Dolours Price Rests in Peace

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Thu Jan 24, 2013 22:35

Irish Republican News

" Veteran republican Dolours Price, sister of Irish political prisoner
Marian Price, has died.

Dolours remained a significant force in Irish republicanism until her
untimely death in Dublin last night.

Following the introduction of internment in 1971, when hundreds of
nationalists were arrested and imprisoned without trial, she approached
Sean MacStiofain, one of the founders of the Provisional IRA and said
she wanted to be a "fighting soldier". She campaigned to join the IRA,
not part of Cumann na mBan, the women's wing of the republican movement.
An IRA Army Council was convened and Price was sworn into the
organisation, followed by her sister. Both played a significant role in
the IRA's armed struggle.

In 1973, she and her sister were sentenced to life imprisonment in
England, and immediately embarked on a 200-day hunger strike seeking
their repatriation to a prison in Ireland.

During the hunger strike, which was called off in 1974, the sisters were
force fed.

Following her release on compassionate grounds in 1980, Dolours returned
to Dublin and she married Belfast actor Stephen Rea in the early 1980s.
"The couple, who divorced in 2000, have two sons.

Her sister Marian Price was interned in 2011 by an order of the then
British Direct Ruler Owen Paterson. Marian continues to suffer serious
ill health as a result of her hunger strike and remains the subject of a
worldwide campaign for her release.

Their brutal treatment in English prisons continued to affect both
sisters' mental health, and Dolours has received treatment for post
traumatic stress disorder.

In recent years, she was highly critical of the Sinn Fein leadership of
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness and of the peace process. She has
made a number of statements denouncing Mr Adams for allegedly denying
his IRA past, and her involvement in a historical archive project for
Boston College became the subject of a PSNI subpoena and multiple legal
actions.

It is understood she died peacefully at her home last night in Malahide,
County Dublin. Ar dheis De go raibh a hanam."

by independent republican Fri Jan 25, 2013 16:16

Rest in Peace Dolours,

Shows how backward a progressive IRA/ republican movement is at times that they had a womens section separate to the main movement and that the price sisters had to approach senior figures and apply to become 'fighting soldiers'.

The IRA in its present incarnation as in the past will never achieve stated objectives unless it embraces the concept of revolution.

Brits out is a purely reformist out of date idea.

Fair play to the price sisters for playing their part.

RIP Dolours.

by Elric Fri Jan 25, 2013 18:17

You will now find her in Valhalla.

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Fri Jan 25, 2013 20:55

There follows a statement from the family of Marian Price McGlinchey.

We have received news that Marian's application for compassionate parole following the tragic death of her sister Dolours has been refused, despite her being granted bail earlier today.

Given Marian's current health issues it is laughable that she would pose any kind of security or flight risk. We feel this decision is nothing more than a continuance of a vicious and vindictive campaign on the part of the Prison Service, the Department of Justice and the British secretary of state along with M15 to destroy Marian both physically and mentally.

We would urge all right thinking people to utterly condemn this blatant breach of Marian's fundamental human rights.

____
Irish Republican News

"A TRAGIC LOSS

The passing of Dolours Price, a republican legend, has come as a deep
shock to the entire community, regardless of politics or allegiance.

Dolours was a mother of two sons and former wife of leading actor
Stephen Rea. She was found dead at her Malahide home on Wednesday
night.

Her death has seen an outpouring of sympathy and respect on social
networks, and hundreds of messages have been posted in tribute.

Dolours suffered profoundly from post-traumatic stress disorder
relating to her time on hunger strike in 1973/1974, and had previously
attempted to commit suicide.

In July last year, she said she was "completely distraught" with
anxiety for the wellbeing of her sister, who is younger by three years.
Marian Price was interned without trial by British decree almost two
years ago, and is still under prison guard in hospital.

"We formed bonds in English prisons and in Irish prison that can never
be broken," she said. "I hope and trust she will find the strength and
courage to keep on going."

She had been a harsh critic of Sinn Fein in recent years and had
repeatedly clashed with its leader, Gerry Adams, over his alleged role
in the IRA and his party's 'sell out' of republican principles.

The Belfast native had also come under pressure in recent months as a
result of interviews she gave in confidentiality with researchers
associated with a 'conflict archive' funded by Boston College.

The taped recordings were subpoenad by the PSNI police as part of their
historical investigations into the IRA -- potentially implicating Mr
Adams and others -- but have since become mired in legal wrangles on
both sides of the Atlantic, including a potential US Supreme Court
challenge.

Mr Adams said yesterday he was "profoundly saddened" by Price's death
and extended his sympathies to her family.

"I have known Dolours for a very long time. She endured great hardship
during her time in prison in the 1970s, enduring a hunger strike which
included force feeding for over 200 days," he said.

"In more recent years she has had many personal trials. I am sure all of
those who knew Dolours will be very sad at the news of her death."

Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly, who fought alongside her in the IRA, said he
was shocked by the news. "A life cut short. She will be sadly missed by
her family and friends."

The 32 County Sovereignty Committee offered their condolences to the
Price family. "An unbowed and unapologetic Republican, she will be
remembered fondly by all within the Sovereignty Movement."

In a statement, the two Boston College journalists, Ed Moloney and
Anthony McIntyre, also expressed their sadness at her death.

"Throughout the last two years of our fight to prevent her interviews
being handed over to the police in Belfast, our greatest fear was always
for the health and well-being of Dolours," they said. "Now that she is
no longer with us perhaps those who initiated this legal case can take
some time to reflect upon the consequences of their action." "

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:33

Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams TD, has called again for the release of Marian Price following the death of her sister, Dolours, yesterday.

“Marian Price should not be in jail, she is ill and now she is grieving. That she should be considered a security risk is frankly ridiculous. She is unjustly and wrongfully incarcerated and I call for her release immediately.”

“I also call on the Irish government to fulfil its responsibilities and obligations.”
ends

Since the the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and the start

of the Peace Process In Ireland. The British have blocked an

inquiry into the British Government's role in the murder of a Human

rights lawyer Pat Finucane.

The British Government has also been involved in the murder of

another Human Rights Lawyer, Rosemary Nelson who was bombed by

their agents, just a few months after the Agreement was signed.

Agents of the British Government have also since the Agreement

murdered journalist Martin O'Hagan.

The British have further introduced secret political internment

without trial of political activists. Continued with political

policing,the torture of political prisoners, the censorship of

independent Irish media and the continuance of a Police state run

by SS UK, still very agencies involved in these murders.

Below is a link to just a few of the many mainstream media accounts of their activities.

The bottom line, is that there is no Peace Process, based on

basic principles of civilized justice functioning in British

Occupied Ireland.It has long since been destroyed by the British

Government and their secret service agencies known as SS UK .

A Statement by the Prisons Crisis Group:

"The release of Marian Price to attend her sister Dolours’ funeral would be an act of compassion. Her family and friends have appealed to Justice Minister David Ford to show her some humanity at this time.

Marian had an exceptionally close bond of love with her sister. The fact that her heart is broken at Dolours’ death will be understood far beyond the political circles in which either of them moved. The case for allowing her to grieve at her sister’s funeral will likewise be appreciated even by people of profoundly different ideas and background.

Minister Ford will know of Marian’s own physical and mental health difficulties which have led to her detention in a hospital facility for the past number of months. He will surely appreciate that keeping her isolated in custody to grieve alone as her sister is buried could have a devastating impact on her health.

Marian’s lawyers have asked Mr. Ford to consider allowing her to spend a week with her family to deal with her loss. We earnestly urge him to give positive consideration to the case they have made to him.

We ask all who are concerned to raise their voices so Mr. Ford can hear how broadly his decision will be supported if he grants this plea."

