The Plough Vol 03 No 28

The Plough
Vol. 3- No 28
Tuesday July 11th 2006

E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party

1) Editorial

2) Demonisation by the “News of the World” rag

3) White line picket

4) Richard O’Rawe, P.S.F. and Events in 1981.

5) Used, Abused, Disgarded, to the Scrapheap

6) Ireland's risk-of-poverty rate among EU's highest

7) Fermanagh IRSP-Statement

8) From the newspapers

9) Letters
a. 1916 and the Sommne
b. The masses











Editorial
This edition of the Plough contains a rebuttal of a sensational front page story in the News of the World Sunday paper by Martin Breen on the 2nd of July. The rebuttal by comrade Willie Gallagher is a measured response to an article that surely has the hand of British intelligence behind it. The only truth in the article is that members of the IRSP did go to Cuba as part of a work camp last year. The full details were carried in the Plough Vol. 2- No 44 E-mail newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party on Saturday 23rd July 2005. Breen obviously prefers to listen to pub gossip from his ‘friends in intelligence than actually do any research. Some journalist, some writer!!
Other articles here cover a recent protest against the criminalization policy against republican prisoners,which involved a wide spread of republicans from different organisations.We may differ in policies and strategy but on the issue of the prisoners we are united. There is also a thoughtful article on the controversy over the book, “Blanketmen” by Richard O’Rawe and a look at the plight of free state soldiers thrown to the wolves after serving their time. The growth of the IRSP continues as we carry a statement from a new branch of the IRSP in Fermanagh.

As the bonfires born on the 11th night in the six counties and we face another orange celebration of bigotry a recent poll has shown little or no support or even interest in the Good Friday Agreement. All that we can now look forward to is more of the same sad sectarianism that has dominated politics in the six counties. That will only end when the state itself is smashed. Those who advocate the restoration of a Stormont assembly are only carrying on the politics that have failed for the 86 years of the existence of the Northern state.




Demonisation by the “News of the World” rag
The News of the World story featuring myself and Gerard Murray is typical of the tabloid press in distortion of the truth and begs the question as to how this paper came into possession of the photographs contained in the article.
Last October the PSNI seized these particular photographs, as well as others, and other documentation relating to our trip to Cuba.There was nothing secret about this trip, we were not wined and dinned, we had no secret meetings with Castro, we did not clinch any deals in relation to laundering money as we had nothing to launder. In fact nothing occurred in Cuba that could be construed in any shape or form as sinister.
Obviously some of the sources for that article was the PSNI who recently returned documentation, computers and other material belonging to Teach na Failte that was seized last October in a so called money laundering investigation. They informed the European funders that nothing of interest was found.
Recently the PSNI have been returning other items that were seized during the same raids to individuals connected with the IRSP and Teach na Failte. Again nothing of interest was found. Last week I was informed that the materials seized at my home were in the process of being returned to me.
The October raids occurred in a wave of PSNI inspired publicity which has been very muted until yesterdays article, which in my opinion, will be used as some sort of excuse for the PSNI failing to find anything of substance and as a cover for their keystone-cops activities.
‘Those crafty IRPS shifted everything to Cuba. Thats why we couldn’t find anything.’
It is nothing new and comes as no surprise that the PSNI are using the press as another tool in their arsenal for political objectives and as a means of justification for their nefarious activities. The raids on Teach na Failte had nothing to do with money laundering but was in fact more about the State closing Teach na Failte down, which in effect they have done despite finding absolutely nothing of substance to justify their actions.
The above coupled with the fact that harsh words were exchanged with a reporter from the News of the World over the demonisation and hounding of Dessie O Hare a number of months ago would be much closer to the truth than the laughable claims that appeared in this paper. It was made clear then that the IRSP would be making no comments on any subject to this paper ever again and the recent article, as well as the hounding of Dessie O Hare and his family is clearly why we should stay away from the tabloid press.
A detailed account of our time in Cuba was featured in the Starry Plough and gives an opposite but accurate version of our experiences.
I am now in the process of seeking legal advise particularly in regards to photographs that were seized during PSNI raids and ending up in the tabloid press.
Willie Gallagher.


