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)

October 22, 2005

Finucane Inquiry Delayed By Lack of Judge

To Index of Monthly Archives
To October 2005 Index
To receive this news via email, click HERE.
No Message is necessary.
----


Taoiseach Bertie Ahern arriving at the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis
in Killarney, Co Kerry, last night. Mr Ahern said: "The Irish
people need to reclaim the spirit of 1916." Photograph:
Cyril Byrne


PHOTOCALL The annual Sinn Fein Easter Sunday
1916 Commemoration Parade from Parnell Square
to the GPO on O'Connell Street in Dublin.


News about Ireland & the Irish

BT 10/22/05 Finucane Probe Delayed By Lack Of Inquiry Judge
IT 10/22/05 Taoiseach Reinstates 1916 Parade Past The GPO
SF 10/21/05 Gerry Adams In South Africa
SF 10/21/05 SDLP Attempting To Stop Further Policing Change
DJ 10/21/05 SF Mayor Gets Summons For Illegal March
UT 10/21/05 Hain Under Fire From Allister
BT 10/22/05 Shoukri Allowed To Return To Belfast
BT 10/22/05 PSNI Man Studies Peace In South Africa
BT 10/22/05 Final McCartney Sister Moves Out
BB 10/22/05 Loyalists 'Must Follow' IRA Move
BT 10/22/05 Empey Warns Of A Threat To Unionism
BT 10/22/05 Sir Reg To Meet Loyalists
BT 10/22/05 Flags Still An Issue, Claims Councillor
DJ 10/21/05 Coshquin: A Father's Story
TH 10/21/05 Hume: A Towering Pillar Of Peace
NH 10/21/05 Opin: Unionist State Brought About The Troubles
NH 10/15/05 Opin: Same Old Story?
NH 10/22/05 Opin: Gerry Kelly - Make Process A Success
BT 10/21/05 Opin: Nationalists S/B Slow To Use Nazi Analogy
IO 10/22/05 Young People Unite To Discuss Peaceful Ireland
IT 10/22/05 Joint Website Aims To Encourage Dialogue
BB 10/22/05 New Rathmore School Has Touch Of The Past
TO 10/21/05 Aoife Clancy Plays First Encounter On Sat

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=666113

Finucane Probe Delayed By Lack Of Inquiry Judge

Drive forces legal experts to snub hearing

By Chris Thornton, Political Correspondent
cthornton@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 October 2005

A CAMPAIGN to discourage judges from taking charge of the
inquiry into Pat Finucane's murder appears to have
handcuffed the Government's plans for setting up the probe.

Two years after the inquiry was recommended by retired
Canadian Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory, the Government
has been unable to appoint a judge to oversee the case.

Sources close to the case say numerous judges have been
approached about conducting the inquiry - looking at
collusion in the solicitor's 1989 murder - but so far all
have declined to take part.

The judges' reluctance appears to be the result of an
international campaign by the family of the murdered
solicitor and Amnesty International, who said the inquiry
would be "a sham".

The campaign to discourage judges from taking the case was
launched in response to the Inquiries Act, the special
legislation passed six months ago for holding the Finucane
probe.

The family and human rights groups objected to the
legislation, saying it increased the Government's ability
to control the information that went before the inquiry.

Bloody Sunday Inquiry chief Lord Saville is among the
senior legal figures who have objected to the Act and
Justice Cory said it would make a proper examination of the
Finucane case "impossible".

Preparations for the inquiry are continuing. The
investigation team under former Metropolitan Police
Commissioner Lord Stevens - the detective who uncovered
collusion in the case - is currently indexing all the
material they found during the years spent investigating
the Finucane murder and other collusion cases.

But finding a judge to chair the inquiry appears to remain
a stumbling block.

However, Ministers insist they will not be going back to
the drawing board.

A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office said: "We are
currently taking forward arrangements for the establishment
of the inquiry.

"The Secretary of State hopes to make an announcement on
its terms of reference and membership in due course."

Two years have passed since Justice Cory recommended an
inquiry into the case.

The Government held on to his report for six months before
publishing it.

Then in September 2004 the then Secretary of State, Paul
Murphy, announced plans for the Inquiries Act, which he
said would allow the Finucane case to be conducted
"speedily and effectively".

The legislation was pushed through Parliament in April,
days before Westminster broke up for the general election.
Around the time it was passed, a senior British official
told the UN Human Rights Commission that a "large
proportion" of the inquiry would have to be held in secret.

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

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/1022/248937426HM1EASTER.html

Taoiseach Reinstates 1916 Easter Parade Past The GPO

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has announced the reinstatement of
the traditional 1916 Easter Parade involving the Army
marching past Dublin's GPO, in an attempt to reclaim
traditional republicanism from Sinn Féin, writes Mark
Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent in Killarney.

To enthusiastic applause at the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis last
night, Mr Ahern declared that this annual parade -
discontinued after 1970 - will take place again every year.

"The Irish people need to reclaim the spirit of 1916, which
is not the property of those who have abused and debased
the title of republicanism," he said.

The PD Ministers in Government are also strongly backing
the initiative, but Fine Gael and Labour said last night
that they would have expected to be consulted about such a
matter, and they had not been.

A PD spokesman said last night: "The Government, including
the Progressive Democrats, are very anxious that 1916 would
be properly commemorated and not allowed to be hijacked by
Sinn Féin and the IRA." From next Easter, the 90th
anniversary of the Easter Rising, the Government intends
that there will be a large-scale military parade through
Dublin, along O'Connell Street and past the GPO, the focal
point of the 1916 Rising.

The Government's move to reclaim traditional republicanism
comes amid concern in Fianna Fáil in particular that Sinn
Féin will make further electoral gains at its expense at
the next general election. In a pointed rejection of IRA
claims to be the successors of the men and women of 1916,
the Taoiseach said the Defence Forces are "the only
legitimate army of the Irish people . . . the true
successors of the volunteers". He received a sustained
round of applause after this remark.

The spirit of 1916 is "our State's inheritance. We must
protect it from those who will abuse it and from the
revisionists who would seek to denigrate it".

A large-scale Easter military parade used to take place
each year to commemorate 1916, but has not taken place
since the year after the eruption of the Northern conflict
in 1969. There was a small parade outside the GPO in 1991
to mark the Rising's 75th anniversary.

Mr Ahern emphasised Fianna Fáil's particular claim to be
the true inheritors of the spirit of 1916.

"Since its foundation, Fianna Fáil has rightly commemorated
the heroic struggle of the men and women of 1916. But it is
now time that we suitably recognise the self-sacrifice of
our forebears. Many of those who fought in 1916 became the
founding members of our party. We all know the names of de
Valera and Markievicz. We are also the party of Pádraig
Pearse's mother and sister." Signalling that this
initiative was designed to challenge Sinn Féin's claim to a
monopoly on traditional republicanism, the Taoiseach said
the spirit of 1916 was "not the property of those who have
abused and debased the title of republicanism".