--------

The Good Friday Agreement and Peace Process was sold to combatants and the Irish people on the basis of Power Sharing.

The question many traditional Irish republicans are asking currently, is that despite several calls by Mr Adams his party and a few of his colleagues along with several elected bodies in the Free State for the release of Marian Price, there has been absolutely no response from MI5 who are currently ruling British Occupied Ireland. A lot of people for the sake of peace, have given the process the benefit of the doubt, despite deep misgivings but the heartless bigotry and sectarianism of MI5 and their Tory Viceroyal regime has not changed one iota, from pre process.

There is no money in peace for the heavily sponsored Tories of the British industrial complex. MI5 has a vested interest in [provoking re-start of the war to expand their budget and department. The PSNI want more jobs for the boys and the Stormont gravy train has a vested interest in a sectarian community coughing up the same two participants to a single party regime of a secret police state. Irish republican unity is critical at this time but Provisional Sinn Fein or their counterparts in Dublin seem to have extremely little political influence in Belfast, if we are to take the public statements and events around internment at face value.

Provisional Sinn Fein's public statements of support for Marian are welcome but bottom line they need to do considerably better if we are to continue to give them the benefit of growing doubt. British Injustice on the present scale has but one inevitable outcome, unless the present parrots of peace, get real about justice immediately.

by W. Finnerty Sun Jan 27, 2013 15:29

Why -- "In ainm an Athar agus an Mhic agus an Spioraid Naoimh" -- are all (or almost all) of our main-stream politicians, of all religious and political persuasions (and none), in both Irish jurisdictions -- STILL failing to highlight the existence of Articles 9, 10, and 11 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in their respective Houses of Parliament), and all of the national and international legislation produced since 1948 in support of such basic human rights principles -- to end the wholly avoidable and extreme suffering of this exceptionally unlucky woman: who, in so far as I am aware, felt driven to do what she did by nothing other than a very natural and strongly motivated pursuit of "genuine justice for all": at a time when "genuine justice for all" did not appear (to her and many others like her in her particular part of the world) to be achievable by ANY means other than extreme physical violence?

To the very best of my knowledge, the Price Sisters (and their associates) played no part whatsoever in the grossly and recklessly irresponsible decisions (as I see them), by both governments operating on the Island of Ireland since 1948, to totally ignore the "teaching and education" recommendations in the excerpt below taken from the final paragraph of the PREAMBLE of United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."

The full text of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be viewed at: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

In another part of the same PREAMBLE, it is stated:

"Whereas it is essential, if man (and woman of course) is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, ..."

However, three generations or so after the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights came into being in 1948, many of the most basic of the "basic human rights" -- basic "God given rights" in other words, which the arrogant, red-rotten-with-corruption, criminal "tin-gods" in government have absolutely no right whatsoever to deny ANYBODY -- are STILL not being observed or protected by law -- in anything remotely like a healthy holistic manner -- in either of the two legal jurisdictions at present operating on the Island of Ireland: as my particular case (for example), of now almost 15 years "unresolved standing", very clearly and undeniably demonstrates.

In reality, and entirely perversely and unlawfully, "the law", which is being wilfully applied on a fragmentary and corrupt basis in both jurisdictions with impunity, or, the shoddy, cesspit type of "tin-god law" as it might better be described (and as I see it), is STILL being used by the corruption and impunity ridden governments of both jurisdictions to seriously, and systematically, VIOLATE basic human rights at the present time.

A nice "how do you do" for all of "the people" -- people who are ENTIRELY dependent on their two governments for the provision of genuine justice for all -- at present living on the Island of Ireland?

Finally, and with reference to the "every individual and every organ of society" part of the text in the UDHR Preamble, note in addition how badly the legal and medical professions, and the law enforcement agencies (for example), also appear to have been very adversely affected in both jurisdictions operating on the Island of Ireland: so that it's not by any means just our politicians and our clergy (particularly the Roman Catholic Church Clergy) who are at fault in connection with all of the present levels of rampant ignorance, and educational malpractice and wrongdoing, relating to basic human rights, and to the growing "mountain" of slyly unenforced human rights legislation, both national and international.

Related Link:
"Government corruption, crime, cover-ups, and impunity":
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/102060

by An Drighneán Donn - Páirtí Cummanch na Poblachta Sun Jan 27, 2013 19:22

There will be a candle lit black flag vigil on O'Connell Bridge, Dublin, at 7pm on Monday, so that people in Dublin can show their respect and express their sympathy at the death of one of Ireland's bravest soldiers, Dolores Price.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam ró-uasal.

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Mon Jan 28, 2013 02:30

DOLOURS PRICE FUNERAL TODAY St Agnes Catholic Church in Andersonstown - Her burial will take place at nearby Milltown Cemetery.

The Black Rose

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Mon Jan 28, 2013 18:21

Dolours Price was carried home by her former husband of 17 years Stephen Rea and their two sons Danny and Oscar, at her funeral in Belfast today. Dolours sister Clare and brother Damian Price were among the thousands of mourners, many of whom could not attend because of British internment and profiling. Marian her sister was prevented from attending, by the British as was Dolours herself previously deprived of attending her mothers funeral.

Dolours was buried in Milltown cemetery, with full military honours, in her native west Belfast, after requiem mass at St Agnes's church in Andersonstown. Dolours and Marian known worldwide as the Price sisters, went on hunger strike and were force-fed for 200 days. Both sisters never really recovered from the ordeal.

Father Raymond Murray, who was prison chaplain to them, told mourners that Dolours Price and her sister Marian were like twins, saying: "Dolours's family can relate her nature and her talent, both of which is outside the knowledge and understanding of those who did not know her personally. She was clever and witty, full of fun and held people enthralled by her conversation."

Provisional Sinn Fein publicity chief Danny Morrison attended,along with MP for West Belfast Paul Maskey. Dolours Price along with her sister Marian, became disenchanted, with Provisional Sinn Féin's leadership of the Irish Republican Movement and believed the 'process' was a sellout. Black flags were placed on poles along the Andersonstown Road during the funeral. Her coffin, draped in the Tricolour, was carried from the family home a few hundred yards from the church. It was led by a lone piper playing Raglan Road. The chief celebrant was Msgr Raymond Murray. Also attending was Hugh Feeney, one of her former comrades.

Msgr Murray recalled in the homily how Dolours Price before joining the IRA, was involved in the civil rights movement, as a member of People's Democracy, and at the PD march in 1969, was attacked by loyalists at Burntollet. "She was thrown into the river when it was attacked," he further said that there was never a period since her imprisonment and force-fed hunger strike in prison in England, when she was not ill. He said she and Marian Price were like "bosom twins". He said Dolours Price was a woman of considerable talents, interested in the arts, literature and philosophy. "She was clever and witty and full of fun, and she held people in thrall by her conversation."

The funeral cortège made its way to Milltown Cemetery for her final physical interment, finally out of the clutches of heartless, savage, bigots, unlike her sister Marian's internment currently in British Occupied Ireland. Intelligent Irish republicans will not allow themselves to be drawn into uncalculated, reactionary action by the uncivilized British behaviour but it is another definition for a new generation, if one were needed, of the barbarity of British occupation in Ireland.

Dolours Price is Finally at Rest and her Spirit Free. She is now one of those eternal Irish women, who define the status of the Island of Ireland to take its pace among the nations of the world as an equal, rather than a British commoner class, backwater.

Rea Brings A Real Provo Home

Caption: Video Id: toXiRX7XCYQ Type: Youtube Video
Eire Og 6 - God bring them home

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Mon Jan 28, 2013 19:44

At the graveside in Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast, socialist Eamon McCann delivered the oration, telling the crowds the crowds hidden under umbrellas to avoid politcal internment: "If Dolours had a big fault, it was perhaps that she lived out too urgently the ideals to which so many others also purported to be dedicated.

