I have received a message on Facebook with the details below.
The SRSM Ard Fheis is due to take place on Saturday 8th January 2011 to be held in Glasgow.
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
SRSM Ard Fheis
I have received a message on Facebook with the details below.
The SRSM Ard Fheis is due to take place on Saturday 8th January 2011 to be held in Glasgow.
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
SRSM Events
Here is a couple of photos from the recently held John MacLean Commemoration. The Scottish Republican Socialist Newsletter pays tribute to the great work of SRSM in helping to keep the spirit alive of John MacLean in Scotland.
I have also included below details of an email I was sent concerning the SRSM Burns Night.
Donald Anderson of SRSM speaking at Social after MacLean commemoration.
SRSM North England branch banner at the MacLean Commemoration.
Scottish Republican Socialist Movement have organised a Burns Night
We are having a Burns Night on Friday January 28 in the Victoria Bar, corner of Brigade/Stockwell St Glasgow.
Music: White Rose group.
Cockaleekie Soup, Haggis, Champit Totties and Neeps.
Tickets £10
Patrick Scott Hogg will be speaking, plus others, incluiding CPS.
I have also included below details of an email I was sent concerning the SRSM Burns Night.
Donald Anderson of SRSM speaking at Social after MacLean commemoration.
SRSM North England branch banner at the MacLean Commemoration.
Scottish Republican Socialist Movement have organised a Burns Night
We are having a Burns Night on Friday January 28 in the Victoria Bar, corner of Brigade/Stockwell St Glasgow.
Music: White Rose group.
Cockaleekie Soup, Haggis, Champit Totties and Neeps.
Tickets £10
Patrick Scott Hogg will be speaking, plus others, incluiding CPS.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Wallace Sword in Captivity
On 2 May 1972, the Wallace sword was stolen from the National Wallace Monument by members of the Tartan Army or Army for the Provisional Government of Scotland. Shown here are two members of it, wearing balaclavas, holding the sword, and with a Saltire, the flag of Scotland in the background.
This is one of two polaroid photographic images which were sold at different gatherings from the time of the theft of the sword until its return some years afterwards. The immediate reason for the theft of the sword was the poor condition in which the National Wallace Monument was maintained, with restricted opening hours, poor access and winter closure, and a lack of promotion which kept the visitor figures low. Those who took the sword did so in an attempt to draw attention to these factors. The sword was removed from the Monument by forcing open the case, and dropping it through one of the narrow air slots which pierce the Monument's stair tower. The sword fell vertically and plunged into the earth beneath, reverberating from side to side with the impact. There was no damage.
Arrests were made in May 1976 for the theft of the sword, the use of explosive devices, and other illegal military activity, and after a trial in September one man received a five year sentence, others were given probation, and the majority of the accused were released.
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org/Wallace_Sword_in_Captivity_about797.html
Also check out other photos on the SRSM website such as John MacLean's grave
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org/John_MacLeans_Grave_about773.html
Other photos
http://scottishrepublicans.myfreeforum.org/forum17.php
Monday, 6 December 2010
We are a nation. We decide for ourselves!
Had to post this here a Catalan film for Independence on Bella Caledonia
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2010/12/06/la-flama-de-tot-un-poble-in-moviment/
Well we must learn from each other and other stateless nations and be cool and imaginative over our progressive propaganda on film and communication and in our writings online, and in journals. We can make most from our own culture and learn to be attractive compared to the ugliness of British nationalism and it's unionists.
Larry
Stunning or what? As it is a campaign film for independence, I am going to have to ask you to put your hand on your heart and compare it with the Scottish National Party campaign film which is currently showing at that party’s website. If you had to say which is more captivating and highly absorbing, which would it be? Be honest. There is no contest, I venture to suggest. Regrettably, the SNP video seems to me to be in comparison a not conspicuously successful attempt to be both cool and inclusive.
Populated by more or less seemingly isolated and stiffly artificial characters affecting to be inspired by a more or less culturally alien sort of pop song which, however popular it may or may not be with a certain age group, certainly lacks trans-generational appeal and seems to represent nothing so much as a peculiarly perverse rejection of native culture. The Catalan film, on the other hand, is boldly authentic, richly symbolic and evocative, full of communal interconnectedness and emphatically and wholly convincingly real people who are tremendously easy to relate to. It is generationally inclusive and contemporary while asserting cultural identity and inherited and indeed cherished cultural tradition. It is a presentation and a demonstration of an inclusive national community working together, whereas the Scottish effort is a relatively feeble representation of not so much a convincing reality as an aspiration which is not shown to be well founded.
