CLINTON COURAGE AT ISRAELI BULLYING CELEBRATED IN IRELAND

Irish people were last night celebrating Hillary Clinton's sharp
criticism of Israel. Ireland and Israel have been for some recent time
engaged in a diplomatic war of words on Israel's war crimes
against Gaza and subsequent outrageous statements by Israel, against
Irish UN personnel, blocking the Irish Foreign minister entering Gaza,
blocking Irish humanitarian aid for Gaza, attacking Irish personnel
working for the UN and stealing Irish passports to assassinate a
Palestinian freedom fighter in Dubai.


US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has shown once again,
considerably more courage than any of her male colleagues in the
American administration, by standing up to Israel on several occasions
who have been dictating US policy in the middle-east for several
decades now. She has sharply rebuked Israel, over its recent decision
to build new settlements in East Jerusalem.


She told Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, that the move was "deeply
negative" for US-Israeli relations. It was a rare and sharp rebuke
from Washington. Israel's aggressive expansion announcement came at
the start of a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden to restart peace
talks. To many neutral observers like the Irish, it was a move by
Israel, calculated and guaranteed to prevent peace talks, as the Israel has clearly
demonstrated for some time, it is not interested in Middle-east peace.

Since the announcement the Palestinians who had already made several
concessions, to enable peace talks, have now indicated they will not
return to the negotiating table, unless the Israeli decision to expand
into Palestinian East Jerusalem is revoked. Israeli policy of eternal war guarantees it believes unending financial support from the US.
Hillary Clinton delivered her rebuke during a 43-minute telephone
conversation with Mr Netanyahu, the US state department said. US state
department spokesperson PJ Crowley said, Mrs Clinton spoke "to make
clear that the United States considered the announcement to be a
deeply negative signal about Israel's approach to the bilateral
relationship and contrary to the spirit of the vice-president's trip".

Hillary Clinton has again called on Israel to show some commitment to
the peace process
"The secretary said she could not understand how this happened,
particularly in light of the United States's strong commitment to
Israel's security," he added.
"She made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not
just through words but through specific actions that they are
committed to this relationship and to the peace process."


The Quartet for Middle East peace mediators, the US, Russia, the EU
and UN, have also condemned the Israeli housing expansion announcement
and said it will review the situation at a ministerial meeting on the
19th March in Moscow.

Mr Netanyahu who earlier apologised for the timing of the settlement
announcement, which was made just as Mr Biden was holding a day of talks in
Jerusalem. He said he had summoned Interior Minister Eli Yishai to
reprimand him. Israeli and Palestinian leaders had just agreed to hold
indirect, "proximity talks" in an effort to restart talks on peace,
when Israel's announcement deliberately sabotaged peace once again.
After the announcement, the Palestinian Authority said talks would be
"very difficult" if plans for Jerusalem expansion were not rescinded.

Close to half a million Jews live in over a 100 settlements built in
occupied lands, since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and
East Jerusalem. They are illegal under international law, which Israel
ignores. Until Clinton's appointment, the US has supported
Israel unconditionally, with weapons and huge financial US taxpayer's
aid. It is believed by most seasoned international observers, that
Israel ordered the US and Britain into the Iraq invasion and has also
given orders to the US to invade Iran in the coming months.

Prior to Hillary Clinton's appointment as US secretary of state, most
objective Irish observers have referred to this anomaly, as the
Israeli tail wagging the US dog. Clinton is starting to demonstrate
the type of courage, that several Irish female activists who have been
murdered as result of Israel's activities, themselves demonstrated.

Maireid Farrell who was tracked for a considerable time by Israeli secret
agents to Gibratar, was murdered along with two colleagues some years
ago. Rachel Corry a young Irish American peace activist, protesting
the Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes, was murdered by the
Israeli's, who heartlessly drove their bulldozers over young body.
Clinton is starting to demonstrate the same courage, in standing up to
the bullying of the Israelis, that has been clearly absent with her
male colleagues in the American administration for decades now, who are
afraid of the Zionist lobby which originated in Britain and has
dictated both countries foreign policy, even in Ireland, with a
shoot-to-kill policy adopted by MI-5 who are now in charge of policing
in John Bull's other island.

