Boston College Tapes - The Wild Geese2024-03-28T23:49:50Zhttps://thewildgeese.irish/forum/topics/bostn-college-tapes?commentId=6442157%3AComment%3A22591&feed=yes&xn_auth=noNo, mo chara, not at all.... …tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-23:6442157:Comment:226962013-05-23T06:15:18.191ZBit Devinehttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>No, mo chara, not at all.... </p>
<p>There are still loyalists in Northern Ireland after all.... and they don't mind being held hostage for well over 600 years...in fact they don't think they are</p>
<p>No, mo chara, not at all.... </p>
<p>There are still loyalists in Northern Ireland after all.... and they don't mind being held hostage for well over 600 years...in fact they don't think they are</p> "Well most all of us, anyways…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:229022013-05-22T23:47:20.054ZJim Curleyhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/JimCurley
<p>"Well most all of us, anyways."</p>
<p>Is that a shot across my bow?</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>"Well most all of us, anyways."</p>
<p>Is that a shot across my bow?</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p> Jim,
Most may wish to see thi…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:228022013-05-22T21:31:00.691ZBit Devinehttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>Jim,</p>
<p><br></br>Most may wish to see things remain staus quo, "peaceful" and "quiet" or at least isolated occurrences that can be kept under radar. Others have an agenda, believe me.</p>
<p>In regards to the Weston Park Accord, it was, unfortunately, never passed in Westminster. The failure of the British government to act in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement forced the withdrawal of this legislation on 11th January 2006 by then Secretary of State Peter Hain.</p>
<p>That meant that…</p>
<p>Jim,</p>
<p><br/>Most may wish to see things remain staus quo, "peaceful" and "quiet" or at least isolated occurrences that can be kept under radar. Others have an agenda, believe me.</p>
<p>In regards to the Weston Park Accord, it was, unfortunately, never passed in Westminster. The failure of the British government to act in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement forced the withdrawal of this legislation on 11th January 2006 by then Secretary of State Peter Hain.</p>
<p>That meant that they had a list of names to use as they saw fit.</p>
<p>In 2007, March 08, my friend, Gerry McGeough, was the first casualty of that list. He was running for office on a United Ireland platform and was picked up coming out of the polling place. He was subsequently charged and sentenced in a Diplock Court with alleged offences dating back 31 years to June 1981. Had these peace agreements been implemented as agreed between the Irish and British Governments in 2001, Gerry would never have been pursued, sentenced or incarcerated.</p>
<p>Diplock courts were to have been done away with and, per the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Acot 2007, were to be abolished effective July 2007. How convenient that they snagged him up in March. They said it was because he had been "in hiding" and "only recently surfaced". How does a man serve on the local council, work as an educator of children, and raise a family qualify as being either of those.</p>
<p>He has finally been released and is regaining his health slowly. His family is blessed to have him home. There is the shadow of rearrest, as the release was a provisional one and that is never clarified.</p>
<p>Marian Price was arrested three days after she attended a 1916 Easter Rising Commemoration held in Derry; one of many held by Irish republicans each year. At the event, Price held up a piece of paper for a masked man from the 32-County Sovereignty Movement as he read out a message. She was granted bail, but arrested again after she left the court on Paterson's orders. This time, the reason was based on <strong>secret information from the British intelligence services, which claims the evidence cannot be revealed due to national security concerns.</strong></p>
<p>She has been before a judge and her case dismissed twice...yet she still sits in Maghaberry, her health deteriorating..in solitary confinement... She is one who will suffer because of the release of her sister's tapes being released. Marian was given a “royal pardon” in 1980 and left prison suffering from poor health back then. She has never really truly regained her health.</p>
<p>Marian's real transgression seems to be her critical remarks about conditions in the six Irish counties still claimed by Britain, and of the Good Friday Agreement that lead to the power-sharing arrangement between Sinn Fein and parties that support British rule in the north.</p>
<p>Martin Corey has spent, as of April 16 of this year, three years in confinement at Maghaberry...there have never been any charges levied, he has not been interviewed or had anything explained to him. I had the good fortune to meet Martin in a small cemetery outside of Lurgan in 2009. He was good natured and took the time to tell me some of the stories related to the names on the headstones. Less than a year later, He was taken in to custody. It was stated he broke the terms of his Life Licence release. When his solicitor requested to know what Martin was alleged to have done, <strong>he was told it a matter of National Security and the subject of closed file information.</strong></p>