What the masterful Catalan demonstration of how the medium can be the message shows, on the other hand, is a popular art form known as a lip dub, which, as you are probably aware, although I was not until recently, is a kind of happening which does not, of course, simply happen. It has to be organized rather carefully, and the more people who are involved in it the more carefully organized it plainly has to be. Yet the end result is meant to give an impression that a degree of spontaneity is involved. A whole bunch of folk are assembled to mime to and in some imaginative manner communally perform a recorded song and have quite a lot of fun while doing so. In the Lip Dub for Catalan Independence shown above no fewer than 5,771 people (a world record) were brought together to mime to and perform a popular Catalan song, La Flama (The Flame), by the group Obrint Pas (Breaking Through), as part of the independentist election campaign for the recent parliamentary general election in the autonomous community of Catalonia in the north-east of the Castilian kingdom of Spain. This historic election took place on November 28th and was duly won by Catalan nationalists. An account of the election result, to which, unsurprisingly, not much attention has been paid by the UK media (out of fear of contagion?) appears at Newsnet here.
The song La Flama was chosen for this campaign event because the flame which is its subject and hence the theme of the lip dub is the flame of national sentiment which somehow did not die out in Catalonia after that country lost its independence when it was defeated at the siege of Barcelona in 1714 during the War of the Spanish Succession. As Catalan is a Romance language and thus relatively approachable, here are the lyrics:
No et limites a contemplar aquestes hores que ara venen
baixa al carrer i participa,
no podran res davant un poble unit alegre i combatiu.
Amb l’espurna de la historia,
i avançant a pas valent,
hem ences dins la memoria,
la flama d’un sentiment.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
Amb columnes de paraules,
i travessant la llarga nit,
hem fet de valls, mars i muntanyes,
els escenaris d’un nou crit.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
A rough translation into English appears here.
La flama a través del temps, la flama de tot un poble en moviment (the flame kept alive down the ages, the spirit of a nation on the move) is what is represented in the lip dub, which opens at a point in the distant past, from where the flame of national sentiment is snatched by a modern-day Catalan youth and transported through time, through the ancient narrow streets of the town of Vic, past representations of Catalan history and culture, including the traditional building of human castles, which is apparently very popular and is a televised sport, past the giants and the bigheads and the flag-waving and the brandishing of gigantic symbols, a Catalan peccadillo which is noticeably reflected in the Catalan-designed Scottish Parliament building. The flame passes through the generations to the present one, the representative of which ultimately carries it into the present day by bringing it into the main square of Vic, holding the flame aloft before a vast cheering crowd, which is brandishing more Catalan flags than you can wave a stick at and chanting “I-inde-independència!” (a very common chant in Catalonia these days), as a line of people at the back are gradually seen to be holding up large white letters of the alphabet forming the word independència, whereupon the song comes to an end and a rendition of Els Segadors (The Reapers), the Catalan national anthem, erupts. Banners are waved. The people cheer, and giants and bigheads representing Catalonia’s past are discerned in the midst of the throng, which fills the square, which is the heart of the town, just as the flame of national sentiment is the spirit of the people, which is overflowing.
The Lip Dub for Independence is a self-evidently powerful demonstration of national solidarity intended to reach out to the world to let it know that Catalonia has survived as a nation despite Castilian efforts to suppress it and oppress it. Furthermore, it is becoming more assertive. Soon its new government will take over in Barcelona, and demands for greater autonomy will be made by an administration which could hold an independence referendum if they are not met, a referendum the result of which will be foreshadowed by the result of the unofficial locality-by-locality people’s independence referendum which reaches its climax in Barcelona on April 10th, in time to astonish the world and alarm Madrid and possibly even grab the attention of the Scottish electorate as it gets ready to vote in the Scottish general election of May 5th, when the UK government’s AV referendum may, of course, just possibly be hijacked, as recommended by . . . Bella Caledonia, to assert the inalienable right of the people to determine the constitutional future of their country, as the people of Catalonia have done by taking matters into their own hands. As they say there, and keep repeating, in very loud piercing voices, “Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim!” (We are a nation. We decide for ourselves!)
In preparation for the Scottish general election, and the hijacked referendum, Scotland needs a campaign event and a campaign film as powerful as the Lip Dub for Independence, which to date has been viewed about 885,000 times since it was uploaded to YouTube on October 27th. Not as sensational as Susan Boyle perhaps, but not bad. Not bad at all, and the whole of Catalonia is still talking about it (as indeed am I), in between flag waving and building human castles and the like. Maybe Bella’s referendum idea could attract enough support for it to be comparable to the unofficial Catalonian independence referendum? Perhaps a lip dub to publicize both it and the cause of Scottish independence could be organized. Maybe even more than one, as has happened in Catalonia? Cross-fertilization of superbly subversive ideas between sub-state nations is precisely what the Establishment does not want.
That is precisely why we should do it. Visca Catalunya. Visca Catalunya lliure! Saor Alba!’
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2010/12/06/la-flama-de-tot-un-poble-in-moviment/
Well we must learn from each other and other stateless nations and be cool and imaginative over our progressive propaganda on film and communication and in our writings online, and in journals. We can make most from our own culture and learn to be attractive compared to the ugliness of British nationalism and it's unionists.
