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January 20, 2006

Bailed Loyalist Is Dead Man Walking

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News About Ireland & The Irish

IN 01/20/06 Top Loyalist Bailed Is Dead Man Walking
BN 01/20/06 Ex-Minister Heckled At Coroner's Court
BB 01/20/06 Party Wants Model Government Vote
IT 01/21/06 Review Of Over 3,000 Unsolved Murders
NJ 01/20/06 British Band Opposed
BB 01/20/06 IRA Leak 'Does Not Match Reality'
GU 01/20/06 Concerns Over US Military Use Of Shannon
BB 01/20/06 Ex-Prisoner Admits Spade Killing
SV 01/20/06 Spooks, Spies, And Special Branch
IT 01/21/06 Ex-Bishop Casey Set To Return To Galway

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http://www.irishnews.com/access/daily/current.asp?SID=
514176

Top Loyalist Bailed But ‘Is Dead Man Walking’

By Barry McCaffrey

A SENIOR loyalist released on bail yesterday is under
a death threat from both the UVF and UDA, The Irish
News has learned.

Mark Haddock (36) – named in the Dail as a police
agent linked to a series of murders – was freed
despite a PSNI inspector warning that his release
could spark a loyalist feud.

The 36-year-old, from Mount Vernon in north Belfast,
had been on remand in Maghaberry prison since August
2003 awaiting trial for the attempted murder of
doorman Trevor Gowdy.

However, Haddock was released yesterday – on condition
he stays outside a total of seven council areas –
after it emerged he could not expect to stand trial
for another four months, as medical experts determine
if Mr Gowdy is well enough to give further evidence.

In November last year, Haddock’s Belfast Crown Court
trial was stopped after Mr Gowdy broke down in the
witness box.

At a previous bail hearing in October police claimed
that Haddock and his associates were no longer “as
well supported by loyalist paramilitaries as they once
were”.

The statement was seen as a reference to allegations
that he had worked as a Special Branch informant since
1991.

Irish Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte last year used
parliamentary privilege in the Dail to name Haddock as
an agent and link him to a series of killings,
criticising failures to arrest him.

However, defence barrister Barry Gibson argued
yesterday that he had already spent more than two
years in prison and could not expect his

trial to begin until May at the earliest.

Haddock was released on £5,000 bail and ordered not to
enter Belfast, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus, Larne,
Ards, North Down or Lisburn council areas.

He was also ordered to surrender his passport, report
twice daily to police and observe a 7pm curfew and an
alcohol ban.

A handful of loyalist supporters jeered at reporters
as Haddock hid his face when leaving court.

However, a senior loyalist source last night claimed
the UVF and UDA have already sanctioned his killing.

It has only now emerged that the decision was taken by
the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) – which
includes the UVF and UDA – at a meeting in Belfast in
November.

“He is a dead man walking and will not be safe
wherever he is,” the senior loyalist said.

“The evidence that he worked for Special Branch sealed
his fate and he has very few friends left.

“It would be a fatal mistake for him to go back to
Mount Vernon or to try and take over his old patch. He
knows the penalty for informing.”

Haddock had been held in solitary confinement in
Maghaberry prison since October 2005 following
concerns that his life was in danger from his former
colleagues.

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http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/01/20/story240766.html

Ex-Tory Minister Heckled At Coroner's Court

20/01/2006 - 18:02:51

Former Tory Minister Douglas Hogg was heckled in a
courtroom today by protesters demanding a full inquiry
into the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.

He ignored demands to explain his controversial
assessment weeks before the shooting that linked some
lawyers in Northern Ireland to the IRA.

Mr Finucane’s son John said he was appalled that Mr
Hogg had turned up in Belfast to represent the widow
of a soldier at a coroner’s court appearance.

“He has treated my family with complete disdain and
never offered an apology,” he said.

“My father was an officer of court in this
jurisdiction and I find it galling that Mr Hogg was
over here practising.”

Supporters raised placards with pictures of the
solicitor during the brief protest.

Members of the campaign group AnFhirinne (Irish for
Truth) shouted: “Do you remember a statement in the
House of Commons about some solicitors being unduly
sympathetic (to the IRA)?

“Do you still stand by those remarks, Mr Hogg?”

But the MP, a home office minister in 1989 when
loyalist gunmen murdered Mr Finucane at his north
Belfast home, made no reply as he left by a rear exit.

The group were at Belfast Coroner’s Court after
learning Mr Hogg, a practising barrister, was
representing the widow of a soldier.