"She was a liberator but never managed to liberate herself from those ideas. Sometimes we are imprisoned within ideals; sometimes in war atrocious things are done; sometimes hard things have to be done.

"Sometimes it is very difficult to handle the hard things that you felt compelled to do when you are soft-hearted at the core of your being. And Dolours was a soft-hearted person as well as a hard person in her politics."

by fred Mon Jan 28, 2013 21:29

Sometimes Eamonn McCann is really full of patronising shit.

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Mon Jan 28, 2013 23:22

Fred,

He is one of the few remaining progressives in Ireland that call it like it is. His politics are the way forward in Ireland, even though I disagree with his class analysis with regard to occupied Ireland. For some reason I get the feeling your comment Fred, has echoes of James T. Farrell
content, in his Letter to Leon Trotsky on Ireland 1938.

Are you a Stalinist, Fred ?

Copied with from the Workers’ Republic Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

" 11 December 1938
New York City

Leon Trotsky
Coyoacan
Mexico DF

My Dear Leon Trotsky:

We were both very pleased to receive your note. Hortense, jokingly, says that it must all be a Stalinist plot. While she is not disinterested in politics, she is, in no sense, a political person. However, she is no bitter foe. And in her own profession, the theatre, she must pay a price for her attitudes and the stand that she has taken. Stalinist influence is permeating the American theatre, and Hortense is automatically excluded from even being considered for roles in plays by certain managements because of this fact.

Concerning “the mysteries of my style” [1], you may be amused to know that one Communist Party functionary described it, once in The Daily Worker, as “Trotskyite.” And one of the most current criticisms of my writing in Stalinist sources is that “the rationale of Trotskyism” has given a basis for his “despair,” and through that means he is degenerating.

This summer I was in Ireland, and I saw Jim Larkin. All men have weaknesses, but all men are not the victims of their weaknesses. Jim Larkin is a victim of his own weaknesses, and his own temperament. Now, he is embittered and envenomed. He feels that the Irish working class has sold him out. He was not returned in the last elections for the Dáil, and he ran in a working class district. He defended the trials, but thought that Bukharin could not be interested. But Larkin’s formal attitudes do not have much meaning. He is untheoretical and unstable intellectually. He is always a direct actionist, and his direct actionism takes whatever turn that his impulses lead him toward, In the midst, for instance, of a severe fight, he might be walking down the street and see a sparrow trapped in some electric wires where it might die. He will become incensed, and will telephone important members of the government and demand that they have men sent down to release the sparrow immediately, and then this will loom more important than the fight in which he is engaged. He is very garrulous, human and humane, witty, vindictive, vituperative, and he is Irish. At times, he is almost like an embittered version of the stage Irishman. In Ireland, there has never been much theory, and in consequence, never been many men with a rounded view of the reasons why Ireland was struggling. Before the war, the Irish labor movement was very militant and well toward the forefront of the European labor movement. It was defeated in the great Dublin transport strike of 1913, and out of this crushing defeat, the Irish Citizen Army was formed. Larkin left for America, and Larkin says that one of the last things that he said to Connolly was not to go into the National movement, not to join the Irish Volunteers, which was the armed force of the nationalist movement. Connolly did go into the Easter Rebellion, and there is the disputed question as to whether or not he made a mistake. Sean O’Casey, the Irish playwright, in a pamphlet he wrote on the Irish Citizen Army, declares baldly that James Connolly died not for Irish socialism but for Irish nationalism. Others maintain that Connolly could not have remained out of the rising. At all events, the Irish Citizen Army was decimated, and crushed by the Easter Rebellion. There were no leaders left to carry on the social side of Connolly’s doctrines. The entire movement was swept along in a frenzied rise of Irish patriotism and Irish nationalism. Sinn Féin was in complete control of the movement. The leaders of Sinn Féin had only the most vague notions of what they wanted – an Irish Ireland speaking Gaelic, developing its own Irish culture, free of the British crown, and some were not even fighting them for freedom from the crown. In 1921, when the treaty was negotiated in England, there was this same unclarity. Following the treaty, there was the split in the Irish ranks. The record of that split is most saddening to read. It was not a split on real issues. There were two or three documents with different wordings, and they all meant much the same thing. Instead of discussing social programs, they discussed Ireland, and they insulted one another. Out of this split the bitter civil war developed, and the comrades in arms of yesterday assassinated one another. The treatment which the Free State government meted out to its former comrades matches almost that which Stalin has meted out. The bravest fighters of the Irish Republican Army were taken out and placed up against a wall and butchered without any formality. And now, after all the trouble, the Irish people have changed masters, and a new Irish bourgeoisie is developing and coagulating, and the politicians of Sinn Féin are aligned with them and the Church, with reaction rampant, poverty to match even that of Mexico, progressive ideas almost completely shut out, a wall of silence keeping out the best Irish tradition – that of Fintan Lalor, Davitt, and Connolly, and poor Ireland is in a hell of a state. Larkin returned in the early twenties. After defeat, the Irish labor movement needed someone to lead it who could remould a defeated class. Larkin was a great and courageous agitator, but not a leader of a defeated army, and he could not work with any one. Gradually, he lost influence, and now he is old and embittered. Of course, Catholicism plays a strong role in Ireland, and Larkin is a Catholic and talks of the virtues of the Christian home. And suddenly out of his garrulous talk, a flash of his old fire comes through. Perhaps you are riding through the Dublin slums with him, and suddenly, seeing the poor in their filth, standing in front of the filthy buildings in which they are forced to live like animals, and a strong denunciation comes, and there is something of the Jim Larkin who defied the British Army, and at whose words the poor of Dublin came out into the streets in thousands, and flung themselves against the might of Britain and that of the Irish bourgeoisie. Human beings are social products, and Larkin is a product of the Irish movement. The principal instrument of the Irish revolutionaries was always terrorism and direct action, and when Larkin was unable to function with these methods on the wave of a rising and militant movement, he was lost, and the labor bureaucrats outmaneuvered and outsmarted him. When he returned to Ireland from an American jail, he got his following together, and marched on the quarters of the union he had formerly led. He took the building, but later lost it in the law courts, and he is no longer the leader of the transport workers. He has union following, and among his strongest support is that of the butchers and hospital workers.

He showed me something in Ireland that few people in Dublin know about. In the Parnell days, a terrorist organization, composed almost exclusively of Dublin workingmen was formed and named the Invincibles. The Invincibles committed the famous Phoenix Park murders in front of the vice-regal lodge, and were denounced by the Church, by Parnell, and by almost the entire Irish nation. There are no monuments in Ireland to the Invincibles. They died in isolation, some of them defiant to the end in their utter isolation. At the spot across from the vice-regal lodge in Phoenix Park, where the murders were committed, there is a patch of earth alongside of the park walk. No matter how often grass is planted over this spot the grass is torn up by the roots, and this spot of earth is left, and always, there is a cross marked into the dirt in commemoration of the Invincibles. Every week, someone – principally, I believe, one of Larkin’s boys – goes there and marks that cross. This has been going on for a long time.