He also announced that he would set up a "1916 Centenary
Committee" for a major celebration of the 100th anniversary
of the Rising in 2016. "A one-day commemoration is not
enough. We need to reflect our esteem for the men and women
of 1916 in a more permanent way."

© The Irish Times

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

http://www.sinnfein.ie/news/detail/11644

Gerry Adams In South Africa

Published: 21 October, 2005

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams MP speaking in South Africa
today said:

I want to deal with the Irish peace process but before
doing so I want to offer up some observations on the
international situation.

Irish republicans have always been firmly internationalists
- our roots lie in the French Revolution and the American
Revolution. Our core political value is based on the right
of human beings to be free citizens - liberated, empowered
and equal.

The founders of Irish republicans saw themselves as
citizens of the world and the Irish fight for freedom as
part of a worldwide struggle of humanity. That remains Sinn
Fein's view today.

For us the big central international struggle of our time
is to assert democratic control by people over the
decisions, which affect their lives. This means free
nations working together on the basis of equality, to
pursue this objective.

It means tackling the great social, economic and
environmental problems, which face us, by means of co-
operation between nations. It requires international
cooperation amongst states for real human development. It
means the developed world working in strategic partnership
with the developing world - not as an act of charity- but
as part of our duty and responsibility towards other human
beings.

The problems on this continent are a result of colonialism.
Irish people understand this. We were England's first
colony. So we have a natural affinity with other colonised
countries across the globe. We are delighted to see the
decline of the old empires but we are conscious that the
old imperial powers continue to seek ways to exploit their
former colonies.

We are conscious that as the rich countries of the west get
richer over one billion people live on les than a dollar a
day. Eleven million children under the age of five die each
year from preventable diseases. We know it is the poor who
suffer most from the natural disasters - many caused by the
environmental policies of richer countries. We know that
the big powers do not conduct themselves in a globally
responsible way.

We know that more money is expended on armaments and
military projects than on aid or fair trade policies.

But we believe that another world - a world of equals is
possible.

This requires a united nations which can assert an agenda
which reflects the true needs and interests of the peoples
of the world. In other words efforts to reform and
democratise the un must continue.

We believe there should be an end to war, a settlement in
the Middle East and an end to the occupation ofIraq.

We believe that foreign debts of developing countries must
be cancelled.

We believe poverty can be eradicated.

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

http://www.sinnfein.ie/news/detail/11636

SDLP Attempting To Stop Further Policing Change

Published: 21 October, 2005

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Policing issues Gerry Kelly has
accused the SDLP of "being part of a new policing
establishment opposing necessary progressive changes to the
current arrangements". Mr Kelly's remarks come after the
SDLP and Policing Board launched another attack on
Community Restorative Justice Programmes.

Mr Kelly said:

"Community Restorative Justice does not pretend to be an
alternative to an acceptable and accountable policing
service. Such projects are additional to a policing service
and are now common place across the world. Indeed the
Oversight Commissioner has praised the work of the schemes
currently operating here.

"The SDLP's opposition to Community Restorative Justice has
nothing at all to do with these schemes or the way they
operate. It is built upon a need to prevent further
necessary policing changes to justify their flawed decision
to jump too early onto policing. The SDLP have in effect
become part of a new policing establishment determined to
prevent the sort of changes necessary to deliver Patten and
deliver an accountable policing service.

"When the SDLP joined the Policing Board they claimed that
they would work for further changes from within. In effect
they are doing exactly the opposite. They are on one hand
trying to prevent further change while on the other
supporting the sort of political policing which sees the
PSNI deem the anti Catholic campaign in North Antrim as
neighbourly disputes or fails to act when former Special
Branchman Eric Anderson admits on television to the theft
of files in order to frustrate the work of the Police
Ombudsman's office.

"If the SDLP want to have a genuine debate on Community
Restorative Justice then lets have it. But they should stop
attacking what is regarded as a progressive and valued
community facility in an attempt to justify their own
flawed position on policing." ENDS

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

http://www.derryjournal.com/story/7611

Mayor Gets Summons For Illegal March

Friday 21st October 2005

The Mayor of Derry, Sinn Fein Councillor Lynn Fleming is
one of more than 20 republicans who have been summonsed by
the PSNI for taking part in a march to commemorate the H
Block hunger strike.

The march took place earlier this year and the organisers
contacted the PSNI to inform them that due to an oversight
permission had not been filed for.

Last night Sinn Fein MLA., Raymond McCartney, who it is
believed has also received a summons, hit out at the
decision to prosecute those who took part in the march and
contrasted this with the situation in Belfast.

Mr. McCartney said: "The actions of the PSNI in Derry stand
out in stark contrast to their inaction in Belfast when
faced with loyalist road blocks.

"Then the PSNI said they would not take action for fear of
annoying the loyalist community yet in Derry they can find
time to prosecute republicans for commemorating the hunger
strike."

He added: "It comes as no surprise that the PSNI and the
Crown Prosecution Service are proceeding with this case and
it is a clear example that political policing is still
alive and well.

"People are being prosecuted despite the fact that the
organisers themselves, and also through their solicitor,
contacted the PSNI to point out that the only reason the
march was not filed for was because of a simple oversight.
This is not the first time that something like this has
happened and I expect it will not be the last.

"I suppose the most obvious similarity was when a large
number of republicans were charged after the attempted
visit of the then British Prime Minister John Major to
Derry.

"All the republicans who will be in court in relation to
this charge will put forward the same defence as we did
then and we will expose the political policing of the
PSNI."

The Sinn Fein Assembly man continued: "Despite what the
PSNI may do I will guarantee that if there is a march or
rally to commemorate the sacrifices of the hunger strikers
then I will be there regardless of prosecutions or
whatever."

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

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=66314&pt=n

Hain Under Fire From Allister

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain was tonight accused
of being overtly pro-nationalist.

By:Press Association

In a hard-hitting attack on the minister, Democratic
Unionist MEP Jim Allister claimed Mr Hain found it
impossible to wean himself off a nationalist agenda.

And as nationalist SDLP deputy leader Dr Alastair McDonnell
challenged the DUP to publish their 64-page dossier of
demands to Downing Street, Mr Allister accused the British
Government of embarking on a strategy to demoralise
unionists.

The MEP told party colleagues in Newtownstewart, West
Tyrone: "Peter Hain among unionists is fast becoming as
distrusted and despised as Mo Mowlam, who was the last
Secretary of State so overtly pro-nationalist.

"In the end unionists could not and would not work with
her.

"Hain looks like he may be heading the same way."