The Eton-educated ex-minister provoked outrage with
his comments weeks before one of Northern Ireland’s
most controversial murders.

Former Scotland Yard chief Sir John Stevens, who
investigated allegations that the security forces
collaborated with the Ulster Defence Association
killers, found Mr Hogg had been compromised by RUC
officers who briefed him before his statement.

But relatives of Mr Finucane, who insist police were
involved in the plot, remain incensed by what was
said.

His son, a trainee solicitor, stayed outside the
courtroom protest but added: “If he was made to feel
uncomfortable for even a minute I would applaud that.

“Hopefully he will have to face a full and independent
public inquiry where he will have to account for what
was said.”

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-
/1/hi/northern_ireland/4632594.stm

Party Wants Model Government Vote

By Mark Devenport
BBC NI political editor

The Ulster Unionist Party has suggested to the
government the rules of the Stormont Assembly should
be changed to enable members to vote for their
preferred temporary alternative models of government.

Senior party sources say this would require fresh
legislation which should include a so-called "sunset
clause" to ensure a temporary system would end in May
2007, when the next assembly elections are due to take
place.

It is understood the party's preferred Plan B would
give assembly members the right to scrutinise laws
related to Northern Ireland and also give them
financial powers related to the budget of Northern
Ireland departments.

UUP sources say that if a reconvened assembly could
not form a full power-sharing executive, then it
should have the opportunity to vote on their proposals
or the ideas of any of the other parties.

The Ulster Unionists are not the only party to have
suggested alternative arrangements for refloating the
Northern Ireland Assembly.

The SDLP has proposed appointing unelected "civic
administrators" who could run local government
departments instead of direct rule ministers.

The DUP is due to hand Tony Blair a 16-page document
next Tuesday with its latest idea.

"Facing Reality" is understood to suggest a two stage
process in which the assembly could be brought back
with lesser powers; full devolution could follow once
the parties were confident that all sides were
committed to peaceful politics.

Sinn Fein has consistently argued that such "halfway
house" ideas were not consistent with the Good Friday
Agreement.

However, a senior UUP source argued that it was
dangerous to let the current vacuum continue. The
source said it was "humiliating and embarrassing" for
Northern Ireland politicians to continue to be kept by
the taxpayer, whilst a talking shop assembly was not
an option.

Modular devolution

The source said the current process had "no focus, no
deadline and no reason to take risks" and local
politicians were merely spectators as the economic
reality changed around them.

Although the UUP acknowledges that other parties may
object to their ideas, the party source said the
assembly should be given a role because "trust will
only be built when you work together, you can't build
trust at long range".

The UUP call their idea "modular devolution".

Apart from scrutinising laws and budgets, they
envisage a role for assembly members in the meetings
of north-south and east-west institutions.

The UUP believe that if the idea is given a fair wind,
Westminster could amend the current Stormont rules by
the summer, or by September at the very latest.

The inclusion of a "sunset clause" is designed to
reassure nationalists who will suspect that unionists
want to set up an alternative form of government, then
never allow the old power-sharing executive to be
restored.

Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2006/01/20 16:04:43 GMT
© BBC MMVI

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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2006/0121/425
7656207HM9UNSOLVEDMURDERS.html

Review Of Over 3,000 Unsolved Murders

Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor

A specialist team of detectives has begun an
investigation into more than 3,000 unsolved murders
committed during the Troubles.

The Historical Enquiries Team began its work yesterday
with a team of about 100 investigators and supporting
staff, and a budget of £30 million (€44 million).

They will take up to seven years to try to uncover
more about the 3,269 unsolved killings committed
before the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.

The PSNI hopes fresh investigations into the "cold
cases" will help bring some form of resolution to the
victims' families.

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said: "The families have
a right to know as much as we can tell them. If there
are lines of inquiry to follow which gives us an
opportunity to go to court, that team will deliver
against that . . . I do not for a moment underestimate
the complexity of this challenge or the potential
emotional stress for relatives associated with
revisiting these tragic events," he said.

"That is why families will sit at the very heart of
our investigations, and that is why our primary
objective will be to work with them to achieve some
measure of resolution for them."

The team will be led by Cdr David Cox, who has retired
from London's Metropolitan Police.

He said he understood that for many families the
reopening of the cases involving the deaths of their
loved ones could prove difficult. However, he hoped
the discovery of any new evidence surrounding their
loss could help everyone in Northern Ireland move on.