Larry
Stunning or what? As it is a campaign film for independence, I am going to have to ask you to put your hand on your heart and compare it with the Scottish National Party campaign film which is currently showing at that party’s website. If you had to say which is more captivating and highly absorbing, which would it be? Be honest. There is no contest, I venture to suggest. Regrettably, the SNP video seems to me to be in comparison a not conspicuously successful attempt to be both cool and inclusive.
Populated by more or less seemingly isolated and stiffly artificial characters affecting to be inspired by a more or less culturally alien sort of pop song which, however popular it may or may not be with a certain age group, certainly lacks trans-generational appeal and seems to represent nothing so much as a peculiarly perverse rejection of native culture. The Catalan film, on the other hand, is boldly authentic, richly symbolic and evocative, full of communal interconnectedness and emphatically and wholly convincingly real people who are tremendously easy to relate to. It is generationally inclusive and contemporary while asserting cultural identity and inherited and indeed cherished cultural tradition. It is a presentation and a demonstration of an inclusive national community working together, whereas the Scottish effort is a relatively feeble representation of not so much a convincing reality as an aspiration which is not shown to be well founded.
What the masterful Catalan demonstration of how the medium can be the message shows, on the other hand, is a popular art form known as a lip dub, which, as you are probably aware, although I was not until recently, is a kind of happening which does not, of course, simply happen. It has to be organized rather carefully, and the more people who are involved in it the more carefully organized it plainly has to be. Yet the end result is meant to give an impression that a degree of spontaneity is involved. A whole bunch of folk are assembled to mime to and in some imaginative manner communally perform a recorded song and have quite a lot of fun while doing so. In the Lip Dub for Catalan Independence shown above no fewer than 5,771 people (a world record) were brought together to mime to and perform a popular Catalan song, La Flama (The Flame), by the group Obrint Pas (Breaking Through), as part of the independentist election campaign for the recent parliamentary general election in the autonomous community of Catalonia in the north-east of the Castilian kingdom of Spain. This historic election took place on November 28th and was duly won by Catalan nationalists. An account of the election result, to which, unsurprisingly, not much attention has been paid by the UK media (out of fear of contagion?) appears at Newsnet here.
The song La Flama was chosen for this campaign event because the flame which is its subject and hence the theme of the lip dub is the flame of national sentiment which somehow did not die out in Catalonia after that country lost its independence when it was defeated at the siege of Barcelona in 1714 during the War of the Spanish Succession. As Catalan is a Romance language and thus relatively approachable, here are the lyrics:
No et limites a contemplar aquestes hores que ara venen
baixa al carrer i participa,
no podran res davant un poble unit alegre i combatiu.
Amb l’espurna de la historia,
i avançant a pas valent,
hem ences dins la memoria,
la flama d’un sentiment.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
Amb columnes de paraules,
i travessant la llarga nit,
hem fet de valls, mars i muntanyes,
els escenaris d’un nou crit.
Viure sempre corrent,
avançant amb la gent,
rellevant contra el vent,
tranportant sentiments.
Viure mantenint viva
la flama a través del temps,
la flama de tot un poble en moviment.(bis)
A rough translation into English appears here.
La flama a través del temps, la flama de tot un poble en moviment (the flame kept alive down the ages, the spirit of a nation on the move) is what is represented in the lip dub, which opens at a point in the distant past, from where the flame of national sentiment is snatched by a modern-day Catalan youth and transported through time, through the ancient narrow streets of the town of Vic, past representations of Catalan history and culture, including the traditional building of human castles, which is apparently very popular and is a televised sport, past the giants and the bigheads and the flag-waving and the brandishing of gigantic symbols, a Catalan peccadillo which is noticeably reflected in the Catalan-designed Scottish Parliament building. The flame passes through the generations to the present one, the representative of which ultimately carries it into the present day by bringing it into the main square of Vic, holding the flame aloft before a vast cheering crowd, which is brandishing more Catalan flags than you can wave a stick at and chanting “I-inde-independència!” (a very common chant in Catalonia these days), as a line of people at the back are gradually seen to be holding up large white letters of the alphabet forming the word independència, whereupon the song comes to an end and a rendition of Els Segadors (The Reapers), the Catalan national anthem, erupts. Banners are waved. The people cheer, and giants and bigheads representing Catalonia’s past are discerned in the midst of the throng, which fills the square, which is the heart of the town, just as the flame of national sentiment is the spirit of the people, which is overflowing.
