Tag: Civil rights movement

Máire Drumm murdered in her hospital bed.

On 28th October 1976, 28 years ago, Sinn Féin Vice President Máire Drumm was shot dead in her hospital bed.

Máire Drumm (née McAteer), was born in the townland of Killeen, South Armagh, on 22 October 1919 to a staunchly republican family. Máire’s mother had been active in the Tan War and the Civil War.

In 1940, Máire joined Sinn Féin in Dublin. In 1942, she moved to Belfast, which became her adopted city and she continued her republican activities. Every weekend, Máire would carry food parcels to the republican prisoners in Crumlin Road Jail and it was here that she met Jimmy Drumm, who she married in 1946.

When the IRA renewed the armed struggle in the late 1950s, Jimmy was again interned without trial from ’57 to ’61.

Máire became actively involved in the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s. She worked tirelessly to rehouse the thousands of nationalists forced from their homes by unionist/loyalist pogroms.

During her work as a Civil Rights activist, Máire emerged as one of the Republican Movement’s most gifted leaders and organisers. Máire was the first to warn that the British troops sent in as “peace keepers” were a force of occupation. Máire was a dynamic and inspirational speaker. Once, when addressing a rally in Derry after the shooting of two men from the city, Máire said:

“The people of Derry are up off their bended knees. For Christ sake stay up. People should not shout up the IRA, they should join the IRA.”

In 1972, Máire became Vice President of Sinn Féin. Due to their dedication to the republican struggle, Máire’s family was continuously harassed by the RUC, British Army and by loyalist intimidation. The British Army even constructed an observation post facing their home in Andersonstown. At one point, her husband and son were interned at the same time. Her husband, Jimmy became known as the most jailed republican in the Six Counties. Máire was also jailed twice for ‘seditious’ speeches, once along with her daughter.

In 1976, her eyesight began to fail and she was admitted for a cataract operation to the Mater Hospital, Belfast. On 28 October 1976, as Máire lay in her hospital bed, loyalist killers wearing doctors white coats walked into her room and shot her dead.

Máire Drumm, freedom fighter and voice of the people, was buried in Milltown Cemetery. One of her most famous quotes was:

 

“We must take no steps backward, our steps must be onward, for if we don’t, the martyrs that died for you, for me, for this country will haunt us forever.”

https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.jsAbout maire drumm https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2016/07/09/maire-drumm-1919-1976/

 

With many thanks to: Easter Rising War of Independence and Irish Civil War History.

Smithwick’s significance is political ‘NOT’ legal !!!

If the IRA was fighting a war, then this was a war crime – along with all their war crimes from Kingsmill to the Birmingham pub bombs.

WHO WOULD you rather beleive: Gerry Adams or former RUC Chief Constable, the late Sir John Hermon?

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Mr Adams has come under attack from a number of politicians and commentators for his comments on the findings of the Smithwick Tribunal. He said that Chief Superintendent Breen and Superintendent Buchanan had a laissez-faire attitude to their safety. It was an insensitive remark, but what if someone else had made thatt point, would it have been acceptable? As it happens, someone else did make that remark – more or less. Quoted in Toby Harnden‘s book “Bandit Country” Sir John said of the late Bob Buchanan‘s activities on the day he died: “He did not follow basic, elementary security procedures.” Hermon claimed that Mr Buchanan did not beleive in taking precautions because, as a devout Christian, he beleived God was in control. If Sir John was right, so was Mr Adams – although Sir John does not appear to have been vilified. Reaction to the Adams comments tells us three things: any inquiry into the past is interpreted as political ammunition for the present; too many politicians do not want the truth about the past, they just want their prejudices confirmed and, thirdly, personalising our politics tends to suffocate valid political tends to suffocate valid political comment.

With due respect to the two dead RUC officers and their families, Smithwick’s significance is political rather than legal. Using the word “collusion” has major political implications. It is a heavily loaded word, which would probably be worth a million points in Irish political Scrabble. But the possible existence of one or even two Garda informants does not represent collusion. Gerry Adams said that Smithwick’s idea of collusion is very different in form and scale from the collusion that occoured in the North. Mr Adams is right. The IRA presumbly had moles in many organnisations, possibly even the RUC. But Smithwick’s findings allow unionists to use the word collusion (without firm evidence) thereby giving them a higher moral ground than previously. Unionists suggest there was also collusion in 1969 when the Provisional IRA was founded. There was certainly an attempt by some elements in Fianna Fail, the Irish intelligence service and assorted Catholics to take control of the Civil Rights Movement and to direct the then IRA away from socialism. Some of those involved at the time say as early as Sunday August 24 1969 – just over a week after the burning of Bombay Street – older, non-active IRA men meet these elements and agreed to break away from the existing IRA leadership in Belfast in return for money from Dublin.

