Picture by harry_ni
One of the most important questions you could ask anybody who makes an assertion is: “What is your source?” If someone declares “There’s a giant peach climbing up the side of Belfast City Hall”, you’d be entitled to ask his/her source for this interesting piece of information. All of which may seem to have little to do with the political situation of the moment, but hold.
The PSNI/MI5 have declared that the IRA army council oversees both the IRA and Sinn Féin in “an overarching strategy”. Now there can be no doubt that the PSNI/MI5 think the IRA are a bad lot. Involved in killings of various kinds over the years of the conflict, responsible for smuggling and fuel laundering in more recent times. If a member of the IRA told a member of the PSNI/MI5 that it was two o’clock, you may be sure the PSNI/MI5 person would check with his/her mother or sister or brother to see if that was indeed the hour of the clock. Yet oddly, they seem ready to take the word of IRA members on this “over-arching” stuff.
And that’s another thing: what is “overarching” anyway? An architect would probably laugh at your ignorance if you were to ask him, but we can’t all be architects. My dictionary tells me it means “comprehensive or all-embracing”. So if the IRA members in touch with the PSNI/MI5 are to be believed, the IRA army council is engaged in an all-embracing strategy with the IRA and Sinn Féin. Right. I think I have that. And what is this strategy? To achieve an independent Ireland of equals, using peaceful and political means.
‘Strewth. Curiouser and curiouser. The PSNI/MI5 are happy to take the word of IRA members; the word they give is that the IRA army council controls the IRA and Sinn Féin in an overarching drive towards peaceful realization of their goals. And this is something that is shocking and could bring down Stormont. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: ‘Strewth.
And as if that weren’t enough, there’s the question of who the IRA army council is. From time to time we hear allegations slung around saying Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams are on the IRA army council. Which, if true, would mean Adams and McGuinness were giving orders to themselves. But Martin McGuinness last night and Conor Murphy this morning made it very clear that they took orders from nobody other than the Sinn Féin party itself.
The thing is this: if the IRA army council was pulling Sinn Féin’s srings all these years, wouldn’t you think that the DUP or Jim Allister or Mike Nesbitt would have been hurling accusations regarding same at the Shinners on a daily basis? Yet up to now they’ve contented themselves by speaking of the violence the IRA inflicted on members of the British army, the RUC and anyone else they considered enemies. In short, they condemned the Shinners for their past. Odd that they’d never have heard a peep about the IRA army council running the show in the present.
But maybe that was because, as the report says, the army council is running the show in the interests of peaceful, political progress.
I think it’s time Theresa Villiers and unionist politicians, not to mention Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, gave up making a public spectacle of themselves by tying themselves in verbal knots. Because even the dumbest among us knows by now what this is all about: it’s the elections, stupid.
PS Why didn’t I mention unionist paramilitaries? Don’t be silly – they pose no threat.
“The PSNI/MI5 have declared that the IRA army council oversees both the IRA and Sinn Féin in “an overarching strategy”.”
So how is that different to what Sinn Fein said a few weeks ago, that the IRA have gone away leaving a final order that only peaceful political means should be used going forward and basically have since merged with Sinn Fein to be the only official republican movement.
The only inaccuracy is to suggest that Sinn Fein is not a democratic party, in which case why bother with the Ard Chomhairle?
mi5 seem to have had an overarching insight over the yrs thanks to some leading members freddie,dennis.ect
Big Theresa, said she would give evidence to give substance to the report, none given. Presumably membership is still a crime, yet none of this illegal army council have been charged with membership. One would have thought it would be a good charge on which to hold Bobby Storey since he is supposed to be such a high ranking republican.
Then there is the DUP attitude; I listened to the DUP intellectual, Poots on Nolan, what a car crash. Nolan had him that dazed with his questions I was waiting for him to admit he burned the Reichstag. Nesbitt was nearly as good. The Shinners seemed to have decided that t here is no situation that can’t be made worse by talking to Stephen Nolan. Apologies to Brendan Behan.
The Chinese President drove a coach and horses through London as political unionism constructed straw men and drew more red lines in the sand. Business is business in London, with a proposed nuclear reactor in the south of England courtesy of yuan renminbi and further fall-out in the north of Ireland by those loyal to the half crown.
The teflon tories in the north continue to procrastinate and prevaricate this side of the proposed election in 2016 content to talk about abstract issues while ignoring violent assaults on health and welfare services courtesy of Tory policies.
Two thing are crystal clear, the first is, over the past few months, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, teachers and other public and private sector workers continued to honour their contractual obligations in a professional and ethical manner. It is not possible to say the same about some of our politicians. The second thing is that we now have evidence that we really could do without some of the incumbents on the hill.
