Dixie Elliot ✍ I just sat through a tedious hour-long podcast called 'Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning'.

I honestly never heard of Dion Fanning before nor had I heard of their sidekick in the podcast, Timothy O'Grady, until I read his Belfast Media article about Say Nothing just over a week ago, which says everything about that fella and where his loyalties lie.

Listening to 'The Great Leader's' three spin doctors harmonising perfectly, as they ridiculed The Dark, the Price Sisters, as well as Anthony McIntyre, his wife Carrie, and Ed Moloney, was like listening to The Muppet's 'Mah Na Mah Na' song.

You know the one; 'Mah Na Mah Na... Do doo be-do-do.' So repetitive you know what's coming next.

As expected, Joe Brolly just had to bring the first hunger strike into it. He claimed that Father Meagher told Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes and the other men that the granting of political status was more or less imminent and that he was going to collect the document at the airport.

Then The Dark ended the hunger strike to save Sean McKenna's life and the Brits reneged on the offer.
That's the first time I heard that one.

Brolly said that Raymond McCartney, who is a good friend of his, had told him that. To emphasise their good friendship, Joe added that he had made McCartney a millionaire. What he meant was that because he represented McCartney in a UK Supreme Court case for a miscarriage of justice he received, what the media at the time said, was a 'substantial compensation claim.'

Thanks to good old Joe we now know that substantial compensation claim was a million pounds or more. So much for client confidentiality!!

I said several times that if anyone attempted to use that first hunger strike to smear the reputation of one of our bravest leaders, Brendan Hughes, I would not hesitate to put it right. I've already done so a few times.

Raymond McCartney, never had any intention of dying on that hunger strike. I know that because I was with his cousin, the late Sa Gallagher, when he asked McCartney was he seriously willing to die when they met up in the wing canteen at the beginning of it.

McCartney said straight out that he had no intention of dying, which shocked us. I was sharing a cell at that time with Jake Jackson and when I told him what McCartney had told Sa, Jake said, "I can't believe that not only has he just told us that (the leadership in the blocks) but he's telling everyone else it as well."

The myth that The Dark took the Brits at their word regarding an acceptable offer to end the hunger strike is quite easy to dispel.

It's a fact that Bobby Sands came back to our wing that night after visiting the men in the prison hospital and told us straight out that we had got nothing. He kept repeating it in Irish while walking past the cell doors, "ní fhuairemar feic... ní fhuaitemar feic..."

That is well documented, including in Bobby's biography, Nothing But An Unfinished Song.
Why would he tell desperate men that if the Brits had made an offer? He could have told us to wait and see what would come of the offer.

Then there is the evidence in the comm Bobby wrote out to Adams that very night, telling him that they would be embarking on another hunger strike.

In this comm he referred to "the boys breaking' and 'our desperate attempts to salvage something."
There was no mention of Father Meagher, a document or even The Dark ending the hunger strike to save Sean McKenna"s life. If you read the comm (see screenshots below) you'll see that what Bobby wrote and told Adams that very night is totally different to what Joe Brolly's millionaire friend Raymond McCartney told him.



'The boys broke' - meaning that as Sean McKenna was nearing death three of them told The Dark that they were coming off it, Raymond McCartney being one of them.

The three spin doctors also threw the usual 'problems with alcohol and mental health' into the toxic mix. "Brendan being very very damaged by his life and everything that happened," said Brolly.
"As for Raymond," he added. "look at him now, here he is."

Brendan Hughes spent the final years of his life living in a small flat he called his cell, with his principles intact.

As for the Joe Brolly made millionaire, Raymond McCartney, he sold any principles he might have had for a political career and money.

Joe Brolly also said:

When the GFA was signed it was a triumphant occasion. Everyone was out on the streets, they were in cars, they were tooting the horns as though it was some vast celebration. And it was, we see the reality of that today, the north is entirely transformed . . . 

