Pauline Mellon takes Sinn Fein member Donncha MacNiallis to task over his attempt to smear The Pensive Quill and its contributors. Pauline Mellon is a rights activist and justice campaigner in the North West. She Blogs at The Diary of A Derry Mother.




As a regular contributor to the The Pensive Quill I would like to raise the following issue: In a comment posted on social media Derry Sinn Fein member Donncha MacNiallais stated the following:

The Pensive Quill, the 'republican' blog whose sole purpose in life is to attack Sinn Fein. Their mediocre writers and contributors help create the cesspool in which those who attack republican homes in the dead of the night swim.

Donncha's comment is not only a direct attack on every individual who contributes to The Pensive Quill whether in the form of published articles or commentary, but an unwarranted attack on the right to free speech. At this rate Donncha will be supporting the reintroduction of the Broadcasting ban!
 
Donncha has made a broad sweeping accusation connecting contributions and comments published on The Pensive Quill with attacks on property and vehicles belonging to Sinn Fein members in Derry. Yet Donncha has forgotten one essential element in the midst of his wee rant – he has neglected to substantiate anything.
 
In a town that is no stranger to anti-social behaviour it beggars belief that Donncha could link these recent attacks to a forum of debate. As someone who has had their car torched by arsonists I can testify to the level of anti-social behaviour in my area. I was thinking of blaming the women's institute online discussion forum, but sadly like Donncha I had no proof.
 
I am quite confident that if there was anything submitted to The Pensive Quill of the nature Donncha suggests then Anthony McIntyre who runs the blog would refuse to publish it. As so maybe Donncha could point out where and when contributors have helped create a “cesspool in which those who attack republican homes in the dead of the night swim”.
 
At this juncture I feel obliged to signpost Donncha in the direction of the Human Rights Act, but then why let the Human Rights act get in the way of little diatribes from someone who has clearly nothing constructive to offer. 
 
Article 10 of the Human Rights Act protects the following: 
 
  • The right to political expression (including comment on matters of general public interest);
  • artistic expression; and
  • commercial expression, particularly when it also raises matters of legitimate public debate and concern.
 
Like any member of the public Donnacha could choose to avail of the reply button on The Pensive Quill should he take issue with any article or comment. However like all those who contribute to The Pensive Quill this would involve having his commentary challenged which is world apart from throwing out dangerous comments on social media.
 
What needs to be asked is; Is this Donnacha's personal opinion? If not is this the position of Sinn Fein on free speech? Or ....... the position of the Bogside Residents Group of which Donnacha is a spokesperson? And on the subject of the Bogside residents group, with Donnacha tarring all contributors and commentators on The Pensive Quill with the one brush does this include his compadre Robin Percival (Bogside residents group etc) who recently had an article published on the The Pensive Quill.
 
And there was me thinking Muppets were confined to the television ... he haw!

Points Of View

Pauline Mellon takes Sinn Fein member Donncha MacNiallis to task over his attempt to smear The Pensive Quill and its contributors. Pauline Mellon is a rights activist and justice campaigner in the North West. She Blogs at The Diary of A Derry Mother.




As a regular contributor to the The Pensive Quill I would like to raise the following issue: In a comment posted on social media Derry Sinn Fein member Donncha MacNiallais stated the following:

The Pensive Quill, the 'republican' blog whose sole purpose in life is to attack Sinn Fein. Their mediocre writers and contributors help create the cesspool in which those who attack republican homes in the dead of the night swim.

Donncha's comment is not only a direct attack on every individual who contributes to The Pensive Quill whether in the form of published articles or commentary, but an unwarranted attack on the right to free speech. At this rate Donncha will be supporting the reintroduction of the Broadcasting ban!
 
Donncha has made a broad sweeping accusation connecting contributions and comments published on The Pensive Quill with attacks on property and vehicles belonging to Sinn Fein members in Derry. Yet Donncha has forgotten one essential element in the midst of his wee rant – he has neglected to substantiate anything.
 
In a town that is no stranger to anti-social behaviour it beggars belief that Donncha could link these recent attacks to a forum of debate. As someone who has had their car torched by arsonists I can testify to the level of anti-social behaviour in my area. I was thinking of blaming the women's institute online discussion forum, but sadly like Donncha I had no proof.
 
I am quite confident that if there was anything submitted to The Pensive Quill of the nature Donncha suggests then Anthony McIntyre who runs the blog would refuse to publish it. As so maybe Donncha could point out where and when contributors have helped create a “cesspool in which those who attack republican homes in the dead of the night swim”.
 
At this juncture I feel obliged to signpost Donncha in the direction of the Human Rights Act, but then why let the Human Rights act get in the way of little diatribes from someone who has clearly nothing constructive to offer. 
 
Article 10 of the Human Rights Act protects the following: 
 
  • The right to political expression (including comment on matters of general public interest);
  • artistic expression; and
  • commercial expression, particularly when it also raises matters of legitimate public debate and concern.
 