People in occupied Ireland empathize with the injustices of the long
suffering, occupied, Palestinians, because they have also experienced
brutal invasion and rape of their territory. Irish people have
observed in horror for decades now, Israel's flagrant disregard for
international law or the UN and are sickened watching daily in the
media, for more than fifty years now, Israeli war crimes, that they
themselves suffered with Hitler. Women and children are the most
vulnerable and bear the brunt of the suffering inflicted by the
invader's war crimes.

Clinton in a rare glimpse of hope and courage, from another American
administration, otherwise demonstrating the familiar characteristics
of impotent eunuchs, who have traditionally performed a wide variety
of functions in many traditional cultures, such as: courtiers or
equivalent domestics, treble singers, religious specialists,
government officials, military commanders, and guardians of women or
harem servants, dating back the Sumerian city of Lagash, in the twenty
first century BC, the earliest known civilization in the world,which
is known as the Cradle of Civilization by Irish ancestors.

Clinton Statement on Human Rights Ignores British Censorship

Hillary Clinton and the US state department yesterday castigated censorship worldwide, as an attack on basic human rights, unfortunately they were extremely selective and ignored Britain's
rampant censorship. While British censorship like a lot of its human rights abuses are well disguised they have undoubtedly the worlds worst record on this basic human right. A link at the bottom of the article explains their record which is now almost a total blackout, to enable a fake media driven peace pretence without basic human rights or justice in Ireland.

The number of agents currently working for MI5 in Ireland, either directly or as paid agents is a 'British Official State Secret' as is anything substantive of a political nature on John Bull's other island but it numbers at least several thousand secret British agents, including their embedded journalists and editors in almost all of the Irish media. The BBC world service while unofficially the organ of her British Majesty's propaganda war, is under the total control of MI-5 and their agents, broadcasting unrestricted worldwide to her neo-colonies and compliant ex-colonies freely but should any of the natives question on its forums the truth about British torture for
example, they are mostly all censored. Huge resources of their taxpayers money are spent slowing the flow of information or blogs which are not pro British.

There were seventy ethical journalists assassinated worldwide in 2009, as a result of publishing such 'secrets' worldwide online, making it the worst year since records began, the Committee to Protect Journalists says. The British generally subcontract their international assassinations quite often, to groups such as Kidon a Mossad entity. Many Journalists which would not support the British lies around the invasion of Iraq, were assassinated

Many governments used the internet to prevent freedom of expression at home, the US state department says in its latest annual human rights report. In many cases electronic communications are restricted to control domestic dissent, it says. US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton described the annual country reports - legally required by Congress - as "an important tool in the development of practical and effective human rights strategy by the United States government".


The US report said, over the past year many governments had applied "overly broad interpretations of terrorism and emergency powers" as a way of limiting basic human rights.

It said 2009 was a year in which more people gained access to the internet, at the same time governments spent more "time, money and attention" finding ways to control people.

Election blocking The report said "increased its efforts to monitor internet use, control content, restrict information, block access to foreign and domestic websites, encourage self-censorship, and punish those who violated regulations". Thousands of people political life are deployed
to monitor electronic communications, it added.

"The government at times blocked access to selected sites operated by major foreign news outlets, health organisations, foreign governments, educational institutions, and social networking sites, as well as search engines, that allow rapid communication or organisation of
users."

• Discrimination against Muslims in Europe is an "increasing concern"

• Sri Lanka violated human rights at the end of last year's campaign
against Tamil Tigers and has also curbed press freedom

• Violence and human rights violations in Russia's volatile North
Caucasus region have risen dramatically over the past year

• Burma's military junta continued "human rights violations and abuses"

Regarding Sri Lanka, the report accuses the government of violating
human rights last year as it defeated Tamil Tiger insurgents.

British Ex-MI5 Head Maintains Interrogated Irish Stayed Silent

British Ex-MI5 Head Maintains Interrogated Irish were Silent

Thursday, 11 March 2010

A former head of the British Secret service MI5, has accused
intelligence services in the US, of deliberately hiding mistreatment
of terror suspects from their British allies. In the case of Binyam
Mohamed, a British resident, who was held at Guantanamo Bay after the
9/11 attacks and provided his captors with useful intelligence, which
was passed on the the UK security services. She maintains she was
unaware until 2007 that he had been subjected to waterboarding and
torture.

