The end of Cic Saor as we know it - a valedictory note
And the fat man say I don't want to hear your voice
And the thin man say I don't want to hear your voice
And they're cursing me, and they won't let me be
And there's nothing to say, and there's nothing to do
Stop whispering. Start shouting.*
There is nothing in comparison to being embraced by your own people
THE END OF CIC SAOR AS WE KNOW IT
In relative terms, my announcement in June -
http://www.fadooda.com/index.php?itemid=722 that I was stepping back from front-line political blogging on this
Cic Saor site provoked a surprisingly strong reaction; with people asking how I could "walk away" just at the point when my arguments about the British state's collusion with pro-unionist death squads have gone mainstream. I even got mails from the USA asking me to reconsider. But I'm pressing ahead with my intention, and from this blog onwards
Cic Saor will be renamed, at some point, and no longer contain references to spooks (state intelligence spies), state collusion with death squads or psyops propaganda and the apparent wholesale swallowing of same by sections of a gullible media. I will return to some of these themes and the characters they have thrown up, like the reprobates referred to below, but this will be as an element of my fiction writing.
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Refusing to say nothing - Eddie Holt
Mo chara Eddie Holt - my friend Eddie Holt -
Suaimhneas Dé ar a anam - RIP
In the proud and fond memory of my friend and journalistic comrade Eddie Holt who passed away on June 23rd, I reproduce his review in the
Irish Times of my book
A Very British Jihad , which was published in his weekly column in 2004.
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
The Irish Times refuses to publish my letter in defence of its literary correspondent Eileen Battersby.
In the aftermath of Eileen Battersby's negative review of Paul Murray's new novel and the attacks upon her, I wrote in protest to the
Irish Times. Ireland's alleged 'paper of record' has refused to my publish letter; so I am now publishing it below.
Ms Battersby's, in my opinion, well argued review of Paul Murray's new novel can be read here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-mark-and-the-void-by-paul-murray-review-1.2277627
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
The spook term ‘Stakeknife’ was not put into circulation until the early 2000s - where did it come from?
Adams and McGuinness - the clear targets of spook 'whistleblowers'
I can understand why BBC Northern Ireland’s investigative strand
Spotlight (a programme for which I worked as a producer/director for years) declined to identify the “someone posing as a journalist” who secretly taped General Sir John Wilsey. This was featured this week in an investigation into the grim murder of an alleged IRA informer Caroline Moreland in 1994. The programme makes a questionable claim that the seemingly ubiquitous British agent Fred Scappaticci (the alleged 'Stakeknife') was involved in this killing.
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That Adams and Charles handshake
Other factors aside, Irish journalism’s decades-long anti-Sinn Féin bias is chopped at the knees by the very establishment over whom they have fawned.
Taking my journalist’s hat off for a moment, as a socialist and someone who has an acknowledged record in exposing the British state’s secret and illegal campaign of violence in Ireland, I would personally be opposed to the idea of any Irish socialist shaking the hand of the titular commander of the Parachute Regiment – Prince Charles of England who visits Ireland today. This is particularly the case because of my close connections to Ballymurphy in West Belfast and Derry city – both of which suffered grievously at the hands of a clearly orchestrated infliction of mass murder, perpetrated by that same Parachute Regiment within the space of six months of each other. Here I am, of course, referring to the Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday massacres of innocent civilians in 1971 and early 1972 respectively.
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Jane Winter and British Irish Rights Watch settle privately with News International over hacking
Secret agreement raises serious questions for both Irish law enforcement agencies and the Irish media
Times Newspapers - dragged into the News Int. hacking scandal
No doubt the revelation that human rights lawyer Jane Winter and British Irish Rights Watch (BIRW - of which Ms Winter was the former director) have settled out of court with News International over hacking will surprise many
Cic Saor followers as much as it has your author.
This secret settlement seems to have been agreed in early February just passed, and whilst the exact details, by definition, will be confidential (normal in out of court settlements) the fact of a settlement it usually reported and our first question has to be why the silence? This question is particularly pertinent given that Jane Winter is a highly respected human rights lawyer and one would have expected a statement from her on this vital media/rights-infringement issue.
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Henry McDonald misreports the Jean McConville case - Guardian reporter seems to forget "live" court prosecution
Ivor Bell - the
Guardian implies he spoke “openly and freely”
on Boston College tapes
Whatever side you take on the Jean McConville affair, there is no doubt that it’s an important issue. In 1972, a woman with a large, young family was abducted by the IRA and shot and secretly buried. It’s important for the McConville family and wider society that the truth about her murder be established if possible. In my view, this can only be done when we have a fully comprehensive Truth Commission.