Like any member of the public Donnacha could choose to avail of the reply button on The Pensive Quill should he take issue with any article or comment. However like all those who contribute to The Pensive Quill this would involve having his commentary challenged which is world apart from throwing out dangerous comments on social media.
 
What needs to be asked is; Is this Donnacha's personal opinion? If not is this the position of Sinn Fein on free speech? Or ....... the position of the Bogside Residents Group of which Donnacha is a spokesperson? And on the subject of the Bogside residents group, with Donnacha tarring all contributors and commentators on The Pensive Quill with the one brush does this include his compadre Robin Percival (Bogside residents group etc) who recently had an article published on the The Pensive Quill.
 
And there was me thinking Muppets were confined to the television ... he haw!

26 comments:

  1. Never heard of him, which I suppose makes 'us' more famous and effective than he is! Let him gas on there whoever he is. You must understand, some men are not allowed to talk in the house, or the 'party'.

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  2. Ach well I suppose it might be a tad mediocre but at least what we are reading from the bold Donnachabroy is a demarcation from the usual bully tactics engaged by quisling $inn £eind like sticks and stones will break your bones and our guns will surely hurt you, I hear his ma can throw a fair old right hand if its a child involved, keep reading the Quill Donnachabroy you,l come to learn that some people in these communities can think and express their opinions freely rather than going through the press dept ..

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  3. Great piece Pauline,

    if this is mediocre what could you do to them when on form!!

    I think the TPQ attitude to the things Donncha refers to gets easily garbled in the scramble box he calls a head.

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  4. the cesspool from which the attackers who invaded my home and abused my wife who was recovering from an ectopic pregnancy at the time was the sinn fein cesspool. big bob told me himself at gullaghduff.

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  5. Even if you accept the premise,a few torched cars in the scheme of things are nothing like fronting a regime that tortures Republican prisoners.

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  6. Really Anthony an there,s me thinking those quisling bastards mostly talked outa their arses,unless someone like Jonathan Powell wrote their scripts...

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  7. Daithi it all depends on who exactly torching these cars,it always seems to happen around election times that we see a "spike" in death threats and cars being burned but never the twain seem to meet,I think the people have cottoned on to this tactic and are now moving on.the problem with people like Donnachabroy is that they are running around with their thumbs up their bums and their minds in neutral,,,

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  8. Thank you Pauline for bringing this to my notice ... and thank you for your rational and spirited defence of all who participate on the Quill.

    The cesspool McNiallais projects on the Quill is in all likelihood merely a reflection of his own enmeshment in the Sinn Féin pool where he currently stands.

    As a general rule people in a cesspool will have a tendency not to make waves! The contributors and commenters on the Quill are well able to rock the boat and 'splash' each-other, not so with the Sinners who, at least unconsciously, know they're in a cesspool of their own making ... and in it up to their necks at that.
    Its predictable and normal enough for those who find themselves in such situations not to tolerate anyone who'd make ripples never mind waves.

    I hope Donncha you'll always be in total agreement with the party-line ... for the first time your fail to endorse it you'll be out on your arse.

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  9. Sinn Fein’s unashamedly perversion of Irish republicanism could only have come about by their conscious lies, deceit, hypocrisy, treachery and corruption all of which to my eyes amounts to the vilest cesspool of shit imaginable and one in which I’ll never swim alongside them in it.

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  10. Donnacabroy dies and goes forward for judgement, Peter looks up his record and says mmmm "you have been a good little quisling $inner for some time now, but as you know that party of yours was full of thieves ,liars and wasters, so its into the cesspool you must go, "Peter opens the door and immediately the smell of shit was overbearing ,Donnachabroy could see lots of his cronies standing up to their necks in the shit,however they all had cups in their hand with either tea or coffee, and into this Peter shoves Donnachbroy ,who wades into the middle and is greeted with a cup of coffee,"I suppose I will get used to this thinks Donnachabroy after all I,ve swallowed worse at Ard Fheis, after a few minutes Martybroy pops up and says "ok boys and girls teabreak over back down on your hands and knees " so Donnachabroy is as Oscar more or less said some of us may be in the shit but we are looking at the stars ,you on the other hand are just drowing in it,

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  11. marty,
    I know its not proven who torched these cars, I was pointing out the guys argument doesn’t really work even on its own terms. Perhaps these PRM cars are exploding because the dodgy fuel washing has left some dangerously volatile compounds in the mix haha? I actually thought some of the ‘live by the sword, die by the gun’ type comments on the Jock Davison thread were a bit underhand, but they hardly characterise the site like Donncha suggests.

    PS Just out of interest,anyone know what car he drives?

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  12. Daithi a cara I was merely pointing out how the frequency of those attacks upon the quisling bastards of $inn £eind seemed related to whether or not there was an election on the horizon,
    I for one have no problem in unreservedly condemning the murder of Davidson, however the organisation that he belonged to were more than willing to gun down a republican on the street in broad daylight,acting as agents for the state that he actively worked to overthrow at one time so when history judges this man and those who like him willingly worked in such a manner it will not be in a good light ,

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  13. DaithiD,

    'Just out of interest,anyone know what car he drives?'