What Brolly was in actual fact referring to was the stage-managed 'Victory Parade' on the Falls Road after the 1994 Ceasefire, which the Sinn Féiners arranged in order to sell defeat as a victory. You wouldn't expect someone, with the sharp mind of a barrister, to get those two events; which were separated by four years, mixed up.

So how could anyone take what he says seriously?

Thirty years after that 'Victory Parade' the victory is put back, yet again, until 2030. The North is certainly not transformed. The politicians still get elected solely on what side of the sectarian divide they come from and not what they do for the betterment of the people they are supposed to represent.
Sinn Féin might well now be the largest party on this island but they are powerless to change anything, never mind get a poll/referendum on Irish Unity.

They can't even get a referendum on the prefix 'London' which has been imposed on Derry by a royal charter since 1613. A referendum which would undoubtedly and overwhelmingly remove that prefix which bollixes like Gregory Campbell still use to mock us.

You'd think that the largest party in Ireland which now refers to the repugnant British Royals as 'Friends of our Peace Process' would manage to get their regal friends to get rid of that prefix for them.
Ah but they can't because the Unionists would be outraged and threaten to bring violence on to the streets.

That's why they keep putting the time for a poll/ referendum on a United Ireland forward. 

When those Sinn Féin spin doctors such as Joe Brolly, Dion Fanning and Timothy O'Grady accuses the likes of myself and other Republicans of being left behind, I think to myself, how the hell can we be left behind by those who are going nowhere anyway?

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Tedious Tim

Dixie Elliot ✍ I just sat through a tedious hour-long podcast called 'Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning'.

I honestly never heard of Dion Fanning before nor had I heard of their sidekick in the podcast, Timothy O'Grady, until I read his Belfast Media article about Say Nothing just over a week ago, which says everything about that fella and where his loyalties lie.

Listening to 'The Great Leader's' three spin doctors harmonising perfectly, as they ridiculed The Dark, the Price Sisters, as well as Anthony McIntyre, his wife Carrie, and Ed Moloney, was like listening to The Muppet's 'Mah Na Mah Na' song.

You know the one; 'Mah Na Mah Na... Do doo be-do-do.' So repetitive you know what's coming next.

As expected, Joe Brolly just had to bring the first hunger strike into it. He claimed that Father Meagher told Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes and the other men that the granting of political status was more or less imminent and that he was going to collect the document at the airport.

Then The Dark ended the hunger strike to save Sean McKenna's life and the Brits reneged on the offer.
That's the first time I heard that one.

Brolly said that Raymond McCartney, who is a good friend of his, had told him that. To emphasise their good friendship, Joe added that he had made McCartney a millionaire. What he meant was that because he represented McCartney in a UK Supreme Court case for a miscarriage of justice he received, what the media at the time said, was a 'substantial compensation claim.'

Thanks to good old Joe we now know that substantial compensation claim was a million pounds or more. So much for client confidentiality!!

I said several times that if anyone attempted to use that first hunger strike to smear the reputation of one of our bravest leaders, Brendan Hughes, I would not hesitate to put it right. I've already done so a few times.

Raymond McCartney, never had any intention of dying on that hunger strike. I know that because I was with his cousin, the late Sa Gallagher, when he asked McCartney was he seriously willing to die when they met up in the wing canteen at the beginning of it.

McCartney said straight out that he had no intention of dying, which shocked us. I was sharing a cell at that time with Jake Jackson and when I told him what McCartney had told Sa, Jake said, "I can't believe that not only has he just told us that (the leadership in the blocks) but he's telling everyone else it as well."

The myth that The Dark took the Brits at their word regarding an acceptable offer to end the hunger strike is quite easy to dispel.

It's a fact that Bobby Sands came back to our wing that night after visiting the men in the prison hospital and told us straight out that we had got nothing. He kept repeating it in Irish while walking past the cell doors, "ní fhuairemar feic... ní fhuaitemar feic..."

