Conflict

Conor Lally in today’s Irish Times has an interesting story on the IRA’s alleged money laundering operations (subs needed). Given the long lead times that are common for such complex investigations, it seems unlikely that any of this will tip the current political apple cart. But a long fuse has been lit here. If and when prosecutions arise, the effect could be politically explosive! IRA extortion demands from companies of up to €400,000 per year are not uncommon. A single …

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Paul Colgan anticipates how the mechanics of the IRA decommissioning is likely to run, with bookends statements from John de Chastelain stating when it begins and ends. Additionally, “two clergymen one Protestant and one Catholic will give public statements confirming that they have witnessed decommissioning and that the weapons disposed of match up with the IICD’s declared inventory of IRA weapons”. With the arms dumps in question more fragmented than in previous acts, it looks like it will take some …

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Jim Cusack, with a telling anecdote on Gerry Fitt’s ad hoc approach to politics. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

At last. The IRA is to finally dump all weapons. According to the Guardian it is to start within days, and should be complete within the next two weeks. The Sunday Times reports that preparitory internal moves have begun already. What most striking is that this move is now not likely to be the deal maker or breaker. The DUP, the party democratically enfranchised to pass or fail the IRA’s moves, has a longer term game in mind. The activity …

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I wonder if the Irish News had discovered what the mysterious flags erected on the Ormeau Road were a day earlier would this riot have happened?! During the trouble, loyalists threw petrol bombs into the police car park opposite Donegal Pass PSNI station. Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com

Rather belatedly, we have Alex Kane’s Newsetter column for 20th August. He believes that the Loyalist campaign of violence towards its rivals and ordinary, peaceable Catholics should be utterly condemned. He also believes that the government is compromised by its ongoing deals with Republican paramilitaries.By Alex Kane Journalists often refer to August as the “silly season,” a time when lack of so-called hard news allows more trivial matters to creep into the headlines. Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly has pushed it …

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Chief Constable Hugh Orde is adamant that the PSNI will address the sectarian violence in North Antrim, with Operation Striker, in which hundreds of extra police are being deployed. But trouble is breaking out in Garnerville again, with another family forced out of the area. Father Des Wilson, focuses entirely on the former situation, and targets what he sees as the Unionist culture that tolerates a campaign he believes is calculated to reduce the ‘voting, economic and cultural power of …

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Magennis’s Bar, the scene of an altercation which ended in the murder of Robert McCartney on the street outside, has been put on the market by its owner. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Vincent Browne, is clearly irked by a reference in a recent Daily Ireland article to Gerry Fitt as an ‘Uncle Tomas’ figure in Irish nationalism. In response he asks what benefits Nationalism accrued from Sinn Fein and the IRA’s rejection of the Sunningdale Agreement (subs needed): …there are a few elements to the Belfast Agreement that were not in the Sunningdale agreement – a more robust commitment to human rights and a commitment to devolve policing powers, but did they …

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The ‘troubles’ in Ballymena continue with the targeting of a Catholic Primary school on the Cullybackey Road. The article is accompanied by condemnation from Nationalist politicians. It’s interesting to note that of all victims of these attacks, 75% were Catholic but, surprisingly perhaps, 25% were protestant. None of the reports we’ve seen so far seem to get to the heart of what has actually kicked these incidents off in the first place, nor what appear to have sustained them through …

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His funeral took place today at Westminster Cathedral in central London. In the Guardian’s report it only mentions the presence of prominent figures from the UUP (Trimble) and SDLP (Durkan and Hume) – are we to assume that no-one from SF or the DUP attended?Rivals unite in tribute to Lord Fitt Press Association Wednesday August 31, 2005 Figures from across Northern Ireland’s political divide gathered today to pay their respects to former Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP) leader Lord …

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Sadly today we mark the passing of one of Northern Ireland’s more substantial figures. Jimmy Sands

BIg Ulsterman is less than impressed with the condemnation from Ian Paisley over recent violence towards some of his North Antrim constitency. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Lindy McDowell certainly doesn’t pussyfoot around in her suggestion as to what to do about the latest outburst of Loyalist violence. But that’s what she accuses the government of doing. She argues that the people behind the orchestration of violence and intimidation are not known to the public, but are to the security forces: …the only thing these men are loyal to are themselves – to their own hip pockets, their own vanity, their own position. They leach off the …

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Most of polite society in Northern Ireland turns up its collective nose at the tabloid reporting of papers like the Sunday World. However, Brian Wilson writing in the Scotland on Sunday sees the latest campaign against the paper as testimony to its constant focus on the day to day realities of paramilitary life in the largely working class areas of Northern Ireland. We all want to see peace prevail in Northern Ireland. But there is a danger that a price …

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THE WILL to take on the UVF has been sapped from the top, writes Newton Emerson in yesterday’s Irish News. The UVF, which claims that its feud rival – the LVF – is riddled with informers who are protected by the State, would appear to have a similar issue with protected agents. Some of it is laughably obvious – the block on the publication of the coroner’s report into the murder of David McIlwaine on security grounds, as Emerson writes, …

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I’m struggling a bit with the Colombia three story. Some months ago we posed a question as to what might happen when they returned to Dublin. It seems that this took most of the Dublin political (and to a lesser extent journalistic) establishment by surprise. Today in the Irish Times Davy Adams argues (subs required) that most of the recent Sinn Fein moves have been aimed at undermining the integrity of the Taoiseach: In claiming to have a personal commitment …

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A week after the murder of 15 year old Thomas Devlin the PSNI reveal they think the attack may have been sectarian but their minds are open. Meanwhile back in Ahoghill Deputy Chief Constable Paul Leighton (Irish News, subs req) has disputed assertions the ongoing campaign of attacks on Catholics in the village are entirely sectarian preferring to speculate there may be an element of “not getting on with each other” instead. Blank

THE use of plastic bullets in Northern Ireland has often been criticised by republicans (whose own ‘police’ prefer live rounds), but finding a ‘less lethal’ replacement to contain riots has proved difficult for the Government. In a story yesterday – which reads like a report about weapons experiments carried out by Q’s office in a Bond movie – we learn of the many failed attempts by State scientists to devise a crowd control weapon that doesn’t breach human rights legislation. …

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ON the way to work this morning I saw a large police presence in Shaftesbury Square, not far from loyalist Sandy Row, which runs parallel to Belfast’s ‘Golden Mile’ of bars and restaurants. The news came later that another man had been murdered in the ongoing feud between the UVF and LVF. The police seem to be impotent, and most people seem to expect more bloodshed on the streets before this turf war ends. Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com