Mr Allister said the Northern Ireland Secretary had a
lamentably blank scorecard in his efforts to win the
confidence of unionists.

"Indeed, all the signs are that he finds it impossible to
wean himself away from a nationalist agenda," the DUP MEP
claimed.

Mr Allister cited the release of Shankill bomber Sean Kelly
from prison on the eve of the IRA`s statement declaring an
end to its armed struggle in July as one example of the
minister`s move to appease nationalists.

He also condemned the tearing down of Army watchtowers in
the wake of the IRA statement, further plans to scale down
the military presence including the scrapping of three
Northern Ireland-based battalions of the Royal Irish
Regiment, the appointment of former Women`s Coalition
Assembly member Monica McWilliams as Chief Human Rights
Commissioner and moves to ensure that if Sinn Fein turns
down Policing Board seats next April that they will remain
in nationalist hands.

The MEP continued: "I see at work at least two Government
purposes.

"First, they hope that by heaping upon us increasingly
unacceptable manifestations of Direct Rule they will soften
us up to the point where we will meekly accept the failed
Belfast Agreement structures as being better than Green
Direct Rule.

"We must not fall for that ploy.

"Second, making unionist politicians appear impotent in the
face of unpalatable concessions spreads disillusionment,
diminishes the unionist vote and thereby serves the
Government`s purpose of facilitating the nationalist
solution.

"Remember this Government is pledged to legislate for a
unified Ireland if only the majority would acquiesce.

"Demoralising unionism is a key factor in their strategy.
It behoves us all to redouble our determination not to play
their game."

Mr Allister and his colleagues were tonight challenged to
publish their list of demands to the Government as efforts
continue to persuade the Reverend Ian Paisley`s party to
revive power sharing with nationalists following the
completion three weeks ago of IRA disarmament.

South Belfast MP Dr Alastair McDonnell said: "The SDLP has
always urged the two governments to engage with all
parties, rather than going the way of side deals which just
encourage the parties to seek concessions against each
other.

"We can now see where the flawed policy of side deals leads
- to the DUP presenting a 64-page list of demands to the
British Government.

"I challenge the DUP to publish their list so that we can
see just who they are negotiating for. Is it just for
themselves or for the whole unionist community?

"Is it perhaps for the Orange Order? Might there be a
single demand on the list which actually represents the
interests of all the people of the north?

"These are things we need to know if we are to build
confidence in the DUP`s political intentions."

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=666089

Shoukri Allowed To Return To Belfast

22 October 2005

SUSPECTED loyalist terror chief Ihab Shoukri will be
allowed to return to Belfast to live with his mother
despite police objections.

The 31-year-old defendant from Alliance Road, Belfast had
been barred from the city after agreeing to live in Larne,
Co Antrim, as part of his bail conditions while awaiting
trial on charges of being a member of both the UDA and UFF
loyalist terror groups.

Belfast Crown Court Judge Kevin Finnegan QC yesterday
altered Shoukri's bail so that he can live with his mother
in her Westland home in north Belfast to enable him to
visit his doctor.

However, as part of his new bail, Shoukri was also ordered
to keep out of the loyalist Shankill, Ballygomartin and
Crumlin Road areas of north and west Belfast.

Judge Finnegan said while police objected to the bail
variation because they "believe he holds significant
ranking in these organisations", it was his experience that
such "people of rank" leave the door-stepping of witnesses
"to the foot soldiers".

Other conditions surrounding Shourki's £11,000 bail remain
unchanged in that he must report three times a week to
police and observe a 7pm curfew.

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=666084

PSNI Man Studies Peace In South Africa

22 October 2005

A LARNE police inspector is the only PSNI officer to be
offered the chance to see how South Africa is moving
forward from years of conflict.

Inspector Noel Rogan, who has been involved for several
years with building community relations in Larne, has been
chosen for the Community in Transition trip, which leaves
this weekend.

The visit is funded by the International Fund for Ireland
and delivered by the Community Foundation for Northern
Ireland, a body which works to support people, strengthen
communities and build peace in the divided communities of
Northern Ireland.

Inspector Rogan - along with fellow Larne man, Bertie Shaw,
the chairman of Seacourt Community Council - will be part
of a 20-strong group from all over Ireland who have been
involved in their own communities and assisting them
through conflict.

"There are a lot of people who have now turned full circle
and are moving the community forward and helping to work
for prosperity," said Mr Rogan.

"If you can change the mindset it helps people to work
together a bit easier," he added.

South Africa's transitional experience will be shared with
the group as they take part in a programme which includes
meeting high-ranking government officials, police chiefs,
and local leaders.

They will look at the history of the communities and how
they are meeting the challenges of development, housing,
education and regeneration.

The group will also visit a prison, a radio station which
has helped focus public attention on the issue of Aids and
the Soweto Township's Women's Work Project.

They will also be able to enjoy a tour of a game reserve.

Noel Rogan said that he considered his selection for the
trip has been because of his work within the community in
Larne over the past five years or so.

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=666116

Final McCartney Sister Moves Out Following Threats

By Deborah McAleese
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 October 2005

THE last of Robert McCartney's sisters to remain in
Belfast's Short Strand last night said she was leaving her
home following months of sustained intimidation.

And Mr McCartney's partner Bridgeen Hagan, whose home was
picketed by protesters recently, is also planning to leave
within the next few weeks.

Paula McCartney said she was finding it increasingly
difficult living in an area where her brother's alleged
killers are still walking freely.

Last night Paula, her husband Jim and their five children
were packing up their belongings and are planning to be
moved out by Monday.

She is the last of the four McCartney sisters to leave the
area where their family ties date back 100 years.

Paula said: "The urge to not be here is getting stronger by
the hour. The fact that there's still people allegedly
involved in Robert's murder walking around, getting on with
their lives here in the Short Strand means we don't believe
that we can stay."

South Belfast MP Alasdair McDonnell said it was regrettable
that the family has had to leave the area where their
brother grew up.

He said: "The McCartney family has been applauded around
the world for their inspirational and courageous stand for
decency and humanity. Yet on their own doorstep these
people, whose family has lived on the Short Strand for a
generation, have been subjected to threats and intimidation
of a sickening nature and extent.

"At a time when the family was dealing with the loss of a
loved one in the vilest of circumstances, the McCartneys
rose above their own grief and sorrow to make a stand
against bullies and thugs. It is understandable but
regrettable that they now feel, despite support from
neighbours and the community at large, that they have no
choice but to leave the area were they, and Robert, grew
up"

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4366018.stm

Loyalists 'Must Follow' IRA Move

Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey has urged loyalist
paramilitaries to re-engage with the body overseeing the
decommissioning process.

Sir Reg said loyalists should respond to the IRA's latest
disarmament move.

