<HTML><PRE>Subj:	 RMD980223 Irish news for Monday 23 February
Date:	98-02-23 10:02:27 EST
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    IRISH NEWS ROUND-UP
    http://irlnet.com/rmlist/
    
    Monday, 23 February, 1998


1.  Blast hits Portadown after Louth scare
2.  Legacy of United Irishmen remembered
3.  Democracy 'turned on its head' - Kelly
4.  Taoiseach challenged on SF exclusion
5.  Analysis: Slan Padraig, a chara
    
_____________________________________________________________
 
>>> Blast hits Portadown after Louth scare
    
    
    
    A car bomb today exploded in Portadown, County Armagh,
    causing extensive damage but there were no injuries.
    
    A number of warnings had been received 45 minutes
    earlier and the area had been cleared. It is the second
    of two bomb attacks in Protestant areas in three days,
    and appears designed to further undermine Irish peace
    efforts.
    
    The bomb blasted the heart of the strongly loyalist
    town centre near the local RUC police barracks, and
    followed a similar bomb which exploded in Moira, County
    Down on Friday.
    
    The blast happened a minute before midday in Edward
    Street, and a number of businesses in Portadown have
    been badly damaged in the attack.  One shop is reported
    to be still burning following the bomb.
    
    Both the Portadown and Moira attacks have been blamed
    on Republican militarists opposed to the peace process,
    although no organisation has yet claimed responsibility
    for the explosions.  While nationalist anger at the
    behaviour of the Irish and British governments in the
    peace process has reached critical levels following the
    expulsion last week of Sinn Fein from talks, the IRA
    has said its ceasefire remains intact.  Most observers
    have blamed recent bombs on the Continuity Army
    Council, a dissident armed Republican group.   Sinn
    Fein has joined in renewed appeals for calm in the
    aftermath of today's attack.
    
    The highly divided town of Portadown is a stronghold of
    the Loyalist Volunteer Force, which was itself blamed
    for an attack on a village south of the border early
    this morning. A large no-warning petrol bomb was left
    in the early hours of this morning outside a Garda
    police barracks in the small County Louth village of
    Dromad, less than a mile from the border. The alarm was
    raised when the loyalists were spotted running away
    from the car outside the Garda station. A barrel of
    petrol and detonator were found in the car.
    
    Gardai and civilians said they had a lucky escape as
    hundreds of people were moved from nearby hotels and
    homes. One resident described the scene as
    "pandemonium" as the area was being cleared.  "I've
    lived here twenty years and never seen anything like
    it," he said.  The device was later defused in a 
    controlled explosion.
    

_____________________________________________________________
   
    
>>> Legacy of United Irishmen remembered
    
    
    Led by men and women carrying pikes like ones used by
    the rebels of 1798, thousands yesterday mached under
    bright sunshine through the town of Enniscorthy in
    County Wexford to Vinegar Hill, site of the largest
    battle in the United Irishmen rising.
    
    Between 10-20,000 men, women and children, poorly armed
    with pikes proved no match for an equivalent number of
    government forces who had almost surrounded the hill
    and who possessed 400 coachloads of ammunition and 20
    pieces of artillery.  500 rebels, under the leadership
    of Fr John Murphy, died in the ensuing battle.
    
    The rebellion of 1798 is a defining event in Irish
    history and a foundation stone for Irish Republicanism,
    the first national uprising against English rule,
    inspired by the egalitarian revolutionary philosophy of
    the French.
    
    After two hundred years dominated by oppression,
    risings, conflict, civil upheaval and creeping
    political change, the "connection with England" which
    1798 leader Wolfe Tone endeavoured to break was still
    to the fore yesterday.
    
    Crowds carried posters demanding the disbandment of
    Britain's militarised RUC police and the release of all
    Irish political prisoners, accompanied by bands playing
    the traditional rebel tunes on simple flutes and drums.
    
    Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams drew huge cheers from
    the crowd with a speech which recalled the philosophies
    of Tone and the United Irishmen.
    
    The West Belfast MP, quoting a poem from Irish poet
    Seamus Heaney which recalled how `the barley grew up
    from the graves' and the spirit of `98 lived on,  said
    Sinn Fein would keep striving for peace, although the
    peace process was in a "serious crisis."
    
    "It is transparently clear that you cannot have a
    democratic peace settlement without equality," he
    added. "The foundation will not stand unless it is
    based upon equality."
    