In Larkin, there is something of that characteristic of defiant defeat that runs through so much of Irish history, and with it, never any real investigation of causes. But even up to today, he remains the only figure of commanding proportions in the Irish labor movement. The rest is pretty nearly all bureaucracy, tied to the tail of nationalism, enfolded in the cassock robes of the priestcraft, seeing the problems of Irish labor as an Irish question. Ireland is having something of an industrial boom. Certain sections of the Irish working class, the most advanced trade unions – which have been in existence some time – these are better paid than corresponding trade unions in England. But the country is partitioned between an industrial north and an agricultural south. In the south, de Valera is engaged in a program of industrialization. The Irish market is small, and that means that monopolies must be parcelled out to various groups or persons. When these monopolies get going, there will be resultant crises, because they will be able to supply the Irish market with a few months work and production. Also, the new factories are being spread over the country – a program of decentralization – and in many instances, factories are being set up in agricultural areas where there is no trade union strength. It is necessary to further industrialization in Ireland to have, as a consequence, sweat shop conditions. There is a small labor aristocracy and even this lives badly. And below it, poverty that reduces thousands upon thousands to live like animals in the most dire, miserable, and inhuman poverty. I saw some of this poverty. One family of eleven living in one room. The family has lived in this same room for twenty-four years. The building is crumbling, walls falling, ceiling caving in, roof decaying. The oldest in the family is nineteen, the youngest is an undernourished infant of eight months. Six sleep in one bed, three in another, two on the floor. The infant was born last Christmas eve in the bed where six sleep. The role of the Church is important. The Church tells the Irish that they are going to live for ever and be happier in heaven, and this engenders patience. There is a mystic fascination with death in Ireland. In all the homes of the poor, the walls are lined with holy pictures, those of the Sacred Heart predominating. The poor live in utter patience. They have lived in this patience ever since the heyday of Jim Larkin. In those days, at his word, they thronged the streets and threatened the power of England, and of the Irish and Anglo-Irish bourgeoisie. But no more. However, with the industrialization program, there is likely to be some enlargement of the Irish working class, and the economic factors of proletarianization, plus the resulting effects of factory work and familiarity with machines is likely to cause some changes in the consciousness of Irishmen. Familiarity with machines is likely to rub off some of the superstition, and the economic conditions will pose their problems to the Irish workers. There is possibly going to be a change in Ireland because of these factors, and some of the eternal sleep and mud-crusted ignorance is likely to go. But being an agricultural country, a poor country, a country ridden by superstition, it now sleeps, and there is a lot of talk about Ireland, and little is done about Ireland, and a characteristic attitude is sure and what is the bother. Ireland is no longer merely a victim of England, but of world economy now. Irish nationalism correspondingly has altered from being a progressive movement to a reactionary movement. Fascism could easily triumph in Ireland were fascism vitally necessary to the new rulers of Holy Ireland.

The Irish Republican Army is split into factions, some demanding emphasis on a social program, others on a national program. Stalinists are in the former group, but Stalinism is very weak in Ireland, practically inconsequential. It amounts to a few pensionaries. Ireland does not need Stalinism. It has Rome. Rome handles these problems with the necessary efficiency. Rome confuses the struggles, poses the false questions, sidetracks protests as Stalinism now does in advanced countries.

As a kind of compensation, Ireland a defeated nation has developed a fine modern literature, just as Germany, defeated and still un-unified at an earlier period, developed German philosophy. But the moral terrorism in the name of the Church and the Nation, and the parochial character of the life and of intellect in Ireland might choke the literature now. So backward is Ireland that even the American motion pictures have a progressive influence in the sense that they make the youth restless, that they produce freer and less strained relationships between the sexes, and that they give a sense of a social life of more advanced countries that is not permitted because of the state of economy in Ireland. Ireland impresses me as being somewhat parallel to Mexico, except that in Mexico there are progressive strains in the country, and in Ireland these are weak and morally terrorized. In part, this is undoubtedly because of Ireland’s lack of mineral resources and wealth, the backwardness and sleep of its labor movement, and the role of the Church. In Ireland, the Church was not the feudal landholder. Behind the scenes, the Church always fought against the Irish people, and spoke for law and order. But at one time, the Church itself was oppressed. The Church and the people became entangled in the consciousness of the Irish, and the religion question befogged the social and economic one. In Mexico, Spain, France, and Russia, the Church was more openly a part of a feudal or pseudo-feudal system. The peasants became anti-clerical because they wanted land. This did not happen in Ireland. In consequence, anti-clericalism did not take the same form. Anti-clericalism amounts to jokes at the priesthood, dislike of the archbishops, and so forth. In earlier days, it was stronger, particularly among the Fenians. But it never took the real form it took in France, Spain, etc. And so the Church has great power in Ireland today. In the most real, vivid, and immediate sense it gives opium to the people.

Poor Ireland! She is one of the costs demanded by history in the growth of what we familiarly call our civilization. There is an old poem with the lines – They went forth to battle And they always fell. And today, after having fallen so many times, Ireland is a poor island on the outpost of European civilization, with all its heroic struggles leaving it, after partial victory, poverty-stricken, backward, wallowing in superstition and ignorance.

My favorite Irish anecdote is the following. The last castle in Ireland to fall to Cromwell’s army was Castleross on the lakes of Killarney. At that time, the castle was held by the O’Donoghue. For several months, the British could not take the castle. The Irish infantry was more lightly clad than the British, and would always lead the better armored and more heavily clad British down into the bogs where their armed superiority became a handicap, and then the Irish would cut them to pieces. There was an old Gaelic prophecy that Castleross would never fall to a foreign foe until it was attacked by water. There was a proviso in this prophecy. For the lakes of Killarney empty into Dingle Bay, where the water is so shallow that foreign men of war from the sea cannot enter it. The British general heard of this prophecy. He went to Dingle Bay and built flat-bottomed boats and floated them up the lakes of Killarney. He fired one cannon shot at Castleross. And the O’Donoghue, thinking that the prophecy had been fulfilled, surrendered without firing a shot in return.

I took the liberty of writing in such detail about Ireland because I thought you might be interested in modern Ireland. They call it the “new Ireland” these days.

Hortense joins me in sending our warmest greetings to you and Natalia.

Yours,
Farrell "

The Politics of Ireland, really haven't changed much in the last century, have they ?

The Revolution Betrayed

by fred Tue Jan 29, 2013 00:45

Eamonn McCann said:
"She was a liberator but never managed to liberate herself from those ideas. Sometimes we are imprisoned within ideals; "

saying that is essentially saying:

" all she suffered was for nothing because I the great Eamonn McCann think she was misguided (wrong)"

That is a shitty egoist thing to say over the body of a true republican like Dolours.

That's why I said McCann was full of shit. He had to make it all about him and stick his little patronising remark in.

I'm not a stalinist. In fact I'm not an "ist" of any kind, just someone who reads and thinks for themselves. Thanks for the interesting reading matter though. ;-)

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Tue Jan 29, 2013 01:31

Thanks for your clear and coherent reply, Fred. At the risk of sounding blase, I feel the death of Dolours is a watershed moment in Irish revolutionary politics. Since the collapse of the Republican Congress, along with the ongoing failure of the inter-war Irish socialist republican movement to work together and the inability to form any sort of a coherent group, it is ultimately crippling contemporary Irish socialist republicanism.

We cannot deny that the British with their mentees, provocateurs and disinformation are very good att what they do and along with our own inability to stick together in crisis, we are going backwards. Reading today's Times, I noticed an article "Protesters disrupt Council meeting" as a glimmer of hope. Maybe all the Councils all over Ireland should be occupied, serving to co-ordinate action, preceding the permanent occupation of Leinster House, which would need good organization and preparation for a permanent sit in.

I see most of the activists in the Cork action are accused of being Trots and while I am personally not a good party person, it seems the way to go to me ! The sit ins would also serve as good location for long overdue debates by the Irish left and 'republicans', while still keeping some sort of unity and discipline going.

by Nico Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:24

Yesterday in Dublin up to 50 republicans gathered on a gusty evening, to show their respect and express their sympathy at the death of one of Ireland's bravest soldiers, Óglach Dolorus Price.

by W Finnerty Wed Jan 30, 2013 03:41

Still not a single word (in public at least) -- that I know of -- from any of the politicians, lawyers, clergy, or activists on the issue of Articles 9, 10, and 11 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights referred to at http://www.indymedia.ie/article/103193#comment294260

What's the matter?