    He may like to claim he's driving 'Johnston's Motor Car' but I think this is a truer reflection of his mode of transport

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  14. They have more to worry about than a wee blog. Here's an example...

    https://mobile.twitter.com/sinnfeinireland/status/593475606106472448

    After saying Sinn Fein would top the poll in South Belfast, he was beaten into fourth place.

    Not only did they fail to gain South Belfast,but after so publicaly saying there were more from Kelly's own community in North Belfast they still didn't couldn't gain another seat.

    Then they lost F/ST

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  15. DaithiD,

    Problem with the link - his car

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  16. Robert, your link needs fixing (just shows blank page).

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  17. Mediocre - I wonder who spelt that for him!!!!!

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  18. DaithiD,

    https://youtu.be/VWosVVFPRCU

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  19. Haha thanks Robert, my comment related to your first link post, but it showed under your second post chronologically. Yes, the Union Jack car is one that serves a greater strategic objective if its not torched.

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  20. Great piece Pauline....

    Firstly Donnchadh has a brassneck referring to anyone as a mediocre writer given some of the stuff I've seen him churn out over the years.

    He still clings to the coat tails of a party leader who regularly propagates the most repugnant aspect of British Imperialism....The Royals. A Castle Catholic if ever there was one.

    We'll leave aside Fitt's house being burnt out and the many attacks on the Humes and other members of the SDLP in Derry as the Queens own Shinner himself remained tight-lipped and remember Joanne Mathers; the census collector who was shot dead just two days before Bobby Sands put his life in the hands of the Fermanagh /STyrone electorate.

    During this most recent election Gerry Kelly used census data collated to facilitate their political propaganda leaflets. Is there no limit to their hypocrisy?

    Poor Donnchadh is the forgotten man of Derry Sinn Fein and his rant was merely an attempt at letting the leadership know he was still around.

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  21. I heard that a scrunched sheet of paper was found outside the Templemore Count Center. On closer examination it appears that it was a prepared press release declaring victory with the announcement that Derry was now a Sinn Fein town.

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  22. Donncha,

    Come into the parlour, said the spider to the dinosaur…

    That is an invitation to explain your confusing comment on twitter here where you are not limited to a brief set of characters.

    Let us dissect your fragmented sentence. The Pensive Quill the “republican blog” whose sole purpose in life is to attack Sinn Fein. (No full stop needed) you could have considered, its sole purpose or just its purpose but that would take away from the dramatic.

    The blog being inanimate without human input reveals the true target of your sinister remark Anthony McIntyre whose blog you blame for the action of individuals unknown.
    Without a doubt, you seem to swim in the same cesspool in the deeper end, the added dressing of mediocre writers and contributors being a blanket to hide the implied threat.

    Your comment is cowardly and dangerous, murkier in its intent than that which you without base or validation freely exploit for reasons other than the acts of unknown people who magically spawn in the cesspool of the Quill.

    I challenge you to provide evidence not once have I read anything here inciting physical force be used against SF or anybody else. There is a difference between physically attacking and deconstruction.

    A method of analysing texts based on the ideas that language is inherently unstable and shifting and that the reader rather than the author is central in determining meaning. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida introduced it in the late 1960s.

    What is the difference between your cesspool and the imaginary one you blame on the Quill and by the Quill, we both mean Anthony McIntyre.

    Nothing wrong with being mediocre one day you might achieve it but walt away with your bad self and the party policy of being above the people perchance that arrogance may not sit well with those in the cesspool but let’s continue the blaming the Quill for the social and economic deprivation.

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  23. Anthony,

    '.. the things Donncha refers to gets easily garbled in the scramble box he calls a head.'

    Indeed, what outlandish rubbish from Donncha MacNiallais.

    I don't expect he is familiar with the concept that,'correlation does not imply causation' and even if he is, it has been superseded by the real motivation for his random animus towards TPQ.

    As I recall his intervention in the hunger strike debate in 2009 via a letter to the Derry Journal ended with him looking like an utter pillock. He 'defied' anyone to refute his account and Bik McFarland obliged by changing his.

    It occurred to me that the assertion that TPQ or it's contributors are in any way culpable for attacks on Sinn Fein is a classical case of Freudian 'displacement'. I suspect that the real targets of his resentment are Richard O'Rawe, Dixie Elliot and yourself who I guess he blames for his previous humiliation.

    With an intellect that appears to also provide as a keep for dead flies;I wonder what bizarre causal relationship Donncha might infer from global average temperatures and the population of pirates - 'A PIRATE SHORTAGE CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING'.

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  24. Good article Pauline. Thanks for standing up to this guy for all of us.

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  25. Anthony, you must be doing something right...as it appears SF blames you for everything that goes wrong in their party as a result of their own shortcomings, lies and deceit. Keep up the good work.

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  26. Comments from "Unknown" are not published on TPQ. You can retain your anonymity but use a distinguishing name to avoid being confused with others who also seek to post as Unknown.

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