Baroness Manningham-Buller, giving a lecture in London on Tuesday
night, said Britain's experience of questioning suspects during the
Troubles in Occupied Ireland was that they remained silent. "I said to
my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish
prisoners, Irish suspects, was that they never said anything," she
said. "They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his
achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after
I retired, that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160
times."

The CIA was "very keen" to prevent Britain learning how they were
getting intelligence. She mentioned the case of Binyam Mohamed, a
British resident, who was held in Guantanamo Bay and provided his
captors with important intelligence, which was passed on to the UK
MI-5 intelligence services. She was unaware until 2007, she said, that
he had been subjected to waterboarding torture.

She was surprised at the amount of information coming from Mr Mohamed,
as Britain's previous experience of torturing suspects during the
Troubles in Occupied Ireland, was that they remained silent. "I said
to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because experience of Irish
prisoners, Irish terrorists, was that they never said anything," she
said. "They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his
achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after
I retired, that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160
times."

Her statement follows insistence by British ministers and Jonathan
Evans, the present head of MI5, that there was no collusion by British
security services in the torture of suspects. Lady Manningham-Buller
added at an event organised by the Mile End Group, a political and
historical research body, that proof Britain was complicit in the
torture of suspects could damage MI5's ability to carry out its work,
particularly as they had promised to cease their torture activities,
after they were found guilty by international courts of torture in
Occupied Ireland. It is believed she was ousted as head of MI-5 to
make way for more robust activities, in conjunction with the Israeli
secret service group based in London, known as Kidon who are involved
in international assassinations and the surveillance of political
activists on John Bull's other island. Some of the assassinations of
Irish activist are sub-contracted by the British.


--

REBEL DISSIDENTS OF IRELAND

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Electoral politics of democracy in Ireland have become a sham. Two
Lisbon Treaty referendums on the matter of national sovereignty, with
respect to the EU, within a year of each other and different results,
are a good example of it. The Irish media have been debased by
embedded editorial British agents, working alongside global corporate
interests. Ireland's people have been bombarded ceaselessly, with an
alien culture selling the destruction but seductive ideology, of
exclusive self. As a result of the rapes of Empire invasions, the
resulting people of no property, have been impoverished in mind, body
and spirit, like the millions who starved in the Irish famine years,
reduced to a despair of induced mental powerlessness and slavery. The
Irish legal system cannot help, it too has become even more corrupt,
with the exception of serving corporate interests. Unions and  their
associated political parties emasculated, destroyed or paid off by the
corporations. All forms of credible protest, are eliminated or
censored by a secret service police apparatus, that rivals Hitler's
Gestapo. The rising anger and hatred of the Irish body politic makes
violence inevitable. It will be horrifying for most.

Those who will be blamed are immigrants, community activists, gays,
intellectuals, genuine union leaders and those defined as
"dissidents." They will be the ones condemned and blamed for the
decline. The economic collapse, which is not understood by many, as a
result of media dis-information, will be used by demagogues and
hate-preachers on these scapegoats. Random acts of violence which are
already increasing, as a result of poverty, will justify harsh
measures of further state control, that will destroy any remaining
illusions of democracy. The British and fascist corporate forces, that
are destroying Ireland, will use the media they control, to hide their
responsibility. The old British game of blaming the weak and
minorities, a staple of their Empire building, will enable their
sadistic violence within Irish society and deflect attention from the
corporate and gombeen parasites, who have drained the energy and
youthful Spirit out of Ireland.


The platforms of genuine social reform are dead or usurped by
collaborators of dis-information. Apologists, who long ago should have
abandoned the ballot box, continue to make pathetic appeals to John
Bull's other island's deaf corporate client statelets, while the
people of no property are ruthlessly stripped, of their few remaining
rights, income and jobs. Pseudo liberals self-righteously condemn Her
Majesty's imperial wars but not the system that is responsible for
them. The longer the pseudo liberal class speaks in the bloodless
language of policies, the more hated and irrelevant they become. No
one has discredited Irish labour more, than gombeen Labour
representatives themselves. Forget about hope for reform in Ireland,
the whole system is rotten and corrupt to the core in both entities.

So how can we resist? How, if all of the above is inevitable, do we
fight back? Should we resist at all? Should we surrender to cynicism
and despair,  have as comfortable a niche as possible, within the
British corporate statelets and spend our lives satisfying our private
needs and forget about society? The power elite, including most of
those who graduated from our universities, with our pseudo liberal and
intellectual classes, have sold out for their own personal comfort. So
why not us?