White line picket
The IRSP embarked on the first of a planned campaign to highlight the plight and support the cause of the political prisoners currently on protest in Maghaberry gaol by staging a white line picket from the bottom of the Whiterock Road to Beechmount Avenue. Around 150 Belfast IRSP activists lined this stretch of the Falls Road to protest their disgust at the unacceptable treatment of Republican POW's within Maghaberry gaol by the British Government and their Prison Service.
The IRSP fully support the prisoners in their protest and call for the reinstatement of political status, which was surrendered by a branch of Irish Republicanism within the acceptance of the British manufactured Good Friday Agreement. The sacrifices of the ten brave republican volunteers and martyrs of Long Kesh in 1981 must not be in vain. The demands won then are the right of each and every republican POW incarcerated now.1981 must be a lesson to us all. Do not allow a return to those dark and dismal days, stand by the POW's now, remember the hunger strikers with pride and demand the reinstatement of political status!
(Belfast IRSP statement July 8th 2006)



RICHARD O’RAWE; P.S.F. AND EVENTS IN 1981.

“It only becomes the truth when it is officially denied:”
I imagine from the title of this article it would be natural to think I am writing about O’Rawes’ book, “Blanketmen”. Nothing could be further from the truth. I haven’t even read the book, though no doubt I will eventually get around to getting a copy of it.
I am more interested in the Provisional Movements’ Leadership’s (P.M.L.) reaction to the book and that of a few others like Danny Morrison. I had, of course, heard about O’Rawes’ claims, but felt that they were only his opinions and would have no way of backing them up. It was a non-starter and people would soon forget about his claims that the P.M.L outside the prison let the last 6 Hunger Strikers die, including 2 I.N.L.A. Volunteers, to promote their own political agenda. Let’s face it, this claim was so serious I did not believe it; I was wondering what agenda O’Rawe was working to, and the release of the book coming up to the 25th anniversary of the Hunger Strikers deaths smacked of commercialism.
The reactions came thick and fast from those close to Adams P.l.c, they were on radio rubbishing the book and O’Rawe, they used their own columns in newspapers to debunk his claims, some were emotional, some tried to used “facts”, like the “comms” O’Rawe sent out of the prison during the Hunger Strike to lay the blame for the last 6 deaths elsewhere. All of this is to be expected and is understandable.
So all I got out of it was claim and counter-claim, it was going no-where, the truth was there to be got, but I believed we would never get to the bottom of it, and it was just best to get on with it rather than waste time looking for something I would never find. As time went past and I had nearly forgotten all about the book. I happened to find myself in Derry painting a mural to one of the I.N.L.A. Hunger Strikers, Pasty O’Hara. That Tuesday evening we went to a bar to catch the second part of an R.T.E. documentary about the Hunger Strike, the first part being the previous Tuesday. O’Rawe was interviewed and repeated his claim about the last 6 the men to die, nothing new in that I thought, Morrison was on also, but he said nothing new either. So as I sat watching, I thought this is getting away from the reason that the men died, and was getting bogged down on these claims. Adams was interviewed and was doing what he does best, stroking his own ego. As the show seemed to loose its way, the people with me were talking away rather than watching the show, even I was loosing interest. Then Adams, in an answer to a question about the “Mountain Climbers’” (The British Governments’ go between to the P.M.L.) offer to the Hunger Strikers, said that he did not know about the Mountain Climber until afterwards. At first I thought I had heard him wrong. I asked had anybody else heard what Adams had just said. No, they all said. Surely I was mistaken in what I heard him say, “BASICALLY I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THE MOUNTAIN CLIMBER UNTIL AFTERWARDS.” I knew I had heard him correctly, but couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Everybody who had read 10 Men Dead knew Adams was up to speed on all the doings of the Mountain Climber. Yet here he was on R.T.E. saying that he was unaware of it all. My first thought, after the initial shock, was why would he say that? Adams is not a foolish person, yet here he was committing himself on national T.V. to the “fact” that he was unaware of the Mountain Climber.
We were all tired after a long day painting the mural, and after only three pints, we went to our digs and I was soon asleep. When I awoke the next morning I could not think of anything else, Adams knew nothing about the Mountain Climber? Why would he say that? Even when we were working away at the mural, I kept thinking what was the reason for him denying his role in this part the Hunger Strike? There was a reason sure enough, but I couldn’t work out why. Then an incredible thought came to me, what if O’Rawe is telling the truth? Is Adams trying to distance himself from his part in the Hunger Strike because, if it is true, that the last 6 men died for Provisional Sinn Fein’s future plans in politics that would end his political career over night? His silence is deafening, he should be shouting from the roof tops that O’Rawe is wrong. Yet we hear nothing from the “main player” on the outside of the H-Blocks during the Hunger Strike, you would hear more noise out of a gold fish, why?
