They say self-praise is no praise at all. Under that dictum, An Garda Siochana recently spent considerable time engaged in a futile exercise.
Which was? Displaying to the TV-viewing public a large arsenal of arms which they have unearthed. These, they said belonged to dissident republicans. They included “a Beer Keg Bomb, Mortars, Sniper Rifles, AK47 Rifles, associated ammunition, Phone Trigger Circuit, Timer Power Unites, Rockets and a sample of explosives”.
I’m assuming that the capitalization of Beer Keg Bomb, Mortars, etc., is an attempt to highlight how big and important these weapons are rather than simple Garda Siochana illiteracy. But more important than that is the what and when of their find. On television, some of the weaponry on display looked like something from a 1916 museum. It’s also significant to hear that some of this weaponry was discovered two years ago, in 2014, and the rest in the second half of 2015. In other words, the Garda appear to be doing all they can to make the weaponry captured sound threatening, down to postponing their revelation to the public by anything up to two years. They also emphasise how effective they themselves have been in blocking the actions of dissident republicans: “I can say with confidence that our interventions and arrests have, without doubt, saved lives. I don’t say this lightly and I think you can see for yourselves that the array of items on display for you here today demonstrate a lethal capacity”.
Why would the Garda emphasise how dangerous dissident republicans are? There are several possible answers. One may be because dissident republicans are very dangerous. Another might be that by keeping the public on edge against a hidden threat, less attention will be given to other matters in the running of the state. A third reason, linked to the second, might be because within the next few weeks there will be an election.
What has the election to do with it? Well, the danger of a violent threat from without encourages people to vote for stability. If the security of the public and the state itself is under threat, it’d be dangerous to start changing the government for any other party or combination of parties.
Finally, there’s the matter of warning people about dangerous dissident republicans. The train of thought from that to other republicans who were associated with violence once is clear and direct. The mental journey goes thus: Dissident republicansà dangerous republicans à the IRA àSinn Féin. So who in their right mind would vote for a party that can be linked (with an effort, admittedly) to this on-display arsenal?
I’ve no doubt there are fine people in Fine Gael and the Labour Party. But to quote an eminent cleric recently in the headlines : ‘I don’t trust them’.
‘Why would the Garda emphasise how dangerous dissident republicans are?’
Because their weekly pay, dunno how much it is in the 21st Century, comes from near Hollywood County Down, rather than Hollywood County Monaghan.
Statistics from the Ballistics Section of An Garda Síochána are available and there is evidence that there was an increase in the seizure of guns in 2014 – 15. Individuals involved in the importation and distribution of drugs in Ireland have access to arsenals of modern assault rifles, machine guns and pistols. Illegally held firearms result in deaths on an all too frequent basis throughout the country. Drug related deaths remain facts of life in 2016.
Guns are used in bank robberies, others use computers and off shore accounts. There are politicians motivated by a “what is in it for me” approach to their work. One can only hope for a Ré Nua in 2016 based on the values that motivated the brave men and women of 1916.
I’m not convinced that Gardai would be motivated in such a way, I suppose it’s possible but I’m not convinced. However you do raise one point Jude & that is this tendency amongst many in the police, both north & south, some politicians & elements in the media to tell the public how dangerous dissidents are. We are frequently bombarded with messages about an apparent increased threat from dissidents, & this has been the case since the ceasefires of the 90’s. But this supposedly great threat never seems to materialize to any significant degree. Would anybody disagree with me that the ‘dissident threat’ since the split in the Republican movement of the late 90’s, has been a military cock-up on a par with the IRA’s border campaign of the late 50’s?? Far from.being of grave danger to the state, the dissident campaign has been an almost farcical disaster from their perspective. But still we are always told they are so dangerous. And that message is in stark contrast to the line propagated by politicians, military, police & the media during the troubles, when the obviously more dangerous provisional IRA threat was constantly downplayed. ‘ they are a bunch of unsophisticated glorified criminals was the common message we received on the IRA then. ‘We will neutralize them in a year or two, no need to panic’ & that was a time when the IRA was inflicting significant damage on the British security forces. So every time I hear a cop or journalist tell us the dissidents are a grave threat I think ‘ that’s nonsense, the dissidents are a joke, what is your game spouting that lie?’