Why are the politicians, lawyers, clergy, and activists not using the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights principles, and associated national and international legislation, to help Marian Price?

Related Link:
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Ireland, William Finnerty":
http://tinyurl.com/ajjgftv

by independent republican Wed Jan 30, 2013 12:49

whats needed for marian price is a movement on the streets involving civil disobedience....to be fair, if one was to call it like it is and has been her own organisation have been crap on the issue and have done little for her that is a fact.

Some are more concerned with ranting about drugs drugs drugs drugs drugs drugs
and at the same time are seen by most as shaking down dealers.

But what can you expect from a 'movement' that merged with an outfit (RAAD) they themselves only 3 years ago described as an MI5 counter gang.

by BrianClarke - AllVoices Wed Jan 30, 2013 13:57

I agree with you Independent Republican other than that I will say no more !

What about RNU ? They have been very quiet on the Marian issue other than few token statements here and there?

These are taken from a publication, which claims to have a socialist agenda, so he should have no problem with us lifting it. We'll see !

DOLOURS PRICE ARCHIVE by Dolours Price

TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2013 AM 5 COMMENTS

"The things we have in common from our past, long past, are often in my mind. Now that it is all over bar the final destruction of the weapons I look forward to the freedom to lay bare my experiences unfettered by codes now redundant.
This is the only freedom left to me and those Republicans of like mind." - Dolours Price, 2005
Dolours Price was a prolific writer and often contributed articles to The Blanket. We carry here a selection of her writings, listed in chronological order, with excerpted quotes below. Click the links for the full articles.

Irish News exchange:
Better an Honest Socialist than a Lying Republican
11 May 2004
I have no time for Stormont. I have no time for the Good Friday Agreement. I have no time for people who constantly change their position, cement hard gathered weapons into the ground, abduct people and put them down bogs, beat those who do not agree with their rules, have a finger in every financial pie going and seem to have done very nicely for themselves in their day to day lives. They are not Republicans, they are Stalinists. They have turned a once noble Army into an armed militia whose only role is to strong arm any opposition to their insatiable political greed and opportunism.
Give me an honest Socialist any day before a lying treacherous so-called Republican.
And further response:

Republicans who do not follow the Sinn Fein line are also entitled to their opinions
Is it that only those who share his enthusiasm for the Sinn Fein line have a right to free expression? [...] I have often "put pen to paper" expressing my position as a republican, I have spoken publicly and on radio on the same topic. Is the problem that I was not pushing the Good Friday line but speaking with honesty from my own long held beliefs?
As for cheering [..] "noble sons and daughters" to war [...] I would take no more joy in seeing my sons follow their convictions to prison or the grave than did my mother or the mothers of all those who lie in Republican plots. It was my free choice and I believe that we all have that freedom.
I have never been afraid of bullies be they in camouflage, blue or green uniforms, in politicians' suits or writing abusively in papers.
As for my contribution to the Republican cause, it continues to this day. I do not support the Good Friday Agreement or Sinn Fein but I will never abandon my Republican beliefs and state them wherever I choose. Nobody will deny me that right.

Flying the Flag
24 June 2004
The Sinn Fein motto for all elections is "An Ireland of Equals".
Over the past twenty years I have been aware of the spade-work being done by dedicated Sinn Fein members at times when that party was not flavour of the month, or any other month. I wonder why these experienced and articulate party members did not "make the grade" when it came to nomination time? Are nominations still the domain of the Cumann or is selection handed down by the "Leadership"? We have been told it is a "leadership led movement" (so was Stalin's Russia!).
Is it perhaps that the accents of the longterm member are more Donamede than Dun Laoirghe, that as politicised working-class people they did not, despite their obvious ability, have an opportunity to get a third level education?
Mary Lou has a fine political career ahead of her be that with Sinn Fein or Fianna Fail. I feel she will jump ship whenever it suits Mary Lou. What of the people who worked so tirelessly to put her on the career ladder; they will still be shinning up lampposts, manning the clinics, working for the party. I do not support Sinn Fein, but I give credit where it is due. It seems a pity that the "leadership" is more opportunistic than it is loyal to its members.
Can they call out for "An Ireland of Equals" from a Party that seems not to be all that "Equal"?

Rummaging
9 July 2004
I spend a considerable amount of time rummaging through my head. I come up with bits and pieces, some make me happy, others make me sad, and some make me downright angry, and I mean angry. The reader will know; I think we all rummage. [...]
Do Sinn Fein (you will change the name soon, won't you?) really believe that men died on Hunger-Strike for this defeat? That men walked to the scaffold for seats in Stormont, Westminster (when will you be taking your rightful place there, boys?) and Dail Eireann? That my own aunt lived without hands or eyes with quiet dignity and without complaint for forty years to hear that the tri-colour is lodged in the corner of some office in Stormont. Stormont! The symbol of Republican defeat in 1921? I defy anyone to tell me they did because I will call them liars and hypocrites.
Admit it, lads -- you lost the war; some of us see it as only having lost another battle. You can lose all the battles but only when you surrender do you lose your Soul.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
14 July 2004
I am now deeply worried. I watched the news on July 12th and saw a former I.R.A comrade, Gerry Kelly, standing, arms spread wide across a retreating British Army jeep protecting the British soldiers inside!
I have not slept a wink since seeing that. Did some incompetent give me the wrong instructions when I joined the I.R.A? I will be very cross indeed if I find out that I was inducted into the Army by some eejet who got things arse about face!

I Once Knew a Boy... (on Gerry Kelly)
17 July 2004
Perhaps my own experiences with Gerry Kelly as a comrade on a difficult mission in England and our subsequent imprisonment together leaves me somewhat emotionally vulnerable to the person. We went through a lot together. It causes me a great deal of pain to ridicule the boy I once knew to be stubborn, anti-establishment, arrogant as only those who are convinced of the rightness of their cause can be. A man-boy who endured the same rigours of hunger-strike and force-feeding as myself, my sister, Hugh Feeney and others on our failed mission.
I got to know Gerry Kelly well, from the boy leaping over bollards at Trafalgar Square to the boy who stood proudly in the dock at Winchester Crown Court to receive his life sentence and twenty years; the boy who was dragged from the dock declaring his loyalty to the Republican Cause, “Damn your concessions England we want our country!” To now witness what he has become, a British lackey, a forelock tugging parody of an enslaved people, a puppet for the Brits and all that is bad in our country, that causes me deep pain, deep hurt, hurt because Gerry Kelly was a person that I once loved as one can only love a brother or a comrade.
[...]
When we starved together it was not 'to move the process forward', it was not for seats in a British Government, it was not to be treated as 'equals' in a Stormont Assembly. It was, I like to think, because we had a shared passion for justice and freedom for this island, the whole of this island of Ireland. I believe that we were dedicated to the old struggle to rid this land of any British interference, that our wish was to regain our dignity as Irishmen and women never again to bend the knee, never again to lie down except in death after a good fight. Death would never have been our defeat — living on our knees, now that is defeat!