The Lip Dub for Independence is a self-evidently powerful demonstration of national solidarity intended to reach out to the world to let it know that Catalonia has survived as a nation despite Castilian efforts to suppress it and oppress it. Furthermore, it is becoming more assertive. Soon its new government will take over in Barcelona, and demands for greater autonomy will be made by an administration which could hold an independence referendum if they are not met, a referendum the result of which will be foreshadowed by the result of the unofficial locality-by-locality people’s independence referendum which reaches its climax in Barcelona on April 10th, in time to astonish the world and alarm Madrid and possibly even grab the attention of the Scottish electorate as it gets ready to vote in the Scottish general election of May 5th, when the UK government’s AV referendum may, of course, just possibly be hijacked, as recommended by . . . Bella Caledonia, to assert the inalienable right of the people to determine the constitutional future of their country, as the people of Catalonia have done by taking matters into their own hands. As they say there, and keep repeating, in very loud piercing voices, “Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim!” (We are a nation. We decide for ourselves!)
In preparation for the Scottish general election, and the hijacked referendum, Scotland needs a campaign event and a campaign film as powerful as the Lip Dub for Independence, which to date has been viewed about 885,000 times since it was uploaded to YouTube on October 27th. Not as sensational as Susan Boyle perhaps, but not bad. Not bad at all, and the whole of Catalonia is still talking about it (as indeed am I), in between flag waving and building human castles and the like. Maybe Bella’s referendum idea could attract enough support for it to be comparable to the unofficial Catalonian independence referendum? Perhaps a lip dub to publicize both it and the cause of Scottish independence could be organized. Maybe even more than one, as has happened in Catalonia? Cross-fertilization of superbly subversive ideas between sub-state nations is precisely what the Establishment does not want.
That is precisely why we should do it. Visca Catalunya. Visca Catalunya lliure! Saor Alba!’
Saturday, 4 December 2010
The campaign for Artistic Freedom!
The campaign for Scottish Freedom is likely to take many forms in the near future. This requires many of us to operate openly and others more discreetly or even in secret. Why? Because there are many laws in this country that even prohibit handy artwork and unionists that cringe when faced with someones artistic craftsmanship.
This weblog would like to pay tribute to the artistic work and new website of the Scottish Patriots.
Links to other activists who support the campaign for Scottish Freedom:
http://www.scottishpatriotsne.org/21.html
Suas Le Alba! (up with Scotland!)
Larry
This weblog would like to pay tribute to the artistic work and new website of the Scottish Patriots.
Links to other activists who support the campaign for Scottish Freedom:
http://www.scottishpatriotsne.org/21.html
Suas Le Alba! (up with Scotland!)
Larry
Friday, 3 December 2010
Open letter to Scottish Independence Movement
Firstly I hope the lads and lassies in Siol do not mind me displaying one of their photos here.
Secondly would like to make clear in my latest post on Scottish Republic that I urge the people behind Bella Caledonia to lobby the SNP for support.
I see the Bella Caledonia protest as harmless and significant but I think they should also bring the SNP and whole of the Scottish Independence Movement with them and not protest simply in isolation or merely online.
As for new Irish beginnings in Scotland and comrades in IRSP Alba, they are Irish Republican Socialists that deserve support for their efforts. However when and should the Irish or Scots Irish groupings give support to Scottish Republicans, I think they should be open to accept advice from Scots, and work with the good offices of the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement (SRSM).
And let me say only support for the SNP will bring about a vote for change and to move towards freedom and independence, particularly in the first instance. As for the Scottish Independence Movement they will all have to understand the importance of unity against a formidable unionist enemy. This goes for all nationalist groupings and movements in Scotland. We have to avoid splits and divisions that weaken the Spirit of Freedom.
We will break the confidence of the unionist enemy in good time. The phoenix will rise in Scotland and we should prepare for coming battles.
However we must respect our fellow Irish and learn the lessons of struggle by constitutional means or otherwise. The spirit of our national hero John MacLean is as strong as James Connolly was for Ireland.
As for others on the left, the Scottish Socialist Party may claim to be pro-independence but they undermine the efforts of left wing nationalists like myself with their attacks on the SNP and desire for rainbow flags and politics. The message from Republican Socialists such as myself is loud and clear put Scottish independence to the top of your political agenda and entrench such in your constitution. This also applies to my former comrades in Solidarity.
I can write more on my blog about the need to support the SNP and the useful valuable work of Scottish Republicans such as SRSM and how we all need to work together.
From the distinctive band of patriots in nationalist groupings up an down the country we will not weaken in the harder times that face Scotland. I mean the cuts to public services, and a large cut in the so called budget from London, in which we would not be asked to depend on if we were free.
Until Alba gets her independence I echo the SNP in calling for full fiscal autonomy.
As for Scottish Republic it is a weblog that will follow the progress of the inevitable destruction of unionism, and the desire to defeat loyalty to all things described as British in this Scottish Nation.
The Scots behind banners such as "End London Rule" should be respected as they represent the beginning of freedom like a drop of water to a river that runs free.