“Would anybody disagree with me that the ‘dissident threat’ since the split in the Republican movement of the late 90’s, has been a military cock-up on a par with the IRA’s border campaign of the late 50’s?? ”
I don’t see dissidents as part of the republican movement Antonio. At least not the IRA that ordered a complete cessation and stand down and in reality no longer exists.
I have spoken to dissidents after the stand down and they simply regurgitated 70s and 80s arguments, it was like being in a time warp with nothing new to offer.
If you outdo them in political argument it gets nasty pretty quick and I agree they are more dangerous to their own communities who cross them than at a state level but even an individual with the right motivation can be a threat.
I agree that they are nothing more than self interested parties with criminality at their core and best avoided or locked up. But all criminal groups are dangerous, in particular to the police.
As for the production of the arms on display and a weird statement that they are planning to attack the 1916 commemoration.
That does not even make sense to me, even in terms of dissidents lack of intellect and criminal focus. Why would they attack the 1916 commemoration?
And for the Gardai not being involved in politics, they were found to have falsified evidence in special criminal courts which cost the state more than 750,000 in compensation. The current commissioner back tracked on her statement that disagreed with the British intelligence reports that the IRA was running Sinn Fein, she confirmed it was not the case in the republic before later coming out with a statement saying they were on the same page??? Go figure
Yes, the Gardai have been proven beyond doubt to have been politically manipulated at the very least by Fine Gael.
Great story.jude.
Thanks. Jim.
If you are suggesting the possibility of politically influenced policing, Jude, you may have a point, as former Garda Commissioner Martin Calling found out to his cost.
He received a visit to his home by a government emissary and resigned the next day, feeling/knowing that he had no alternative if he wanted to get his pension.
And this lesson, I’m sure, has not been lost on Noirin O’Sullivan, who seems very adept at following Enda Kenny’s every whim.
So for her to rustle up some old weapons (most looked totally unusable), a few brand new looking, red Semtex tins (were they specially painted for the picture?), and shock, horror, a beer keg – an innocent looking beer keg, with absolutely nothing about its appearance to indicate it was to be used for anything but carrying beer.
Is it true the Gardai are now stopping and searching every beer lorry in the country for barrels which look as though they might be intended for nefarious purposes?
But worst of all, some poor gullible fools will have seen that news item and taken it at face value.
God help Ireland ruled by these gombeen men!
They need to keep the electorate in a state of fear. If it wasn’t the dissos it would probably be ISIS or some other farcical group run by the spooks.
We know Fine Gael has plenty of friends in the media, its perfectly reasonable to assume they have friends in other places too, including the Garda. Every dirty trick in the book will be used in order to attack and discredit Sinn Fein as the election grows nearer. I wouldn’t be surprised if a certain alleged rape victim re-appears on our TV screens to remind everyone of her accusations the week before people go to the ballot box.
But dirty tactics have been used against Sinn Fein in the past and it has utterly failed, from arresting Gerry Adams on the eve of an election to accusing republicans of poisoning the water supply of towns and villages in the South. Just a matter of time before they blame Gerry Adams for World War 2, the World Trade Centre attacks and the Financial Crisis of 2008 (they do after all want to keep Ireland in misery, according to Pat Rabbitte).
I wouldn’t be surprised if Ruth Dudley Edwards is seen literally chucking a kitchen sink at Gerry Adams one day, so desperate is her failed agenda to wreck the Shinners in the South.
It is claimed in certain quarters or even in uncertain halves, Esteemed Blogmeister, that there are two sides to every story, and even to every Tory.
The same claim could be made with regard to streets, unless of course the street in question happens to be the street facing the western flank of Trinity College, Dublin 2. The street in answer is, of course, Nassau Street which is not at all two-faced but is in fact as one-sided as your average referee who, like Count Dracula himself, was born into a family of bats.
Your thinking man’s linking of the arsenal to 1916, EB, makes one suspect that the Tory Island’s establishment’s view of events in O’Connell Street a hundred years ago may be as one sided as Nassau Street.
Yes, indeed there are two Tory Islands. This onshore Tory Island is another of those throwaway names for the Fianna Failed Stateen south of the Black Sow’s Dyke. Fianna Fail, incidentally, is the party which recently got a bump in the rump when its very own Senator Averil Power upped and left to become, erm, A Calendar Girl. Leaving the C and W wing of FF to sing a particularly lugubrious version of the classic:
– ‘The boots I bought have just walked out on me’.
