement.

In a Sunday Business Post poll published in March, only 20
per cent of voters said a Fianna Fáil-Sinn Féin coalition
would be "acceptable''. Now, 45 per cent of voters would be
happy to see them in a coalition government. Half of these
voters agree strongly with the prospect; the other half
agree slightly. According to a series of published opinion
polls, Sinn Féin's support currently rests at about 10 per
cent of the electorate nationally. Previously, non-Sinn
Féin voters were very hostile to the party and showed an
unwillingness to give the party any voting preference at
all. This placed a huge handicap on the party's candidates
in multi-seat constituencies.

What today's figures show is that the party is eliminating
the "transfer repellency'' outside the party's core base of
supporters. If this is carried into a general election -
even on 10 per cent of the vote - it will return many more
Sinn Féin TDs.

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Sinn Fein Back In Business

07 August 2005

For the first time in more than six months Sinn Fein is
back in favour with the two governments.

The IRA statement of ten days ago calling on members to
dump arms and assist only democratic and political
"programmes'' has convinced the British government to
implement finally the demilitarisation plans so long sought
by Sinn Fein.

The speedy and generous response by the British is deemed
essential in maintaining republican grassroots support for
the political process and assists the republican movement's
transition from armed struggle to political means. The
surprise return to Irish soil of the "Colombia Three'' last
Friday indicates that every box on the republican wish-
list, barring policing, has been ticked.

While the three men insist their return was not part of a
deal with the governments, the timing could not be more
pertinent. With further moves from the British and the IRA
expected in the coming weeks, republicans have insisted
that the political momentum must be kept up in order to
keep their own people on board.

The republican movement began moving its military personnel
into politics around the time of the Good Friday Agreement.
Unlike loyalist prisoners, with their penchant for body-
building and born-again Christianity, many republican
prisoners took to studying political tracts while in
prison. The Maze Prison, known to republicans still as Long
Kesh, was a political training camp for IRA members.

On their release under the terms of the Agreement, most
republicans re-entered society equipped with a
sophisticated understanding of their country's history and
politics. Senior republicans, such as former hunger-striker
Lawrence McKeown, turned their hands to Sinn Féin's
political strategy on release. Their support for the
strategy pursued by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness proved
invaluable in selling the 1998 deal to the republican
grassroots. Senior republican Martin Meehan, then the
spokesman for IRA prisoners, told the Sinn Féin ard fheis
that the Agreement had the support of those in jail.
Despite reservations about the abolition of Articles 2 and
3 and plans by the party leadership to nominate members to
a Northern Assembly at Stormont, the Sinn Féin delegates
voted overwhelmingly to support the Agreement -Meehan's
comments being deemed crucial. Since then many grassroots
IRA members have been weened off notions of armed struggle
by the potential success that may lie in the political
path. Former senior IRA members were seen to be assisting
Sinn Féin canvassing in North Belfast during the run-up to
the general election in May and many were employed in
helping to devise electoral strategy. The high-visibility
of such men helped convince many potential dissenters that
the republican movement's future lied purely in politics.

Last week's package of demilitarisation unveiled by British
prime minister Tony Blair has further soothed any concerns
about what will follow the IRA's standing down. The
speed with which British army engineers took to dismantling
military spy-posts in south Armagh surprised unionists and
republicans alike. More than a few nationalists will have
pinched themselves last Monday as news filtered through that
the Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) - the locally recruited
British army contingent that replaced the Ulster
Defence Regiment (UDR) - was to disband all three of its
Northern battalions. According to the DUP, the first its
senior members heard of the announcement was during their
weekly Monday morning meeting at Stormont. A call from DUP
headquarters to Jeffrey Donaldson's mobile phone informed
them that the media was reporting the RIR's demise. The
news, if DUP denials of pre-knowledge are accurate, will
have hit the likes of Donaldson hard - he himself is a
former UDR member. The furious reactions of the DUP and the
Ulster Unionists have, as one Northern commentator put it,
put the "icing on the cake'' for republicans. In the hours
that followed the IRA statement many, including unionists,
expected decommissioning of its weapons within days.

Instead republicans cooled their heels and surveyed the
scene as the British government first delivered up its side
of the bargain. Adams could barely contain his satisfaction
as he watched the long despised military spying equipment
being taken off the roof of Divis Flats in Belfast. The
upshot of this frenetic activity, sketched out in private
by Sinn Féin and Blair's chief of staff Jonathan Powell,
wrong-footed the DUP. For months, Ian Paisley had
successfully portrayed himself as the unionist strong-
man. As one republican own-goal followed another (Northern
Bank job, Robert McCartney's killing) the DUP seemed to
grow in confidence. Paisley repeated his mantra last week
about the "days of pushover unionism'' being over, but for
once it rang a little hollow. So pleased was Sinn Féin with
itself that An Phoblacht felt brave enough to ask the
question: "Pushover unionism or leftover unionism?"
Republican heads are undoubtedly up. Whereas several months
back, republicans spoke angrily about British government
intentions they are now revelling in what appears to be a
re-invigorated relationship with Blair.