<p>On Monday, the 9th of July, 2012, a High Court judge, Justice Seamus Tracy, who has a background in the European Human Rights Courts, ordered Martin’s immediate release, stating that his Human Rights had been breached under sections 4 and 5 of the European Human Rights act and that there were no charges for which he should answer. Martin exited the court a free man, or so he thought, as he stepped towards his family and friends, he was told that the then current Secretary of State, Owen Patterson, had overruled the High Court judge and blocked Martin's release.</p>
<p>What these three people had in common was that they were on the Weston Park Accord list. Amazing coincidence don't you think? They also believe in and are willing to be a voice for a United Ireland. Isn't that what we all want? Well most all of us, anyways</p> To placate the crazies in NI,…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:227642013-05-22T20:32:21.396ZJim Curleyhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/JimCurley
<p>To placate the crazies in NI, I would guess.</p>
<p>To placate the crazies in NI, I would guess.</p> for what purpose?tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:224972013-05-22T20:28:33.913Zed moloneyhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/edmoloney
<p>for what purpose?</p>
<p>for what purpose?</p> Political posturing, perhaps.
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:224962013-05-22T20:27:38.326ZJim Curleyhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/JimCurley
<p>Political posturing, perhaps.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Political posturing, perhaps.</p>
<p></p> so riddle me this, why did th…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:228012013-05-22T20:24:44.063Zed moloneyhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/edmoloney
<p>so riddle me this, why did they serve the subpoenas? just for the fun of it?</p>
<p>so riddle me this, why did they serve the subpoenas? just for the fun of it?</p> With all due respect, Ed, the…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:224942013-05-22T20:16:50.777ZJim Curleyhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/JimCurley
<p>With all due respect, Ed, there is a lot of conjecture in your piece and a huge assumption - that the British government and the Northern Ireland government really want to dig up these "old bones" and return Northern Ireland to how it was for 50 years. I would suggest that the lack of convictions in the Omagh bomb case, for example, would suggest that all the parties involved want to see things remain as they are at present, rather than return to the days of sectarian violence and guarded…</p>
<p>With all due respect, Ed, there is a lot of conjecture in your piece and a huge assumption - that the British government and the Northern Ireland government really want to dig up these "old bones" and return Northern Ireland to how it was for 50 years. I would suggest that the lack of convictions in the Omagh bomb case, for example, would suggest that all the parties involved want to see things remain as they are at present, rather than return to the days of sectarian violence and guarded borders..</p>
<p>That's not to say that there hasn't been political posturing on this issue. That's what governments do. But governments like to do their real work behind the scenes.</p> there is so much potential ha…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-22:6442157:Comment:225912013-05-22T16:25:56.480Zed moloneyhttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/edmoloney
<p>there is so much potential harm arising from the release of Dolours Price's tapes that it is hard to know where to begin. But it is also important to remember that seven other tapes are also scheduled for handover and the effect of DP's interviews will undoubtedly be compounded by their contents.</p>
<p>First of all there is the likely human cost. People are likely to go to jail for things done in a conflict that we were all told was over and which had been ended by an agreement. That is…</p>
<p>there is so much potential harm arising from the release of Dolours Price's tapes that it is hard to know where to begin. But it is also important to remember that seven other tapes are also scheduled for handover and the effect of DP's interviews will undoubtedly be compounded by their contents.</p>
<p>First of all there is the likely human cost. People are likely to go to jail for things done in a conflict that we were all told was over and which had been ended by an agreement. That is important because the Troubles ended not in victory or defeat for one side or another but in a draw, a compromise and in that situation it is usual to draw a line under the past and move on. That was suggested and agreed during the talks that led to the final deal. Someone on this site made reference to the agreement at Weston Park which allowed for a general amnesty for all offences prior to 1998. Whatever happened to that pledge?</p>