"That is why families will sit at the very heart of
our investigations, and that is why our primary
objective will be to work with them to achieve some
measure of resolution for them," he said.

The new police investigation will employ the latest
forensic and intelligence techniques and will be
divided into four stages.

These were described as: collection and assessment,
involving the recovery and examination of existing
records and exhibits regarding an unsolved case;
review - examination of cases to determine whether any
further investigative or evidential opportunities
exist; reinvestigation, further investigative work
focusing on the issues identified by the review
process; and judicial proceedings - in appropriate
cases, where possible, legal proceedings will be
initiated or alternatively there will be moves towards
resolution.

Northern Secretary Peter Hain welcomed the beginning
of the new inquiries into the murders. "All of them
will be investigated and there will be closure on
them," he promised.

However An Fhirinne, which represents the victims of
those who died as a result of collusion between the
security forces and loyalists, was critical.

Spokesman Robert McClenaghan said the new inquiries
team would not resolve so many cases.

"Those accused of murder are being asked to
reinvestigate themselves," he said.

"That is why the [ team] will fail to get to the truth
about collusion. Only an independent, international
inquiry will have the authority and confidence of
victims' families to get to the truth about collusion
and state murder," Mr McClenaghan said.

© The Irish Times

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http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/
news-4/1137774205223430.xml&coll=5

British Band Opposed

Friday, January 20, 2006

By Tom Hester Jr.
Staff Writer

A local Irish organization yesterday demanded Mercer
County Executive Brian Hughes halt plans by the
county-owned Sovereign Bank Arena to host a Monday
concert featuring a British army band.

Hughes expressed disappointment the band is slated to
appear, but said signed contracts, monetary deposits
and ticket sales made it impossible to cancel the show
without the county risking legal liability.

"There certainly would be some exposure to the county
if we would cancel it at this late date," said Hughes,
an Irish-American involved in many local Irish
activities.

The Ancient Order of Hibernians of Hamilton plans
Monday to bring 30 to 50 protesters to the arena an
hour before the 8 p.m. concert. They called on people
to boycott the show during a protest at the State
House yesterday.

"We despise Sovereign Bank Arena's use of taxpayer
money to promote repression of Irish independence and
the murder of its citizens and the terror it brings to
the streets of Northern Ireland," said Jim McFarland,
a past local and state president of the Hibernians.

Monday's event is entitled "The Black Watch, 1st
Battalion: The Pipes, Drums and Highland Dancers." The
band is comprised of active British army soldiers. The
regiment has existed for 250 years. It served two
stints in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

Hughes said he looked into whether the show could be
canceled because of lackluster ticket sales, but, as
he stated, found legal concerns. He said he also
didn't know if the county could pick and chose what
groups use the building.

"It's a public facility," Hughes said, also noting it
was paid for with county-backed bonds.

Hughes said he wasn't involved in discussions to
schedule The Black Watch's performance and understands
"the very strong feelings that some of the folks have
about The Black Watch."

But he noted, "I represent the whole county."

Still, he questioned whether the band will return to
the arena just off Route 129.

"We will certainly review the Black Watch's future
coming to Mercer County," Hughes said.

This is the second time the Hibernians have protested
such a show. They protested an arena concert by the
Band of the Grenadier Guards in 2003.

"While we are grateful for the support of the British
in our fight against worldwide terror, we despise
Sovereign Bank Arena's decision to present The Black
Watch bagpipe band for what they represent to Irish
Americans - the death and carnage the British army has
brought to the streets of Northern Ireland, the denial
of employment opportunities, false imprisonment, homes
raided, children and families threatened and the fight
of thousands of citizens for generations," McFarland
said.

Band officials couldn't be reached for comment
yesterday. In 2003, the Grenadier Guards declined to
comment on the protest.

NOTE: Contact State House bureau chief Tom Hester Jr.
at thester@njtimes.com or (609) 777-4464.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-
/1/hi/northern_ireland/4633762.stm

IRA Leak 'Does Not Match Reality'

A leak from a confidential Policing Board meeting over
IRA activity bears "little resemblance" to reality,
the NI secretary has said.

Peter Hain was speaking for the first time about the
row involving Security Minister Shaun Woodward and the
board.

It follows the refusal of a senior PSNI officer to
accept Mr Woodward's view that the IRA as an
organisation was no longer involved in crime.

But Mr Hain told the BBC everyone was now waiting for
the IMC's assessment.

The Independent Monitoring Commission is due to report
early next month.