I wish to say if Scottish patriots want to link up with this weblog and stand up as a force for unity you are very welcome. All nationalists are hereby invited to post their views here. Contact details are redlarry1962@googlemail.com and prepare some questions that you would like to answer here. Names of organisations are welcome as names of individuals are not necessarily important.
All private correspondence will be treated in the strictest of confidence and respect.
Yours For Scotland
Larry
Independent Republican Socialist
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Christmas drive for Republican Socialist POWs
Christmas drive for Republican Socialist POWs
http://irspscotland.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/christmas-drive-for-republican-socialist-pows/
Below we print a request from Teach na Fáilte requesting support for IRSM prisoners both financially and materially through book donations, or even sending a xmas card. All expressions of support are always welcome.
The IRSP Alba/Scotland Support Group will be playing our part to support the prisoners and would encourage you to do likewise. All donations gratefully received.
**********************************************************************************************
Teach na Fáilte
Republican Socialist Ex-Prisoners Support Group
Costello House
392 Falls Road
BT12 6DH
Belfast
A Chara,
As I’m sure you are aware there are a number of Republican Socialist prisoners incarcerated in prisons throughout Ireland at this point in time. Some are serving lengthly sentences and are incarcarated many miles from their homes so they would be glad of your support especially around the festive season.
As the festive season is approaching I was wondering if you or any of your family, friends or comrades would be interested in sponsoring one of our prisoners or even sending them a Christmas card at this time.
In relation to sponsoring a prisoner you can send your correspondence directly to me at the address below. If you would prefer to send cards etc to me I will see that they get it or you can send cards directly to the prisoners themselves.
Anything that you choose to do would be greatly appreciated by the prisoners themselves as it would let them know that there are people still thinking about them
Fundraising efforts have also begun in many areas and we ask you to continue to support these.
Thank you for your time and effort
Gerard Murray.
—————————————————————
GERARD MURRAY
TEACH NA FAILTE
392 FALLS ROAD
BT12 6D BELFAST
IRELAND
gerardm042000@yahoo.com
E4 Landing
Portlaoise Prison
Portlaoise, Co Laois
Ireland
DENIS DWYER
PAUL KELLY
EUGENE KELLY
EOGHAN CLAIL
GERARD MACKIN
THOMAS KELLY
PADDY WALL
NOEL MOONEY
JONATHAN KEOGH
GERARD KELLEGHER
NEIL MYLES
ANTHONY LEE
GARETH BYRNE
The Grove
Castlerea Prison
Castlerea, Co Roscommon
Ireland
EDDIE MC GARRIGLE
JOHNNY MC CROSSAN
Roe 4
Maghaberry Prison
Old Road
Ballinderry Upper
Lisburn, Co. Antrim BT 28 2PT
North of Ireland
SEAN CARLIN
(Not all of the above named political prisoners are necessarily facing charges relating to RSM activities but for one reason or another they now find themselves on the INLA wing.)
Thursday, 18 November 2010
St Andrews Day Rally 2010
March will assemble on the Esplanade at 4pm, march off 4:30 down the Mile led by the Stockbridge Pipe Band as always. Speakers - outside the Parliament building. Night-time entertainment
Bands are Ted Christopher, Fiery Jack and Albannach
hall is
Lodge Trafalgar
1 St Anthony Street Leith
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
FREE Eddie McGarrigle
FREE Eddie McGarrigle
Posted on IPSC November 2, 2010 at 10:36:16 AM by IPSC (American Branch)
(Note: Eddie's mother has recently died, so any cards or letters would be greatly appreciated)
FREE Eddie Mcgarrigle!
The forgotten victims of the Troubles
(by Suzanne Breen, Sunday Tribune)
(Excerpt)
Eddie McGarrigle, 40, ex-INLA member
It was raining and he was running – big, long strides – to open the back door so his girlfriend wouldn't have to hang outside getting wet. She was a real looker, a former Miss Strabane. They'd been walking home from a date when the heavens opened. He gave her his coat, before darting ahead.
The gunman was waiting in the doorway. Eighteen-year-old Eddie McGarrigle saw a figure in the darkness point what looked like a rifle at him but he couldn't take it in. Thinking a friend was "acting the eejit", he shouted "f**k off!'. When he realised, it was too late. He started to run away but the gunman shot him in the back.
"I crawled along the street, calling him a bastard. My girlfriend arrived and started screaming. I thought I was dying. I told the ambulance driver not to tell my mother." McGarrigle lost consciousness and woke up, three days later, in hospital. "Nobody ever told me I was paralysed from the waist down – I just sort of found out."
Twenty-two years on, it's hard catching up with him. One evening, he's playing basketball "and I'm not stopping when I'm winning!" Next, he's on a hunger-strike march in the Bogside. Then, he's out with his dog, Troy. Never mind the raft of First Communions, odd for a self-proclaimed Marxist.
