Republicanism – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

“the specialist detectives will probe crimes dating back to the 1980s and 1990s…”

Pete Baker on April 11, 2011, 3:45 pm

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This is worth flagging up again, just in case you missed the late Friday afternoon media briefing by “high-ranking security sources”… The PSNI have set up a “specialist team of detectives” to re-examine “specific” crimes, “dating back to the 1980s and 1990s” as well as “a series of incidents around the turn of the 21st century”, which “detectives believe may have involved present-day dissidents.” [added link] From the breakingnews.ie report In a further development, it has emerged that, just 24 hours …

“Adams and the forces of the British Crown in Ireland are entirely united…”

Pete Baker on April 11, 2011, 1:47 pm

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Whilst Malachi’s article was mostly directed at the northern incarnation of Sinn Féin, in the Scotsman Kevin Toolis focuses on the southern version. As far as the Sinn Féin leadership is concerned, Ireland’s Troubles are old news from another country that they hope everyone else will forget about. Skeletons that should remain in the closet. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, newly minted as a deputy at the head of a substantial bloc in the new Irish parliament, is intent on …

There are more than two shades of Green

Blank on April 10, 2011, 8:53 pm

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Chris has provided a very useful analysis of what he sees as the main electoral battleground between the two forms of constitutional nationalism. One of the main areas of growth he suggested for SF was at council level. However, he overlooked that at this election SF will be facing numerous challenges across multiple councils from Republicans of various hues. In January I suggested 22 Council seats that dissenting Republicans could consider running in. While I didn’t get them all right, republicans will have a non-SF option …

“Now he must tell the dissidents that he was in the wrong, too”

Pete Baker on April 10, 2011, 2:53 pm

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With the PSNI setting up a specialist team of detectives to examine “specific crimes”, “dating back to the 1980s and 1990s”, which they believe “may have involved present-day dissidents”, Malachi O’Doherty has some timely advice for Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness et al. From the Belfast Telegraph article History is letting the Provos off lightly in not plunging them into their own civil war. On balance, McGuinness must surely see that this is not as hard as facing into failure would be. …

“there has been no diminution of activity…”

Pete Baker on April 8, 2011, 5:30 pm

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I’m not entirely sure that it’s ‘news’ as such, given what we already know, but the BBC reports Police sources have said the community response and appeals to dissidents to end their violence have had no impact. A source said intelligence information suggested dissidents have continued to target officers since Mr Kerr was killed on Saturday. “There is nothing to suggest a lessening of operational tempo, there has been no diminution of activity,” the source said. Meanwhile, a “long and complex operation” …

“If it turns out that the explosives found were Semtex…”

Pete Baker on April 7, 2011, 4:34 pm

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In a major police operation on the eve of Constable Ronan Kerr’s funeral the PSNI seized a quantity of weapons and explosives in Coalisland, County Tyrone – which they have described as “the most significant in recent years”. Which was interesting timing… There have been two arrests in connection with Constable Kerr’s murder and further searches in the north Dublin area. From the BBC report The arms found were: • Four Kalashnikov rifles • Six loaded ammunition magazines • Timer power …

Kerr funeral: A day of contrasts

vanhelsing on April 7, 2011, 10:24 am

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I caught the last five minutes of Cardinal Brady’s address at Constable Ronan Kerr’s funeral mass on BBC Radio Ulster, you can hear the full address here. I have taken three excerpts and transcribed them, “There have been many defining moments in the ongoing journey towards reconciliation and peace but today as we honour the courage of this valiant young man may we should all resolve to make this a defining moment in our own lives…let us resolve to do …

“Due to constraints on the nature of the funding…”

Pete Baker on April 6, 2011, 4:20 pm

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The News Letter reports that Sinn Féin have been forced to change the venue for a commemoration in Enniskillen of Provisional IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands, after their original choice [reportedly] checked the conditions of their EU funding. Their original choice being the Clinton Centre, which was built on the site of a Provisional IRA bomb attack on Remembrance Day 1987 in which 11 people were killed and 63 injured – a twelfth victim died after 13 years in a coma. From the News …

McGeough sentenced to 20 years for attempted murder

Pete Baker on April 6, 2011, 12:36 pm

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The BBC reports on the sentencing of Gerry McGeough – who was found guilty in February of the attempted murder of an off-duty UDR soldier, then working as a postman, now DUP councillor Sammy Brush, in 1981. From the BBC report Former IRA man Gerry McGeough has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for the attempted murder of an off-duty UDR soldier 30 years ago. McGeough, 52, shot Sammy Brush, now a DUP councillor, in Aughnacloy in June 1981. He was arrested in …

“somehow it still fails to address or secure the foundations of a quite different future…”

Pete Baker on April 4, 2011, 10:32 pm

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Despite the statements by the ‘great and the good’, as the BBC reports Police officers have come under petrol bomb attack during disturbances in Lurgan, County Armagh. The police said there were also reports of a firearm being seen during trouble in the Bell’s Row area of the town. Several attempts were made to hijack cars and one hijacked vehicle was later recovered. The officers were attacked while carrying out searches in relation to a hoax object in Victoria Street. …

“Redoubling your effort, when you have forgotten your aim”