<p>Second, the same people, as well as the researchers, are also likely to face violent recriminations from the IRA for talking to Boston College and thereby breaking IRA rules forbidding, on penalty of death, revealing secrets outside the organisation. So imprisonment and death are the immediate consequences.</p>
<p>Thirdly there is the political fallout. Anyone who has studied the case at the centre of this affair, the disappearance of Jean McConville, knows that all the paths lead in one direction, to the door of Gerry Adams. Now Adams has been the dominant force in Provisional politics since the early 1970's and the peace process is, without doubt, largely a product of his efforts.</p>
<p>But he has made enemies along the way, not least recalcitrant elements left over from the old RUC who deeply resent the policing reforms that became part of the peace process and they particularly resent the loss of the old Special Branch, the RUC's political force which was seen as Unionism's front line in the fight against the IRA. I have reason to believe that it is these elements in the new force, the PSNI, elements that some call jokingly the Continuty RUC, who are behind these subpoeanas.</p>
<p>If these interviews are handed over I can say, without compromising the contents, that there is no way that the authorities will be able to prosecute junior players in the McConville disappearance without including Adams on the charge list.</p>
<p>If Adams is charged think about the implications. The peace process was made possible because Adams was able to lead the IRA into a series of huge ideological compromises. For instance the Provisionals now de facto accept the principle of consent, which says that N Ireland will remain British as long as a majority of its people want it. The traditional republican stance on this has been that the consent principle is overridden by the principle of national self-determination, i.e. the will of the Irish people as a whole to break with Britain and to establish an independent entity on the whole island of island.</p>
<p>This will was expressed twice, once in 1919 and again in 1921 when in island-wide elections a majority voted for complete independence. The IRA got its mandate to wage war against N Ireland on the basis that these votes were flaunted in favour of the principle of consent on a small part of the island, i.e. the North which opted out of the new arrangements to stay British. In other words the IRA claimed its right to use violence because partition, justified by the consent principle, overturned the will of the people. It claims the right to kill and bomb in the name of democracy and it is why, despite the passage of time, that the physical force element in Irish politics has never gone away.</p>
<p>Abandoning all this, as Adams & Co did during the peace process, was a very big deal indeed and it caused ructions inside the Provisionals and a split in the ranks which still festers, But without this compromise the peace process would not have worked.</p>
<p>So now we have the prospect of Adams being put in the dock by the same government with whom he made this hugely significant compromise deal. This prospect goes to the heart of the age-old debate between constitutional and physical force nationalism in Ireland. Constitutionalists argue that peaceful negotiation is the way forward and this is the path now followed by Adams and his allies; the physical force wing argues back that you can't make deals with the devil; the devil will always betray you and so you can only trust the gun.</p>
<p>The sort of outcome that I have described above is manna from heaven for the physical force camp and should Adams be indicted for the McConville disappearance, as is a distinct possibility, the consequences for the Good Friday Agreement are obvious: it would be impossible for Sinn Fein to stay in government if their leader is dragged into court by a police force and a government with whom he made this compromise because the loss of face would be too much to bear; and the dissident IRA argument, the theologists of continued armed struggle would claim vindication for their central argument which is that you can never, ever trust the Brits.</p>
<p>The extraordinary thing about the BC subpoenas is that both Boston College and the US government are fully aware of all these implications. Boston College effectively opted out of the legal fight months ago in what has to be one the most shameful shows of academic funk in recent American history (in fact if I had not leaked the story to the New York Times I suspect the interviews would have been quietly handed over with no fuss at all) while the US government has been impervious to the argument that by supporting the subpoenas unconditionally the Obama White House is putting in danger an agreement that its two predecessors, the Clinton and Bush administration, put in place. Go figure!</p>
<p></p> LOL...wish that she were....…tag:thewildgeese.irish,2013-05-15:6442157:Comment:217172013-05-15T22:24:08.591ZBit Devinehttps://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>LOL...wish that she were.... She died in 2005... I am thinking a nice large bonfire...to welcome in teh summer solstice...marshmallows toast better on a bonfire</p>
<p>LOL...wish that she were.... She died in 2005... I am thinking a nice large bonfire...to welcome in teh summer solstice...marshmallows toast better on a bonfire</p>