There were two founds for Northern relief – the official Irish government fund for refugees and a Fianna Fail fund. The two may well have become intermingled, but there is no evidence that the government as a corporate body was intent on anything more of that was a political window dressing. However, the lack of evidence on collusion then and 1989 does not vindicate the Provisional IRA campaign of violence. It was unnecessary, sectarian, brutal and futile. The deaths of Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan, for example, broke the Geneva Convention by killing unarmed men and, in particular, by killing one who was injured and trying to surrender. If the IRA was fighting a war, then this was a war crime – along with all their other war crimes from Kingsmill to the Birmigham pub bombs. That is where Sinn Fein is open to critcism. What was the Provisional IRA campaign for? Pearse Doherty TD said this week that the campaign was to defend local communities. (Whom does he think the 21 dead in the Birmingham pub bombs were going to attack?) However, also this week, John O’Dowd described it as ” a conflict between nations and communities”. This largely confirms that Sinn Fein has finally abandoned Irish Republicanism and opted instead for Britain’s two nations theory, by suggesting that only Catholics can be Irish. The political impact of Smithwick’s is that it nudges our history towards the erroneous veiw that the violence here was carried out by two sets of paramilitaries, each backed through collusion by different national governments. The two nations theory is slowly becoming official which, oddly, suits Sinn Fein. The above comments represent valid veiws on Sinn Fein policies, past and present. You can agree or disagree with them. In that the context you can agree or disagree with Mr Adams, but no one has the right to disagree with the truth just because they dislike the person speaking it. Personal attacks are no substitute for political analysis.

With many thanks to: Patrick Murphy, The Irish News.

A letter that appeared in The Irish News – Tuesday December 10 2013.

664421_445022892211878_450129189_oAbuse from ‘voices of perfection’ is unwarrantd.

THE CONCLUSION of the Smithwick Tribunal that Garda officers colluded in the murder of superintendent Breen and Buchanan is deeply disturbing and if true that one or more members of An Garda Siochana ( the guardians of the peace) colluded with the IRA in the murders of superintendents Breen and Buchanan then not only are they guilty of murder but they let down an entire police force.

Unfortunatley there are now unionist politicians who remained silent or indeed excused compelling evidence of collusion in the North over the years but delighted to rush to the media to smear the entire Garda Siochana and that is not only unjustified but it must not be allowed to happen. Garda officers, many of them now retired, were stationed in the border areas during the best part of their lives to protect life and limb. Is history now to be rewtitten, as it often is, to misrepresent those officers as villains involved in collusion leading to the murder of police in the north? I should think not. During the period from the 1970s to the 1990s the Republic, with very limited resources, spent more per head of population on security than the British did, much of that in the border areas. Often Garda stations on the southern side of the border had more manpower than their counterparts on the northern side and they worked for a fraction of the salary their RUC conterparts but they did it not for money but to protect the lives of people.

They were noble officers who were not influenced by the IRA or any other illegal organisation. Is this now to be dismissed because there may have been one or perhaps more rotten apples in the barrel? Like police forces all over the world the Garda have had their problems and the need for reform but they do not deserve the kind of abuse which is now emanating from the usual suspects who ignored, dismissed or excused widespread collusion in the north but now want to present themselves as the voice of perfection ignoring the fact that Garda officers made a massive contribution to limiting the number of people who may otherwise have died in those days of total madness.

With thanks to: John Dallat MLA, SDLP, East Derry.

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DEVILISH PLAN TO DESTROY OUR HISTORY…. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MURAL

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Bogside Artists Derry

DEVILISH PLAN TO DESTROY OUR HISTORY..

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MURAL.

The picture below shows about as much as anyone will see of the Civil Rights mural – one of the most famous murals in the entire gallery and a favourite to a great many. It captures the character and nature of the first marches for civil rights way back in 1998.

The Free Derry Museum considered by us a Sinn Fein bunker, irrespective of what other presences may be on it, intend to build a ramp across it as part of their much-planned, much-funded redesign. The museum as an entity is held in very high esteem because of its association with Bloody Sunday. All the more reason why this particular abuse of that universal esteem and the tragedy it is built upon cannot but be condemned by all of us.

We were not consulted about the ramp. We phoned Brennnan’s Architectural firm about the lunacy and got “George” on the line who informed us they were “not building a new ramp but only reconfiguring an old one.” We asked him if the ramp was going across the mural. He said “it wouldn’t touch the mural”. George’s spiel we took to be a word game so familiar to us as characteristic of Sinn Fein conmanship.

We were told by a friend that an artist’s impression of the ramp show it clearly cutting across the mural rendering it virtually invisible. The fact that it doesn’t “touch” the mural hardly lessens the intended vandalism on what is a prized treasure to the community if not the free world.