Trying to get proof that Adams knew about the Mountain Climber during this part the Hunger Strike would not be easy. R.T.E. didn’t even try by the looks of it. My first thought was to look up the book Ten Men Dead, in it I found plenty of comms addressed to “Brownie” and the book claims that this is Adams. On page 37 it states Adams “writing a book, Peace in Ireland, and a regular column under the pen name ‘Brownie’ in Republican News, the weekly journal of Sinn Fein”. All through the book there are references to Adams as “Brownie”. On page 347 a comm addressed to Brownie from Bik dated July 30, starts “Firstly it was great having a yarn with you last night”, this was in reference to a visit to the Hunger Strikers by Adams, Owen Carron and I.R.S.P. representative Seamus Ruddy, the previous evening. So it is one of these three, go to the end of the comm, and Bik signs off by asking Brownie “to tell Owen and Seamus it was a pleasure meeting them”. That leaves Adams as Brownie. Now Brownie is mentioned all the way through the book, Bik must have written to Brownie daily. Adams went into the prison to talk to the Hunger Strikers and Bik. If Adams knew nothing about the Mountain Climber, what were they talking about? Surely it could not have been the British offer/deal as he knew “nothing about it till afterwards”. Even more interesting is the Danny Morrison Column in the Daily Ireland on June 7th 2006. In his head long rush to prove O’Rawe was wrong about his claims, he proves Adams is lying about his role in the Hunger Strike: Morrison was allowed into the prison on the 5th of July, before Joe Mc Donnell died, to explain the offer/deal to the Strikers and Bik, as Bik was talking to the Strikers “Morrison is allowed to phone out from the doctors surgery. Tells ADAMS that prisoners will not take anything on trust…” Why tell Adams anything about the prisoner’s response to an offer/deal Adams knew nothing about. Surely he would have said to Morrison what offer/deal are you on about? Then Morrison goes on to tell us in the same column that “6 July. GERRY ADAMS confides in I.C.J. P. about secret contact and the difference in the offers”. Again what could Adams tell the I.C.J.P. about the “secret contact” if he didn’t know about it till afterwards? So Morrison confirms also that Adams is lying about his role in the Hunger Strike.
A number of weeks after the R.T.E. show the BBC showed one also on the Hunger Strike. Adams was interviewed and talking about the ending of the first Hunger Strike says that he and others were reading the Mountain Climbers offer/deal in Clonard Monastery “when, if memory serves me correctly, Tom Hartley came in and said the Hunger Strike is over, they called it off”. So Adams wants us to believe that he was at the heart of things with the Mountain Climber during the first Hunger Strike, but knew nothing “until afterwards” during the second Hunger Strike, who kept him out of the loop and why? It is obvious that Adams is lying. Let’s go over some of the points I have made.
1: Adams says on R.T.E. in the show in May 2006 “that he knew nothing about the Mountain Climber offer/deal until afterwards”
2: June 7 2006. Morrison in his Daily Ireland article, phones Adams from the prison hospital about offer/deal. Also says about Adams visit to the I.C.P.J. about offer/deal.
3: June 27. Adams admits on BBC that he was reading Mountain Climbers offer/deal for ending first Hunger Strike.
4: June 27. On the same show Adams talks about Mountain Climber during the 2 Hunger Strikes.
5: Ten Men Dead. As can be seen in the book, “Brownie” was involved in every aspect of the Hunger Strike. If Adams knew nothing about the Mountain Climber, why has he never denied he was “Brownie”?
The question remains why Adams would want to distance himself from his role in the Hunger Strike. Of course this does not prove O’Rawe’s claims are true. But it does prove Adams is lying. He was fully aware of the Mountain Climber. So he has reasons to lie, Adams needs to tell, at least the families of the Hunger Strikers, why he is lying about what went on during those first few days in July 1981 when he, and a few others, were in contact with the British. If he does this, he can prove O’Rawe wrong, if not, that, at least gives O’Rawe the “Moral High ground” in his claim that the last 6 Hunger Strikers were allowed to die by a few people for their own political gains.
It is mind boggling, frightening even. But, impossible? You decide….I am off to read O’Rawe’s book, as I have been told he makes some other claims about people who were in the leadership of the prisoners in the H-Blocks at that time, which if true, will be worth looking into….
Gerard Foster
Belfast.
(The above article also appeared in the Blanket July 10th 2006)