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
My short statement in defence of Solicitor Peter Madden after Mairia Cahill’s offensive and insinuating attack on him today on Twitter
John and Geraldine Finucane with solicitor Peter Madden (r)
I don’t follow Mairia Cahill on twitter. I don’t regularly check to see or hear what she has to say. I hardly need to, given that any statement she makes is given blanket and largely uncritical coverage by a willing Irish media. Make of that fact what you will dear readers.
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Why the Dublin 4 elite have no interest in an entirely innocent Galway man Jerome O’Connor - vanished from history
The Southern Establishment mantra - "
See no Evil. Hear no Evil. Speak no Evil." Unless it involves the Provos
In all the Sound and Fury over the last few weeks relating to kangaroo courts and paramilitary justice (or the unsurprising lack of it) not one Irish politician, journalist or media outlet has ever mentioned the murder of Jerome O’Connor, shot dead in Galway in August 1974. The value of his life and tragedy of his death has simply been vanished and here's why.
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Why I highlighted Mairia Cahill’s link to dissident republicans
The blogger
An Sionnach Fionn published a blog yesterday evening that quite rightly highlights my tweet last Friday as being part of the catalyst for Mairia Cahill’s eventual admission that she had been a member of the dissident republican group Republican Network for Unity (RNU). See An Sionnach Fionn -
http://ansionnachfionn.com/2014/10/27/mairia-cahill-and-the-republican-network-for-unity/
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
Taoiseach Enda Kenny himself sits in government with people whose former party had an illegal armed wing
Taoiseach Enda Kenny - keen to remind us about Mairia Cahill, not so keen to talk about the Official IRA
It is a matter of clear and obvious record that Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his Fine Gael party sits in a coalition government with the Labour Party. That Labour Party is made up of an old traditional labour group and a new group that originally came from the Workers Party not that long ago (the 1990s).
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On International Translators Day, the Irish Translators Association defends its sponsorship of Freemasonry
On International Translators Day (the feast of St Jerome September 30th), An Cumann Aistritheoirí agus Teangairí na hÉireann – the Irish Translators and Interpreters Association defends its sponsorship of Freemasonry
In May of this year, I mailed the national translators association of which I'm a member to protest their support and sponsorship of a European Literature Night event in Dublin; not, as readers can imagine because I'm against European Literature Nights, but because this particular event was being held at the Headquarters of the Freemasons in Ireland in Molesworth Street
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The Cork Brigade's 2014 Phoenix Park Ambush
Tomás Mac Curtain Cork Brigade Commandant and some of his staff, including Tadhg Barry and Terence Mac Swiney - picture taken 1915
The Cork Brigade's 2014 Phoenix Park Ambush
Down at the bottom of a deep stairwell
at the Phoenix Park Hotel
they faced me with their bold stares
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In praise of Billy O’Shea’s Steampunk novel, set in post-Apocalypse Scandinavia
The Kingdom of Clockwork
Author and translator Billy O'Shea
I am obliged to warn
Cic Saor aficionados that the subject of this blog, author and fellow Irishman, and indeed fellow professional translator, Billy O’Shea, is a friend of mine, and also that Billy has paid me that great honour of placing an extract from one of my poems about Copenhagen at the beginning of his novel
Kingdom of Clockwork. Some readers may remember this poem – A ‘Christmas homage to Copenhagen’. See here-
http://www.fadooda.com/index.php?itemid=489
Having now read
Kingdom of Clockwork, I can see why Billy O’Shea would want to include this passage (below) from the poem as it is almost presciently redolent of the atmosphere in parts of his book:
strange that in fog
we feel the mechanics of things
Tycho Brahe’s whirring mental cogs
Copernican spheres and trajectories
softly rending the thick air above me
planetary charts over Denmark and Sweden
The poem could have...
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State agent Peter Keeley still in the care and protection of the PSNI during life of Smithwick Tribunal
Peter Keeley (aka Kevin Fulton) - not a glamorous spy but an utter scoundrel
In my previous
Cic Saor article (see directly below) on the increasingly questionable Smithwick Tribunal, there was not space to refer to serial dissimulator and hacker Peter Keeley (aka Kevin Fulton) who told the Tribunal that MI5 had taken control of his case and were paying his expenses and accommodation – see page 262 of Smithwick report.
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
Why the UVF’s “World Cup” massacre at Loughinisland could sink the Smithwick Tribunal.
How could Judge Peter Smithwick ever have accepted MI5 and the PSNI’s Legacy Unit as honest brokers?
Judge Peter Smithwick - Naive to a fault?
Many
Cic Saor readers will not be aware that the findings of Smithwick Tribunal are being challenged in a judicial review, which will be heard in Dublin later this year.