"We cannot rely on leaks from the Police Board without
any record of what was actually said," he said.

"The leaks bear very little resemblance, if any, to
what I understand actually occurred there.

"What is very clear is that the chief constable, his
chief investigating officers, my security minister and
myself are all at one in awaiting the outcome of the
Independent Monitoring Commission report which will
make as assessment.

"Then we will all be able to form a judgement."

The Policing Board remains at odds with Mr Woodward.

A police briefing to the board said the IRA was
involved in organised crime, but last month Mr
Woodward said the IRA is no longer involved in such
activity.

Mr Woodward wrote to the board and said there was a
distinction between the actions of individuals and the
"intention of organisations".

Board chairman Desmond Rea said this did not address
the board's concerns.

On Thursday, Sir Hugh Orde defended Assistant Chief
Constable Sam Kinkaid's assessment of IRA involvement
in organised crime.

Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2006/01/20 22:34:06 GMT
© BBC MMVI

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1691805,00.html

Concerns Grow In Ireland Over Use Of Shannon Airport
As US Military Stopover

· 330,000 US troops passed through airport in 2005
· State denies knowledge of CIA rendition flights

Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Saturday January 21, 2006
The Guardian

Irish politicians and human rights activists are
voicing growing concern at the US military's use of
Shannon airport after it emerged that an average of
900 soldiers a day passed through the commercial west
coast airport last year.

Groups of American soldiers in desert fatigues sipping
Coca-Cola in the departure lounge or browsing the
duty-free shop on their way to and from Iraq are now a
familiar sight at Ireland's second-biggest airport.
Government figures show that around 330,000 troops,
more than double that of 2004, passed through the
airport last year as military planes stopped and
refuelled.

Peace campaigners say most soldiers being transported
between the US and Iraq now pass through Ireland,
making it the favoured European stopover and calling
into question Ireland's neutral status.

Until recently, many councillors on Ireland's west
coast stressed the economic benefit of the stopovers,
which generated an estimated €37m (£25m) for the
airport last year.

The former Labour mayor of Shannon, Gregg Duff, said
those opposed to the presence of GIs had been accused
of not caring about local jobs and endangering the US
investment which fuelled much of the Celtic Tiger
economic boom. In one local radio debate, a Fianna
Fáil party activist warned that US businesses would
pull out of the west of Ireland if locals were seen as
hostile to troops.

But amid new concerns that Shannon may have hosted CIA
"rendition" flights carrying prisoners to countries
where they could be tortured, local politicians have
changed their tone. Town councillors, warning that the
region's reputation is being damaged, have unanimously
approved a motion calling on the government to inspect
US planes at the airport. Clare county council has
seen wide support for a motion demanding that the
Irish army inspect every CIA-chartered flight.

Fine Gael's Martin Conway, who raised the motion at
Clare county council, warned that Shannon's
international standing was at risk. "I would prefer to
see US troops not use Shannon at all," he said.

Brian Meaney, of the Green party, said: "You can't
allow an airport's future to depend on selling
sandwiches to soldiers. People have a notion of Irish
neutrality, and they think it is being undermined and
sold out."

The Irish Human Rights Commission and the Council of
Europe have called on the government to seek US
agreement that every plane suspected of transporting
prisoners will be inspected.

A spokesman from Dublin's department of foreign
affairs said the government strongly condemned torture
and had received "explicit, unambiguous and
unqualified" assurances from the US that no prisoners
had been transported through Irish airports.

Six CIA-chartered planes have landed at Shannon 43
times over the past four years, according to the
government. But Amnesty International believes the CIA
landed 50 times at Shannon between September 2001 and
2005.

Last month, peace activist Cindy Sheehan visited
Dublin demanding that the Irish government inspect CIA
flights. She said her son stopped at Shannon on his
way to Iraq and described the airport in his last
unposted letter. The US academic Noam Chomsky this
week told a Dublin audience that if Shannon was being
used by the CIA to transport prisoners, Ireland would
be participating in a war crime as defined by the
Nuremberg tribunal. Such was the demand to hear him
speak that 4,000 people were turned away.

Edward Horgan, a former Irish soldier who served with
UN peacekeeping missions for 22 years before leading a
campaign against US military use of Shannon, said up
to 100 peace activists had been prosecuted in Ireland
since 2002.

