Posts made in October 2024

October 14, 2024

IRISH CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING
Distributed to Congress by Irish National Caucus

“This is a pitch-perfect editorial by ‘the newspaper of record’ (on the island of Ireland) regarding The Troubles in Northern Ireland—the Irish News of Belfast.

 Members of Congress and Irish Americans should find it very useful.”—Fr. Sean McManus.

Constitutional question will be decided by the ballot box

Irish News Editorial. Belfast, Monday, October 14, 2024.

The clearly expressed view of the electorate across all sections of our divided society is that paramilitary groups have had their day and have no contribution to make to any political decision-making process.

This is a simple reality, but what can only be described as mixed messages emerging from the loyalist sector over recent days indicate that it has yet to be fully grasped in some quarters.

A pro-union think tank, the Northern Ireland Development Group (NIDG), made a number of constructive points in its Reframing The Debate document, which was released to mark the anniversary at the weekend of the 1994 loyalist ceasefire.

The organization known as the Combined Loyalist Military Command, representing the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando, announced 30 years ago that loyalists would “universally cease all operational activities”, some six weeks after a similar move by the IRA. Both cessations were to be periodically abandoned, tragically resulting in the loss of more innocent lives, but the long-term momentum was only in one direction as the 1998 Good Friday Agreement demonstrated that paramilitary groups should be consigned to the history books.

Although some have continued to exercise a criminal influence in loyalist areas, the NIDG report raised the prospect that a final disbandment could be completed within five years. Dr. John Kyle expressed frustration over the slow progress, but was entitled to highlight the need for a wider social transformation which matched the vision of the much-missed Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine.

It was therefore perturbing to hear another former PUP leader, Brian Ervine, elder brother of David, say that paramilitary groups might continue in the background, “waiting on a time when they may be called upon”.

He summed up the confused thinking still present within some elements of loyalism when he attempted to justify his position by saying: “The problem is we can’t trust that the union is safe and we can’t trust government.”

It should be obvious to unionists, nationalists and the unaligned that putting any kind of trust in successive Westminster administrations has always been foolish, as the DUP discovered painfully through its shambolic association with Boris Johnson.

The union plainly could not have been safe since unionists lost what was designed to be their permanent majority at Stormont, and its future will be in the hands of the voters when a border referendum is finally called.

Everyone will have the opportunity to campaign for their preferred outcome and the constitutional question will be resolved through the ballot box rather than through the intervention of any shadowy loyalist figures.

“More  excellent work from Ciaran MacAirt. Please read.” —Fr. Sean McManus

Yesterday, Oct. 13, 2024, I [Ciaran MacAirt]posted an article in memory of teenager, Ciarán Murphy, to mark the 50th anniversary of his abduction and murder. His nephew, Niall Ó Murchú, and the Murphy family have been key supporters of our work for decades. There is also a terrible crossover between the McGurk’s Bar Massacre, Ciarán’s murder, and many more sectarian atrocities in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY, CLICK OR PLACE INTO YOUR BROWSER–

Ciarán Murphy: 50th Anniversary of Ardoyne Gael (mcgurksbar.com)

Ulster-TV. ITV News. Belfast. Thursday, October 10, 2024

US President Joe Biden is “deeply committed” to legacy issues in Northern Ireland, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said.

Mr Harris and Mr Biden discussed various matters relating to Northern Ireland during a lengthy bilateral meeting at the White House on Wednesday.

The Taoiseach also told the US President about a reset in relations between the Irish and UK Governments.

In particular, they specifically discussed the controversial Legacy Act that included an offer of conditional immunity for the perpetrators of Troubles crimes.

The new UK Government has committed to repealing that provision and some other contentious aspects of the act, such as its prohibition on inquests and civil cases linked to the conflict.

“The president and I also had an opportunity to talk about Northern Ireland, talk about the fact that the institutions (at Stormont) are back up and running,” said Mr Harris after his meeting at the White House.

“I had an opportunity to brief him on the reset in Anglo-Irish relations that myself and Prime Minister (Sir Keir) Starmer have underway, and how I believe that will bring practical benefits for people across our island, and across the two islands.

“We specifically discussed the issue of legacy, an issue which I know President Biden is deeply committed to, in terms of making sure that we have a mechanism for families in Northern Ireland for victims to have truth, reconciliation, and justice.

“And I, obviously, reiterated my view and the Irish Government’s view that the current Legacy Act is not compatible with human rights and the current Legacy Act needs to be repealed and replaced and I acknowledged Prime Minister Starmer’s work in relation to that, and our wish to work with him on that.”

“God bless former President Jimmy Carter. He wanted to do the right thing regarding Northern Ireland. It was bad enough Carter had to deal with the awful Maggie Thatcher, as this article explains.
However, even worse, the dreadful Garett FitzGerald did all in his power to oppose Carter’s desire to help.
This Irish Central article makes important reading.”
—Fr. Sean Mc Manus.

Fr. McManus and President Carter, White House. April 11, 1980,  This photo is not part of O’Dowd’s article, which has a photo of Thatcher and President Carter that we do not have the license to publish.