    He urged the crowd to revisit the ideals of the United
    Irishmen and take ownership of the peace process for
    themselves.
    
    After being presented with a full-size replica of a
    1798 pike. Adams told his audience that the legacy of
    the United Irish movement, "the sense of bringing about
    liberty, fraternity and equality, the sense of freedom,
    the sense of an Irish republic, the sense of ending the
    connection with Britain and of bringing about a new
    union of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, is as
    relevant and as necessary as it was when your
    countrymen and women fought here."
    
    The Sinn Fein president said the peace process was
    wider than the talks process and no one would undo his
    party's commitment to achieving a credible, democratic
    settlement in the North.
    
    "There is no doubt about Sinn Fein's commitment to
    playing a full role in bringing about a peace
    settlement," he said.
    
    He rejected media suggestions that recent events in
    some way signified an "exit strategy" by republicans
    from the process. "We have no exit strategy
    whatsoever," he declared.  He said Sinn Fein was
    "totally wedded and tied to the notion of bringing
    about a democratic settlement on terms desired by the
    people of this island" and to its "republican
    objectives" of uniting Ireland, "Roman Catholic,
    Protestant and dissenter."
    
    "It is my conviction that we will get a united Ireland,
    that we will break the connection with England," he
    said.
    
    Adams challenged Dublin politicians to wage an unarmed
    struggle for unity.
    
    "It is a sign of the failure of those in power, of
    those who pay lip service to the idea of national
    freedom, that young men and women...should be moved to
    take up armed actions," he said.
    
    Mr Adams said the credibility of the peace process
    which had been lost in the eyes of many republicans and
    nationalists, must be restored. People should not leave
    the process in the hands of "the big battalions" such
    as the two governments and those politicians who were
    not interested in achieving a settlement.  The simple
    message given in 1969, when Six County nationalists
    demanded their civil rights, was that the people who
    lived in the north-east would never lie down again.
    
    He tackled questions raised about a series of posters
    for the event featuring Republicans, one of which
    carried a picture of young Wexford Volunteer Eddie
    O'Brien who was killed when a bomb exploded prematurely
    in 1996.  The commemorationm yesterday coincided with
    the second anniversary of his death.
    
    "Let me say today that we, and I, make no apologies
    whatsoever for the portrait and the picture of
    Volunteer Eddie O'Brien being used in that way. It is a
    sign of the failure of those in power, of those who pay
    lip service to the ideals of national freedom, that
    young men like that, and young women . . . should die
    in the way that they died, or should feel moved to take
    up armed struggle.
    
    "And the responsibility . . . on responsible
    politicians, and also, if I may say so, on responsible
    republicans, is to ensure that no more of our young men
    or women die in the service of freedom in our country."
    
    "That puts a huge onus on the so-called constitutional
    nationalists or the constitutional partitionists -
    those in high places who engage in the rhetoric of
    freedom - to actually build a freedom struggle, an
    unarmed peaceful democratic freedom struggle to bring
    about the end of the British connection and the
    beginning of a new future for all the people of this
    island."
    
    There could never be a democratic settlement while
    there were prisoners in jails in Ireland and Britain,
    he said. Speaking after a Republican splinter group
    bombed the village of Moira on Friday night and before
    the bomb today in Portadown, he said that his party
    would do its best to stabilise the situation. But the
    governments also had to face up in terms of their
    responsibility "and the first responsibility of the
    Dublin Government, of an Irish government, is to stand
    up for the rights of the people of Ireland".
    
    
_____________________________________________________________    
    
    
>>> Democracy 'turned on its head' - Kelly
    
    
    Sinn Fein has denied that is is "shadow-boxing" over
    its decision on whether to return to the multi-party
    talks at the end of the party's two-week suspension.
    
    Senior negotiator Gerry Kelly told a rally in the
    centre of Belfast yesterday that the party would be
    canvassing the views of grassroots supporters in a
    series of meetings before making a decision.
    
    Mr Kelly was speaking to a crowd of up to 2,000 people
    who attended a protest rally at Belfast city hall to
    highlight opposition at Sinn Fein's exclusion from the
    talks.
    
    He said their electorate of 172,500 had been
    disenfranchised "on the word of an RUC man" and that
    there was "no hard and fast decision" to be back at the
    talks next month.
    