Mick Fealty on April 4, 2011, 8:54 am

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Brian Feeney in the Irish News this morning uses a couple of quotes from George Santayana to point to the essentially apolitical nature of the recent attacks by so called ‘dissident’ Republican paramilitary organisations: “Don’t call them mindless. They are devious and dangerous, armed and ruthless. They are unable to articulate a political purpose. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, the original aims of republicanism where militarism was a tactic, not a principle. “These groups see violence as an …

“The decision on our island’s future lies with the people, not political parties”

Mick Fealty on March 31, 2011, 1:07 pm

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I’m grateful to John at Nuzhound for linking a fascinating piece by John Horgan in the Irish Post. In it he pinpoints a question that has long puzzled many people. Undeniably Sinn Fein played a blinder in March’s Dail election. But as Horgan points out, it was not primarily because of their sound Republican stance on the ‘national question’. More often it was ‘burning bondholders’ or wry mentions of how Argentina escaped its debt problem, than any strong political kinship …

“We don’t approve of young children engaging in this type of activity…”

Pete Baker on March 30, 2011, 8:43 pm

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The Belfast Telegraph has an update from the Ti Chulainn Cultural Centre in Mullaghbawn, south Armagh – where children, some of primary school age, were photographed in October wearing balaclavas, combat jackets and trousers, dark glasses and berets, and brandishing replica weapons including AK47s and Armalites. From the Belfast Telegraph update The Ti Chulainn centre in south Armagh has said that children dressed up as paramilitaries armed with replica weapons on its premises hadn’t “been part of an organised event” in the …

A quick round-up…

Pete Baker on March 28, 2011, 5:34 pm

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Londonderry courthouse is the target of a car-bomb consisting of 50kg of home-made explosives packed into a beer keg and described as a “substantial viable device”. British Army technical officers carried out a number of controlled explosions on the device during Sunday night. They’ve also carried out a controlled explosion on a small suspicious object found behind a west Belfast GAA club on Monday afternoon after a claim that a device had been left in the area. [Adds – now described …

Retrial of Gerard Mackin collapses

Pete Baker on January 27, 2011, 1:24 pm

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The BBC reports that the prosecution counsel in the retrial of Gerard Mackin for the murder of 36-year-old Edward Burns, who was shot dead in west Belfast in March 2007, has told the Special Criminal Court in Dublin that the state would not be proceeding with the charges. The retrial was ordered in July 2010 when the Appeal Court in Dublin ruled that evidence taken in a Belfast court, including that of the chief prosecution witness, Mr Damien O’Neill, had not …

Éirígí Candidates to Stand in Northern Ireland Local Government Elections

Pete Baker on January 24, 2011, 2:00 pm

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The Irish Times reports that the “republican socialist political grouping” éirígí has announced that they will contest the forthcoming local government elections in Northern Ireland. From the Irish Times report About 140 members from across Ireland attended the conference in the Culturlann centre on Falls Road, where delegates voted in favour of running candidates in the council elections. Éirígí, which was formed in April 2006, has yet to decide in how many of the North’s 26 local government areas it …

‘look we tried it and it did not work and it’s not going work this time either’

Pete Baker on December 28, 2010, 12:58 pm

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The Guardian report of comments by the de facto leader of the ‘good’ UDA, Jackie McDonald, contains a significant line. From the report The UDA leader also expressed some sympathy for mainstream republicans in Sinn Féin in terms of facing up to the dissident threat. He pledged that the UDA would continue to work with Sinn Féin on sectarian flashpoints to defuse communal tensions in the 2011 loyalist marching season. “I know that it’s a Catch 22 for republicans. It’s hard …

Strand Road security upgrade: “the correct, necessary and proportionate thing to do”

Pete Baker on December 22, 2010, 1:47 pm

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The BBC reports an increase in security measures at the Strand Road police station in Londonderry in response to a “severe threat” . The station has been the target of bomb attacks twice this year. From the BBC report Bollards have been erected outside Strand Road police station in Londonderry to protect the building from attack by dissident republicans. Parking spaces adjacent to the station have also been removed, and replaced with a steel barricade. District Commander Chief Superintendent Stephen …

Alex Maskey: “I find it truly disrespectful that he decided to make the announcement at a public session…”

Pete Baker on December 6, 2010, 3:04 pm

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I didn’t see any immediate reaction from Sinn Féin to the Chief Constable’s announcement on Thursday that 150 officers would be redeployed to guard police stations in light of the increased threat from republican paramilitary groups. But Matt Baggott’s reported comments at Saturday’s UUP conference – that the reductions in police numbers from 13,000 to 7,000 was done too quickly – appear to have struck a nerve. The BBC reports that Sinn Féin MLA, and Northern Ireland Policing Board member, Alex Maskey, “has disagreed with the chief constable’s assessment …

“The board has failed the police in relation to this.”

Pete Baker on December 2, 2010, 6:27 pm

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After rejecting the PSNI Chief Constable’s preferred option of employing private security firms, by a “majority view”, members of the Northern Ireland Policing Board can’t have been too surprised by his announced intention to re-deploy 150 frontline officers to guard police stations in the face of the increased threat of attack by republican paramilitaries. And in related news, four men are being questioned after gardai intercepted a car containing a primed improvised mortar device near Dundalk, county Louth, on Tuesday evening. Gardai said they were …