After two retrials, Mary Kelly, an Irish nurse, was
found guilty of criminal damage for taking an axe to a
plane at Shannon. She plans to appeal. Five protesters
accused of damaging another US plane at Shannon are
awaiting their third trial after the second collapsed
when defence lawyers suggested that the judge had been
invited to both George Bush's presidential
inaugurations and attended the first one in 2000.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-
/1/hi/northern_ireland/4632724.stm

Ex-Prisoner Admits Spade Killing

A former paramilitary prisoner, freed under the Good
Friday Agreement, has been jailed for life after
beating a man to death with a spade.

Ralph Phillips, 40, and from Leamount Park in
Banbridge, admitted murdering Adrian Thompson, 29, on
New Year's day in 2004.

Dungannon Crown Court heard Phillips and Rodney
Clarke, 34, beat him with spades after a row.

Clarke, also from Leamount Park, was also sentenced to
life.

The court heard the duo encountered Mr Thompson as he
was walking home at about 0430 GMT.

Phillips sent his girlfriend, Tracey Marshall, 26, to
fetch a baseball bat from their nearby home. He then
struck Mr Thompson with the bat.

The court was told, however, that Mr Thompson had been
able to get to his feet and started to walk off.

'Unjustified and underhand'

Philips and Clarke then grabbed two spades from a
garden and began to beat Mr Thompson.

After the assault, they walked off with the spades
over their shoulders.

Sentencing both men to life, the judge, Mr Justice
Deeney, said Mr Thompson had been the victim of an
"unjustified and underhand act of vicious and
gratuitous violence".

Phillips' girlfriend pleaded guilty to affray, assault
and having an offensive weapon.

She was given an 18-month suspended sentence.

Clarke's girlfriend, Joanne McMullen, 20, also of
Leamount Park, has pleaded guilty to similar charges
and will be sentenced next month.

Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2006/01/20 16:40:17 GMT
© BBC MMVI

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http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/25
90/1/145/

Spooks, Spies, And Special Branch

By Socialist Voice

The peace process continues to be stalled as both
governments attempt to put the pieces back together
and get the Executive and Assembly running again. The
British Secretary of State, Peter Hain, has stated
that he intends cutting off the salary of members of
the Assembly if the Executive and Assembly are not
operational later this year.

Unionists, in the form of Paisley's DUP, are sitting
tight, hoping that events will somehow go away. They
continue to make forlorn calls for the SDLP to open up
discussions on re-establishing the Executive without
the Sinn Féin members. It is a sign of how out of
touch they are with the reality of the nationalist
community in the North: such a move would be the final
nail in the coffin of an already weakened and
vulnerable SDLP.

The UUP under Reg Empey's leadership started off
shakily, falling in behind Paisley last summer during
the marching season; but he subsequently managed to
extricate himself from Paisley, using the violence of
the Orange marches to push his agenda.

The IRA wrong-footed all its critics when it finally
completed its decommissioning of its weapons; yet we
still had no movement from the Unionists or the
British. What both the British and the Irish
establishment want is the decommissioning of
Republican politics, which is far more vital than the
weapons.

Just before Christmas three members of Sinn Féin who
faced charges of spying on members of the police and
prison service as well as Unionist politicians had the
charges against them dropped. The raid on the Stormont
offices of Sinn Féin was a highly publicised one, with
television cameras following every move. All they
managed to find was one computer disk. This raid led
to the collapse of the Executive and the suspension of
the Assembly.

Then we had the bombshell. One of those arrested for
spying at Stormont was a British agent who worked for
the RUC Special Branch and British military
intelligence for nearly three decades and was a senior
member of Sinn Féin. Given the evidence that has now
emerged, this is little short of a coup d'état by the
British state. The overthrowing of democratic
institutions by the secret police is breathtaking in
its scope and raises profound questions about
democracy. It also exposes the fact that the state
itself is an active agent in the policies, operating
in the interest of powerful economic forces.

Shortly before the dropping of these charges we had
the much-publicised raids on the homes of a number of
Republicans in the south Down area in connection with
the Northern Bank robbery at Christmas 2004.

Denis Donaldson was outed by the PSNI Special Branch
when they claimed the IRA was about to take action
against him. This action by the Special Branch could
only have been designed to split Republicans and sow
maximum suspicion and division within their ranks. It
follows on the outing of Freddie Scappaticci as a spy
within the IRA leadership.

The outing of Donaldson was quickly followed by more
visits to the homes of senior republicans to inform
them that their life was in danger from the IRA for
spying for the British and the RUC Special Branch. Or
maybe it was to tell them their television licence had
expired; the damage would be done, the impression
given; the result would be the same. Donaldson was now
of little value to the Special Branch and was
expendable.