    "We will talk to our base, we will have internal
    meetings, we will decide our tactics and we will move
    ahead on that basis," he said.
    
    Mr Kelly said sections of the British military
    establishment and Unionism had wrecked the last peace
    process and could do so again.
    
    He said the RUC was "violently anti-republican and
    anti-nationalist" but said that Sinn Fein "will not be
    silenced by the stroke of a British pen" nor by Ulster
    Unionist leader David Trimble.
    
    Mr Kelly said the talks process was fundamentally
    flawed because it was "ring-fenced" with pre-conditions
    and he said the two governments needed to carry out "a
    root and branch" review.
    
    He said: "The British government is still following the
    same failed approach as the Tories.
    
    "Where is the evidence that the British are committed
    to a fresh approach and are serious about finding a
    lasting and democratic peace settlement?"
    
    He said that when Sinn Fein set out on the present
    course some years ago they knew it was not going to be
    easy to bring peace through a just settlement and said
    it had been proven that there were many people with a
    "vested interest" in preventing a democratic peace.
    
    He said Sinn Fein's strategy was that the only way to
    peacefully and permanently resolve differences was
    through meaningful negotiations which remove the causes
    of conflict.
    
    Mr Kelly said no-one could accuse republicans of not
    doing all they could to resolve the situation.
    
    He said democracy had been "turned on its head" last
    week when Sinn Fein was put out of the talks "without
    any evidence".
    
    He told the rally that Sinn Fein had not dishonoured
    the Mitchell principles but were thrown out to
    "satisfy" the Ulster Unionists.
    
    Mr Kelly said the reality was that without Sinn Fein
    there could be no "workable agreement" and said the
    party wouldn't be walking away from its peace strategy.
    
    
    *  This morning at the talks venue at Stormont Castle,
    Belfast republican Martin Meehan and a drama group
    staged "a short drama in protest at the denial of
    equality for representation by the British government's
    expulsion of Sinn Fein from the talks process" on
    Friday.  The largest of today's rallies against the
    expulsion takes place tonight at 7pm at Belfast's
    Europa Hotel.
    

_____________________________________________________________

    
>>> Taoiseach challenged on SF exclusion
    
    
    Irish PM Bertie Ahern was urged in Leinster House to
    "disassociate himself from this charade and stand up
    for the rights of Irish citizens for whom he is
    responsible and who are today being put beyond the
    pale".
    
    The call came from Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain
    who hit out at the "fraudulent indictment" of his party
    which was proceeding at Dublin Castle.
    
    During Taoiseach's Questions, Ahern was cleary
    sensitive to the accusation that the information on
    which the indictment of Sinn Fein was based came from
    Ronnie Flanagan and he sought to distance himself from
    the RUC. He said he had recieved the opinion of the
    Gardai and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Both
    of these of course recieved their information from the
    RUC.
    
    To his credit the only TD in a largely empty house who
    spoke against the exclusion of Sinn Fein was Socialist
    Party member for Dublin West Joe Higgins. Independent
    Jackie-Healy Rae had also opposed the move when he
    appeared on Irish television on Monday.
    
    Caoimhghin O Caolain rose to defend his party in the
    most robust exchange of the day:
    
    Caoimhghin O Caolain: The Taoiseach referred to "a case
    to answer". There is a case to answer, but by whom?
    There was also reference to objectivity. There is very
    little objectivity, scientific or otherwise, in this
    matter. I assure the Taoiseach and members that as an
    elected Sinn Fein member I am here to represent the
    people of Cavan and Monaghan, with the support of
    11,531 votes, a mandate equalled by only a handful of
    other members. I intend to stand here for peace and
    justice in solidarity with my elected colleagues who
    today are fighting a fraudulent indictment that has
    been laid against us at Dublin Castle. Will the
    Taoiseach disassociate himself from this charade and
    stand up for the rights of those Irish citizens for
    whom he is responsible and who are today being put
    beyond the pale? Will he agree to a special debate
    today on the crisis in the peace process? I urge
    agreement from all sides on this matter.
    
    The Taoiseach: The answer to the first part of the
    Deputy's question is the IRA. In regard to the second
    part, a process is taking place elsewhere to which all
    parties in this House -- including I think the Deputy's
    party -- subscribed. I am pleased to hear him express
    what a number of his negotiators have said to me in
    recent days, that they are prepared to see the process
    worked through. Part of the process is that certain
    rules have to be worked through and I hope all that
    will happen in the next few months.
    