The French philosopher Albert Camus argued, that we are separated from
each other, that our lives are meaningless, that we cannot influence
fate, that we will all die and our individual beings will be
obliterated. But Camus also wrote that "one of the only coherent
philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation
between man and his obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid
of hope.That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the
resignation that ought to accompany it."

"A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of
an object," Camus warned. "But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved,
he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature, which
refuses to be classified as an object."
Bobby Sands referred to this, as the Spirit of Freedom, he died
refusing to be enslaved, so did his comrades. So did his comrades
before him, so will his comrades after him.

The dissident for Camus, stood with the oppressed. In Ireland it is
the people of no property, the unemployed workers being thrown into
poverty, slavery and misery in both British corporate statelets in
Ireland, the poor in her inner cities and depressed rural communities,
the forced emigrants and those locked away in a Victorian prison
system. Standing with them does not mean collaborating with parties of
the ballot box, who mouth the words of justice while carrying out acts
of oppression in British occupied statelets, that clearly only serve
the propertied class. It can but mean in Ireland, open and direct
defiance.

The power structures on John Bull's islands, with its pseudo liberal
apologists, dismiss the dissident as impractical and see the
dissident's outsider stance, as counter-productive. They condemn the
dissident for expressing anger at injustice. They call for calm and
patience. They use the hypocritical language of spirituality,
compromise, generosity and compassion to argue that the only
alternative is to accept the systems of power and work with it. The
dissident refuses to be bought off with grants, book contracts,
academic appointments or empty rhetoric. The dissident is not
concerned with self-promotion or public opinion. The dissident knows
the two beautiful daughters, anger and courage-anger at things as they
are and courage to change the way they are. The dissident is aware,
that virtue is not rewarded. The act of dissidence defines itself.

"You do not become a ‘dissident' just because you decide one day to
take up this most unusual career," Vaclav Havel said when he battled
the Stalinist Soviet regime in Czechoslovakia. "You are thrown into it
by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set
of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures
and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an
attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of
society. ... The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine
power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and
does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public. He
offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only
his own skin-and he offers it solely because he has no other way of
affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his
dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."

The British and the corporate media in Ireland, have disarmed the
liberal class, they have in the wake of the Stalinist soviet,
convinced liberals, that there is no alternative. Dissidents on the
other hand are not slaves. Dissidents have a choice. Dissidents refuse
to be either a victim or an executioner. Dissidents have the moral
capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate. Dissidents who boycott or
seriously demonstrate, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act
of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any
popular movement and any act of civil disobedience, ignites the soul
of the dissident and exposes ultimately the fickleness of corrupt
authority. As Irish socialist revolutionary James Connolly put it;
"The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees: Let us
rise".

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even
passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears
and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and
you've got to make it stop," Mario Savio said in 1964. "And you've got
to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that
unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at
all."

The capability to exercise moral independence, to refuse to cooperate,
offers us the only route left for personal freedom and self
determination in Ireland, with a life of meaning. Rebellion is its own
justification. Those of us out of the spiritual left, have no problem
with Camus. Camus is right about the absurdity of existence in a life
such as contemporary Ireland, right about finding worth in the act of
rebellion, rather than some pie in the sky. We differ with Camus in
that we have faith that rebellion allows us to be free and independent
human beings, balanced with social responsibilities. Our rebellion
chips away imperceptibly, at the illusions of the powerful oppressor
and sustains the Spirit of freedom and love. In moments of deep human
despair this Spirit  of Freedom is critical. It keeps alive our
capacity to be human. We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely
free, that "existence is an act of rebellion." Those who do not rebel
in our time of British and Corporate fascist Empire, who buy or sell
the lie that there is no alternative to collaboration, are complicit
not just in the enslavement of the plain people of Ireland but their
own spiritual and moral suicide.



The article below concerns a recent example of a well known Irish dissident.


Bobby Sands
Died May 5th, 1981

The revolutionary spirit of freedom

Portions of this article were first published anonymously in
'Republican News', December 16th, 1978. The smuggled out article
recalls how the spirit of republican defiance grew within him, and is
a semi-autobiographical account.