The outings would also provide renewed evidence that
intelligence-gathering could show that the IRA was
still active and armed, so undermining the
decommissioning that took place over last summer. Then
the Irish Special Branch got in on the act with clever
leaking to the press that a member of the Sinn Féin
leadership, Caoimhín Ó Caoláin, worked for them. All
this was aimed at sowing maximum confusion and
suspicion of the Sinn Féin leadership. Who could be
trusted at the top of the Republican movement?

Former members of the Republican movement writing in
papers and appearing on radio and television, giving
their tuppence-worth, are saying that they knew all
along that this or that individual was a spy,
speculating that surely there must be more spies at
the top and so fuelling the tension and confusion. It
is grist to the mill of the British security campaign
against Republicans.

Then we had the former Unionist MP John Laird naming
people whom he believed to be prominent Sinn Féin and
IRA members who are part of some great conspiracy to
infiltrate and take over the media in the South. This
felon-setter hides behind the privilege of the British
House of Lords to leak Special Branch, military
intelligence and political police reports. This is all
aimed at breaking Republicans and imposing a solution
that is in the interests of the British and the Irish
establishment.

The whole political process over the last decade was
to bring Sinn Féin into the political process, and to
emasculate and marginalise it, to confine any
political settlement within the Six Counties, with
minimal cross-border co-operation. The SDLP and UUP
would be the permanent parties of government. But if
Donaldson's role was to steer Sinn Féin into the
political wilderness, as the dissident republicans
claim, he did a pretty poor job of it. Throughout all
this the republicans have maintained their unity and
kept their shape. This has clearly failed as a
strategy, and Sinn Féin has grown in political
strength, both north and south.

Republicans need to maintain their unity, but they
also need to reach out and attempt to get beyond the
unionist establishment's grip on the Protestant
working class and to address their concerns. It is
important to continue to point out that the Catholic-
Nationalist community continues to suffer from the
decades of unionist misrule; at the same time they
need to address the fears, real or otherwise, of
working-class Protestant communities who feel they
have not got and are not getting a fair deal. It needs
to be pointed out at every opportunity that the
marginalisation and social deprivation in many
working-class areas is a result of decisions made in
London, which have been supported by all shades of
unionism, and that it is local representatives going
forward, making decisions and being accountable to the
people that is the best way to undermine unionism. The
challenge is whether republicans really take up the
mantle of Tone and the democratic politics he espoused
or whether they are nothing more than Catholic
nationalists. The unionist establishment have as much
contempt for working-class Protestants as they have
for working-class Catholics.

The Southern establishment is clearly concerned about
Sinn Féin, with the three-and-a-half establishment
parties in the Dáil all singing from the same hymn-
sheet. There is a large element of class self-interest
in their attitude to republicans. They know that
political forces that have been dormant for decades
have become activated, and that this is not good for
them.

Now is the time for the maximum unity of all those who
wish to see a united state established and the
building of an all-Ireland democracy, centred on the
needs of working people and not tiny elites.

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

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2006/0121/br
eaking6.htm

Ex-Bishop Eamonn Casey Set To Return To Galway

By Lorna Siggins Last updated: 21-01-06, 01:00

Former bishop of Galway Dr Eamonn Casey (78) plans to
return to live in the diocese, almost 14 years after
he quit in controversial circumstances.

He is expected to move to the south of the diocese,
but will not be able to work while an inquiry
continues into child abuse allegations made against
him late last year.

It is understood that Dr Casey is confident that his
name will be cleared on foot of the inquiry being
conducted in Limerick.

Bishop of Galway Dr Martin Drennan could not be
contacted for comment last night, and Catholic
Communications Office spokesman Martin Long said he
could neither confirm nor deny the report. But it is
understood Dr Casey has been in touch with Church
authorities.

He has returned to Galway privately several times and
his experiences have led him to believe he will
receive a sympathetic response from former
parishioners. Another consideration last night was the
generally understanding attitude shown in east Galway
earlier this week when it was confirmed a 73-year-old
priest had fathered a child.

Dr Casey was ordained as a priest in 1951. He worked
in Britain for a period where he was active in social
housing and Irish emigrant circles, and was appointed
bishop of Kerry in 1969. During his tenure in Kerry,
he developed a relationship with Annie Murphy, but the
affair and birth of a baby son, Peter, was unknown
when he was appointed bishop of Galway in 1976.

© 2006 ireland.com

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