And if it doesn’t touch the mural you can bet all you have on the probability that it will be placed near enough to it to prevent us putting scaffolding in front of it in order to restore it.

George said the design had been published and was common knowledge. In actual fact, planning permission was granted (by whom?) on February 3rd. Few we talked to could recall ever having seen it.

We have responded in plenty of time therefore but scour the net as we did for hours we could find no picture of said design. However we did find evidence that once upon a time there had been a picture of it in The Derry Journal. We found the page but there was no picture, its mysterious absence making nonsense of most of the text based around it.

Here is the link (http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/ambitious-plans-for-museum-of-free-derry-go-on-display-1-2146609).

According to Adrian Kerr manager of Free Derry Museum the local community are behind this preposterous madness to a man. This is a lie of course. Only those outside of the Intensive Care Unit of Gransha and a small coterie of morally redundant Shinners could possibly ever support such a blatant act of vandalism. No right thinking man ever could. And only a fool could fail to see what it is really about…. destroying The People’s Gallery.

Vinny Coyle whose late father is rightly known as the “Chief Steward of the Civil Rights Movement” has this to say:….

“Nobody is wiping my dad out of history or all the other men and women depicted in the mural who fought a long struggle for human rights. I will shackle myself to the railings if need be and so will my family and a thousand others.”

Our response?.. “We are with Vinny Coyle. What is the alternative?

And why are we being pushed into combating this sort of horror over and over again? Have all the people of the Bogside been turned into sheep that they would stand back and let such a crime against them and their history take place before their eyes and bear the insult into the bargain by being told to their faces that they had actually agreed to it?

What seems to be the working method of the Shinners these days is that a few of them rendezvous at Pilot’s Row for a chin-wag and then they announce through their propaganda machine next day that a “community meeting took place in the Bogside and this was agreed and that decided and this approved of etc, etc, blah, blah, blah…” when nothing of the sort actually took place. There was no cross section of the community present at any such meeting NOR WAS ANY EXPECTED. Times and publicity concerning such meetings are constructed in such a way as to guarantee a majority of Shinners being present. Now you see them, now you don’t.

The ramp has been thought up to destroy the unity of the gallery and serves no other purpose. Be very clear about that.

Also, we may remind Mr. Kerr that museums the world over exist to serve history and art; NOT to destroy them. The Mona Lisa was not painted for the Louvre. The Louvre was built to house the Mona Lisa.

You would think a manager of a museum would have some grasp of that simple concept but not so Mr. Kerr who is to museum curatorship apparently what a blind man is to taxi driving. If he were even qualified for the post he might have something to argue in his defense. But, he isn’t. And really, this sort of thing cannot be defended anyway.

What we have here is premeditated diabolical vandalism accompanied by contemptible deception of, and disrespect for the entire community of the Bogside.

http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/ambitious-plans-for-museum-of-free-derry-go-on-display-1-2146609

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GIRWOOD SCANDAL….

Mural, Bogside, Derry N.I. - "Civil Right...

GIRWOOD SCANDAL: I salute the media for exposing what is going on, the Stephen Nolan Shows (TV& Radio) & Spotlight tv current affairs slot in particular. Sinn Féin & the DUP are turning the gains of the civil rights movement into reverse, i.e. Housing is yet again being based on CREED not NEED. Shame on them. This is yet another sectarian carve up whereby nationalists desperately in need of housing are yet again being by-passed. In fact, the Housing Executive, now a mere puppet of the DUP minister, McCausland, is issuing leaflets SOLELY to Protestants/Unionists, as far away as Carrickfergus, to occupy houses in HIS CONSTITUTENCY. DEMAND HOUSE ALLOCATION ON NEED NOT CREED!!! We should re-establish NICRA as a matter of urgency, for fairness for all, and ASAP, that’s what I think. What about YOU?

POSTED ON BEHALF OF :  Fionnbarra Ó Dochartaigh.

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Hooded Men Declare Support for Bloody Sunday March

Saturday, 21st January, 2012.

Sir,

English: Taken by myself in 2005.