He also said mainstream unionists could not be absolved of
responsibility for some people being drawn into the ranks
of loyalist paramilitaries.

Sir Reg was speaking to the BBC as the party holds its
first annual conference since he became leader.

Speaking to the BBC's Inside Politics programme before the
conference, Sir Reg said: "Loyalists should engage with the
decommissioning body.

"I think a lot of them now recognise that things have moved
on - times have changed.

"It's not possible to sustain their current position and
they did say over the years that in the circumstances where
the IRA were clearly moving off the field, they would
respond to that positively.

"I think the time has come to make that response."

Last month, General de Chastelain, the head of the arms
decommissioning body, said the IRA had now put all its arms
beyond use.

The general said he was satisfied the IRA had given up all
its weapons, and said he hoped loyalists would as well.

Loyalists are said to have an "on-off" relationship with
the general.

The two major loyalist paramilitary groups are the Ulster
Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association.

A number of guns belonging to the Loyalist Volunteer Force
were destroyed in 1998 in a token gesture of
decommissioning, but no further arms have been handed over
from any of the loyalist groups.

At the party conference, Lord Rogan has been re-elected as
UUP president.

He defeated the former South Belfast MP Martin Smyth by 309
votes to 118 votes.

The UUP also elected a new team of party officers.

The successful candidates were Basil McCrea, May Steele,
the former MLA Joan Carson and the Young Unionists Peter
Bowles and Kenny Donaldson.

The former Royal Irish Regiment officer, Colonel Tim
Collins, is to speak at the conference about the
disbandment of the regiment's home battalions later.

Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2005/10/22 11:07:45 GMT
© BBC MMV

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=666108

Empey Warns Of A Threat To Unionism

By Noel McAdam, Political Correspondent
nmcadam@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 October 2005

ULSTER Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey is today warning that
unionism faces its biggest threat in 20 years.

He will tell his party's annual conference unionism is in
danger of facing its worst period of isolation since the
years after the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement

In his first major party event since succeeding David
Trimble four months ago, Sir Reg paints a nightmare
scenario of unionism 'out in the cold'.

And he was preparing to bluntly remind activists the
party's election performances have been "awful" - yet some
members remain "in denial".

Sir Reg was telling his party members that the Government
would make a "big push" for devolution after the next
Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) report in January
and by the follow-up report around April, that republicans
"could be left smelling of rose-water."

And while the Assembly could face the prospect of being
closed, Sinn Fein could potentially be in sitting in a
coalition government with Fianna Fail after the next Irish
general election in around 18 months.

"So in less than two years you could have an Irish
Minister, supported by Sinn Fein, sitting across from a
British Minister, deciding what is best for Northern
Ireland, with unionists looking through the window."

Under fire after co-operating with Ian Paisley in the run-
up to the Whiterock Orange march, Sir Reg said there were
"deep divisions" with the DUP - but the parties could work
together where it made sense. But he said the DUP had yet
to achieve "anything strategic" for Northern Ireland.

"It has tapped into Protestant discontent and in some
circumstances created it and exploited it effectively," he
said.

"The DUP is learning some of the lessons of what we went
through and that a determined Prime Minister who believes
he understands the situation and had a parliamentary
majority is very hard to stop."

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=666107

Sir Reg To Meet Loyalists

By Noel McAdam, Political Correspondent
nmcadam@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 October 2005

SIR Reg Empey has offered to hold direct face-to-face
meetings with the leaders of the loyalist paramilitary
groups.

And he has told the Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence
Association and the Loyalist Volunteer Force that they must
decommission all of their terrorist arsenals.

"We have got to end all this and we will not have stability
until the issue is resolved," he said. In his party speech
Sir Reg was expected to say there was no doubt unionism
could not entirely wash its hands of the whole loyalist
question.

There had been "blood-curdling speeches" and promises of
political cover and young people went to "fight the IRA".

"Political unionism has to take responsibility for its part
of that legacy. The fact is the loyalist paramilitaries
said if the IRA decommissioned they would respond." he told
the Belfast Telegraph.

Sir Reg added: "The IRA has been defeated militarily
because you do not hand over your weapons to a commission
set up by your historic enemy."

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=666086

Flags Still An Issue, Claims Councillor

22 October 2005

THE SDLP vice-chairman of Banbridge council has threatened
to raise the issue of flag flying in the area with Police
Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.

Patrick McAleenan claimed that mixed areas of the town were
still bedecked with all kinds of loyalist flags although it
was October and the Loyal Orders had been given a lot of
leeway over the Twelfth.

Mr McAleenan said his party believed new legislation was
needed to outlaw provocative flag flying, but in the
meantime the police had to accept they had an important
role to play on the flags issue.

The councillor revealed that he had notified the PSNI about
flags which were still flying in parts of Banbridge and, if
action was not taken to remove them, he would be raising
the matter with the ombudsman.

"The police always say that they are doing their best on
flags in general and paramilitary flags in particula,r but
when it comes to the flying of flags in mixed areas there
are no suitable community structures to deal with the
problem," Mr McAleenan said.

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

http://www.derryjournal.com/story/7592

Coshquin: A Father's Story

By Eamon Baker
Friday 21st October 2005

On October 24th 1990 at Coshquin on the Derry/Donegal
border, six people were killed by the Provisional IRA:
Patsy Gillespie and Stephen Burrows, Stephen Beacham,
Vincent Scott, David Sweeney, and Paul Worrall (all of the
King's Regiment).

I remember my reactions at the time of the Coshquin bomb -
horror. The words 'human' and 'bomb' that didn't belong
together suddenly now riveted together. Who could have
masterminded this? Who could have carried this out? I
remember Kathleen Gillespie, her powerful dignity. I
struggled to imagine the horror for her, for her three
children Jennifer, Ciaran and Patrick. I kept my mouth shut
, said nothing much, mooched about asking myself somewhat
vainly how had the original struggle for human rights in
this city been transmuted into this nightmare war culture
with its considerable acceptance for branding human beings
'legitimate targets'. What part had I played in all of
this? My complicit silence, in its own little frozen way,
had swollen support for the Republican war effort over the
years. I was repelled by the thought of Patsy Gillespie
tied into his driving seat. I thought only a little though
of the horror for those five dead soldiers and their
families. They were far away. I knew Shantallow, Lenamore
where Patsy Gillespie had lived. I knew little of where the
British soldiers had came from. I had a steep failure of
compassion for those who were from outside my community. I
didn't wish them dead. I just didn't care enough. The names
of Derry dead and brutalised are well etched in my
mind/heart. It was and is impossible for me forget the
murdered of Bloody Sunday, the cynical travesty of Widgery,
I told and re-told myself the story of the oppression
inflicted upon my own community. The othersthe
British/RUC/the Unionist state were more or less 'the
enemy' even if I was not firing bullets, planting bombs or
even throwing stones.