BOBBY SANDS was born in 1954 in Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist
district of north Belfast. His twenty-seventh birthday fell on the
ninth day of his sixty-six-day hunger strike. His sisters Marcella,
one year younger, and Bernadette, were born in April 1955 and November
1958, respectively. All three lived their early years at Abbots Cross
in the Newtownabbey area of north Belfast. A second son, John, now
nineteen, was born to their parents John and Rosaleen, now both aged
57, in June 1962.

The sectarian realities of ghetto life materialised early in Bobby's
life when at the age of ten his family were forced to move home owing
to loyalist intimidation even as early as 1962. Bobby recalled his
mother speaking of the troubled times which occurred during her
childhood; 'Although I never really under stood what internment was or
who the 'Specials' were, I grew to regard them as symbols of evil '.

Of this time Bobby himself later wrote: ''I was only a working-class
boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the
revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve
liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign,
independent socialist republic. ''

When Bobby was sixteen years old he started work as an apprentice
coach builder and joined the National Union of Vehicle Builders and
the ATGWU. In an article printed in 'An Phoblacht/Republican News' on
April 4th, 1981, Bobby recalled: ''Starting work, although frightening
at first became alright, especially with the reward at the end of the
week. Dances and clothes, girls and a few shillings to spend, opened
up a whole new world to me.''

Bobby's background, experiences and ambitions did not differ greatly
from that of the average ghetto youth. Then came 1968 and the events
which were to change his life. Bobby had served two years of his
apprenticeship when he was intimidated out of his job. His sister
Bernadette recalls: "Bobby went to work one morning and these fellows
were standing there cleaning guns. One fellow said to him, 'Do you see
these here, well if you don't go you'll get this' then Bobby also
found a note in his lunch-box telling him to get out."

In June 1972, the family were intimidated out of their home in Doonbeg
Drive, Rathcoole and moved into the newly built Twinbrook estate on
the fringe of nationalist West Belfast. Bernadette again recalled: We
had suffered intimidation for about eighteen months before we were
actually put out. We had always been used to having Protestant
friends. Bobby had gone around with Catholics and Protestants, but it
ended up when everything erupted, that the friends he went about with
for years were the same ones who helped to put his family out of their
home.

As well as being intimidated out of his job and his home being under
threat Bobby also suffered personal attacks from the loyalists.

At eighteen Bobby joined the Republican Movement. Bernadette says: ..
'he was just at the age when he was beginning to become aware of
things happening around him. He more or less just said right, this is
where I'm going to take up. A couple of his cousins had been arrested
and interned. Booby felt that he should get involved and start doing
something. '

Bobby himself wrote. "My life now centered around sleepless nights and
stand-bys dodging the Brits and calming nerves to go out on
operations. But the people stood by us. The people not only opened the
doors of their homes to lend us a hand but they opened their hearts to
us. I learned that without the people we could not survive and I knew
that I owed them everything.

In October 1972, he was arrested. Four handguns were found in a house
he was staying in and he was charged with possession. He spent the
next three years in the cages of Long Kesh where he had political
prisoner status. During this time Bobby read widely and taught himself
Irish which he was later to teach the other blanket men in the
H-Blocks.

Released in 1976 Bobby returned to his family in Twinbrook. He
reported back to his local unit and straight back into the continuing
struggle: 'Quite a lot of things had changed some parts of the ghettos
had completely disappeared and others were in the process of being
removed. The war was still forging ahead although tactics and strategy
had changed. The British government was now seeking to 'Ulsterise' the
war which included the attempted criminalisation of the IRA and
attempted normalisation of the war situation.'

Bobby set himself to work tackling the social issues which affected
the Twinbrook area. Here he became a community activist. According to
Bernadette, 'When he got out of jail that first time our estate had no
Green Cross, no Sinn Fein, nor anything like that. He was involved in
the Tenants' Association... He got the black taxis to run to Twinbrook
because the bus service at that time was inadequate. It got to the
stage where people were coming to the door looking for Bobby to put up
ramps on the roads in case cars were going too fast and would knock
the children down.'

Within six months Bobby was arrested again. There had been a bomb
attack on the Balmoral Furniture Company at Dunmurry, followed by a
gun-battle in which two men were wounded. Bobby was in a car near the
scene with three other young men. The RUC captured them and found a
revolver in the car.