While much was made about the British premier's failure to
shake Adams' hand in front of the television crews gathered
in Downing Street last Thursday, sources close to the Sinn
Féin leader laughed off talk of any rift. "There wasn't a
handshake planned," said a source. "Gerry and Blair have
been shaking hands now for about nine years. The spin put
on it was entirely daft - there was nothing untoward. The two
of them were actually having a bit of craic - Blair's in
good form." The republican PR victories are set to
continue. With legislation in the pipeline that will allow
the so called "on the runs'' to return to the North - many
after years of exile - Sinn Féin can be guaranteed to milk
the homecomings for all they are worth. Just as the
Balcombe Street gang were treated to a rapturous reception
at the 1998 ard fheis, a string of republican note worthies
are likely to trickle back across the border. While many of
those long sought by the British government for IRA
activity may not be amenable to such high-profile
welcomings, photo bureaus will no doubt be informed that
they will be strolling though a particular area in Belfast
at a given time if they so wish to grab a picture. It is
also clear that some sort of agreement has been reached
between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Adams over
granting Northern politicians speaking rights in the
Oireachtas. Ahern's adviser on the North Martin Mansergh
last week wrote that moves towards such an arrangement
should be made quickly.

Whether Ahern is able to deliver on it remains to be seen
as he requires the imprimatur of the other Dáil parties in
order to change standing orders. However, given that the
northern party of choice for the entire southern political
establishment - the SDLP - has echoed Sinn Féin's calls, it
may not be beyond reach. The apoplexy within unionist ranks
to such an idea will have only hardened nationalist
resolve. UUP leader Reg Empey appears to have made it his
own political crusade to prevent the emergence of what he
calls an "embryonic'' all-Ireland parliament. Northern
nationalists, and indeed many southern politicians, will
question Empey's right to argue about what happens in
the Dáil. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin sources were happy last week
that Blair and Ahern were intent on now fully implementing the
aspects of the Agreement the party has so long called for.
"We stressed the need for Blair to maintain momentum in the
coming days and he told us his intention was to do exactly
that," said a party source. "For things to move on we need
all the roadblocks and excuses taken away and then its over
to the DUP.

"We'll give them [the DUP] a reasonable amount of time to
come back to us, but not two years. If they don't engage,
then alternatives will have to be looked at. The two
governments don't want to waste all the work that's been
done to date if they are forced to look at alternatives
we're happy that they'd be up for that."

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Who Will Fill IRA Vacuum?

31 July 2005 By Barry O'Kelly

"They have already gone away, you know," an IRA veteran
said sourly last week, ahead of the formal declaration
instructing all volunteers to hand up their arms.

The man's ironic twist on the famous remark by Sinn Féin
President Gerry Adams some years ago - "they haven't gone
away, you know'' - reflects the unease felt by some
republicans about the behind-the-scenes moves leading up to
last week's historic announcement that the IRA was to end
its armed campaign and dump its weaponry.

The IRA's estimated 600 volunteers, minus a handful of
exceptions, are expected to abide by last Thursday's
instruction, an extraordinary achievement, owing as much to
clever internal manoeuvring as it does to the persuasive
powers of Adams and the electoral gains of Sinn Féin.

The manoeuvres have been slow, almost imperceptible at
times. But the IRA which declared an end to armed struggle
was a very different organisation to the one which last
called a ceasefire nine years ago.

The membership, as of 4pm last Thursday, included at least
100 people recruited after the 1997 ceasefire. Their sole
purpose, claim those marginalised in the process, was to
shore up support for Adams's political project.

In Dublin, for instance, between 12 and 15 new volunteers
were recruited last year alone, informed republican sources
told The Sunday Business Post. One of the leading figures
in the movement in the city was a man who never saw active
service, the sources said. New recruits were also taken on
in Louth, South Armagh and Belfast, while those perceived
to be unsupportive were effectively sidelined.

At a senior level, commanders in the key republican areas
of South Armagh, Tyrone and Belfast were brought on to
dominate the Army Council which now has a distinctly
northern bias, thereby ensuring greater discipline over the
militant brigades. Tellingly, South Armagh recently had two
representatives on the seven-member council, one of whom is
a man nicknamed The Surgeon. This newspaper understands
that this veteran battalion commander, who is thought to be
responsible for the deaths of 70 people, is believed to
have grown tired of the project and stood down from the
council. However, the move did not prompt any local
volunteers to leave. The mood in the republican heartland
was one of sombre resignation following the announcement
last week. Only key local commanders had been briefed in
advance, but there was no talk of dissent or defections to
dissident groups.

One source likened the advance briefings to the Adams axis
making an address to a mirror: the key figures being
consulted were already on-message, having been appointed in
the first place by those briefing them.

"I don't have a problem with this," the source said. "Good
luck to them. You're never going to get everybody to
agree." Those not in agreement, he added, now hold little
influence in the republican movement. Or so it seems.
Gardai believe this is the great imponderable hanging over
last week's statement. The best barometer of republican
thinking on such events, an army convention attended by
hundreds of volunteers, did not take place ahead of the
announcement - it was not required after a change in IRA
rules in 1997.

"There was obviously a reason why they didn't hold a
convention.

"So who knows how many hardliners are going to move over to
the dissidents? There is no intelligence to show this is
going to happen, but we simply don't know," a Special
Branch detective said.

The Special Branch recently launched a review of its
personnel resources, in anticipation of the statement
winding down the IRA.

About 300 officers are believed to be engaged in monitoring
republicans. This figure will remain unchanged in the short
term. "We will still be monitoring the same people as
before to make sure they are playing ball," a detective
said.

"There is also a worry that they could join the dissidents.
But the primary focus now will be on monitoring the
dissidents themselves."

While the IRA has not actually gone away, the now inactive
group is headed by an army council whose raison d'etre is
to ensure it remains that way. For the first time in its
recent history, the controlling body is now comprised
entirely of people from the North.