USED, ABUSED, DISGARDED TO THE SCRAPHEAP.
It is not often, if ever, that writing for a republican publication should try to evoke any sympathy towards members of the 26 county defence forces. However on this occasion perhaps it is time to make incursions into this unwritten rule.
On Monday 3rd July 2006 I was listening and watching with interest to the 6-one news bulletin on RTE. The bulletin reported on the fate of members of the free state defence forces who served along the British imposed border during the late 1960s and 1970s.
Some of these men have suffered psychological and physical damage as a result of their tour of duty along the border. According to the bulletin the 26 county government have offered little if any form of rehabilitation or/and treatment for these former free state soldiers.
Many of these men have, or are suffering from alcoholism, marriage break-ups , mental illness outside that of alcoholism and many are now homeless. These men are the forgotten victims of the war in the six counties and their conditions, it would appear are “a direct result of their tour of duty” along the border. As per usual in such circumstances these men would have been brought up on a diet of bullshit such as “ you are fighting for your country\ and “ be proud to serve your country”. Maybe if they had crossed the border these normally nonsensical statements could have held an element of truth but that was not the case.
What they should have been told was something approaching the truth, along the lines of
“you are going to the border to ensure that the troubles of the six counties don\rquote t come over the border and interfere with the cushy existence of your lords and masters in the 26 counties.”
As usual when people fall foul of the circumstances they are forced into there are no facilities available to rehabilitate them, a disgrace applicable to any country operating under a system they are pleased to call Liberal Democracy. Perhaps long overdue a hostel has been opened in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, for ex free state army personnel who served along the border nearly three decades ago and not before time. The hostel will offer some form of rehabilitation and treatment for the deterioration in the health and condition of these men.