The six men were taken to Castlereagh and were subjected to brutal
interrogations for six days. Bobby refused to answer any questions
during his interrogation, except his name, age and address.

In a ninety-six verse poem written in 1980, entitled 'The Crime of
Castlereagh', Bobby tells of his experiences in Castlereagh and his
fears and thoughts at the time.

They came and came their job the same
In relays N'er they stopped.
'Just sign the line!' They shrieked each time
And beat me 'till I dropped.
They tortured me quite viciously
They threw me through the air.
It got so bad it seemed I had
Been beat beyond repair.
The days expired and no one tired,
Except of course the prey,
And knew they well that time would tell
Each dirty trick they laid on thick
For no one heard or saw,
Who dares to say in Castlereagh
The 'police' would break the law!
He was held on remand for eleven months until his trial in September
1977. As at his previous trial he refused to recognise the court.

The judge admitted there was no evidence to link Bobby, or the other
three young men with him, to the bombing. So the four of them were
sentenced to fourteen years each for possession of the one revolver.

Bobby spent the first twenty-two days of his sentence in solitary
confinement, 'on the boards' in Crumlin Road jail. For fifteen of
those days he was completely naked. He was moved to the H-Blocks and
joined the blanket protest. He began to write for Republican News and
then after February 1979 for the newly-merged An Phobhacht/Republican
News under the pen-name, 'Marcella', his sister's name. His articles
and letters, in minute handwriting, like all communications from the
H-Blocks, were smuggled out on tiny pieces of toilet paper.

He wrote: 'The days were long and lonely. The sudden and total
deprivation of such basic human necessities as exercise and fresh air,
association with other people, my own clothes and things like
newspapers, radio, cigarettes books and a host of other things, made
my life very hard.'

Bobby became PRO for the blanket men and was in constant confrontation
with the prison authorities which resulted in several spells of
solitary confinement. In the H-Blocks, beatings, long periods in the
punishment cells, starvation diets and torture were commonplace as the
prison authorities, with the full knowledge and consent of the British
administration, imposed a harsh and brutal regime on the prisoners in
their attempts to break the prisoners' resistance to criminalisation.

The H-Blocks became the battlefield in which the republican spirit of
resistance met head-on all the inhumanities that the British could
perpetrate. The republican spirit prevailed and in April 1978 in
protest against systematic ill-treatment when they went to the toilets
or got showered, the H-Block prisoners refused to wash or slop-out.
They were joined in this no-wash protest by the women in Armagh jail
in February 1980 when they were subjected to similar harassment.

On October 27th, 1980, following the breakdown of talks between
British direct ruler in the North, Humphrey Atkins, and Cardinal O
Fiaich, the Irish Catholic primate, seven prisoners in the H-Blocks
began a hunger strike. Bobby volunteered for the fast but instead he
succeeded, as O/C, Brendan Hughes, who went on hunger-strike.

During the hunger-strike he was given political recognition by the
prison authorities. The day after a senior British official visited
the hunger-strikers, Bobby was brought half a mile in a prison van
from H3 to the prison hospital to visit them. Subsequently he was
allowed several meetings with Brendan Hughes. He was not involved in
the decision to end the hunger-strike which was taken by the seven men
alone. But later that night he was taken to meet them and was allowed
to visit republican prison leaders in H-Blocks 4, 5 and 6.

On December 19th, 1980, Bobby issued a statement that the prisoners
would not wear prison-issue clothing nor do prison work. He then began
negotiations with the prison governor, Stanley Hilditch, for a
step-by-step de-escalation of the protest.

But the prisoners' efforts were rebuffed by the authorities: 'We
discovered that our good will and flexibility were in vain,' wrote
Bobby. It was made abundantly clear during one of my co-operation'
meetings with prison officials that strict conformity was required.
which in essence meant acceptance of criminal status.

In the H-Blocks the British saw the opportunity to defeat the IRA by
criminalising Irish freedom fighters but the blanketmen, perhaps more
than those on the outside, appreciated before anyone else the grave
repercussions, and so they fought.

Bobby volunteered to lead the new hunger strike. He saw it as a
microcosm of the way the Brits were treating Ireland historically and
presently, Bobby realised that someone would have to die to win
political status.