But McGarrigle confounds stereotypes. When he was an INLA prisoner in Long Kesh, comrades who didn't know him, presumed he'd been shot by the security forces. They didn't realise it was his own organisation, the INLA, which had put him in a wheelchair.
He became an "active republican" during the hunger-strike. In 1983, a woman told him a man had sexually abused her daughter. Another INLA member warned the man McGarrigle was asking questions. The man stole an IRA gun, shot McGarrigle, and the INLA claimed responsibility.
The man was later convicted of sex abuse. The INLA apologised to McGarrigle. "It was hard but I accepted the apology. The INLA had been in disarray at the time. I wasn't about to change my politics because I personally had a rough deal.
"The Brits were my enemy. I wouldn't be distracted from that. I'd loved sport. I was a big lad, 6"1. I was Tyrone boxing champion, I played hand-ball, I ran cross-country. All that stopped but self-pity is a waste of time. Too many people in the Troubles wrapped victimhood around themselves. I was just glad to be alive."
Out of hospital, the security forces "tortured" him. "I was arrested every few weeks. They thought the wheelchair was my weak spot. They'd sing 'You'll never walk alone' at me. They'd stop my car and open the boot and bonnet, knowing I'd struggle to get out and close them, and then they'd walk off.
"One day, the Brits demanded I get out of the car and open the bonnet. I refused. I told them I'd give them five minutes if they genuinely wanted to search the car, otherwise I was off. They stood laughing at me. So when the five minutes were up, I just started the car and drove at them." McGarrigle was convicted of knocking down a soldier.
For legal reasons, the extent of his "republican socialist activities" can't be disclosed: "I'm not saying I was Dan Breen but I played a full and active role. I wasn't restricted to sitting at home planning things. In terms of disability, the INLA was an equal opportunities employer."
Being a paraplegic didn't destroy his personal life: "I pushed my girlfriend away emotionally because I reckoned everybody thought, 'He'll have to marry her. He won't get anybody else now'. But I didn't love her and wouldn't have married her anyway. I'd no trouble getting women. I'd be on the dance floor, wheelchair spinning – though now I'm older, they'd have to forcibly push me out there!"
In 1990, McGarrigle was arrested following the attempted murder of a UDR man. "At night, the cops carried me to the cell bed. But, on the last three nights, one cop abused me, talking about the need to "cook you vegetables". I wouldn't let him touch me. I sat in the wheelchair, three days and nights. I fainted during interrogation.
"The doctor told me to say I was unfit for questioning. I refused. That would have been crying for special treatment. I was convicted of conspiracy to murder. I should have got 10 years but the judge took a year off because I was in a wheelchair. I was raging at the old c**t for making a big deal about that."
Belfast's Victorian Crumlin Road jail was an inhospitable place. "They held me in the cell for infected diseases, the only cell wide enough to take a wheelchair. It was 24-hour lock-up, solitary confinement.
"The toilet and shower room wasn't wide enough either. They said they'd carry me into it. I refused so for two years I'd no washing facilities and a newspaper on top of the bed became my toilet. It was hard. I wrote poetry about drowning and coming up for air. After the Crum, Long Kesh was heaven – a modern building and all on the flat!"
McGarrigle supports the ceasefire but is anti-Belfast Agreement. "The war's over; republicans lost. Adams and McGuinness settled for what could have been achieved in 1974."
He's married with two children, Liam, 9, and six-week old Paiti. "I can't play football with Liam so I take him to see Celtic instead. I don't want to burden him with politics. He thinks I fell off a motorbike. My wife's a special person. She says I'm softer and more compassionate than most men. I'm the best vacuum cleaner in Strabane. Anything like putting up shelves, or cutting the grass, her brother does."
McGarrigle met disabled ex-security force members during treatment in the spinal unit. "On a human level, I feel for them, but we've nothing in common. The reality is I'd have put them in a wheelchair, and they'd have put me in a wheelchair if they'd had the chance. It was a war. We were on different sides."
He never fought his disability, "just tried to get on with life" as best he could. Sometimes, though, things are different: "When I'm dreaming, whatever I'm doing, I'm never in a wheelchair."
Eddie Mcgarrigle: political prisoner !
By iskra1916
An Irish Republican Socialist Party member, Mr Eddie McGarrigle is today beginning a 3 year prison prison term in grim Portlaoise prison based entirely on the "opinion evidence" of a secret policeman!
This was not Burma or Tibet but Ireland in the year 2010 !
Outrageously there exists in Irish law a peice of so-called 'emergency legislation' which allows the 'opinion' of a member of Ireland's political police to effectively convict a person he suspects of being a member of a proscribed organisation. In effect due process does not exist & any semblance of a 'trial' is a mere formality! If this were happening in Tibet or Burma there would be celebrities lining up to support a campaign against this outrage but because this is in a Western country the chattering classes are deafeningly silent!