And the horror of the Coshquin bomb has stayed with me.

Ralph says it was hard at first on these residentials to
speak about what had happened to his son and the five
others who were blown up at Coshquin, to speak about how
his life had been after that. It was hard to get his story
out. It was hard too to hear other stories of other losses.
The process became therapeutic for him even while he knows
that these gatherings were not set up to serve as therapy
groups. The strength of these workshops says Ralph is that
the people on them, people from all corners of the conflict
here, have experienced things like he has experienced, gone
through hell like he has. There were people there who
'could cry with him' instead of wanting to lock him up in a
mental hospital. The counsellors/ psychiatrists that he had
encountered had no idea. These people did.

Ralph drives a bus in Blackpool now. He dreads the
anniversary of the Coshquin bomb and he is putting energy
into trying to understand what has gone on here over the
past thirty five years and more. He continues to be in
touch with Towards Understanding and Healing and the
Glencree Centre.

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

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/49303.html

A Towering Pillar Of Peace

Alison Rowat

SOME lives are destined to be played out in front of the
cameras and written into the history books. John Hume's has
been one of them. For nearly 40 years his efforts to bring
peace to Northern Ireland brought him into contact with
almost as many prime ministers and presidents as ordinary
people and cameramen.

Throughout it all, Hume never seemed to be without the
troubled look that had become his trademark. Even when he
was about to receive the Nobel Peace Prize with David
Trimble in 1998, he looked like a man with the world on one
shoulder and the rest of the planets jostling for space on
the other. He was a worrier to the manner born.

Not any more, it seems. Sitting in the Grosvenor Hotel in
Glasgow yesterday, his main concern is the tea and coffee
that has been ordered. "Tell me," he says deadpan, "does
water take longer to boil in Scotland?"

Gone is the skinny kid who marched for civil rights and the
hungry young politician keen to make his mark. Gone, too,
is the rumpled statesman. In their place sits a man who
looks suspiciously at peace with himself. Not that he
considers the peace process to be a done deal – or his part
in it to be over.

The process is now in one of its familiar parking spaces by
the side of the road. The IRA guns have gone, the
Democratic Unionists are unimpressed and devolution remains
suspended. The stalemate troubles Hume. "For the first time
in history, despite a quarrel that has lasted for
centuries, the people of Ireland have spoken as to how they
wish to live together by voting overwhelmingly for the Good
Friday agreement. It is the duty of all true democrats,
north and south, to implement the will of the people."
Messrs Adams and Paisley, London and Dublin, should
consider the gauntlet thrown down.

Saying farewell to life as an MP and MEP, as Hume did last
year, has left more time to spend with his wife, Pat, five
children and 12 grandchildren. Not that he will ever quite
be the retiring, or shy, type. At the age of 68 he will
still get on a plane to support a deserving cause, and
there are few worthier in his eyes than credit unions.

Hume was in Glasgow to deliver the inaugural Bert Mullen
lecture, named after the founder of the first credit union
in Scotland. Mullen, a painter and decorator from
Drumchapel, wanted to keep poor people in search of loans
out of the jaws of loan sharks.

He had heard about the flourishing credit union movement in
Ireland and asked for advice. The first, and one of the
most successful of the Irish unions, was the one founded in
Derry by Hume and four friends in 1960.

Hume had just come back from university. "I'll never forget
the first meeting," he said. "I was 23 years old and I had
this great idea I knew existed in America and elsewhere.
When I finished speaking, people all laughed at me and
said, 'You're mad young fella, nobody will pay you back'.
Four people agreed with me so I said right, let's empty our
pockets. We had £5, one shilling and ninepence between us.

Today, Derry Credit Union has 25,000 members and £70m in
savings."

Talk of Mullen brings to mind Hume's own family of hard-
working men. His great-grandfather, Willie, emigrated from
Scotland to Donegal to work on the railways. Years later,
John's father, Sam, would cross the sea in the other
direction to work in Glasgow's shipyards. When he made it
back to Derry, he seems to have become a one-man Citizens
Advice Bureau, helping the community in any way he could.
Hume inherited this public service ethos, initially
training for the priesthood before deciding the life was
not for him and becoming a French teacher.

Hume was one of the new generation of educated young
Catholics who set out to end the blatant discrimination
they saw around them. Establishing a credit union was part
of that process (as was, on a lighter note, the formation
of the Derry Dancing Club, where he met Pat). It was not
all bread and butter politics. He was dazzled, for a time,
by the romance of radical nationalism, in all its flag-
waving, poetic splendour, but a few words from his father
brought him back to earth. "You can't eat a flag," he was
told.

It was 1968 and the only place for angry young men to be
was on the streets. Hume quickly rose to prominence in the
civil rights movement. He was a good organiser and speaker.
Most importantly, he could bring people together. He
learned the hard way what it felt like to be on the wrong
end of RUC tear gas and water cannon. It was not to be the
last time he tasted violence. In the most serious
incidents, he had a gun pulled on him and his home
firebombed.

Regardless of the dangers, Hume did not turn back.
Throughout the course of his career he would have praise
and calumny heaped on him in equal measure, especially
after it emerged he had been having secret talks with Gerry
Adams. At various times, one side called him a
collaborator, the other a fool. Those were among the kinder
epithets. Yet he stuck with it.

What is remarkable about Hume's political ideas is their
consistency. He set out believing that the only way to end
the violence in Northern Ireland was through power sharing,
and the only way to a united Ireland, if that was what the
people wished, was through consent. It would take a
generation, and almost 3000 people to lose their lives, for
those basic ideas to be brought to life in the Good Friday
Agreement. His only regret is that it did not come about
sooner.

Even now he would get involved again. Asked if he still has
contact with the key players, and in particular Adams, the
diplomat in him comes to the fore. "I don't have fixed
links with people from all the parties, but if I meet them
at an occasion we have a chat." Could he be lured out of
retirement? "If there is anything I could do to help I
would certainly be prepared to do it."

Poor health might place a limit on his contribution,
although it does not seem to have stopped him travelling
the world to lecture on conflict resolution. He believes
the model that brought peace to Northern Ireland – respect
for differences, the setting up of institutions that
respect those differences, and working together in the
common interest – could be applied to any conflict. Even
that between al Qaeda and the west. The way to begin, he
says, is by each side stating that their objective was not
to defeat the other but to live together in peaceful
harmony.

Coming from anyone else, such a sentiment might seem naive.
But John Hume has walked the walk and talked the talk on
peace. He is living proof that the old Kennedy saying is
true. One man can make a difference, and every man should
try.