He insisted on starting two weeks in front of the others so that
perhaps his death could secure the five demands and save their lives.
For the first seventeen days of the hunger strike Bobby kept a secret
diary in which he wrote his thoughts and views, mostly in English but
occasionally breaking into Gaelic. He had no fear of death and saw the
hunger-strike as something much larger than the five demands and as
having major repercussions for British rule in Ireland. The diary was
written on toilet paper in biro pen and had to be hidden, mostly
carried inside Bobby's own body. During those first seventeen days
Bobby lost a total of sixteen pounds weight and on Monday, March 23rd,
he was moved to the prison hospital.

On March 30th, he was nominated as candidate for the Fermanagh and
South Tyrone by-election caused by the sudden death of Frank Maguire,
an independent MP who supported the prisoners' cause.

The next morning, day thirty-one, of his hunger-strike, he was visited
by Owen Carron who acted as his election agent. Owen told of that
first visit 'Instead of meeting that young man of the poster with long
hair and a fresh face, even at that time when Bobby wasn't too bad he
was radically changed. He was very thin and bony and his hair was cut
short.'

Bobby had no illusions with regard to his election victory. His
reaction was not one of over-optimism. After the result was announced
Owen visited Bobby. "He had already heard the result on the radio. He
was in good form alright but he always used to keep saying, 'In my
position you can't afford to be optimistic.' In other words, he didn't
take it that because he'd won an election that his life would be
saved. He thought that the Brits would need their pound of flesh. I
think he was always working on the premise that he would have to die."

At 1.17 a.m. on Tuesday, May 5th, having completed sixty-five days on
hunger-strike, Bobby Sands MP, died in the H-Block prison hospital at
Long Kesh. Bobby was a truly unique person whose loss is great and
immeasurable. He never gave himself a moment to spare. He lived his
life energetically, dedicated to his people and to the republican
cause, eventually offering up his life in a conscious effort to
further that cause and the cause of those with whom he had shared
almost eight years of his adult life. In his own words: "of course can
be murdered but I remain what I am, a political POW and no-one, not
even the British, can change that."


The article appreciates the help of Chris Hedges  author. - Calling All Rebels

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY

       I sat within a valley green

I sat me with my true love

My sad heart strove to choose between

The old love and the new love

The old for her, the new that made

Me think on Ireland dearly

While soft the wind blew down the glade

And shook the golden barley

Twas hard the woeful words to frame

To break the ties that bound us

But harder still to bear the shame

Of foreign chains around us

And so I said, "The mountain glen

I'll seek at morning early

And join the bold United Men

While soft winds shake the barley"

While sad I kissed away her tears

My fond arms 'round her flinging

The foeman's shot burst on our ears

From out the wildwood ringing

A bullet pierced my true love's side

In life's young spring so early

And on my breast in blood she died

While soft winds shook the barley

I bore her to some mountain stream

And many's the summer blossom

I placed with branches soft and green

About her gore-stained bosom

I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse

Then rushed o'er vale and valley

My vengeance on the foe to wreak

While soft winds shook the barley

But blood for blood without remorse

I've taken at Oulart Hollow

And laid my true love's clay-cold corpse

Where I full soon may follow

As 'round her grave I wander drear

Noon, night and morning early

With breaking heart when e'er I hear

The wind that shakes the barley

The Wind That Shakes the Barley" is an Irish song written by Robert Dwyer-Joyce, an Irish poet and professor of English literature. The song was written about a young Irish rebel who sacrifices his relationship with his loved one for the 1798 rebellion of a United Ireland. Reference to barley derive from the fact that Irish rebels often carried barley oats in their pockets for eating when marching. This gave rise after the rebellion of barley growing and marking the "croppy-holes," mass unmarked graves which rebels were thrown into, it symbols the regenerative nature of Irish resistance to British rule as does the phoenix the bird that rises from the ashes..

The title of the song was borrowed for the 2006 film of the same name.

Paintings of Irish revolution and rebellion include; the wind that shakes the barley, men of the south, the birth of the Irish free state and others from Sean Keating's allergory.

The photos include; Hogans flying column in north Tipperary, the phoenix, still an unrepentant Fenian bastard, the Cairo gang od informers who were mostly assassinated and traditional wanted republican Dan Breen,

Link to Film sequence on YouTube; The Wind that Shakes the Barley