Mr McGarrigle who hails from Strabane in the North-West of Ireland would have been sentenced earlier with other accused but he had been extremely ill with an infection following a broken leg which coupled with the fact that he is confined to a wheelchair resulted in him being held on strict House-Arrest for 11 months prior to sentencing!
It is worth noting that despite having a disability Mr McGarrigle has been an active campaigner for the rights of Irish political prisoners held in British & Irish gaols and has been a tireless worker on issues effecting the Irish working-class including conflict resolution in the North of Ireland.
Portlaoise prison is a grim antiquated Victorian-era prison with no interior sanitation in the Irish midlands that is ill-equipped for the needs of able-bodied prisoners let alone a wheelchair-bound person! (Who would have thought that a prison which was built conforming to Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon design would still be holding prisoners in the 21st Century!)
Ironically, the "proscribed organisation" that it was the secret policeman's "opinion" Mr McGarrigle belonged to, reportedly no longer exists! There is no doubt that there has been an outrage committed today when an activist can be imprisoned entirely on the word of a Special branch spook & it remains to be seen whether this piece of archaic draconian legislation will be rightfully thrown into the dustbin of history as an affront to modernity.
Meanwhile Mr McGarrigle's young family will be struggling to come to terms with the fact that their Daddy has been taken away from them for 3 years & held in the most grim conditions miles from home soley based on the opinion of a secret policeman!
If you are concerned about the plight of Mr McGarrigle or would like to show your solidarity or support it would be advised to contact Teach na Failte which campaigns on behalf of Republican Socialist prisoners.
His Address:
Castlerea Prison,
The Grove, Castlerea town,
Co Roscommon,
Ireland
Posted on IPSC November 2, 2010 at 10:36:16 AM by IPSC (American Branch)
(Note: Eddie's mother has recently died, so any cards or letters would be greatly appreciated)
FREE Eddie Mcgarrigle!
The forgotten victims of the Troubles
(by Suzanne Breen, Sunday Tribune)
(Excerpt)
Eddie McGarrigle, 40, ex-INLA member
It was raining and he was running – big, long strides – to open the back door so his girlfriend wouldn't have to hang outside getting wet. She was a real looker, a former Miss Strabane. They'd been walking home from a date when the heavens opened. He gave her his coat, before darting ahead.
The gunman was waiting in the doorway. Eighteen-year-old Eddie McGarrigle saw a figure in the darkness point what looked like a rifle at him but he couldn't take it in. Thinking a friend was "acting the eejit", he shouted "f**k off!'. When he realised, it was too late. He started to run away but the gunman shot him in the back.
"I crawled along the street, calling him a bastard. My girlfriend arrived and started screaming. I thought I was dying. I told the ambulance driver not to tell my mother." McGarrigle lost consciousness and woke up, three days later, in hospital. "Nobody ever told me I was paralysed from the waist down – I just sort of found out."
Twenty-two years on, it's hard catching up with him. One evening, he's playing basketball "and I'm not stopping when I'm winning!" Next, he's on a hunger-strike march in the Bogside. Then, he's out with his dog, Troy. Never mind the raft of First Communions, odd for a self-proclaimed Marxist.
But McGarrigle confounds stereotypes. When he was an INLA prisoner in Long Kesh, comrades who didn't know him, presumed he'd been shot by the security forces. They didn't realise it was his own organisation, the INLA, which had put him in a wheelchair.
He became an "active republican" during the hunger-strike. In 1983, a woman told him a man had sexually abused her daughter. Another INLA member warned the man McGarrigle was asking questions. The man stole an IRA gun, shot McGarrigle, and the INLA claimed responsibility.
The man was later convicted of sex abuse. The INLA apologised to McGarrigle. "It was hard but I accepted the apology. The INLA had been in disarray at the time. I wasn't about to change my politics because I personally had a rough deal.
"The Brits were my enemy. I wouldn't be distracted from that. I'd loved sport. I was a big lad, 6"1. I was Tyrone boxing champion, I played hand-ball, I ran cross-country. All that stopped but self-pity is a waste of time. Too many people in the Troubles wrapped victimhood around themselves. I was just glad to be alive."
Out of hospital, the security forces "tortured" him. "I was arrested every few weeks. They thought the wheelchair was my weak spot. They'd sing 'You'll never walk alone' at me. They'd stop my car and open the boot and bonnet, knowing I'd struggle to get out and close them, and then they'd walk off.
"One day, the Brits demanded I get out of the car and open the bonnet. I refused. I told them I'd give them five minutes if they genuinely wanted to search the car, otherwise I was off. They stood laughing at me. So when the five minutes were up, I just started the car and drove at them." McGarrigle was convicted of knocking down a soldier.
For legal reasons, the extent of his "republican socialist activities" can't be disclosed: "I'm not saying I was Dan Breen but I played a full and active role. I wasn't restricted to sitting at home planning things. In terms of disability, the INLA was an equal opportunities employer."