Much hype is often made about the physical and psychological injuries suffered by the British Crown Forces, RUC/PSNI and members of the colonial prison service but very little if anything is reported on injuries suffered by members of the 26 county forces.
These people are just as much victims of a situation not of their own making as anybody else. The 26 county capitalist class consistent with the capitalist system which they thrive under do not want to know these unprofitable personnel. Many of these men were “not allowed to communicate” with the local populace, and remember this is on the Southern side of the border, were forced to do 24 hour shifts with no sleep and when they could grab a couple of hours they were given wooden boards to lay on with no sleeping bags. This typifies the contempt in which the present system holds for the people who, all be it foolishly, are the first to offer up their lives in defence of the system. These people who offer their chests for a bullet are normally from the most dispossessed downtrodden and exploited stratas of society.
Maybe the progressive steps taken in Letterkenny could give a signal of conscience out to the 26 county government, however “don’t hold your breath “ as capitalism does not conduct its self on humanitarian lines.
As socialists it is hoped that one day there will be a society in which armies are no longer necessary, a redundant force consigned to the dustbin of history. However to achieve that goal of displacing an obstinate entrenched, greedy profit motivated enemy, the capitalist class, in all its manifestations it will be, regrettably necessary to break eggs in order to create the revolutionary socialist omelette. This, it is hoped, will give rise to a society geared towards peoples’ needs and not the profits of a greedy few. A society geared towards caring for people who are ill and not consigning them to the scrap heap which is what we witness daily under the present imbecile system called capitalism.\par
Kevin Morley




Ireland's risk-of-poverty rate among EU's highest

Ireland has one of the highest rates in the EU of people at risk of falling into poverty, according to a report ,”Measuring Ireland’s Progress, 2005” published by the Central Statistics Office.

The proportion of Irish people at risk of poverty, after pensions and social transfer payments were taken into account, was 21% in 2004, one of the highest rates in the EU.

The effect of pensions and social transfers on reducing the at-risk-of-poverty rate was low in Ireland compared with other EU countries.

In 2002, social protection expenditure in Ireland was less than 16% of GDP. This was half of the rate in Sweden and the lowest of the EU 15 countries.





Fermanagh IRSP-Statement

Up to one hundred republicans gathered in Enniskillen's Cornagrade estate on Saturday 1st July to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1981 hungerstrike. A mural in honour of the hungerstrikers was unveiled by Michael and Louise Devine, the son and daughter of the tenth man to die during the 1981 hungerstrike Micky Devine. During the ceremony a short oration was delivered by Michael Og in which he congratulated those involved in remembering the sacrifices of his father and his nine comrades. He also paid tribute to those involved in the establishment of a new Irish Republican Socialist Party cumann in Fermanagh and hoped that Saturday's event was the first in what he hoped would be a long line of political activity for the party in Fermanagh.

During the event a wreath was laid at the Bobby Sands memorial on behalf of the newly established Fermanagh IRSP cumann.






From the newspapers

The story peddled by imperial apologists is a poisonous fairytale

Neocon ideologues are being given free rein by the media to rewrite the history of Britain's empire and whitewash its crimes

A resurrection is haunting the British media, the bizarre apparition of "benevolent empire". It takes the form of documentaries and discussions steered towards the conclusion that colonialism was not such a bad thing after all and that something of a celebration is in order. Trouble is, to get there, some creative reworking of the facts is needed. After a recent brouhaha about Britain's imperial history on Radio 4's Start the Week - in which I took part - the presenter Andrew Marr worried that the debate had been "pretty biased" against empire: there was a lot of enthusiasm and a "warm nostalgia" for empire, he suggested in the subsequent phone-in, even in former colonies, "still something there, absolutely".

Only the desire to recover some imaginary good from the tragedy that was empire can explain the elevation of the neoconservative ideologue Niall Ferguson to chief imperial historian on the BBC and now Channel 4. His aggressive rewriting of history, driven by the messianic fantasies of the American right, is being presented as a new revelation. In fact, Ferguson's "history" is a fairytale for our times which puts the white man and his burden back at the centre of heroic action. Colonialism - a tale of slavery, plunder, war, corruption, land-grabbing, famines, exploitation, indentured labour, impoverishment, massacres, genocide and forced resettlement - is rewritten into a benign developmental mission marred by a few unfortunate accidents and excesses.