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

http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/Irelandclick/arts2005/oct21_Unionist_state_brought_about_troubles.php

Opin: Unionist State Brought About The Troubles

(Irelandclick.com)

This time last year I tried do get Fr Alec Reid to talk to
me about his role in bringing about the IRA ceasefire of
1994. He wouldn't do it.

I was making a television documentary for TG4 and had
managed to interview most of the protagonists, including
John Hume and Gerry Adams, former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds
and former British premier John Major, as well as former
military activists from the IRA and the loyalists.

Gerry Adams in particular – John Hume as well – was adamant
that Fr Reid had played an early and pivotal role in
bringing those two political leaders together in the hope
that they could agree on an alternative route for
nationalism that would allow republicans to consider
setting aside the gun and the bomb.

My programme aimed to show how that alternative was indeed
brought about, but Fr Reid declined to take part. I must
have spoken to him on four or five occasions to try to get
him to change his mind, but no dice.

He was particularly concerned that his recent role in
helping the Basque people develop their own Peace Process
might be jeopardised if it appeared that he was prepared to
talk to the media about sensitive issues with regard to the
Irish situation.

Even though the events I was interested in had taken place
more than 10 years previously, Fr Reid still said no. And
that was fair enough, we just had to go and make our
programme without him.

So you can see why I was quite surprised to see him
becoming embroiled in a slagging match on television with
Unionists.

I don't know Fr Reid. Aside from the few telephone
conversations I had with him last year in which I did my
level best to bring him on board for the Sos Cogaidh
programme, I have never spoken to him. Can't ever remember
meeting him, even.

But I know from talking to others that Alec Reid is a
thoroughly decent and honest person, a man so totally
opposed to violence that he spent his years – not to
mention his health – struggling to find a way to help bring
about a situation in which political violence no longer
played a part in Irish life.

There is no point at this stage further joining the media
past time of crucifying Fr Reid. Nor do I intend to add my
halfpenny worth to the debate of what he actually meant.

I could prove to you here and now that the way the
Unionists treated the Nationalists in the North from the
beginning of the state until the end of the Stormont regime
was akin to how the Nazis treated those opposed to them in
Germany. I could also prove the opposite.

I could even show that Unionists were treated in a Nazi-
like fashion by Nationalists. It doesn't matter. Father
Reid made comments that he regretted for the offence they
caused, and he made a full and contrite public apology.
Case closed.

But all that does not mean that the Troubles here were not
brought about by a particular situation.

There was a time – up until the Hunger Strikes of 1981, I'd
say – when the British were fond of portraying the IRA as
mindless men of violence.

Sort of pathological murderers and criminals who wreaked
havoc and devastation all around them because, well,
because that's the sort of people they were. Needless to
say, that whole ideal was a load of cobblers and the
British themselves abandoned it.

Some Unionists still adhere to this idea, however, and
continue to kid themselves that the only thing ever wrong
with Northern Ireland was those murdering Catholics who
tried to bomb their Unionist neighbours into a united
Ireland.

In fact, it was the behaviour of the Unionist government at
Stormont – with the active participation of many sectors of
the Unionist community – that caused the Troubles to come
about.

I don't even think it was partition, per se. Had the
Stormont authorities provided the Catholics of the Six
Counties with equality of employment, proper housing,
educational and cultural rights, parity of esteem. . . had
they made Northern Ireland a warm, Irish house for
Catholics and Protestants alike, then there simply would
not have been any war.

I am sure that Nationalists would have continued to lobby
for inclusion in the Irish nation, but without the
discrimination, the gerrymander, the bad housing. . .
without being denied the vote, or being treated as second-
class citizens. . . without the horrors of
institutionalised sectarianism there would have been no
armed, Nationalist revolt.

And had the state not taken up arms – both legally through
the police and army, and illegally through the loyalist
paramilitaries – in order to oppress the Catholic
population, the Nationalists would not have had to form and
sustain the IRA to protect them.

These things happened. The Northern state was sectarian and
corrupt to the core.

It was Orange, anti-Catholic and wrong. And it was nurtured
and sustained by the Unionist people, and the inevitable
result was war.

The Northern Ireland state, the Unionist state and the
Unionist people created the conditions that led to the
Troubles that resulted in death and devastation for almost
30 years.

Thank God it is over.

October 22, 2005
----

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web
site on October 21, 2005.

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

http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/Irelandclick/arts2005/oct14_same_old_story__ICrozier.php

Opin: Same Old Story?

(Ian Crozier, Irelandclick.com)

"Unionists in North Belfast are having to deal with the
same old Republican movement – petrol-bombing homes and
Orange Halls".

We had the same old soundbites – "historic", "momentous",
"unprecedented" – and the same old IRA frontmen rushing
around TV studios trying to tell us that they are good boys
now, that they are going to behave themselves and that now
we should be grateful and give them a few government
departments to run.

Meanwhile, Unionists in North Belfast were having to deal
with the same old Republican movement – petrol-bombing
homes, paint-bombing churches, stoning and petrol-bombing
Orange Halls.

The bottom line is that Unionists in North Belfast, as in
other parts of the country, need to see much more than a
few tired tricks using smoke and mirrors. We've seen it all
before and Republicans will have to do better than that.

As much as anything else, the issue of decommissioning was
about them providing a sign of intent, about making it
clear that the war is over.

They threw away their opportunity to do that. In any case,
what does it matter what the IRA is doing in some hole in
the ground in County Tyrone, if their people in North and
West Belfast are still waging war, attacking the Unionist
community, trying to drive Protestants off the streets and
out of their homes.

There has been much talk of alienation within the Unionist
community. This is true. Unionists are sick, sore and tired
of a peace process that simply delivers one concession
after another to Sinn Féin/IRA. They are sick of a British
government that panders to its enemies. But Republicans
should not confuse this alienation with defeatism, for the
reverse is true. Unionists in North and West Belfast are
more determined to resist the Republican advance than at
any point in the recent past. People are resolute that they
will not be pushed about any more.

The Unionist community is uniting around the strong
leadership of the DUP, which says we will have equality in
this peace process and we are no longer prepared to be
treated as second-class citizens in our own country.

They are fully supportive of the DUP campaign to have
Unionist areas rebuilt, right across North and West
Belfast: and the campaign is bearing fruit. Even now,
builders are on site in many areas and plans are being
developed for large scale investment in other Unionist
districts. There is also clear evidence that unionists are
starting to move back in from the suburbs.

The fact is that Republicans are rattled. They can see a
Unionist community that is becoming more cohesive and
confident: a community that has turned its back on weak UUP
leadership; and a community that is prepared to stand its
ground.

They can see a community that is starting to get results.
If they weren't rattled, they wouldn't be producing
propaganda complaining about the number of houses being
built in Unionist areas and claiming that the DUP has
imposed an Orange line in North Belfast, beyond which
Republicans may not pass.