This is no coincidence, according to republican sources.
The most committed and experienced IRA members are in the
Northern brigades. And the presence of four men from
Belfast, two from Tyrone and one from South Armagh will
obviously enhance the likelihood of keeping local units in
check.

It is believed that a core unit is being retained to
protect the IRA leadership itself from assassination and to
ensure internal security.

How this will function in practice is unclear. The
dissident Real IRA and Continuity IRA are expected to seek
to capitalise on the demise of the Provisionals. The Real
IRA (RIRA), the bigger of the two, has about 150 members in
Limerick, Dublin, Dundalk, Derry and Belfast. Detectives
said this weekend that RIRA has been actively recruiting in
recent months, particularly in Dublin where it has one
technical expert, a mature college student.

The group is also believed to have one or possibly two
members in the Irish army, the sources said.

However, the organisation is riven by informants and
tainted by its wholesale involvement in crime.

Meanwhile, detectives are sceptical of their own chances of
unravelling the Byzantine business affairs of the
Provisionals, in spite of the expressed determination to do
so by the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell. IRA
sources are similarly sceptical. The huge finance
department once raised millions of euro every year from
cigarette and oil smuggling, cafes, bars, taxi firms,
building companies, property deals, nightclubs and the
occasional bank robbery.

However, these interests have been cut adrift by the
republican movement over the past year, according to
sources. Many of the people running the businesses simply
received start-up loans at low interest. "They are on their
own now, the movement no longer has an interest in them," a
source said.

This generous policy is not without its benefits: anyone
who now stands to gain would be loathe to oppose the Adams
strategy. The financial rewards from the Northern Bank
heist are likely to achieve a similar shift in thinking, if
it is required of those who took part.

Again, gardai are unlikely to successfully prosecute any
member of the 40-plusteamwho carried out the record €37.8
million heist last December. The Sunday Business Post
understands that detectives will be relying on
corroborative evidence to make a link between the €3
million seized in Cork and the bank robbery in Belfast.

"It is beyond doubt that this is the money from the
robbery, and we're confident a case will be made on the
basis of all evidence gathered to date," a source said.

However, the source conceded that it would be extremely
difficult to identify to the satisfaction of an Irish court
that any of the one million seized notes were stolen,
solely on the basis of bank records or forensic evidence
taken from pre-robbery users of the notes.

The source revealed that files on ten people, all of them
from Munster, will be sent to the Director of Public
Prosecutions arising from the wide-ranging probe. Gardai
will be recommending that these people be charged with
money-laundering offences. Most of these people are not
thought to be IRA members.

While the Provisionals have tidied up their financial
affairs, restructured their command structures and
marginalised the mavericks, it has left behind a small,
deeply apprehensive group of activists, who administered
justice as they were instructed to do against drug dealers
and joyriders in working class estates.

"It is no longer our role to go after them [criminals]. But
there's also no protection either," said one source. "All
of that is finished.

"Who knows what's going to happen? And who is going to fill
the vacuum?"

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Mass Attendance Plunging, Says Archbishop

07 August 2005 By Kieron Wood

In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Business Post,
Martin said the Irish bishops had received approval from
Rome to use married deacons to combat the shortage of
priests.

The first deacons are expected to take up their positions
in 2008.

Martin said new procedures had been introduced in Dublin to
protect children. He is considering fitting soundproof
glass in confession rooms so that priests and children
would be visible from outside the room.

On the issue of clerical child abuse, Martin said there had
been 102 claims to date against 30 diocesan priests. Eight
priests have been convicted by the courts.

Two have al ready be en stripped of their priesthood and
the other six are facing laicisation.
Compensation payouts have so far totalled €5.5 million,
including legal costs. The archbishop said he expected the
final bill to be about €10 million.

The diocese is to set up an office for marriage and family
life, headed by a married laywoman.

It will draw up a report on the issues facing couples,
including legal and financial problems that discourage
marriage or prevent women staying at home with their
children, if they wish to do so.

With regard to the IRA ceasefire, the archbishop said he
had the impression at times that many people in the south
looked on the troubles in the North as an embarrassment or
an anachronism. He said people in the Republic needed to
understand unionism better and not to identify it with its
extremist fringe.

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Archbishop Faces Up To Crisis In The Church

07 August 2005 Kieron Wood

It's almost exactly two years since Diarmuid Martin took
over as Archbishop of Dublin.

It's been quite a culture shock for the former Vatican
high-flyer. From dealing with the problems of the world as
permanent observer of the Holy See to the UN in Geneva, the
60-year-old Dubliner has had to come to grips with the more
immediate issues of diocesan finances, the shortage of
priests and the vexed question of clerical sex abuse.

As Primate of Ireland, 60-year-old Martin oversees the
country's biggest diocese with a nominal Catholic
population of more than one million. But the number of
those who practise their faith is falling steadily.

"The diocese ranges from parishes where you'd have 70 per
cent regular Sunday practice and higher, down to where
you're talking about 1 per cent in some of the parishes on
the outskirts of Dublin," said Martin.

"People say: 'We will be charitable, we will be good', but
can you be a Christian without participating, being a
member of a worshipping community and taking part in the
Eucharist?

" It's simply that people are becoming gradually
unchurched. This will be, from one generation to the next,
a much more serious problem.

"Teachers will tell you that young children arrive in
schools and don't know how to make the sign of the cross.
What worries me is that they sometimes leave school after
an intensive catechetical programme and they don't have the
type of formation which would allow them to live out the
faith in a changing world.