Carter and Thatcher clashed strongly over US ban on guns to RUC

Niall O’Dowd. Irish Central. Oct .9, 2024. (Originally published February 2023.Updated October 2024.)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s office announced at the weekend that Carter, 98, will receive hospice care at home and would no longer receive medical treatment.

Back in 1979, Carter was at the heart of a decision to ban US arms shipments to the hated Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force, an attitude that infuriated Margaret Thatcher who had just come into power. Strong Irish American lobbying led by the Irish National Caucus leader Father Sean McManus originally secured the ban. According to Irish and British diplomatic papers, Thatcher insisted that London should “no longer turn the other cheek” when faced with US criticism of Britain’s role in Northern Ireland, as the issue strained the allies’ “special relationship.”

The 1979 papers show that “Anglo-American relations came under pressure after the US government decided in July that year to withhold export licenses for the supply of arms to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.” The British government had ordered 3,000 .375 Magnum handguns and 500 .223 semiautomatic rifles from the Sturm Ruger Corporation of Connecticut.

Thatcher went to Washington on December 17, 1979, to push for the ban to be lifted. According to the Financial Times, Thatcher, the newly elected prime minister, remarked in a private meeting that it should be “brought home to the Americans that for so long as they continued to finance terrorism, American lives as well as those of others would be lost.”

The Times continues: “The relationship between Mr. Carter and Mrs. Thatcher became frayed over the issue, with the British leader schooling the US president on the conflict after he admitted not knowing much about the situation in Northern Ireland.”

Ms. Thatcher sent four papers detailing UK policy. In a letter, she told Carter: “It is an unhappy fact that perspectives on Ireland – and not only in the United States – are still apt to owe more to the 19th century than to the facts of the present-day world.” The minutes of her initial meeting with the president revealed that she “handled both the gun which the RUC at present used and that US model which was on order. There was no doubt that the American Ruger was much better.” President Carter said during the same meeting that he “would like to approve the sale but did not wish to be defeated in Congress or to have a major altercation with them.”

Irish state documents, released under the 30-year rule, revealed that subsequently, Carter urged US speaker Tip O’Neill to lift the ban on arms sales to the RUC at the request of Thatcher. According to Irish government papers, the exchange was the first substantive one ever between a US president and a British leader.

Speaker O’Neill refused and said any arms deals from the US to the RUC would benefit the IRA whose supporters would be outraged by the American move. IrishCentral History

IRISH CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING

Distributed to Congress by Irish National Caucus

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

MISSISSIPPI AND NORTHERN IRELAND

The just published large, 420-page book, The Barn, by Wright Thompson is about the barn in which the fourteen-year-old  Black boy Emmett Till, visiting from Chicago, was tortured and executed/lynched in 1955 in Mississippi, and about how so much was covered up, still to this day.

 Indeed, the barn itself was not generally known as the actual murder site. About 15 years ago, I made a personal pilgrimage to the sacred sites in Mississippi where the Civil Rights Martyrs were murdered: Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, the three activists murdered in Philadelphia (MS)— James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, so forth and so on. (And cried silently at each site, just as I do at the graves of Irish patriots who gave their lives for Irish freedom).

But I did not know about the barn and only visited the remains of the store in Money in which Emmett had allegedly whistled at the white woman whose husband owned the store.

Thompson says something that is very relevant to the discussion on the Legacy Act of The King-in-Parliament: “The more I looked at the story of the barn… the more I understood that the tragedy of humankind isn’t that sometimes a few depraved individuals do what the rest of us could never do. It’s that the rest of us hide those hateful things from view, never learning the lesson that hate grows stronger and more resistant when it’s pushed underground. There lies the true horror of Emmett Till’s murder …Which is why so may have fought literally and figuratively for so long to keep the reality from view.” (Page12).

That’s the story of the British Empire—the story of The-King (or Queen or Monarch)-in- Parliament … and the story of the Legacy Bill that King Charles III turned into the Legacy Act by his Royal Assent, which is all about protecting the Crown Forces and their political bosses (the King being the Boss of Bosses).

Because as George Orwell said: “Who controls the present, controls the past.” For 855 years—and counting—England has controlled Ireland’s present and past. And England is not going to tell the truth about what it did in Ireland or any of the countries it oppressed in its racist, genocidal Empire … So, we all have to tell the truth about what England did, and is still doing, in Ireland.

I conclude by referring to another great book (which I’ve mentioned before in an Irish Congressional Briefing) : Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (2022) by Harvard Professor, Caroline Elkins. How perfect is that title in the context of the Legacy Act of The King-in-Parliament … And the book-blurb on the back page, in part, irresistibly declares: [Professor Elkins] makes clear when Britain could no longer maintain control over the violence it provoked and enacted, it retreated from the empire, destroying and hiding incriminating evidence of its policy and practices. … And, please God, that is what the deplorable Legacy Act of The King-in-Parliament also heralds: England’s final withdrawal from the Six Counties/The North/Northern Ireland—enabling as the Irish National Caucus Internet Petition calls for:’ Ireland, too, has the right to be One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ This magnificent Petition now has 31,661 Signers, with over one million Petition views

To sign Petition, click link (or copy and paste into the Browser you use)— https://www.change.org/IrelandOneNation

‘