Gerry Adams once said that the IRA hasn't gone away. Until
the unionist people see the evidence with their own eyes
and in their own districts, we will continue to assume that
they are still here. What Republicans need to know,
however, is that unionists are still here too.

We have taken everything that has been thrown at us over
three decades and we are still here: and we won't be going
away, you know.

October 15, 2005

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

http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/Irelandclick/arts2005/oct21_make_process_success__GKelly.php

Opin: Make Process A Success

(Gerry Kelly, Irelandclick.com)

Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly responds to Ian Crozier's platform
piece.

The DUP rhetoric is becoming tired and stale. The Peace
Process is not a one-way street it is about resolving the
conflict and providing a future away from the pain and
suffering that has left no community unscathed.

Equality, democracy, a new beginning to policing – it is
difficult to understand why there would be any level of
opposition to progress on any of these issues.

There has been a summer of sectarian violence – and the
facts show that the vast majority of attacks on homes,
property, schools and churches have been carried out by
unionists.

Not that I want to try and brush any attacks on the
protestant community under the carpet because I don't. Sinn
Féin have been unequivocal and forthright in our
condemnation of any sectarian attacks. In fact we have done
more than that, Sinn Féin representatives and activists
have stood side-by-side with the community to try and
manage interface tensions and reduce sectarian violence.

You have to ask where has the DUP been.

The answer is that they have been sitting down with the UVF
and UDA on the North and West Belfast Parades Forum. We all
saw the result of the tactics employed by that forum on the
streets of North and West Belfast in the wake of the Orange
Order attempt to force a sectarian parade through the
nationalist community on the Springfield Road.

At the same time their refusal to talk to the
representatives of the majority of nationalists sends out a
clearly sectarian signal.

There is a gaping hole in the arguments put up by the DUP
for not getting the Peace Process back up and running.

They complain about alienation. Yet it is only through
dialogue and getting the political institutions back up and
running that we will be able to really get to grips with
these issues.

We would do far more to sort out interface tensions and
tackle issues like poverty, housing, educational
underachievement through a local Assembly than we will ever
do thorough direct rule British ministers.

The questions for the DUP are clear – Do they want the
peace process to be a success and are they prepared to
provide positive leadership? Do they not have the
confidence in their own political position?

The truth is that the historic, momentous and unprecedented
initiatives from the IRA have liberated the peace process.
We need to build upon that momentum.

That requires the DUP to take their collective heads out of
the sand and take on they political responsibilities they
claim to aspire to. This means that they must begin to show
some positive leadership.

The DUP claim that they are representative of a new
confident unionism.

If that is the case then what are they running away from?
Let them sit down with Sinn Féin and work out a way to get
the institutions back up so that we can work to improve the
lives of all our people.

If their communities are saying that they have been left
voiceless it is wrong to criticise Sinn Féin because it is
unionism that has failed unionist areas.

I say with no small sense of irony that many would benefit
from the type of representation that Sinn Féin deliver.

October 22, 2005

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

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/columnists/eric_waugh/story.jsp?story=666006

Opin: Irish Nationalists Should Be Slow To Use Nazi Analogy

Eric Waugh
21 October 2005

Trafalgar Day? So what? An occasion for the Brits to beat
the drum? No doubt. But what has it to do with us?

Well, quite a bit actually. For one thing, one seaman in
every five aboard the British ships was Irish. Of the 850
crew on Vice Admiral Nelson's flagship, Victory, 88 were
Irish.

Not to mention Captain John Conn of Wexford, in command of
HMS Dreadnought; or Nelson's 34-year-old right hand man,
Captain (later Rear Admiral Sir) Henry Blackwood, commander
of the frigate, Euryalus, seventh son of Baroness Dufferin
of Clandeboye and Ballyleidy in Co. Down; or the young
Midshipman Bayly of Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, who served with
him.

In the battle which destroyed Bonaparte's invasion hopes,
Nelson's spine was shattered by a musket ball. Passing
through the left shoulder, the shot severed a main artery.

He was attended by the young William Beatty, another
Irishman and, at 32, already one of the finest surgeons in
the fleet.

As the cannon balls from the French and Spanish crashed
upon the Victory, an exhausted Beatty performed 102
operations in the cramped confines below deck.

But Beatty knew he could do little for the Vice Admiral.
There was no exit wound and it would be perilous to seek to
remove the musket shot.

At the age of 47, Nelson, the clergyman's son, already had
made a will. But aboard Victory on the morning of the
battle he added a codicil commending Lady Hamilton and his
child to the care of the nation. It was Blackwood he asked
to witness it. Afterwards they shook hands, the Vice
Admiral observing, with chilling prescience: "God bless
you, Blackwood. I shall never speak to you again."

I have been reflecting on all this in the light of our
recent bout of mutual, communal abuse. Unionists have been
likened to Nazis. It reveals how a notion of victimhood, if
inculcated and dwelt upon, can corrode the consciousness of
a people.

The Republic has cast itself as the victim of the British
for all of its 80-odd years: it still does. But it has
achieved this at the cost of wiping from its national
consciousness as much as it could of one half of its
heritage: the visibly British part. The irony that, in
1966, republicans imported French plastiqueurs, of all
people, to blow up the Nelson Pillar on O'Connell Street in
Dublin will not be lost on many.

Nowadays southern Protestants bristle at the slightest
Northern criticism of the South and laud their unalloyed
civil liberties. But the few disciples of the Anglo-Irish
tradition left, survive by keeping quiet: no poppies in
November please and no Union Jacks with the others outside
hotels.

History is taught through a haze of green. So some think
the unionists were Nazis. Good heavens, unionists could be
a disgrace: the residential vote in council elections
should have been abolished when the rest of the UK did it
in 1945. Basil Brooke should have employed Catholics.

Even so, the cry of one-man-one-vote in 1966 was a fraud:
no one was ever denied a Stormont or a Westminster vote,
though gerry-mandering denied nationalists council seats;
but even this was not all one way.

Fundamentally, in attacking the unionist record, account
must be taken of its context: for the new statelet was
faced in 1920 with a Dublin regime openly resolved to
render it unworkable.

At the time of his assassination in 1922, Collins was busy
perfecting plans for a trade war. The 21 nationalist
councils refused to carry out their functions.

The Catholic bishops refused formal recognition to Craig's
Government, refused to co-operate in the single schools
system he wanted and refused to sit on a committee on
future education policy.

When Craig announced that the new police force would have
one third of its places reserved for Catholics, there was
intimidation and few joined. The RUC was then condemned as
a sectarian force!

Of course if we had had the single schools system, one of
the fertilisers of the seed-bed in which the Nazi charges
grew would have been removed. Youngsters would not have had
a choice between green-haze history (Catholic schools) and
Ireland-as-seen- by-the-Brits (state system).