"We have spent a huge amount of money investing in school
catechetical textbooks, but we have done very little to
help parents. If faith doesn't begin in the family, the
teachers will be arriving six, seven years toolate. Parents
then lose confidence in themselves and actually give up."
Martin is appointing a new head of the diocesan education
office - for the first time, a lay person.

"We are developing a new syllabus and this will become the
basis from which catechetical textbooks will be drawn.
There will be a broad range of faith formation for people
in the future," he said. With 35 per cent of the children
in the diocese being born to unmarried couples, Martin is
also concerned about pressures on family life.

"A lot of people are living together and rejecting
marriage," he said. "We may have underestimated the
significance of this. There's no point in denying the
figures or denouncing the problem.

"The Church has, in the future, to provide a different type
of service to help marriages develop maturely and to help
address the doubts young people have about long-term
commitment. "I am appointing a married professional woman
in the next short period to structure a project to examine
how the Church can support the institution of marriage and
the family. I want to have a diocesan office for marriage
and family life which would coordinate the results which
would come from this.

"In order to live out their married life, couples have to
have a society that supports them. That means a national
fiscal policy which supports families - for example,
allowing women to reconcile their family and their work or
career, to stay at home if they want. I hear lots of women
who say that greater flexibility would be a help to them."
The quality of liturgy in Catholic churches also concerns
the archbishop. He has established a liturgical resource
service to help parishes to provide liturgical training.

"I'd like, for example, to see a lot more effort put into
the quality of church music," said Martin. "Having lived in
Italy and in a Germanic culture [he was vice rector of the
Teutonic College in Rome], I am used to robust and quality
music and I am disappointed by much of what I see here. We
will also have to find ways in which the quality of
preaching improves.

"We will have to build a number of new churches. We have
effectively only closed one church in the past, Michael and
John's [on the quays]. Probably it wasn't the right one to
sell because it's actually smack in the middle of Temple
Bar, which could have been an interesting place for a
pastoral experience.

"At the moment, selling churches is not on my agenda, but
the upkeep of historical churches has become very
expensive. Another problem we have not faced in the past is
the simple problem of parking. Priests have said to me that
one day, a hearse is going to be clamped." In some areas of
Dublin where the population has dwindled, Catholic churches
are now being put to new uses.

"In Alston Street, we have two Polish Masses every Sunday,
both extremely well attended," said Martin. "In Westland
Row, we have got a Lithuanian community.

"A bishop of the Syro-Malabar rite is meeting me tomorrow
and we are going to see where we should allow them to have
their celebration. We also have Ukrainians in the Pro-
Cathedral.

"The new Irish make a great contribution, but they need
specific pastoral care - as the Irish who emigrated needed
it. I would like them to have these places, not to create
ghettos, but to provide pastoral support, as many of the
immigrants are single men away from their families."

Martin said one of the success stories of dealing with
immigrant communities was the way they had been integrated
into Catholic schools.

"In a survey of deaneries in the north of Dublin, we had
children from 104 different countries and 20 different
religions - in one case up to 45 per cent international
children in a school," said Martin.

"If the children are not Catholics, they have every right
not to be taught the Catholic faith. Nobody would force
them to take part in any religious instruction.

"I am beginning dialogue with the Islamic communities to
see how we can best address our living together in a way
that is respectful of each community.

"I don't want something to happen in a school which creates
a tension at a moment when religious differences are
sensitive.

"For example, I would have no difficulty with the wearing
of the Muslim headscarf in a Catholic school - as I have no
difficulty with nuns wearing a veil or priests wearing a
religious habit.

"The leadership of the Islamic community in Ireland is very
responsible and we can build up relations so that any
tendency towards intolerance or a type of fundamentalism on
either side will be reduced."

On the issue of clerical sex abuse, Martin said his policy
was to be transparent about the extent of the problem.

"Allegations have been made against 67 diocesan priests -
out of about 1,500 priests since 1954. People criticise me
giving that figure because some of those claims are
spurious, some are doubtful, some are outright wrong," he
said. "But I believe you are far better getting out exactly
what the situation is. Trying to hide or play around with
figures does not help. No allegations have been made
against any new priest since 1996. But with many of these
cases, people are only able to talk about them10 or 15 years
later, so it is possible there may be other allegations."

The archbishop is to institute a programme next year for
parish advisors on child protection issues who will ensure
that best practice is being followed. One area which will be
examined is confession rooms, where children currently talk
privately to a priest. "One can easily put soundproof glass
in a door if necessary. This is happening in the vast
majority of counselling rooms in parish centres," he said.
"It's a very sad thing, and priests at times get rather
angry that they have to be treated like this, but, in the
long term, child protection measures are priest protection
measures also."

Martin said there had been 102 claims to date against 30
diocesan priests. Of those, 62 cases had been settled and
40 were awaiting conclusion. Eight diocesan priests have
been convicted by the courts. No priest was before the
courts at the moment, although gardaõÂ were continuing their
investigations into some of those accused.

"In every case, we report the matter to the gardai. In a
huge number of cases, the DPP does not proceed and, while
the priest is technically innocent, he feels that his name
has been damaged by the allegations," said Martin.
"Ultimately, I decide whether a priest should be removed on
the recommendation of my child protection officer and I
have always abided by his view.

"So far, two priests have been laicised by formal process,
one directly by the Holy See. Most of the other convicted
ones are in the process of laicisation. "The guiding
principle is: what is the solution which will best
guarantee the protection of children?

