Issue 129, Saoirse: Irish Freedom (January, 1998)

              uimh 129 eanalr — january 1998 50p usa 1 ballyseedy 75th anniversary co kerry sunday march 8 2.30pm assemble ballingarry house two miles from tralee preside 93rd ard-fheis ol for a federati • ruairi 6 bradaigh's address to the 1997 ard-fheis has been published by irish free dom press for 1 plus p&p from 223 pamell street dublin 1 1998 calendar bicentenary of 1798 x wexford pikeman 1 798 3 plus available from local paper seller or 223 parnell street dublin 1 special rates for bulk orders who this new year marks the start of the bicentenary celebrations of the 1798 rising when irish men and women with different religious labels were brought together under the banner of the united irish creed to free our country from english control wolfe tone the founder of irish republicanism spelled it out my object ... to break the connection with england ... to substitute the common name of irishmen in place of the denominations of protestant catholic and dissenter all who claim to honour the revolutionary events of 1 798 on this 200th anniversary will have to confront the simple fact that we have not yet broken the connection with england and that six of our north-eastern counties remain under a foreign administration backed up by an occupation force of 16,000 british troops and more than 10,000 paramilitary colonial police none of those involved in the current process can claim to be engaged in ending british rule — that is nowhere on the agenda at the stormont talks or in the meeting-rooms at leinster house or westminster what is being spoken about in these venues is a new stormont with cross-border bodies the provisionals want these bodies to have executive powers but they are not going to get even that bertie ahern's london meeting with david trimble at the end of november produced agreement that any cross border bodies would be like european union committees and the final say would be reserved for the elected assembly in stormont or dublin in other words no more than an attempt at co-ordinating committees ahem and trimble also agreed that the dublin constitution would be suitably amended to redefine the 26 county state as just that and relinquish any claim to the 32 counties the events of christmas and the early new year have seen the orange card being played in earnest following the shooting dead of the notorious billy wright in the h-blocks on december 27 this was followed by actual killings and attempted massacres of nationalists in tyrone and belfast that left two men dead and many injured in this situation the dublin foreign minister proceeds to belfast to reassure the loyalists what about the is out of 20 people who were killed by the loyalists in 1997 — who travelled north from leinster house to reassure the nationalist community who in the 26-county establishment has raised a whisper in the past 12 months about the low-level ethnic cleansing of nationalist families from part of north belfast and county antrim or about the scandalous blockade on harryville catholic church worshippers who have had to run the gauntlet of loyalist thugs every saturday since september 1996 what really concerns bertie ahern's administration is not the spectre with the south african apartheid machine-gun in one hand and the bible in the other tenon sing the nationalist communities of the six counties instead it is the prospect of the two fringe loyalists parties pulling out of the talks to join the dup and ukup outside and thereby upsetting the cosy partitionist apple-cart the uup and just one of the udp/pup parties will provide a majority on the unionist side to approve any settlement that emerges from the stormont talks the talks will continue in some form or another for a period yet as they lurch around republican sinn fein is encouraged by the steadily increasing numbers being attracted to its ranks particularly those young people who see the organisation as the principled alternative to the current flawed process the only organisation that does not fear to speak of ending british rule athbhliain faoi mhaise dar leitheoiri so leir