I’m amazed that no-one has questioned the credentials of both the PSNI/RUC and MI5 to submit a fair accurate report. The police seem to arrest someone in connection with the Kevin McGuigan murder at the most politically sensitive times only to release the suspect quietly without charge a few days later… obviously a pure coincidence.
And then there’s MI5. Despite their murderous role ( Lethal Allies) in the conflict it seems that in their Assessment they were speaking fairly and ex cathedra. Just what is the process in which assessments and beliefs morph into hard unassailable facts?
This is more of the RUC investigating allegations against the RUC. a farce.
I thought this mornings performance on The Nolan Show was an embarrassment to professional journalism.
No wonder the loyalist community feel excluded when the boot of murder/drugs/extortion on their throats was ignored foran entire hour until a throwaway ‘yeah and loyalists too’ to David Ford He had both the DUP and UUP on the line but it didn’t once dawn on him to say ‘you are leaders of the unionism, what are you doing to tackle the scourge inflicted on the community you are elected to represent by the still recruiting, still armed and still highly active loyalist paramilitaries.
SF do not deserve an easy ride in this, they most definitely have questions to answer but paramilitaries and gangsterism impacts us all regardless of color or creed and it needs to be tackled on that basis – not the one-sided claptrap we heard this morning.
I agree with Jude on the sources. If they know about an army council of a proscribed organisation then they need to arrest and charge those involved. Same for smuggling, extortion etc. – get them all before the courts and put in prison if found guilty.
Well there you have it morpheus …the only show in town is Sinn Fein.It’s as clear as the growing noses on the faces. Get them shinners into a corner by all and every means .Never mind the other stuff….If there isn’t any evidence ….well lie about it creatively or at a pinch …make something up.If there is some “other” nefarious presence in Stormont besides all the wee twisty ones we already know across the board …let the rest of us have a look at it too.I used to tell my kids when they were frightened of the dark at night that the scariest thing in the room was their own good selves.There was nothing worse in the shadows that could harm them..
I agree there is a lot of people seem to be afraid of sinn fein.
I think the reason is they are being made out to be the boogey man by so many people for selfish reasons such as party political and sheer hatred for others.
I dont think anyone would be worse off with Martin as first minister and perhaps it would be a good thing if he was as a face your fear sort of therapy for unionists in particular.
They are manufacturing fear and crisis where it is not warranted.
Oh the musings of the seemingly intellectually challenged. Their ” Pinocchio ” like reflections get more obtuse and meaningless with every deliberation.Do they truly believe we are incapable of rational thought? Are they so up their own backsides that they actually believe that the most politically aware population in Western Europe will swallow any of this codswallop ? Elections , North and South , apart and given the apparent necessity to maintain and bolster the status quo , ( being acutely apprehensive of electoral predictions,) could we just have a smidgen of honesty….and that prerequisite for justice ,PROOF.
You’ve cut, Séamus, to the chase…
I wonder why the “Official” republican movement didn’t get a mention in this report.
After all they did not decommission a single round of ammunition nor, as far as I am aware disband the organisation and theywere allegedy involved in large scale currency counterfeiting.
However it probably would deflect the spotlight just a tad from Sinn Fein if a report mentioned that many of the “Official” movement are now members of the Irish Labour Party.
One had not quite realised the depth of one’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Esteemed Blogmeister, till one awoke this morning and proceeded to twiddle the wrong knob.
Cause of PTSD? 3.10 to Yuma ? No. Rather was it: 43-20 to Los Pumas.
Result of PTSD? Lending an ear to Newstalk FM rather than Yawning Ireland.
Same difference in the beginning of the day, at the end of the day. Thermal underwear getting got into all types of a verbal twists, from Clubby to Chequers. Entirely to do with PIRA, with the emphasis on their fundamental difference from Elvis P. who actually had left the premises when it was announced he had done so.
-There is an Army Council of the IRA ! It has not gone away, we know !
How do we know, Ivan ? It’s because, erm, M15 told us.
The Ivan here is of course, Ivan Yates, aka Ivan the Repairable as he is fondly known by his sundry fans. This sobriquet he acquired after he bounced back from bankruptcy. Which happened when Celtic Bookmakers (in which the Big Ivan doubled-jobbed as both Chairman and MD – it’s called heading one’s bets) found the, erm, going get tough.
Ivan is back and throwing shapes as a, erm, financial expert. If one were a betting man Perkie’s inner punter might feel inclined to the view that Ivan indeed had a neck not at all unlike that of a boating jockey’s rowlocks.
M15, of course, has been known to diversify into the agri-business (see under G for Glennane Farm) and as Ivan was brought up on a farm in Wexico there may have been a certain empathy on his part. Hence, his understandable reluctance to acknowledge even the possibility of an underarm whiff of arms from a farm.