"In some cases, the best solution is that the person lives
as a retired priest in a protected environment. If a person
remains under my jurisdiction, at least he can be
controlled." Martin is not responsible for members of
religious orders in the archdiocese, but the heads of the
orders notify him about any complaints against their
members.

The archbishop has appointed a person to go through the
personal file of every priest who has ministered in Dublin
since 1972 to try and find anything that went unnoticed in
the past.

"Out of more than 1,000 files, he has found perhaps 20
cases - maybe a little more - where he has had to refer
them to me," said the archbishop. "When this exercise is
finished - and it's coming to a close now - I want the
entire community to be able to say that Dublin diocese has
addressed problems relating to accusations and management,
and has a policy which is forward-looking." The cost of sex
abuse settlements to date is €4.07 million. "There are also
legal costs of €1.42 million, which is extremely high, but
in many cases, we are paying for both sides," said Martin.
"It's very, very hard to forecast the final cost, but it
could be €10 million." The diocese has also spent more than
a million euro setting up a child protection service.

"This money is being provided so far from funds which are
at the disposal of the archbishop, but it means I haven't
got funding for other things. I am not selling land at the
moment, but I will be looking at all the resources that are
at my disposal to provide amounts like this,'' said Martin.
The other major problem facing the archdiocese is the
continuing shortage of priests. "I have just one priest
under 30," said Martin, "and his 30th birthday is nearing.
The majority are over 60. The Episcopal Conference has now
received formal approval for the introduction of the
diaconate.

"There are some technicalities [to be resolved] about the
length of preparation, so married deacons will not be
introduced for at least three years. But I want deacons to be
deacons, not substitute priests or glorified lay persons."
On the North, Martin said the IRA's decision to end the
armed struggle opened the possibility of a new chapter in
Irish history in which the people of the Republic had a
vital role to play.

"At times, I have the impression that the Troubles in
Northern Ireland are looked on by many in the south as an
embarrassment, an anachronism of the past that should
somehow be got out of the way," said the archbishop.

"We need more direct contacts at the community level, not
just at the political level. We in the south, for example,
need to understand unionism, to know it better, not to
identify unionism with its extremist fringe.

"My door is open to anyone who seeks dialogue, as well as
to those who bring constructive criticism. Let the Gospel
of Jesus inspire us and surprise us."

The decline in Mass attendance
"People are becoming gradually unchurched''

Religion and the family
"Young children arrive in schools and don't know how to
make the sign of the cross''

Catholic marriage
"A lot of people are living together and rejecting
marriage. We may have underestimated the significance of
this''

Liturgy in Irish churches
"I am used to robust and quality music, and I am
disappointed by much of what I see here''

Protection of children against clerical sex abuse
"In the long term, child protection measures are priest
protection measures''

Introduction of married deacons
"I want deacons to be deacons, not substitute priests or
glorified lay persons''

Relationship with Muslim community "I would have no
difficulty with the wearing of the Muslim headscarf in a
Catholic school'' Archbishop Martin on: Archbishop faces up
to crisis in the Church Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid
Martin: 'It's simply that people are becoming gradually
unchurched'

******************************************

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=VINCENT%20BROWNE-qqqs=commentandanalysis-qqqid=6915-qqqx=1.asp

Opin: How Do We Define Acts Of Terrorism?

07 August 2005

Their memory is revered, indeed celebrated.

The acts are not usually characterised as terrorist, yet
the number of civilian deaths in one of these acts was
140,000, and in the other 80,000.

Four hundred thousand others had their lives blighted for
ever by the after-effects. Nobody was brought to justice
for these crimes against humanity. Actually, nobody
suggested that anybody be brought to justice. There was
negligible protest.

I am referring, of course, to the atom-bombing of Hiroshima
on August 6, 1945, and the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9,
1945, actions undertaken on the direct orders of American
president Harry Truman.

It was not as though the civilian fatalities could be
shrugged off as collateral damage arising from an attack on
military targets.

The civilians were the targets and nobody, even on the
American side, has suggested otherwise. Civilians had been
the target for quite some time in the run-up to the
Hiroshima/Nagasaki atrocities.

More than 300,000 civilians were burned to death as a
direct and intended consequence of the firebombing of Tokyo
and other Japanese cities in the months before August 1945.
The British and Americans killed 600,000 German civilians
in the mass bombardment of German cities in late 1944 and
early 1945. But never before had single bombs inflicted
anything like the devastation that those atom bombs
inflicted on these two cities. It was deliberate,
calculated mass murder.

At the beginning of the Second World War, British prime
minister Neville Chamberlain said in the House of Commons:
"Whatever lengths to which others may go, His Majesty's
government will never resort to the deliberate attack on
women and children and other civilians for the purposes
of mere terrorism."

But this is precisely what was done in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. I allude to this in the context of the world
alarm over the threat of al-Qaeda terrorism and the
fulminations in certain quarters about the Provo mass
murders of the 30-year war in the North.

Terrorism is presented as a unique evil, alien to
civilisation, threatening all the values we hold. Most of
the people who condemn modern day terrorism claim the
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasakiwere "different'' in that
a democratically-elected government had sanctioned the war,
not a "self-elected terrorist elite''. They claim that the
mass killings (murder is never acknowledged) of these
Japanese civilians was the lesser evil and that the number
of casualties would have been far greater if an invasion of
Japan had been necessary. They say that the Japanese had
inflicted terrible atrocities on civilians in those parts
of Asia it had occupied during the war, and they deserved
it. But how is it less morally outrageous for an elected
government to deliberately murder hundreds of thousands of
civilians than for a self-elected elite to do so? Even if
it is true, there would have been more fatalities if it had
been necessary to invade Japan, is terror ism to be judged
on the calculus of the number of lives lost against the
number of lives that might otherwise be lost?