Soundbite culture thrives on these simplistic grand narratives. Half-truths and fanciful speculation, shorn of academic protocols such as footnotes, can sound donnishly authoritative. The racism institutionalised by empire also seems to be back in fashion. The book accompanying Ferguson's current Channel 4 series on 20th-century history, The War of the World, tells us that people "seem predisposed" to "trust members of their own race", "those who are drawn to 'the Other' may ... be atypical in their sexual predilections" and that "when a Chinese woman marries a European man, the chances are relatively high ... that only the first child they conceive will be viable." Not far from the pseudo-scientific nonsense that once made it possible to punish interracial relationships.

Behind such talk and the embrace of the broadcasters is the insistence that we are being offered gutsy truths that the "politically correct" establishment would love to suppress. This is the neo-conservative as spunky rebel against liberal tyranny. Yet Ferguson peddles nothing more than the most hackneyed, self-aggrandising myths of empire, canards once championed by old imperialists such as Macaulay and Mill and rehashed now by the Bush administration: western imperialism brings freedom, democracy and prosperity to primitive cultures. The myth decorates US and British foreign policy spin while trendier versions have also emerged in platforms such as the Euston Manifesto. By anointing Ferguson and his fellow imperial apologists such as Andrew Roberts as semi-official historians, the British media are colluding in a dangerous denial of the past and lending support to contemporary US imperial propaganda .

The evidence - researched by scholars such as Amartya Sen, Nicholas Dirks, Mike Davis and Mahmood Mamdani, Caroline Elkins and Walter Rodney - shows that European colonialism brought with it not good governance and freedom, but impoverishment, bloodshed, repression and misery. Joseph Conrad, no radical, described it as "a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly".
Good governance?
More famines were recorded in the first century of the British Raj than in the previous 2,000 years, including 17-20 million deaths from 1896 to 1900 alone. While a million Indians a year died from avoidable famines, taxation subsidising colonial wars, and relief often deliberately denied as surplus grain was shipped to England.

Tolerance?
The British empire reinforced strict ethnic/religious identities and governed through these divisions. As with the partition of India when 10 million were displaced, arbitrarily drawn boundaries between "tribes" in Africa resulted in massive displacement and bloodshed. Freedom and fair play? In Kenya, a handful of white settlers appropriated 12,000 square miles and pushed 1.25 million native Kikuyus to 2,000 restricted square miles. Resistance was brutally crushed through internment in detention camps, torture and massacres. Some 50,000 Kikuyus were massacred and 300,000 interned to put down the Mau Mau rebellion by peasants who wanted to farm their own land. A thousand peaceful protesters were killed in the Amritsar massacre of 1919.

A collective failure of the imagination now makes it difficult for us to think about the globe before European and American domination. Greed and violence are hardly exclusive to one culture. But colonialism destroyed or strangled possibilities and potential for progress, such as Mughal Emperor Akbar's "sul-e-kul" or "universal good" which underpinned his governance. The scale of European imperialism inaugurated a new chapter in the history of greed which still shapes all our lives.
Natural resources - cotton, sugar, teak, rubber, minerals - were plundered in gigantic quantities. The Indian textile industry was the most advanced in the world when the British arrived; within half a century it had been destroyed. The enslaved and indentured (at least 20 million Africans and 1.5 million Indians) were shipped across the globe to work on plantations, mines and railroads. The stupendous profits deriving from this enabled today's developed world to prosper.

The point isn't for Europeans to feel guilt, but a serious consideration of historical responsibility isn't the same thing as a blame game. Forgetting history is tempting but undermines a society's capacity for change.

Among the many facile assumptions encouraged by these imperial apologists is that those who criticise colonialism are absolving tyrants and bigots in Asia and Africa from responsibility for their crimes. Of course it is possible and absolutely necessary to condemn both. Indians must acknowledge their culpability for atrocities during the partition, for example. But that in no way exonerates the British Raj from its pivotal role in the tragedy that led to over a million deaths.