Forty years ago the Stormont government banned the Civil Rights march scheduled to take place in Derry on January 30th 1972. The ban was unsuccessful, but the British Tory government followed through its counter-insurgency strategy, which began with the introduction of internment in 1971, by shooting down peaceful marchers who came out on the streets in defiance of state terror. Today, another Tory government and its middle-management in Stormont denies human and civil rights by upholding internment while also trying, by some rather desperate means, to prevent people from marching again in defence of these rights. On January 29th, we, as former Long Kesh internees, will join the march that will mark the fortieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry. We will march under a banner calling for an end to internment in 2012, and our numbers will include survivors of the ‘hooded treatment’, who were tortured in August 1971. We now call on every ex-internee and ex-prisoner who reads this letter join us and help carry our banner.
People are now being held without trial in the six counties at the whim of an English Secretary of State. This present-day internment is the same in all but name as that introduced in August 1971, and is the same type of repression that people marched against so bravely in January 1972. We oppose internment no matter how the British decide to implement it – whether via the ‘suspension of license’, the denial of pardons, the use of non-jury courts and the gamut of other repressive legislation at their disposal. We will march in defence of human rights, in protest against present-day internment and in opposition to the torture that continues to be practiced by the British state in Ireland and abroad. In doing so, we will salute the memory of the brave men, women and children who once marched for our freedom and who were murdered, wounded and brutalised by the British army on the streets of Derry forty years ago. We will also remember our friends who died prematurely as a result of the torture – Pat Shivers from Toomebridge, Mickey Montgomery from Derry and Seán McKenna from Newry.
The march that took place on January 30th, 1972, was a protest against internment and torture – crimes that were employed by the British state to terrorise the population of the six counties. All of the demands raised by the popular Civil Rights Movement, which the Bloody Sunday massacre was designed to destroy, remain unfulfilled. Today, the right to decent housing and jobs is denied to young people across Ireland, while the uninhibited use of stop and search powers targets not just adults but even children on their way to and from school. Along with widespread PSNI brutality during arrests, raids and other, more ‘routine’ incidences of harassment, these abuses underline the six counties’ enduring status and notoriety as a police state.
The order to commit mass murder was issued in Derry just as it was to deal with every other popular anti-colonial insurgency against British rule. These repressive policies remain central to British state strategy today: internment is still taking place in Ireland, while prisoners in Maghaberry jail are, on a daily basis, subjected to strip-search torture. These human rights abuses do not end here: through their army and intelligence agencies, the British continue to torture prisoners abroad, both in British-occupied territory and on behalf of dictator-clients like Muammar Gadaffi via practices such as ‘rendition’, abduction and outright murder.
Let no individual or political party imagine that they are the exclusive owners of the Bloody Sunday march. The people of Derry mobilised in January 1972 in a courageous, brilliant and popular protest against internment, and in defence of universal human rights. Their bravery continues to inspire people across the world, and their example will always have a truly global resonance; therefore, we believe that the fortieth anniversary Bloody Sunday march should take place, because human rights and civil rights are still being denied by the British state and its agents in Stormont.
We call on everybody who believes in these basic and universal rights to join the march and show their opposition to the continuation of repression, internment and torture, wherever it may occur. In doing so, we will all mark the fortieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday and inspire the world again by declaring that no apology from any British government will ever be acceptable while they and their allies continue to terrorise those who stand up against oppression and believe in freedom. By coming on this march, we will help build a great and enduring monument to the memory of all of those who died protesting against internment and defending all of our civil rights,

Yours Sincerely, Michael Donnelly, Derry
Gerry McKerr, Lurgan
Patrick McNally, Armagh
Brian Turley, Armagh
Francie McGuigan, Belfast
Kevin Hannaway, Belfast
Joe Clark, Belfast
Jim Auld, Belfast

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( UPDATE ) – MARCH FOR JUSTICE !!

 

 
 
CIVIL RIGHTSREMINDER – To Whom It May Concern -R.S.V.P.
 Civil Rights

Tea/Coffee evening in solidarity with the organisers of the 40th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, MARCH FOR JUSTICE 2012. The event will be held on Thursday, November 10th @ **********************,

 

 Derry, commencing @ 8 PM. Invited guests include relatives of the dead and injured of January 30th, 1972. R.S.V.P. – mobile: 077836…60181 or

 

rights.civil@gmail.com

Fraternal Regards, Fionnbarra O’Dochartaigh, Co-founder, NICRA, 1967.

” We Shall Oversome, Someday !!!!!! “
R.S.V.P. – A.S.A.P.See more
Mural, Bogside, Derry N.I. - "Civil Right...
 

 ‎2nd. Civil Rights Veterans Solidarity Event:
Personal Invitation No. __________
1972 Bloody Sunday 2012 40th Anniversary
In solidarity with the organisers of the

… MARCH FOR JUSTICE

 

Date & Time: Wednesday, November 23rd @ 8 PM
Venue: BOOKED

Your participation and active solidarity would be greatly appreciated by all concerned.

 

“We Shall Overcome, Someday”

R.S.V.P by Email: rights.civil@googlemail.com

Civil Rights Veterans: – 07783660181 Office: 02871286359 orSee more

 

“All assistance will be gratefully accepted.particularly from individuals and groups with experience of organising and stewarding similar events”. E-mail: cat.lyons@ntlworld.com / Mobile 07751604523

 

Posted for & on behalf of :  Fionnbarra Ó Dochartaigh

 

 

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