As for the argument that the Japanese deserved it, did
these Japanese deserve it, did tens of thousands of
children deserve it?

If we are morally ambivalent about Hiroshima and Nagasaki
or, indeed, the carpet bombing of German cities how can we
be morally so sure about terrorism today or, say, the IRA?
The IRA killed only about 1,700 people.

How is it that the leaders of the IRA are moral outcasts,
yet those who perpetrated the atrocities at the end of the
Second World War, such as Truman and Churchill, are moral
heroes?

How is it that the al-Qaeda terrorism that so far has been
responsible for the loss of fewer than 7,000 lives is the
epitome of evil, while the dropping of the two atom bombs
60 years ago, is, at worst, a morally neutral act?

Or to turn it around, if Gerry Adams is reprehensible for
the crimes for which he has been the apologist for almost
30 years, how is it that those who now are the apologist
for the two greatest single acts of mass murder 60 years
ago are not much more reprehensible? It isn't just the
Americans and the British who suffer from hypocritical
double standards.

What about ourselves? We wearied ourselves for decades
protesting against the taking of life in the North and yet,
without even disquiet, we apparently facilitate mass murder
in Iraq by allowing Shannon to be used as a pit stop by
American terrorists. And, yes, of course these Americans
are terrorists. For weeks, they dropped bombs from the
skies on Iraqi cities and towns, then blasted all in front
of them in the invasion and are now killing and brutalising
people in Iraq and Guantanamo, having plunged Iraq into
chaos and civil war. Does anybody protest over our Taoiseach
consorting with George Bush and Tony Blair, the co-authors
of this terrorist destruction?

Would RTE have allowed Gay Byrne to shake their hands had
they come on the Late Show?

Ruairi O Bradaigh recalled in a recent interview how he was
in the Metropole Hotel in O'Connell St when Brendan Behan
was being interviewed by someone from Pathe News. The
interviewer put it to Behan that he had been caught in
Britain with gelignite in his pocket.

Behan responded that what he hated most was snobbery and,
in that instance, the snobbery was that small bombs were
wicked, while big bombs were respectable.

Nothing changes.

******************************************

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=TOM%20MCGURK-qqqs=commentandanalysis-qqqid=6933-qqqx=1.asp

Politics Of Colonisation Come Home To Roost

07 August 2005

Now that the Provos have finally decided to leave the
Armalite in the thatch for supervised destruction by the
Canadian general, it's been a week when some political
birds have been flying home to roost.

Now that the Provies have gone away, what will all the
armchair generals do without them? From now on, quite a few
will have to climb unsettlingly down from the political
moral high ground, from where they have been lecturing us
all, and join in the postwar scenario.

First off the blocks this week was Ian Paisley, who went
all the way to Downing Street to throw all his toys out of
his cot. (I would love to know just what Tony Blair really
thinks of him. Can you imagine amore unlikely pair sitting
down in Downing Street: the Oxford educated new Labourite
barrister and the fire-and-brimstoner educated in a mission
hall on York Road.)

I detect this week a growing sense of panic in the DUP
ranks, as the IRA statement has truly stripped them down to
their political undies. "But the IRA will have to disappear
completely," said Peter Robinson, and the mind marvelled at
what trick 'Houdini' Adams was next required to perform.
Down south, the Free Staters were running in circles
too. Gerry Adams' demand that Northern elected
parliamentarians be allowed speaking rights in the Dáil got
a fairly typical musty 26county response from Fine Gael,
Labour and the PDs.

Fine Gael said that they "would have a problem with
it''. Come on, no sniggering, readers! Labour's Liz McManus
said that it was "very important that nothing should be
done that would compromise the role of the Oireachtas as
the sovereign parliament of the state''. So there you have
it - after 35 long years of paramilitarism, newfound
Northern nationalist zeal for parliamentary democracy
requires curtailing.

That huge numbers of six county folk fought and died to
establish Dáil Éireann is clearly a chapter excised from
Liz's formative Workers Party re-education. And, indeed that
the party she now deigns to deputy-lead was itself originally
founded by activists principally from the six counties.
Could it be that now, with the shadow of the gunman hopefully
disappearing from the scene, the entire post-partitionist
political establishments, north and south, feel a new and
not entirely comfortable wind blowing? Given this week's
reactions north and south to the IRA's farewell to arms,
the days for platitudes from the moral high ground about
the North may be about to disappear. Indeed two of the
leading 26county commentators betrayed - I thought - more
than a little tightening of the collar in their reactions.
Irish Times columnists Fintan

O'Toole and Kevin Myers, reacting to the IRA statement,
were angrily dismissive, Myers in particular was vitriolic
about what he called the 'dogcollared' clergymen who would
witness the arms decommissioning. For years, many people
who should know better have sheltered in the south behind
the simple wisdom that the crisis in the North was
principally caused by the IRA.

Sometimes there was the Gay Byrne school of banality that
solemnly declared that "one side is as bad as the other'',
but in general in the southern establishment the finger was
only pointing in the one direction. And interestingly, that
finger was usually pointed inwards, towards us, the Irish,
as though somehow part of the Problem was being or
expressing 'Irishness' in the first place.