A wilful ignorance of other people's cultures and histories encourages the notion that freedom, democracy and tolerance are intrinsically western. As Amartya Sen has argued, the subcontinent has long been home to traditions of free-thinking and debate.
Participatory governance was not Britain's gift (recall Gandhi's indigenous village republics), even if parliamentary democracy as an institutional form was adopted in some ex-colonies. Free trade is another mythical western contribution to world history. Amitav Ghosh has reconstructed the forgotten history of a vibrant trade culture between medieval India and Africa. When the Portuguese arrived, they demanded that the Hindu ruler of Calicut expel Muslims, "enemies of the Holy-Faith", from his kingdom. He refused and was subjected to two days of bombardment.

Indeed, one legacy of European colonialism that we all reckon with is the self-fulfilling prophecy of the "clash of civilisations". The claim that east and west are bound to come into conflict is merely an extension of imperial practice which found it useful to seal off porous cultures into fixed categories. This tragic "lie of the colonial situation", as Frantz Fanon called it, rebounds on us tragically in the terror unleashed in the name of Islam and Bush's "war on terror". If we are to undo the destructive legacies of empire, it won't do to invest celebratory falsifications with credibility. To make sense of a shared present and look towards a more humane future, we need to start with a little informed honesty about the past.

Priyamvada Gopal
Wednesday June 28, 2006
The Guardian

(Priyamvada Gopal teaches postcolonial studies at Cambridge University and is the author of Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence )

pg268@cam.ac.uk





Letters.


(The Following letter was published in the Irish news)


Dear Sir/madam

The 26 counties government has now publicly acknowledged its British military past by issuing for the first time a stamp commemorating those who died during the battle of the Somme and staging a state ceremony at the Islandbridge memorial. The event is put on the same level as the Easter Rising, because it accepts the British claim that the Great War fought by Britain was for "small nations to be free"; therefore Unionists and Nationalists who participated in it have an equal claim to be honoured by the Irish state. But the politics of the Somme are incompatible with those of the 1916 Rising.

The new pro-Great War doctrine makes no assessment of what was at stake, and uncritically accepts the British propaganda about "small nations". It was a war for King and Country, for that project of global conquest and genocide called the British Empire. The new doctrine glosses over the false reasons that brought the nationalists in the Great War and misrepresents the imperial purposes of the slaughter. If we are faithful to the ideals of 1916, we should acknowledge it as the "Crime Against Europe" as Roger Casement and the "War against the German Nation" as did Connolly. It is something that should be lamented, not celebrated.

Some will argue that given the significant number of Irish people who fought in the Great War, it should be commemorated. Whether all foreign wars in which Irish people were involved should be commemorated is dubvious. Should we commemorate the Irish who fought on the pro-Slavery side during the US Civil War for example?

It is interesting that the Redmondite "war against the German and Turk" - in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) amongst other places- is being rehabilitated at a time when the 26 counties establishment increasingly alligns itself with the Ameranglian crusade in the Middle East...


Liam O RUAIRC
392 Falls Road
Belfast BT 12
028 90 321 024






Dear Comrades ,

Let me ask you a serious question: There is one aim that all communists gain for, there is the same way of getting to it: Get the masses to follow. Now is the time to end all individual violence and build up parties like the Batasuna did and the Sin Fein has done. I think to get involved with the masses that are so hyped with TV Technologys and Wealth of own living, their only chance we do have is to cooperate with all other movements around the world to become one voice: So get in contact with th MRTA in Peru, the EZLN in Mexico, the CNT in Spain, and the movements in Venezuela and so on -to connect-means to save this planet before it explodes!!

Thank you very much for reading my short thought on left wing politics,
I think time is here for us to share and even not sharing the same ways, we do have the same aim, so let's unite against exploitation and environment killings!!

Please visit: www.myblog.de/loganey
www.people.freenet.de/gandhi

FRIENDSHIP,

Manu Loganey





The Chicago Hunger Strike Commemoration Committee are holding a 25th
Anniversary Dinner on the 12th of August, 2006 in memory of those who
died on hunger strike in 1981.