The UnHung Hero (on Joe Cahill)
3 August 2004
Over the years and all through this phase of the struggle Joe has been produced like a rabbit from a hat. He the veteran I.R.A man, the elder of the tribe, the wise one, the one who knew the right way forward. Indeed, knew so much that he was able to assure us all that Tom Williams would be fully behind the Good Friday Agreement. Now if things had only been reversed in 1942 we could have heard Tom Williams say that for himself! Joe Cahill was still duping but this time it was not the Brits, it was other Republicans.
Speaking for the dead as Joe did must be the reserve of a very elite or gifted Provisional member. Gerry Adams speaks for Bobby Sands; Bobby, he told us, would be fully behind the Peace Process. I often wonder who would speak for me had my circumstances in Brixton Prison reached their expected conclusion? What praises would I be singing of the Good Friday Agreement?
[...]
"We have won the war....now let us win the Peace", another off the cuff declaration by Joe.
Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding of winning a war is when the Victor accepts the symbolic sword of surrender from the defeated who then sits down to be told the conditions they will accept. No ifs or buts if you are the losers.
Why then if "we (Provisionals) won the war" are the Provisional Sinn Fein Party still begging the 'defeated' (Brits I suppose) for more talks, for the re-establishment of the British Assembly at Stormont, for money and, oh yes please, their jobs back! Not my idea of having won a war. Suppose they had lost the war, where would we all be today? Doesn't bear thinking about!

Get On With It
14 September 2004
It will take time to recover from the mugging we got in the dark alley the Provisional leadership led us up. It has always been so. I remember in prison painting on hankies, "it is always darkest before the dawn". I can't see clearly before myself. I will wait until the fog lifts. Others will move on, settle into their new improved lives, but nothing tumultuous will have changed on our Island. Except for a few thousand dead, comrades killed or dead after the torture of long starvation, thousands of years in prison between us and all for what?

Money...Money...Money (on Northern Bank robbery)
17 January 2005
Again call me old fashioned but Republicans always claimed and stood accountable for their actions, successful or disastrous. "Bloody Friday" was a total tragedy, a nightmare with nightmare repercussions. It was claimed and apologised for (useless apology we all know).
"La Mon"? Where to begin apologising? Does the reader see where I'm going with this?
Lives versus money, and so much energy is going into denying the theft of money. The men in suits dodge around the question and answer with questions or not at all. "It didn't come my way," scoffed Gerry Kelly at one press interview. No, Gerry, but by the cut of you a lot is going your way. You are far from the 19 year old lad who walked into Brixton Prison with neither in you nor on you (and I mean that as a total compliment). It is coming your way in other ways.
The Provisional Movement claim to be Republican but seem somehow lost in a mad rush to get as much money from whatever source possible: governments, pubs, clubs, shops, banks, schemes, scams, skulduggery; and lost to them in all of this: integrity, principle and credibility. It seems to be everyman for himself, get on the bandwagon and you're a sorry eejit if you don't.
I remember Jack Hermon quoted as saying "everyman has his price". Not every, perhaps many.

A Salute to Comrades (review of Blanketmen)
18 May 2005
After reading 'Ten Men Dead' I swore that I would never again read about the Hunger Strike of 1981. I cried at every page and my husband eventually hid the book. I bought another.
My levels of sadness rose at the same rate as my levels of anger. The targets for my anger were the usual ones: those identified by the Republican Leadership as responsible for the death of Bobby Sands and his comrades. Top of the list was Margaret Thatcher, then came busybody priests, political opponents, an uncaring Free-State Government and more and more.
Hunger-striking, the last resort of the brutalised political prisoner. The ultimate weapon, one's own body. As a Republican I have always maintained that just as I could not be ordered to undertake a Hunger-Strike, then the control and ultimate decision as to where that hunger-strike might lead was also a matter for myself, the individual prisoner. That is not to say that guidance from comrades and particularly the leadership of my movement would at all times be of paramount importance in where that Strike would end for me, be that living or dying.
I read Richard O'Rawe's book 'Blanketmen' because I felt the years that have passed since the Hunger-Strike would let me better cope with the enormity of the sacrifices made then. I was also curious to hear how it was from the 'inside'.
[...]
Richard O'Rawe raises some very disturbing questions in his account of what was happening inside the prison during this period. How exactly was the Hunger-strike being conducted, particularly after the death of the first four men?
Was there a motive in what seemed like madness by the leadership? Richard O'Rawe points clearly to a very unpalatable one for Republicans to accept. Yes, men were sacrificed for the political ambitions of the Republican leadership. They trusted and they died. We should all be indebted to Richard O'Rawe for having the courage to put pen to paper and declare that to the world.
I find his memoir of that period both deeply moving and credible. Without being melodramatic, I will say that, allowing for the times we live in, Richard has probably made stronger enemies than he has friends and it is a credit to him that this consideration has not prevented the rest of us having access to this vital piece in the jigsaw, a very sad piece, a sad and dirty period in our history. I applaud Richard for his loyalty to our dead comrades who cannot speak for themselves.

An Open Letter to Gerry Adams
31 July 2005
The things we have in common from our past, long past, are often in my mind. Now that it is all over bar the final destruction of the weapons I look forward to the freedom to lay bare my experiences unfettered by codes now redundant.
This is the only freedom left to me and those Republicans of like mind.

Alternative
28 June 2006
Republicans were never out in the cold, our position was always clear, and clearly right. I was never in the cold. I was always in the heat of the struggle. You fall into the old trap of feeling that you must belong to the Establishment before being kosher. It is that awful inbred sense of servitude and subserviance that causes you to make such remarks.
Republicans never knocked at the door of the Establishment, rather we placed a device at that door to remove it; those who choose to cross the door, invited by the enemy (whether in sheeps clothing or not) do no service to the Republican Cause. They make our Struggle harder because they join the enemy.
[...T]he Brits do not want to stay, the people who want them to stay will have the last word and, by God, "beidh linn an la". I looked deep into their eyes at Burntollett and I knew then, sixteen years old and I knew then who would make all the decisions about the six Northern Counties. I made my mind up then to fight for what was rightly mine and stolen by blackmail and brinkmanship, not to mention the possibility of an illegitimate son born from Michael Collins! The plot thickens!
Unity in the North, Power sharing, if you believe that will ever happen then you are away with the fairies.

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome
29 June 2006
What happens to prisoners who have often spent fifteen, twenty years in gaol? Often on the Blanket, in their own body waste, dirty, unstimulated, dependent on their own resources (which were massive), at the whim of a screw or a Governor. Living inside their own heads and sharing the bits they could with their cell mates.
Man is used to freedom. To walk the streets, to work a job, to love a wife, to hug their kids and put them to bed at night...to be free to do these simple things. Free.
Gaol is "abnormal" for the human spirit.
[...]
The rights or wrongs of prison are not my concern today, I mean at this very moment. My concern is for the man or woman who spent many years in prison and came out to a new world, a different world, a world they had to learn to live in all over again.
It is true that in the past Republican prisoners did their time and that was that. No help was sought or thought necessary after jail time was served, although in those days it tended to be of shorter duration than we went through from the 70's.
Anyone who did not do their time well were spoken about in hushed tones as if they were in some way "weak", not "up to it", "not the right calibre".
Truth be told being in prison is an "abnormal" way to spend a big part of your life. Why should normal people placed in this "abnormal" situation not be in some way changed? Damaged?
We are Republicans and we are strong in our beliefs and our Principles. But, the awful flaw is, that we are human. That means we can suffer or we can show no mercy, to others or to ourselves.
It is the human that has been neglected for too long.

Jury Duty Free State
5 July 2006
"I," said I, "am an Irish Republican."
"I do not recognise the sovereignty of your Free-State and I, being born into the six Northern Counties left out of your Nation, I feel that I cannot serve on an judicial system that pretends to represent the whole people of Ireland."
She did not blink. I believe perhaps the anseo had her prepared, but she said, "You are excused Jury Duty for Life."
Last person to say to me "for Life" was Sebag-Shaw. And that was for blowing up bits of England. Funny old world.