Decolonisation of the mind can take generations, but I have
no doubt that future sociologists and historians will sense
that so much of this type of southern reaction to the North
was actually not about the North at all, but about how the
south felt about itself in the first place.

For the south, the North became a deeply unsettling
experience, not just because of the south's understandable
and humane reaction to the death and destruction, but
because it kept picking away at the old historical
consensus and the still healing post-colonial wounds. In
the 1960s, as the south began for the first time to
experience the ending of emigration and the beginning of
educational and financial advancement, the Northern deluge
burst over it. It then sought various protective devices to
block its ears to Northern realities like historical
revisionism and censorship under Section 31, but these were
only patchwork.

It took a generation of dead and dying before the southern
political establishment, under first Charles Haughey,
and most significantly Albert Reynolds, decided that the
politically ghettoised in the North had to be brought into
the mainstream.

And that is what the peace process was about, and now that
the IRA have left the stage its wider significance may
now begin to work out on the south just as much as it has
worked out on the North. It is important to understand that
southern nationalism - remarkably as yet unrecognised in
almost any historical critique - and Irish pannationalism
are two different and opposing instincts. Southern
nationalism's silent consensus on the necessity of
partition to its political establishment was initially
disturbed by the peace process, but as Sinn Féin were soon
to discover, the honeymoon wasn't to last very long. As the
Liz McManus subtext unmistakably spelled it out this week,
the southern state must remain mostly uncontaminated by
the North. The defining tenets of southern nationalism are,
and have always been, stabilisation of the Border and
pacification of the nationalist minority. Their
mobilisation could always potentially jeopardise the 1922
settlement, and the peace process - now, importantly in
tandem with British interests - is only the latest chapter
in this requirement. The bitter and mostly unacknowledged
truth underlying all of this is that the 1922
settlement, with the subsequent civil war as prosecuted by
the new southern nationalist political establishment, was the
triumph of then British imperial policy for Ireland.

The south was given commonwealth status under the king, and
the North its own colony - and that all of this has been
subsequently dressed up by southern historians and popular
culture as 'independence' actually speaks for itself.

The festering problem, of course, that finally wrecked this
cosy consensus was that the Northern minority - finally
abandoned by the south in 1924 - erupted after three
generations of unionist colonial rule into first demands
for civil rights and then the killing machine that was the
Provisional IRA.

Given this sweep of history, one senses that we might be
much closer to half-time in the peace process than the
full-time that some, judging by their reactions only this
week, are apparently fervently hoping for.

******************************************

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0808/3658384416HM4ISLAM.html

Dialogue Is Needed, Says Irish Islamic Cleric

John Downes

One of Ireland's foremost Islamic clerics wrote to the
Department of the Taoiseach earlier this year,
acknowledging the need to confront religious extremism
here.

In a letter outlining his views on Government plans to
establish a structure to allow ongoing dialogue with
religious communities, Sheikh Hussein Halawa, imam of the
Islamic Cultural Centre, stated that "living together is
not always easy".

"Religion harnesses deep emotions, which sometimes can be
expressed in the wrong way," he wrote. But this can be
"uprooted and prevented" through dialogue based on solid
foundations.

These foundations include tolerance, confronting extremism,
and practising and respecting freedom within the limits of
the law. They should also work to prevent disagreement
leading to conflict, and recognise "that all of us at times
fall short of the ideas of our own traditions", he stated.

In the letter, dated February 11th, 2005 - five months
before the first London bombings in which over 50 people
died - Sheikh Halawa wrote that Ireland has become a
pluralistic society in which people of different faiths and
beliefs live side by side.

"The necessity of dialogue emerges from the vital
importance of coexistence that can be accomplished on a
solid foundation of mutual respect, openness and trust," he
stated. "... Everyone should have the opportunity to live
their faith with integrity and allow others to do so too."

Dialogue plays an important role when it comes to issues of
mutual interest, Sheikh Halawa wrote. One example was when
representatives of the Islamic faith were invited to the
Dáil to express the Islamic view regarding abortion, he
concludes.

Sheikh Halawa was responding to a letter from the secretary
general of the Department of the Taoiseach, Dermot
McCarthy. Sent last January to religious leaders, it sought
their views on establishing regular dialogue with the
churches, faith communities and non-confessional
organisations.

In the letter, Mr McCarthy said it was envisaged this
"structured dialogue . . . would not displace the existing
and ongoing consultation and dialogue with various civil
authorities in respect of their specific functional
responsibility".

"However, it is envisaged that such dialogue would, in
principle, be capable of addressing any matter of mutual
interest or concern," he added.

Among the other recipients of letters on the subject were
Dr Diarmuid Martin, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Seán
Brady, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, and Most Reverend
John Neill, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin.

In his response, Dr Brady said the Catholic church is
"committed to the promotion of religious freedom. To this
end, we would wish to see the opportunities and structures
for dialogue being made available for all churches, faith
communities and non-confessional organisations on the same
basis."

He also expressed the hope that such structures would allow
for occasional joint meetings with all or some of these
groups on issues of mutual concern.

© The Irish Times

******************************************

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/article304453.ece

Justice, Old Red Lion Theatre, London

By Paul Taylor
Published: 08 August 2005

What do terrorists do when they can no longer be
terrorists? That's the issue raised in Justice, a fierce
new play by the young actor-playwright, Christopher Hanvey,
who hails from Portadown, Northern Ireland, where the piece
is set. It's a problem that can only have been intensified
by the IRA's recent declaration that it has formally
ordered an end to the armed campaign.