    Caoimhghin O Caolain: When the Taoiseach talks about
    working within specific rules will he recognise that
    one of the fundamental rules is the basis of evidence
    in relation to any charge against any group within the
    talks process? Is it the case that no such evidence has
    been produced against Sinn Fein, an independent
    political party with a mandate throughout the length
    and breadth of the island and which has played a
    constructive and courageous role in the formation and
    work of this process to date?
    
    The Taoiseach: I have not seen any evidence brought
    against Sinn Fein but the deputy will understand how
    the rules and the system operates. Due process must
    take place. I hope his representatives will have an
    opportunity today to state their case and their views
    before any decision is made.
    
    The Sinn Fein TD later described as "highly
    significant" the Taoiseach admission that there was no
    evidence against Sinn Fein and said the government had
    "no credible alternative" now but to disassociate
    itself from the attempted exclusion.
    
_____________________________________________________________    
    
>>> Analysis: Slan Padraig, a chara
    
    By Laurence McKeown
    
    Paddy McManus died last week. To his friends, family
    and loved ones I send my condolences. I didn't know
    Paddy well and yet his death came as a shock. I felt a
    sense of loss more so than I did when others much
    closer to me had died.
    
    I think possibly it was because Paddy was so much of a
    gentleman. Strange word that, gentleman. I wonder does
    it have a different meaning across the water. I know
    that certainly when we say it we don't associate it
    with lords and ladies.
    
    The Irish have a saying, a "gentleman and a scholar".
    It's a good saying. It conjures up the image of someone
    who is both wise and humble. Someone who realises that
    the more he knows the more he realises how ignorant he
    really is. Paddy to me was a gentleman and a scholar.
    He was ready to serve but never a servant.
    
    Paddy had what I've called an impoverished look about
    him. I've never used that term to describe anyone else
    yet it seems to be the perfect adjective to sum up his
    appearence. Impoverished. Yet not a demeanour which
    prompted sympathy or, worse still, pity.
    
    You got the impression from Paddy that he was really
    very shy. The type of person, like so many of the
    unsung heroes of this struggle, who work away in the
    backround, tirelessly, patiently, each day, every day.
    The problem is that it's only when they are no longer
    with us that we realise the terrible loss that their
    passing has inflicted. We wish for the opportunity to
    say that extra word, make that additional gesture, show
    our appreciation. But it's too late.
    
    Apparently Paddy took ill on the day that a rally was
    being held outside the City Hall. The rally was
    organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions,
    supposedly to protest at the most recent spate of
    killings and to call for peace. It was the sort of
    rally we are all too familiar with. The type that are
    called when the right thinking people feel they must be
    seen to be doing something. The type where people stand
    around and beat their breasts the correct number of
    times at a pre-determined moment in a practised manner,
    then utter cries of despair at the actions of the
    natives.
    
    The natives that day thought they too could join in the
    calls for an end to the slaughter being waged against
    their community. Silly, naive, innocent natives. They
    didn't understand that at such rallies only voices from
    the platform will be heard. The words carefully
    selected, phrased in the proper language and spoken in
    reasonable and sensible tones so as not to alienate
    "that other section of the community".
    
    The natives had got it wrong again. They thought that
    just anyone could join in. They had to learn the hard
    way that day, as always, with insult heaped on injury.
    
    I have an image in my head of the type of person who
    attends such rallies. Their accents, the type of
    clothes they wear, the places they frequent, the
    friends they keep. It's not an image of impoverishment.
    Humanity is not a term you would ever apply to them. I
    think of them outside the City Hall with their
    arrogant, twisted faces, their sneers, their perfumed
    hankerchiefs held in leather clad manicured fingers
    close to their nostrils for fear the stench of too many
    dead nationalists would invade their senses.
    
    And I think of Paddy lying ill inside the hall. And it
    hurts me. It hurts me that such a gentleman and a
    scholar had to endure for so many years the insults,
    abuse and downright bad manners of people like them who
    believe that they were born to rule and we were born to
    know our place. It's thanks to the work of Paddy and
    the other unsung heroes of our time that the comfy
    security in that belief has been well and truly shaken.
    Roll on the day when it crumbles to dust. Slan, slan
    Padraig, a chara.
    
    
    



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Subject: RMD980223 Irish news for Monday 23 February

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