We will be producing a unique commemorative journal for this event and
would like to offer you the opportunity to have your business or club
featured. We are expecting over 100 attendees, including several
prominent Irish-Americans, and we will feature two special guest speakers,
plus an arts & crafts raffle.

All ads will be black and white. Ad rates are as follows:

8” x 10” Inside Front/Back Cover - $200
8” x 10” Full Page Ad - $100
5” x 8” Half Page - $50
3” x 5” Quarter Page - $25

The Deadline for ads is August 1st, 2006.

Any Group or Organisation can place an ad by following the directions
in this e-mail, The monies raised go to the prisoners dependants so
please make a very important contribution.

Forms are available at www.wemustbeunited.com and if you need any
assistance you can contact us at (708) 655-2078 or (312) 560-9311, or by
email: info@wemustbeunited.com.

Go raibh maith agat,

Colm Mistéil
CHSCC Chairman
www.wemustbeunited.com


Comrades,
Continuing with our celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Spanish
Civil War we are pleased to offer a reproduction of the Spanish
Republican flag with the International Brigades logo. The flags are 3
feet x 5 feet costing £10 each + postage and can be located on our home
page.We also have copies of the 'Connolly Column' a book by an Irish
International Brigadier, Michael O'Riordan who recently died. RRP £14.99
our price £12.99 + postage
Both items available on our website: www.socialistproductions.org
don't forget you can also purchase our International Brigades badge and
t-shirt.

NO PASARAN
Robert


Catalan Solidarity: Ireland Committee

Catalan Solidarity: Ireland Committee was established to provide practical support and solidarity to Catalan political prisoners, their supporters as well as information on the continuing struggle for self determination and socialism in Catalonia to challenge the media portrayal on political militants that are being fuelled by a regime, its media, its paramilitary forces, and mounting repressive laws and legislations.

In order to assist these goals we have established an online news and information service to comment on the current political situation within Catalonia, from within the prisons and on the streets.

As part of our work we aim to provide information events, pickets and solidarity protests etc to highlight various campaigns and activities and to raise awareness of the political situation in Catalonia.

We urge both Catalans living in Ireland and other non-Catalans across Ireland to write to Catalan Political Prisoners, offering them both continued solidarity and support.

We intend to issue regular news, comments & activities via email by Llibertat! ˆ Saoirse!

At present our website is under construction however, we hope that our work will inspire you to find out more!

www.catalansolidarity.org SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS

Llibertat! ˆ Saoirse!

E-news service of the Catalan Solidarity: Ireland Committee
To obtain this regular eservice Llibertat! ˆ Saoirse!, forward „SUBSCRIBE‰ to the following e-mail: catalansolidarity@hotmail.com






KEVIN LYNCH COMMEMORATION SUNDAY JULY 23rd at 2.00pm Dungiven County Derry.
All comrades to attend.




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It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and articles from other sources.



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have re-launched their website.

It can be viewed at

www.rsym.org



An Glór / The Voice

News sheet of Belfast Republican Socialist Youth Movement

January 2007

Circulation: 400



- Brit police never acceptable

- Maghaberry Prison protest continues

- Assets Recovery Agency, a question of money

- Support the Turkish death fast

- Ard Fheis rejects any move towards INLA decommissioning

- Volunteer Davy McNutt RIP

http://www.rsym.org/pdf/magazines/anGlor1.pdf



The Republican Socialist Youth Movement have produced a short video on the situation concerning Shannon airport and its continued use by American troops and the CIA. The video can be viewed at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH0WqJb95l8



Subscribe to the bi-monthly “The Starry Plough/An Camchéachta”

P.O. Box 1981, Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland.

THE VOICE OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM!

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The Starry Plough

http://irsm.org/irsp/starryplough



IRSP: Pairtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na h-Éireann

http://irsm.org/



James Connolly Society

http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/



James Connolly Archive

http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly



The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP is

http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/index.cgi



Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - Website

A website that offers a central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this effort go towards the IRSM and it’s various projects.

http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/index.html



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