The play opened at the Old Red Lion last Thursday, when
London was on a high security alert. It certainly felt
weird to be travelling to a post-Troubles drama on an
underground system twitchy with apprehension because of a
new, more lethal and less limited form of terrorist threat.

Not that these ironic circumstances draw the sting of a
play that - like the work of the award-winning Ulster
dramatist Gary Mitchell - scrutinises the internecine
divisions within the Protestant community as it struggles
to adjust to the implications of the peace process. Here
the focus is on the bloody feud between two paramilitary
groups: the Ulster Volunteer Force, which has been on
cease-fire since 1994, and the Loyalist Volunteer Force, a
splinter group with a burgeoning drugs empire and no real
desire for an end to violence.

Hanvey's play presents the intractable difficulties of this
situation through the swiftly unravelling friendship of two
young UVF men. Chris (sympathetically played by the author)
is about to become a father and wants better for his child
than a gangster world, ruled by money. Nick Storton's
cagey, conceited Pinky, is bitter with frustration. The
leadership in Belfast forbids fighting the LVF because it
does not want to lose political credibility. So how is
Pinky to stop these rivals from robbing his restaurant as
they try to raise the money for a massive consignment of
cocaine? And does his creepily manipulative plan mask an
even deeper deviousness that demonstrates the extent to
which, in the new mercenary dispensation, words like
"loyal" and "loyalist" have been further debased?

There are implausibilities in the over-plotting of the
piece. It turns on the fact that Chris's heavily pregnant
partner Danielle (a far too healthy-looking Francesca
Dymond) is a secret debt-ridden junkie who, to get her
fixes, is forced to give sexual favours to Leon Bearman's
repellent, power-crazed LVF dealer. In the most brutal
scene in Jessica Hrabowsky's well-acted, if jerky
production, we see the latter mercilessly beating her into
miscarriage. The psychology and behaviour of Danielle - why
she has become dependent on drugs and how she has managed
to keep Chris in the dark for so long about her habit -
remain a convenient blank. But while it is badly weakened
by lack of emotional texture, Justice does have the smell
of reality, a good ear for abrasive dialogue, and an
impressive moral passion.

What do terrorists do when they can no longer be
terrorists? That's the issue raised in Justice, a fierce
new play by the young actor-playwright, Christopher Hanvey,
who hails from Portadown, Northern Ireland, where the piece
is set. It's a problem that can only have been intensified
by the IRA's recent declaration that it has formally
ordered an end to the armed campaign.

The play opened at the Old Red Lion last Thursday, when
London was on a high security alert. It certainly felt
weird to be travelling to a post-Troubles drama on an
underground system twitchy with apprehension because of a
new, more lethal and less limited form of terrorist threat.

Not that these ironic circumstances draw the sting of a
play that - like the work of the award-winning Ulster
dramatist Gary Mitchell - scrutinises the internecine
divisions within the Protestant community as it struggles
to adjust to the implications of the peace process. Here
the focus is on the bloody feud between two paramilitary
groups: the Ulster Volunteer Force, which has been on
cease-fire since 1994, and the Loyalist Volunteer Force, a
splinter group with a burgeoning drugs empire and no real
desire for an end to violence.

Hanvey's play presents the intractable difficulties of this
situation through the swiftly unravelling friendship of two
young UVF men. Chris (sympathetically played by the author)
is about to become a father and wants better for his child
than a gangster world, ruled by money. Nick Storton's
cagey, conceited Pinky, is bitter with frustration. The
leadership in Belfast forbids fighting the LVF because it
does not want to lose political credibility. So how is
Pinky to stop these rivals from robbing his restaurant as
they try to raise the money for a massive consignment of
cocaine? And does his creepily manipulative plan mask an
even deeper deviousness that demonstrates the extent to
which, in the new mercenary dispensation, words like
"loyal" and "loyalist" have been further debased?

There are implausibilities in the over-plotting of the
piece. It turns on the fact that Chris's heavily pregnant
partner Danielle (a far too healthy-looking Francesca
Dymond) is a secret debt-ridden junkie who, to get her
fixes, is forced to give sexual favours to Leon Bearman's
repellent, power-crazed LVF dealer. In the most brutal
scene in Jessica Hrabowsky's well-acted, if jerky
production, we see the latter mercilessly beating her into
miscarriage. The psychology and behaviour of Danielle - why
she has become dependent on drugs and how she has managed
to keep Chris in the dark for so long about her habit -
remain a convenient blank. But while it is badly weakened
by lack of emotional texture, Justice does have the smell
of reality, a good ear for abrasive dialogue, and an
impressive moral passion.

To 20 August (020-7837 7816)

******************************************

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0808/1550948385HM5WILSON.html

Composer Dies In Dublin

The composer James Wilson has died in Dublin aged 82.

Born in London, Mr Wilson moved in 1948 to Ireland where he
wrote dozens of operas, ballets, symphonies and concertos,
including his breakthrough work, the children's opera The
Hunting of the Snark in 1965.

Among his more recent works was A Passionate Man, a 1995
opera on Jonathan Swift to mark the 250th anniversary of
the poet's foundation of St Patrick's Hospital, Dublin.

Mr Wilson was a founder-member of Aosdána, the State-
sponsored academy of creative artists.

He was also professor of composition in the Royal Irish
Academy of Music, and for many years acted as course
director of the Ennis/IMRO Composition Summer School.

He received the Marten Toonder award in 1997, and a number
of CDs of his orchestral and chamber music were released in
recent years.

© The Irish Times

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