Or, of course, could be that Ivan Yates, not unlike Perkie’s inner traumatized Dail Lama,, was confusing one M15 with another M15.
The other M15 being (gasp) the Massive 15 goyz of the Oirish rugga team which ended up well and truly faulked by Los Pumas of Las Malvinas on Payback Day. Such contusion,oops, confusion is reasonably understandable.
Things did not get any better when jive-talking Ivan was heard to crouch, touch, pause and engage with Padraig Mac Lochlainn of that part of the Free Southern Stateen which looks south into Noreverland.
More pain lines rather than gain lines, alas, for Ivan. Who kept chasing the tail of the One Topic which Matters: was, or was not, Sweet Fanny Adams’ favourite nephew a member?
All day, all night, not at all unlike every other Mary Ann in the media, Ivan was down by the seaside siftin’ sand.
Why all this magnificent obsession with unlapsed membership? With origins, with roots, with a refusal to go a-way? With an old school toy?
Perkie decided to take a leaf out of one of former Farmer Yates’ slug-eatern cabbages. and do a spot of delving.
Turns out jive-talking Ivan is an alumnus of St.Columbas C of I College on the resplendent slopes of Rathfarnham in South Dublin, a halting site of the high and mighty hoity toity.. Same as (gulp) another noted Irishman, the late, grating Brian Falkland, oops, Faulkner.
Funny thing that, for a variety of reasons. Both Brian and Ivan were irresistibly drawn to man’s four legged friend. Both were entwined by the lure of the equine. Which was funny odd, considering the Roman Saint after whom the (gulp) C of I College was named, Columba made his mark in the context a different, quadruped; the bovine species.
When St. C got into a bit of a bibliographiical barney in 560 AD over, of all things, a psalter. Intellectual property rights sort of thingy. When St. C decided to make an unauthorised copy of psaid psalter, many others were subsequently asaulted and battered. The ultimate verdict came down to:
-Do gach bo a lao / To every cow its calf.
For both Brian and Ivan, as has been stated, the equine rather than the bovine was the quadruped of choice.
‘A four-legged friend, a four-legged friend
He’ll never let you down’.
Eh? Does one catch a hint of ‘constructive ambiguity’ here? Is nowhere sacred? Not even the seemingly innocent corral of a popular lyric?
‘He’s honest and faithful right up to the end
Our one, two, three, four-legged friend’
Alas, it would appear, if one is to judge by the unutterably sad experiences of both Brian and Ivan that makes one tentatively conclude that ‘constructive ambiguity’ may have been around a tad longer than it takes Sonya, oops, Aine Lawlor to shake it loose from her pouting lips on ‘News at One’.
Shirts were another thing both Brian and Ivan had in common: where Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick’s pater was a shirt manufacturer of a button-down temperament, Ivan’s shirt was blue.
And Ivan was not the only Yates (sort of) who was was elevated above the below-sea educational level of the Paddy Stinks and Mickey Mudds without the gates of St. Columba’s.
So high indeed is its de haut en bas ambiance that St. C’s is on an even higher elevation than (gasp) that of the High School itself. Where the owner of Newstalk FM, no less, Ivan’s employer, Denis O Brien (may his tribe increase !) of the DOBlin media monopoly, was schooled.
For Brian F’s best chum in St. Columbas was Michael Yeats, minor. Son of, no less.
Any surprise, therefore, that Perkie’s inner Hitch finds a certain difficulty, in making up that which he is still pleased to call his mind, in choosing a suitable sobriquet for St.Columba’s on the Hill.
Which is it to be, Hitch?
Yates’ Motel or Yeats Motel?
Ah Perkin – may your right – and your left, of course, although we don’t like them lefties around these parts – hand never lose its cunning. But correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the last line go “That wonderful one-two-three four-legged friend”? Alas, fled is that melody. Do I wake or sleep?
There you go , Jude….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6SU-MvR8_M
I meant to say , Jude downhome philosophy from Roy and his special friend …mind you the line “, A woman’s like cactus and cactus can hurt, cos she’s just a tight -waisted winky-eyed flirt” mightn’t fly too well with the sisterhood these days ….otherwise sheer poetry…
Thanks, pk – odd guy, Roy. He’d kiss a hoss afore a gal…
Whoaaaa, dar, pardners !
And let a tenderfoot get a word in edgeways on the dude ranch.
1. Mea culpa, Esteemeed Blogmeister. You’re right, I’m wrong, she’s left.
Or, as the Ancient American Welk used to put it: wunnerful, wunnerful.
2. It is sheer poetry, Paddykool, regardless of what the dour Dworkin Class (of both genders) might decree.
Or, as F. Domino used to put it: ‘ain’t that a shame’, i.e., that such verbal music is denied to generations of schoolchildren because of the prudish, po-faced snobs who patrol the Poetry Zone.