Ideals Live On
29 November, 2006
There is no solution to the problem of "Northern Ireland". To the majority on the island the idea of six small counties being a political entity is funny, if funny can be applied to the massive loss of life that has resulted from that dreadful Treaty decision to split the island of Ireland.
I am indeed beyond disappointment in my former comrades, now Sinn Fein, They are as they are, perhaps I was too expectant of their dedication and ideals, they have fulfilled neither. Was I out of touch with the reality of their position when we thought we shared a common ideology? Yes, probably.
My ideals have never faltered.

Don't Be Afraid, Do Not Be Fooled
16 January 2007
I recall a statement made by Kieran Nugent that they would have to nail the British prison uniform to his back. How easily will the Provos slip into their British Police uniforms?
Changed people, changed desires, but never a changed Cause. It will live long after they are worms' meat and remembered for their treachery.
Put on the coat of the enemy boys, it has been done before and changed nothing.
Will you never learn?
I want to address what is constantly called their "grassroots".
You, many, too many, have paid a heavy price for this dream we had.
You want to believe "the day has come"; who doesn't? I see you on the news sitting, taking in every lying word of your "leadership" and in your trust or lack of confidence in your own strong (stronger than theirs) abilities, you go along with their not very grand words (I cringe at the grammar).
But how do they do it?
They mesmerise, manipulate, intimidate and make it sound so logical and right.
They have that quiet way of putting you down and making you feel foolish if you ask the wrong question. An arrow is put above your head, a question mark beside your name. "This person might think for themselves," bad news for any Authoritian Leadership.
1984, George Orwell, bible to my son. Get the point?
Now, my comrades, how far has your, (once mine), leadership strayed from the original objectives of the Republican Cause?
From here to the moon and back!
Where is our 32 County Republic?
Our Socialist State?
When were the wrongs of a terrible blunder fixed? When did we get back our rightful six counties into an all Ireland establishment?
When did we cease to be the sacrificial lambs that Gerry Adams would wish us to continue to be?
Where is the Republican Agenda? Shaking hands with Blair and Bush?
They are doing very well, the leadership; jobs, prestige,"a life beyond their dreams". What of you, my friends, making ends meet, or maybe a black taxi? Not much for years in gaol — but we did not do it for the comeback, we did it for the belief!
[...] Gerry Adams, and the greatest letdown of my life, Gerry Kelly, will you put on the first British Coat, and will you kill me when I resist your mini-state?

Once Again, The Big Transition
28 January 2007
So, everything has been sold out on. Partition, Free-State, Stormont, R. U. C. (Remember the fun we had when they came in to wreck our homes and drag one or other of the family off to Castlereagh for a few days "interrogation"?")
Now, will Gerry Kelly and his members of the PSNI be doing the same because we regard them as Republican traitors? Will they be kicking in my door because I refuse to acknowledge Stormont as anything other than a sectarian parliament, created in times of confusion and massive threat, as a "sop" to the unionists of that time? As a geographical, economic and political unviable entity?
[...] I feel far away from humour at this time. It is, once again the big transition. It is taking the stone back to the bottom of the mountain and beginning to push it back up. I have pushed, and thought I was there, not so. I am gathering my strength again, what else can I do? I will push the stone as far as I can and hope that the young people coming behind will take over my burden, otherwise I will never stop pushing.

Rest, Do Not Surrender
3 March 2007
This is not the end. This is a new beginning. The dross will fall into comfort in Dail Eireann, Stormont, Europe. That is their life's desire. We are bigger than that, we want more than that because we want it for all the people, not just for ourselves. We want equality, in jobs, in thinking, in rights to opinion, in sexual orientation, in all the freedoms valid in a civilised society.
Hold firm. We are all low, but we are here, and we are not going away! You may well live to regret that statement, Mr. Adams. You are like the Titanic, and you can be sunk.

Bun Fights & Good Salaries
27 March 2007
What a day! I have been calling for it for so long: surrender, give it up, you know you will, but do not keep us all in this vacuum, this limbo. Get on with the sell out! And you did, and I thank you for puting my head at peace, at last. They say it is the uncertainty that causes most anxiety, it does, and now I, for one, am free of it. You mean nothing to me, you people with whom I once shared a dream, an aspiration, prison and pain, but all for "The Cause". You abandoned that today and brought me relief.
[...]
Is this what we killed for, died for? Not me; I respect life too much to reduce it to a return to the old "Status Quo". Joe Devlin did it first and never fired a shot, nor took or gave a life.
[...]
I had seen this day coming, wished for it, for closure, for relief and a chance to see off the confused. I have taken no pleasure in any of it. I have spent a great deal of the day in tears, for myself, my dead comrades, my damaged comrades, for innocents and even for squaddies. We have, none of us, with a soul or conscience, come through without some damage.
Yet it need not have lasted so long if this is what the Leadership had decided upon. Sunningdale provided this and more. So, where does that leave me, a Volunteer, ready and all too willing, to take the orders of my superior officers, they deny me, and the cock crows...
It leaves me a girl of 21 years with a sister of 19 years in an English prison and all of the horror that any Convent school girl could not imagine. My choice, my breeding, my heritage. No pity required.
I would never claim that my experiences in English Gaols, or in Armagh Gaol, did not have a severe effect on my physical and mental health. Gaol is not natural to human existence, how could one remain unaffected by it?
We bore it as well as we could. (I was not a good bearer!)
Yet we held fast to the notion of liberation, freedom, a United Ireland and victory, 1975, 1976, ... ... 1979... 1980... until I found all the handpainted hankies in the store cell when there were three of us left with political status, I cut them up, they were a dream never to be realised.
[...] And may God forgive you, Mr. Adams, and even more so, may your dead volunteers forgive you for spilling their blood in vain.

Brendan Hughes
17 February 2008
If, as Martin McGuinness has described those of us opposed to the agreement with Britain, if Brendan was a "no hoper," then he stands amongst a brave and valiant crew. Cathal Brugha, Harry Boland, Maud Gonne, Mary MacSwiney, all, and many more, castigated because they were uncompromising Republicans.
Those who once professed to be Republicans and now act as British Administrators in the six counties, let them hang their heads in shame at the way in which they treated Brendan in his last years. Let them look into their souls and ask, "Could I have been that brave?"

Gerry, Come Clean, You'll Feel Better
26 February 2008
Just as Brendan once was, I too was a friend and comrade to Gerry Adams. No longer, yet looking at his lonely figure, clearly uneasy at the occasion, did bring a pang of sympathy to me for the man and the place in which he has put himself.
His ego has taken him to believe himself above the common people, he has set himself aside from numerous former comrades and must feel the burden of his present life, which is a lie.
How proud Brendan had been as commanding officer of "The Dogs", how willingly did he accept responsibility after responsibility within the Republican Movement. Always proud to serve "the Cause". There is little need to reiterate the fact that Brendan abhorred the direction Gerry Adams took the Movement.
Many of us shared that abhorrence, but Brendan was singled out for particularly harsh treatment for his non-conformity. He was ostracized, castigated and maligned. All of this contributed to his ill-health.
Gerry Adams knows who, and what he, himself, was during "the Long War". Let him unburden himself before it is done for him. What Brendan saw as a noble thing, Gerry Adams denies. It is time for Truth. Let it come from his own lips rather than mine. I too, like Brendan, was a proud Volunteer in Oglaigh na hEireann, an honour I hold dear.
Brendan has gone from this physical life but there are those of us who will carry on where he left off. We will be his litigants, his constant voice on this earth.