An island whose political establishment’s monopolized media seem to be showing an interest in arsenals and Arsenals of late. Which might even be construed as bordering on the unhealthy, a distressing form of –let us not mince turds here, and be not too sniffy about things – an addled form of snarfing. The technical term is saddle sniffing. Such is the fixation on the fundamentals of the fundament.
As ever, The Unionist Times was to the fore of the Legion of the Rearguard. From the McCannonisation of the Eleven Million Squids a Year Man (one for every member of the team), the Salamander Man who answers to the name of, yes, Arsene. For his miraculous contribution to (gulp) decency, a take on things, which had us one and all, prole-ing in the aisles. To (gulp) Patsy McGarry’s own whacking of the non-PC RC backside of P. Pearse.
It is worth inserting here that there is a distinct whiff of good old fashioned English Puritanism about all this delirium of Paddy Hackery.
Consider this simple geographical factoid: located directly across O’Connell Street today is the first pioneering outpost of the recivilization of the Paddy Stinks and Mickey Mudds. Be upstanding, folks, and put your hands together for (roll of drums) Ann Summers Adult Shop.
What, the rhetorical question is begged, society can truly claim to have, erm, grown up unless it has an Adult Shop in pole and poll position on its Main, erm, Drag?
It is here where the Queen of Eireland himself, Panti Bliss is thought to shop, where even Muslims can purchase a device which plays diddlyee-aye music when opened, and called a Mustapha Shaggy Dogg and where the most popular pet gadgette for the Dworkin Class in their de rigeur dungarees is the (gasp) Rampant Rabbit (no relation, as far as one is aware).
Of course, there is no geography without history (think maps, things chaps). There was nothing coincidental about this choice of location for the first outpost of the Ann Summers University of Adult Education. For the previous tenant in this building was the strong weekly newspaper called INNIU, the longest established publication in leprechaun, on a global scale.
No sooner had the Fianna Failure Jumped up Junta of the day pulled the plug on the last pingin of support from the public purse (much to the hysterical delight of the embedded Donnybrook Deontasgang, aka the Guiletacht of RTE) than Anne Summers was in like the cottontail of a Bunny Girl.
Leaving the newly redundant staff of INNIU to sing a valedictory chorus of the classic:
-Thugamar fein na Samhraidh linn / We brought the Summers with us.
The current demonization of P.Pearse, who was also, erm, summarily evicted from the edifice across the street, the GPO, in a similar act of cultural vandalism, is never aimed at what was, unquestionably, an chloch ba mho ar a phaidrin polaitiuil / the biggest bead on his political rosary. That would have been, Leprechaun. Specifically, the, erm, Resurrection of Leprechaun.
This is in keeping with the fundamentals of English Puritanism. And is the reason why Patsy McGarry, Bachelor of Arts, opted to concentrate almost exclusively on the non-PC RC end of Padraig Mac Piarais, Uasal with a studied and studded implement, metaphorically speaking (of course / ar ndoigh ) from the well-stocked dungeons of Ye Olde Shoppe of Ye Ann Summers.
-Thump ! Thump ! Thump !
That would be Diogenes the Dalmatian, Perkie’s canine pet, who tends towards the cynical. Demanding a clarification of this English Puritanism allusion thingy.
Briefly, in 1702, Unitarianism was imported into Heathen Hibernia where waters run deep and where the bog-oak monolith therein did dwell , wallowing in the mists of Popery, by English Puritanism PLC. The sect whose marketing division, as ever had a sharp eye out for the opening in the mystical market place.. Not to mention the timing required for the exploitation thereof..
Patsy McGarry, B.A., is not only the Relgious Correspondent of The Unionist Times, and a shriller one there never was, but also a polished pillar of Unitarianism, (IrIsh franchise). Busy man.
To conclude, where one commenced: the duality of things, that sorta thingy.
Not unlike a story or a street, a year is the same: 2016 has two sides. In the green corner, sits the Easter Rising while in the blue corner, sits the other E.R.
P.Warbeck knows which corner he is in.
In line with the antiquarian Warbeck motto: ‘Be the best backwalker you can OBE’.
How do you follow that?