Being a paraplegic didn't destroy his personal life: "I pushed my girlfriend away emotionally because I reckoned everybody thought, 'He'll have to marry her. He won't get anybody else now'. But I didn't love her and wouldn't have married her anyway. I'd no trouble getting women. I'd be on the dance floor, wheelchair spinning – though now I'm older, they'd have to forcibly push me out there!"
In 1990, McGarrigle was arrested following the attempted murder of a UDR man. "At night, the cops carried me to the cell bed. But, on the last three nights, one cop abused me, talking about the need to "cook you vegetables". I wouldn't let him touch me. I sat in the wheelchair, three days and nights. I fainted during interrogation.
"The doctor told me to say I was unfit for questioning. I refused. That would have been crying for special treatment. I was convicted of conspiracy to murder. I should have got 10 years but the judge took a year off because I was in a wheelchair. I was raging at the old c**t for making a big deal about that."
Belfast's Victorian Crumlin Road jail was an inhospitable place. "They held me in the cell for infected diseases, the only cell wide enough to take a wheelchair. It was 24-hour lock-up, solitary confinement.
"The toilet and shower room wasn't wide enough either. They said they'd carry me into it. I refused so for two years I'd no washing facilities and a newspaper on top of the bed became my toilet. It was hard. I wrote poetry about drowning and coming up for air. After the Crum, Long Kesh was heaven – a modern building and all on the flat!"
McGarrigle supports the ceasefire but is anti-Belfast Agreement. "The war's over; republicans lost. Adams and McGuinness settled for what could have been achieved in 1974."
He's married with two children, Liam, 9, and six-week old Paiti. "I can't play football with Liam so I take him to see Celtic instead. I don't want to burden him with politics. He thinks I fell off a motorbike. My wife's a special person. She says I'm softer and more compassionate than most men. I'm the best vacuum cleaner in Strabane. Anything like putting up shelves, or cutting the grass, her brother does."
McGarrigle met disabled ex-security force members during treatment in the spinal unit. "On a human level, I feel for them, but we've nothing in common. The reality is I'd have put them in a wheelchair, and they'd have put me in a wheelchair if they'd had the chance. It was a war. We were on different sides."
He never fought his disability, "just tried to get on with life" as best he could. Sometimes, though, things are different: "When I'm dreaming, whatever I'm doing, I'm never in a wheelchair."
Eddie Mcgarrigle: political prisoner !
By iskra1916
An Irish Republican Socialist Party member, Mr Eddie McGarrigle is today beginning a 3 year prison prison term in grim Portlaoise prison based entirely on the "opinion evidence" of a secret policeman!
This was not Burma or Tibet but Ireland in the year 2010 !
Outrageously there exists in Irish law a peice of so-called 'emergency legislation' which allows the 'opinion' of a member of Ireland's political police to effectively convict a person he suspects of being a member of a proscribed organisation. In effect due process does not exist & any semblance of a 'trial' is a mere formality! If this were happening in Tibet or Burma there would be celebrities lining up to support a campaign against this outrage but because this is in a Western country the chattering classes are deafeningly silent!
Mr McGarrigle who hails from Strabane in the North-West of Ireland would have been sentenced earlier with other accused but he had been extremely ill with an infection following a broken leg which coupled with the fact that he is confined to a wheelchair resulted in him being held on strict House-Arrest for 11 months prior to sentencing!
It is worth noting that despite having a disability Mr McGarrigle has been an active campaigner for the rights of Irish political prisoners held in British & Irish gaols and has been a tireless worker on issues effecting the Irish working-class including conflict resolution in the North of Ireland.
Portlaoise prison is a grim antiquated Victorian-era prison with no interior sanitation in the Irish midlands that is ill-equipped for the needs of able-bodied prisoners let alone a wheelchair-bound person! (Who would have thought that a prison which was built conforming to Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon design would still be holding prisoners in the 21st Century!)
Ironically, the "proscribed organisation" that it was the secret policeman's "opinion" Mr McGarrigle belonged to, reportedly no longer exists! There is no doubt that there has been an outrage committed today when an activist can be imprisoned entirely on the word of a Special branch spook & it remains to be seen whether this piece of archaic draconian legislation will be rightfully thrown into the dustbin of history as an affront to modernity.
Meanwhile Mr McGarrigle's young family will be struggling to come to terms with the fact that their Daddy has been taken away from them for 3 years & held in the most grim conditions miles from home soley based on the opinion of a secret policeman!
If you are concerned about the plight of Mr McGarrigle or would like to show your solidarity or support it would be advised to contact Teach na Failte which campaigns on behalf of Republican Socialist prisoners.
His Address:
Castlerea Prison,
The Grove, Castlerea town,
Co Roscommon,
Ireland
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