Anthony McIntyre ☠ Some less sceptical thought the moment would never come.
But for those of us who can smell the odour of careerism that seeps from their bones, it was only a matter of time before one of them would opt to become pacesetter.
After having leeched on public sentiment around the hunger strike for career enhancement purposes, Bobby Sands and his generation of IRA political prisoners would ultimately come to be criminalised by some of those who parasitically fed on their memory and outstanding contribution to republican struggle.
For years I had quipped that if required there were those who would march down the Falls Road to proclaim Bobby Sands a criminal and demand that Gaza be bombed. It was the licence of sarcasm with which to yield a trend. It has not reached that point despite the reluctance of the party in Belfast City Hall to demand the expulsion of the Kapo ambassador from Ireland. Still, if careers can be built from the rubble of Gaza ...
What brought the unalloyed repudiation of Sands and his comrades as criminals and terrorists was an attempt to muzzle a media group by means of a SLAPP endeavour, an odious practice which has incurred the wrath of a European free speech coalition. A defamation claim was lodged against Mediahuis because one of its reporters, Suzanne Breen, had published an article with content that a former Special Advisor to Michelle O'Neill took exception to. There was nothing defamatory about Breen's piece. Even Section 31 at its worst would have been hard pressed to suffocate it.
One of the most capable and cautious investigative journalists in Ireland Breen has for decades trodden where others have been reluctant to go. In 2009 the PSNI sought to intimidate her by a legal action aimed at raiding her confidential files. She defeated them. Now Liam Lappin, as part of a wider Sinn Fein assault on the media, has followed suit. The pleadings Lappin made to a Dublin court were so Thatcheresque in content they could have come from the mouths of Paddy Cooney or Paddy Donegan on a bad day. Everybody who had ever joined the IRA or taken part in prolonged and arduous prison protests in defiance of a British bid to criminalise the republican struggle, was thrown under the bus with the assertion that they were part of nothing other than 'a criminal and terrorist organisation operating under the name and style of the IRA.'
Bobby Sands and his comrades were figuratively thrown into prison uniform in pursuit of an argument that was “strained”, “forced” and “utterly unreasonable”, according to the judge who rejected the claim. I wonder what my old friend Pat Sheehan, who almost died on the 1981 hunger strike, will say to Lappin next time he sees him at an event commemorating the dead 'criminals and terrorists'.
At the heel of the hunt it will be much easier for the dead hunger strikers to evade Lappin's characterisation of them than it will be for him to shake off the label of contemptible careerist.
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I was going to suggest this was a slip of the tongue but we all know Shinners don't do solo runs. How this was approved is beyond me. Bit by bit they edge closer to taking up seats in the Commons.
ReplyDeleteThe unrelenting nature of their litigious behaviour is up there with the Scientologists. No dissent tolerated, nor even a raised eyebrow.
Steve - I think you are right. It will be used to test the waters so that they can all chant it next. I just thought of the Joe McDonnell song - and they dare to call me a terrorist.
DeleteI would not be surprised if by 2030 as the grey-haired men in Belfast who've controlled the movement since the late 1970s die off Sinn Féin will cut the last public links to (P)IRA. Senior figures might distance themselves even sooner with the prospect of being in government in Dublin.
ReplyDeleteLast year there was a (fairly contrived) media outrage over John Finucane attending an IRA commemoration in south Armagh. What the coverage didn't notice was his speech, which could have well been written by the SDLP and you'd struggle to realise he was supposedly remembering a most ruthless section of the IRA.
It's an interesting illustration of the Sinn Fein symbiosis; policy substance squarely aimed at as broad an (and increasingly middle-class) audience as possible while paying token tribute to their reupblican base in the North to keep them on aboard. For over thirty years the pattern has been to steadily ease out the latter to appeal to the former and that's only accelerating ahead of a chance at joining a coalition in Dublin.
(https://www.friendsofsinnfein.com/post/remarks-by-john-finucane-mp-at-south-armagh-commemoration)
Its been on the go for a while ....... https://buncranatogether.com/home/2019/4/17/undeniable-proof-the-irish-people-were-sold-out-and-betrayed-by-r2w-unions-and-tds
ReplyDeleteEast Cork councillor Danielle Twomey announced this evening she is resigning from Sinn Féin. In October she said she wasn't running for re-election, blaming "undermining and backhanded moves from certain members of my own party against me"
ReplyDeleteEarlier this year former Kerry Sinn Féin councillor Toiréasa Ferris resigned from the party. “I’m a republican and there are many republicans in Sinn Féin. There are many people in Sinn Féin who I don’t think are republican... “I did not want to be part of something I feared would lead to concessions [of principles] in order to attain power. I feel disloyal saying that... “That was the suspicion I had always, how much they would be prepared to cede for power.”
Last year Clare TD Violet-Anne Wynne resigned from Sinn Féin claiming she had been subject to a 'campaign of psychological warfare'.
Since 2017 several Sinn Féin councillors in the south have resigned citing bullying, internal pressures, and smear campaigns.
I wonder does Toiréasa Ferris regard her father as a Republican?
DeleteGood spotting Bleakley. I followed that link and was agree with your analysis, it was a very mild speech by comparison. Hunting around on that shinner page I was stunned to see the name of their quarterly magazine is "Eire Nua". Are they actually serious? Didn't Adams et al get shot of that idea? The brass neck to call it that is amazing. Yet another bit by bit....
ReplyDeleteThis rot started in the 1970s when the British murder squad ( loyalist )murdered Marie Drumm in the Mater Hospital and Adams took over
ReplyDeleteHe has led the undermining of the IRA and its principles of the republican movement.as he under.the guise of a peace maker he sucked up to the British while he surrounded himself with British.touts
When he forced out the real republicans the coup was complete
He then went on to ericate the real republicans by by blackmail and and informers under his.control.
Ie Donaldson. Scap and others
But hi.thats OK as he filled his bank balance etc.
Brendan Hughes was right his Adams operation with Cahill.was riddled with.british agents