That is well documented, including in Bobby's biography, Nothing But An Unfinished Song.
Why would he tell desperate men that if the Brits had made an offer? He could have told us to wait and see what would come of the offer.

Then there is the evidence in the comm Bobby wrote out to Adams that very night, telling him that they would be embarking on another hunger strike.

In this comm he referred to "the boys breaking' and 'our desperate attempts to salvage something."
There was no mention of Father Meagher, a document or even The Dark ending the hunger strike to save Sean McKenna"s life. If you read the comm (see screenshots below) you'll see that what Bobby wrote and told Adams that very night is totally different to what Joe Brolly's millionaire friend Raymond McCartney told him.



'The boys broke' - meaning that as Sean McKenna was nearing death three of them told The Dark that they were coming off it, Raymond McCartney being one of them.

The three spin doctors also threw the usual 'problems with alcohol and mental health' into the toxic mix. "Brendan being very very damaged by his life and everything that happened," said Brolly.
"As for Raymond," he added. "look at him now, here he is."

Brendan Hughes spent the final years of his life living in a small flat he called his cell, with his principles intact.

As for the Joe Brolly made millionaire, Raymond McCartney, he sold any principles he might have had for a political career and money.

Joe Brolly also said:

When the GFA was signed it was a triumphant occasion. Everyone was out on the streets, they were in cars, they were tooting the horns as though it was some vast celebration. And it was, we see the reality of that today, the north is entirely transformed . . . 

What Brolly was in actual fact referring to was the stage-managed 'Victory Parade' on the Falls Road after the 1994 Ceasefire, which the Sinn Féiners arranged in order to sell defeat as a victory. You wouldn't expect someone, with the sharp mind of a barrister, to get those two events; which were separated by four years, mixed up.

So how could anyone take what he says seriously?

Thirty years after that 'Victory Parade' the victory is put back, yet again, until 2030. The North is certainly not transformed. The politicians still get elected solely on what side of the sectarian divide they come from and not what they do for the betterment of the people they are supposed to represent.
Sinn Féin might well now be the largest party on this island but they are powerless to change anything, never mind get a poll/referendum on Irish Unity.

They can't even get a referendum on the prefix 'London' which has been imposed on Derry by a royal charter since 1613. A referendum which would undoubtedly and overwhelmingly remove that prefix which bollixes like Gregory Campbell still use to mock us.

You'd think that the largest party in Ireland which now refers to the repugnant British Royals as 'Friends of our Peace Process' would manage to get their regal friends to get rid of that prefix for them.
Ah but they can't because the Unionists would be outraged and threaten to bring violence on to the streets.

That's why they keep putting the time for a poll/ referendum on a United Ireland forward. 

When those Sinn Féin spin doctors such as Joe Brolly, Dion Fanning and Timothy O'Grady accuses the likes of myself and other Republicans of being left behind, I think to myself, how the hell can we be left behind by those who are going nowhere anyway?

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

2 comments:

  1. I was amazed at how wrong Joe got that first hunger strike. He also gaffed on the Green Book supposedly ensuring that no one would admit to IRA membership because the Green Book prohibited it. He seems to have overlooked Martin McGuinness's admission.

    That said, nobody expects Adams to admit he was a member. Brendan Hughes didn't ask that he admit it, but merely that he respond with 'no comment', instead of denying it. That on its own without any recourse to denial would have prevented any prosecution. The real reason for denying it seems not to be to avoid arrest but to bamboozle those outside the traditional SF grassroots as a means to gaining establishment respectability and credentials.

    Was Timothy O'Grady bamboozled to the point where he genuinely knew nothing of Adams' role within the IRA but knew enough to label Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price police informers? It is easier to believe he wilfully pushed a PR line.

    It is a difficult one for Raymond, who I have always liked despite the differences. It would be beneficial to see him open up about that period. And if he ever does it would be important for us not to be judgemental or condemnatory. That response pushes people to say nothing.

    Good stuff as ever Dixie.

    ReplyDelete