As it is, Irish nationalists should be slow to use the Nazi
analogy. Were not their wilder spirits allies of Hitler's
unspeakable hordes in the Second World War, slipping
details to Hempel's Nazi legation in Dublin about the
defencelessness of Belfast against air attack and the
extent of its strategic targets, not to mention those who
signalled Luftwaffe reconnaissance planes from Divis as
they flew low over Cave Hill, choosing their targets for
the slaughter to come?

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

http://www.online.ie/news/viewer.adp?article=3287884

Young People Unite To Discuss Peaceful Ireland

online.ie
2005-10-22 08:50:02+01

The youth wings of Labour and SDLP meet in Belfast today to
discuss a new Ireland free of sectarian division.

Both parties have been forging strong links in recent
months to promote a social democratic political agenda.

Labour Youth recently held a recruitment campaign in
Northern Ireland and attracted members from different
backgrounds and communities.

Labour Youth chairman Donal O'Liathain said: "It is
important, we feel, that people can express themselves in
politics in a peaceful fashion and look forward to a new
Ireland where people are united, free from sectarian
division.

"Young people North and South have been scarred by the
Troubles but we have the power to make the future a happier
one for all," he said.

Guest speakers at the event at Stormont include SDLP MLA
Patsy McGlone, Belfast deputy mayor Pat Convery and Ulster
Unionist Party member and former Irish rugby international
Trevor Ringland.

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

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/1022/4288476027HMBRITISH.html

Joint Website Aims To Encourage Dialogue

A website was launched by the British Council yesterday
aimed at exploring the "complex relationship" between
Britain and Ireland, through discussion and debate on
topics such as language, culture and sport.

The website, http://www.britainandireland.org/, was endorsed
by former Ireland international rugby player Trevor
Ringland, who said he hoped it would help foster dialogue
and mutual understanding.

Tony Reilly, director of the British Council, the UK's main
agency for promoting cultural relations, said he hoped it
would promote discussion, comment - and the odd row.

"Mention any topic, such as the support in Ireland for
British premiership soccer clubs to the growing popularity
of cricket in Ireland, and a range of varied, challenging
views emerge from all quarters.

"We want to provide an online space to facilitate these
conversations," Mr Reilly said.

© The Irish Times

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/4365124.stm

New School Has Touch Of The Past

Not many schools can boast state-of-the-art facilities
combined with an historic building which dates back to the
19th century.

However, thanks to funding from the department of
education, Rathmore Grammar in Belfast has been completely
rebuilt, with the historic Rathmore House as the focal
point of the campus.

Rathmore House has been put to many uses since it was first
built in 1874.

In the past it has been a family home, an officers' mess
and a convent.

King Edward VII is even reputed to have once danced in the
ballroom, where history lessons are now taught.

All of the rooms in Rathmore House have been fully restored
and their original features, including the grand fireplaces
and ornate plasterwork, preserved.

School principal Sister Ursula said the school's facilities
needed to be updated in order to allow the new curriculum
to be taught.

"We really did need a proper school to really deliver the
new curriculum," she said

"The department eventually, grant aided, allowed us to
build a new school and to retain the convent building.

"The convent building has been restored beautifully and now
houses history, politics and RE."

History teacher Gerry Devaney said it was a joy to be able
"to teach history amidst history".

"I think it is a tremendous experience for the pupils, when
they are doing history, that they are doing it in this kind
of environment," he said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2005/10/21 15:32:47 GMT
© BBC MMV

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

http://www2.townonline.com/brewster/artsLifestyle/view.bg?articleid=352252

Aoife Clancy Plays First Encounter This Saturday

Friday, October 21, 2005

The Clancy tradition of Irish music continues to live on
through Aoife Clancy, who will be performing at Eastham's
First Encounter Coffeehouse at 8 p.m.

Clancy brings a refreshing new voice to folk music,
one that ranges from traditional Irish songs to ballads and
contemporary folk. She comes from the small town Carrick-
on-Suir, in Co Tipperary, Ireland, where her musical career
began at an early age. Her father, Bobby Clancy of the
legendary Clancy Brothers, placed a guitar in her hands at
age 10, and by age 14 she was playing with her father in
nearby pubs.

Her career choice was environmentally, and perhaps,
genetically, predetermined. Her brother, Finbarr, tours
with the Clancy Brothers; her cousin, Donal Clancy, plays
with Solas; her cousin, Robbie O'Connell, has his own solor
career as well as playing with many other groups; and
cousin Colin Power is also a professional musician and
songwriter.

In 1995, Clancy was asked to join the acclaimed group
"Cherish the Ladies," which is one of the most sought-after
Irish-American groups in history. For the past two years,
she has toured extensively doing no less than 200 dates per
year throughout the U.S. and Europe. She has been a
featured soloist with orchestras such as the Boston Pops
and Cincinnati Pops and, while performing with Cherish the
Ladies, collaborated with the Boston Pops on their Grammy
nominated Celtic album.

Now with seven recordings under her belt in the last
decade, Clancy has clearly established herself as one of
the Divas of Irish and contemporary folk music. She has
recorded two solo projects - "It's About Time" and
"Soldiers and Dreams," both on Rego Records. On her debut
CD. "It's About Time," Clancy presents some traditional
favorites, such as "Factory Girl" and "Mrs. McGrath," but
also presents a sassy rendition of Leon Russelson's "Don't
Get Married Girls."

Currently, Clancy is touring with her own band in
support of her two Rego solo releases and her latest
Appleseed release, "Silvery Moon."

If you go ...

Who: Aoife Clancy
When: Saturday, Oct. 22 at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7:30
p.m.)
Where: First Encounter Coffeehouse (Chapel-in-the-
Pines), Samoset Road, Eastham
How much:$12 (children are free)
Information:508-255-5438 or http://www.firstencounter.org/

----
To receive this news via email, click HERE.
No Message is necessary.
To October 2005 Index
To Index of Monthly Archives
----

Links to News Sources Frequently Used Here:

(Irish Aires News is not responsible for
content of external internet sites.)

BBC Northern Ireland
Belfast Telegraph
Daily Ireland
Derry Journal
Financial Times
Galway Advertiser
Guardian
Ireland Online
Irish Abroad
Irish Aires News Search
Irish American Magazine
Irish American Information Service
Irish Echo
Irish Emigrant
Irish Examiner
Irish Independent
Irish News
Irish People
Irish Times
Irish Voice
News Hound
News Letter
Northern Ireland Office
RTE TV News
Sinn Fein News
Sunday Business Post
Times Online
Ulster Herald
Ulster-TV Headlines
Wild Geese Today



Posted by: Unknown / 7:18 AM
Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?