The night Brendan Hughes died, Dolours was with Anthony McIntyre and his wife, Carrie:
The following Friday my friend rang to tell me that there were signs of decreased brain activity. It did not augur well. He kept me updated over the next 24 hours. The next afternoon as I sat in the local cinema with my daughter I got a message from my wife that the machine supporting Brendan’s tenuous grasp on life was to be turned off. I returned home and rang Dolours Price. She arrived in our home. The rest of the evening saw me sit with three phones constantly ringing Belfast and taking calls. Dolours had been a long standing operational comrade of Brendan and it was in her company that my wife and I received the devastating news that our dear friend had slipped away. He had been with us at the best and worst of times, family bereavements, illnesses, and the birth of our children. It was he who was chosen to give my wife away on the day of our marriage. We fought a losing battle to suppress the tears. My wife put his framed photo on the mantelpiece and sat a lighted candle either side of it. In our living room The Dark shone through. Fear Dorcha, by Anthony McIntyre, February 25, 2008
Now the light shines through for Dolours.

Remember when you were young,
You shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
Like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire
Of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon,
You cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
And exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
With random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
- Pink Floyd

For all that we struggle
For all we pretend
It don't come down to nothing
Except love in the end
And ours is a road
That is strewn with goodbyes
But as it unfolds
As it all unwinds
Remember your soul is the one thing
You can't compromise
Take my hand
We're gonna go where we can shine
- David Gray

Monday, Jun. 17, 1974
The World: Ulster's Price Sisters: Breaking the Long Fast
Time Magazine
Each day passes and we fade a little more. But no matter how the body may fade, our determination never will. We have geared ourselves for this and there is no other answer. - Dolours Price, May 27 letter to her mother
Sometimes we can achieve more by death than we could ever hope to living. We 've dedicated our lives to a cause and it's supremely more important than any one individual's life. - Marion Price, May 27 letter to her mother

Fate and politics have a way sometimes of cheating would-be martyrs. Belfast's Price sisters -- Dolours, 23, and Marion, 20 -- were sentenced last Nov. 15 to life in prison for their part in the March 1973 London car bombings that injured 238 persons and led to the fatal heart attack of another. In an effort to gain attention for their Irish Republican cause and force British authorities to return them to Ulster for the rest of their prison term, the sisters pursued a grim path toward self-imposed death: for seven months they systematically starved themselves.

At week's end the British government announced that the Prices had ended their long fast after what appeared to be an eleventh-hour decision by Westminster to avert the risk of violent reprisals by the sisters' Irish Republican Army supporters. As soon as their health permits, the pair may be transferred from London's maximum-security Brixton Prison to jail in Northern Ireland.

Dolours and Marion are daughters of a former I.R. A. officer who once tunneled his way out of a Londonderry prison. The sisters were raised amid the revolutionary passions of Belfast's working-class Andersontown district, an I.R.A. stronghold. As teenagers, they shared a liking for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as well as for Irish folk dances. Both girls were and are devout Roman Catholics: a notebook that Dolours was carrying when she was arrested for the London bombings contained notes on the Virgin Mary along with details about her I.R.A. contacts.

According to their older sister Clare, 26, the girls showed little active interest in politics until 1968, when they joined the civil rights movement, which was dedicated to securing equal voting rights for Northern Ireland's Catholic minority. The turning point in the Prices' conversion to hard-line militancy came when they participated in the 1969 civil rights march from Belfast to Londonderry; Protestant hooligans ambushed and stoned the young marchers.

Dolours and Hugh Feeney, an I.R.A. comrade who is also in jail for the London bombings, formed the "People's Democracy," a militant offshoot of the civil rights movement, and took their cause to the streets. The sisters had been studying to become teachers. But they also began to investigate the revolutionary polemics of Che Guevara and Soledad Brother George Jackson. The girls learned the techniques of bombmaking and small-arms use in I.R.A. training courses across the border in the Republic. By the time they plotted the London bombings, both girls had become seasoned veterans of back-alley skirmishes with British troops and of slow marches behind the coffins of I.R.A. dead.

Friends and relatives of the Price sisters have claimed that the pair were unjustly prosecuted and tried: that they received no legal advice until four days after their arrest, that authorities purposely shifted the trial from London to the more conservative town of Winchester. Their supporters have also charged that prison officials brutalized the sisters by force-feeding them during their long hunger strike. Force-feeding -- in which a person's mouth is clamped open while a greased tube is inserted through his nose and a "complan" solution of iron, orange and milk-soaked glucose is poured directly into the stomach -- usually causes acute vomiting.

The procedure can provide a starving victim with 1,750 calories a day, but it is an exhausting and frightening experience. Shortly before the government announced that the Price girls had ended their fast, their sister Clare reported that they weighed less than 98 Ibs. each, that their skin had turned waxen, their hair was falling out and their mouths were covered with sores. The prison dentist confirmed that the sisters' teeth had been loosened under pressure from the mouth clamp. Last month, after doctors had said that the girls would probably die sooner from continued force-feeding than from fasting, officials halted the procedure.

At week's end it was still uncertain how soon, if ever, the Prices would recover from their ordeal. Or whether, even if their flirtation with martyrdom has been happily aborted, they will be able to retain their heroine status once they are no longer a political cause celebre.

Fragmentation

by W. Finnerty Thu Jan 31, 2013 07:27

Reply to Brian Clarke at Wed Jan 30, 2013 13:57

Thank you for the excerpts from the DOLOURS PRICE ARCHIVE (by Dolours Price).

Until today I knew nothing of these writings, and I find them very interesting.

I have found nothing in these writings to suggest that Dolours Price knew anything whatsoever about the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and all of the associated national and international legislation which could have helped her cause (I believe): had she known about these things, that is.

Even though it is sadly too late now for Dolours to benefit from such information, I can't help feeling though that it might not be too late for her sister Marian to be helped by it: provided enough people get to know about it.

It was partly with this in mind that I sent some UN UDHR information in e-mails to a few different groups of people yesterday: including those in the groups shown in the e-mail at the following address:
http://www.humanrightsireland.com/UnitedNations/30Janua...l.htm

As can be seen at www address just above, I tried to make Article 5 stand out, which reads as follows:

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Personally, and it's only a personal viewpoint which I have no wish to argue with anybody about, I don't believe there is a "hope in hell" of "the people" ever defeating the "forces of injustice" through armed conflict: if for no other reason than that "they" (the "forces of injustice" that is) are far, far better armed than any of the relatively tiny armed groups "the people" can, or ever will be able to produce.

However, there is another reason too in my particular case: which is that I believe there is a very large amount of truth in the old saying:

"Violence (both physical and psychological) begets violence (both physical and psychological)";

and, that the "violent approach" seems to me to usually just lead further and further away from the "peace" so many (including myself) appear to wish for, to want, and to deeply need I suspect: "genuine overall peace" of the kind that is based on "justice for all" that is, which the UN UDHR appears to me to support: as opposed to, and as a much healthier alternative to, the very sickening and red-rotten with corruption-ridden, and impunity-ridden, "justice for some" arrangements in place at the present time, in so many, many different places!!

Related Link:
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Ireland, William Finnerty":
http://tinyurl.com/aum8q83

by W. Finnerty Sat Feb 23, 2013 08:43

I received the piece of information in the paragraph just below today from a contact in the United States:

"County Fermanagh.Northern Ireland. Friday, February 22, 2013 – Marian Price was today visited by Fr. Sean Mc Manus, President of the Washington-based Irish National Caucus. He spent  ninety minutes with her, accompanied by her husband Jerry Mc Glinchey and her attorney Peter Corrigan. Fr. Mc Manus said: I have been raising Marian’s case with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Congress, and I wanted to visit her to show both personal and Irish-American solidarity."

I hope the above information might help with the general efforts people are making on behalf of Marian Price -- and her basic God-given and inalienable rights as an individual human being -- to the protection of human rights law (national and international) -- as referred to at http://www.indymedia.ie/article/103193#comment294321 and elsewhere.

Related Link:
Fr. Sean Mc Manus, Irish National Caucus, Washington DC, Marian Price ...
http://tinyurl.com/bl38uc6