In broad terms, Judge Peter Smithwick’s report published at the end of last year found that certain unnamed members of An Garda Síochána had in fact colluded with the IRA in and around the time when two senior RUC officers were killed in 1989. These RUC officers were Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan – the most senior RUC men to lose their lives in the Troubles. However Smithwick could find no direct evidence whatsoever to link any Garda officer with the murder of the two officers.
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
Fintan O’Toole’s amnesia over Paul Bew in the Irish Times
The forgetful Fintan O'Toole
In Saturday’s
Irish Times, that scion of democracy Fintan O’Toole sprang to the defence of Paul Bew who has been heavily criticised for his role in the Boston College fiasco. Anyone who has the temerity to question Bew’s political motives, he wailed, is an opponent, not only of scholarship, but democracy itself. In other words the people who question Bew are the enemies of democracy. They are also, readers will note, "insidious":
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
The Chronicle of Higher Education declares that it stands over its assertion that Lord Paul Bew recommended Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre for Boston fiasco
Last week in the
Sunday Independent Lord Paul Bew stated that he did not appoint Ed Moloney or Anthony McIntyre to the Belfast oral history project whilst a visiting Burns scholar at Boston College in 1999-2000. Thus:
As a visiting scholar I did not appoint Ed Moloney, Anthony McIntyre, or indeed Wilson McArthur who covered the Loyalist archives. However, I was an admirer of Moloney's detailed knowledge of republicanism which was widely respected in Ireland.
See:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-closure-of-the-boston-college-troubles-archive-is-historical-loss-30263223.html
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
My response to a counter terrorism expert's article on the Belfast oral history project
Regarding Timothy Hoyt’s article on the Belfast oral history project for the "War on the Rocks" website
Timothy D. Hoyt is Professor of Strategy and Policy and John Nicholas Brown Chair of Counterterrorism at the U.S. Naval War College, and his article can be read here -
http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/a-terrible-beauty-the-gerry-adams-story-continues/#comment-13255
-----------Paul Larkin’s response:
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
The significance of Paul Bew’s name on Anthony McIntyre’s employment contract lies in the simple fact that he signed it.
(The law, when it is good law, deals with facts, acts and legal consequences but journalists deal with facts, acts and the wider context)
Needless to say, I got a big reaction to my article on Lord Paul Bew and his witnessing of Anthony McIntyre’s February 2001 employment contract with Boston College. The contract shows McIntyre being engaged as an interviewer of "republican activists" (anti-Gerry Adams republican activists as we now know). See directly below on this site
-
http://www.fadooda.com/index.php?itemid=627
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
In February 2001, Lord Paul Bew signed an employment contract between Ed Moloney, Anthony McIntyre and Boston College - why has he hidden this fact?
Look closely at the two signatures below.
One name is fairly obvious, because it’s also typed – “Ed Moloney”. The name that countersigns Moloney’s name is not so obvious but readers will see that they contain three initials and then the name “Bew”. The initials are PAE or Paul Anthony Elliot and then the surname Bew.
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
Lord Paul Bew tries in vain to whitewash his Boston tapes and "Sticky" past
Believe it or not – Lord Bew is Chair of the UK’s Committee on Standards in Public Life.
In the
Sunday Independent today, Lord Paul Bew has issued a poor apologia for his role in the Boston College oral history debacle. It neither befits his role as one of Ireland’s leading academics nor his position as Chair of the UK’s Committee on Standards in Public Life, whose principles he has clearly breached. If this story, indeed this scandal, becomes a public issue in the UK, I cannot see how Bew can continue in his £500.00 per day role as the UK’s primary guardian of ethics for public officials.
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Lord Paul Bew should not be allowed to vanish from the record of the Boston tapes fiasco
Will the chairperson of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Lord Paul Bew, now apply his own ethics charter to the flawed and inflammatory oral history project he instigated?
Lord Paul Bew - created the discredited oral history project.
The instigator of the discredited Boston oral history, Lord Paul Bew who became a peer in 2007, is the chairperson of the UK’s “Committee on Standards in Public Life”. This high profile committee advises both the British Government, and public figures generally, on ethical issues they need to be aware of whilst carrying out their duties. The Committee bases its principles on a code of ethics – the Nolan Principles – which the UK parliament has adopted as a basic ethical guide for MPs and Peers. Lord Bew was appointed by David Cameron in July 2013 after an open competition and he took up the post in September of that year. Lord Bew, in other words, operates at the heart of the Cameron administration. The BBC reported that Bew would earn £500.00 per day as part of the remuneration for this post and that he will continue to teach Irish History and Politics as a professor at Queen's University Belfast.
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
Revealed - the academic who in 2002 rang alarm bells over the Boston tapes - he was never contacted by the PSNI or any legal body
Cic Saor can now reveal the identity of the experienced and highly respected academic who blew a loud whistle over the poor standard and slanted nature of the Paul Bew/Ed Moloney Boston tapes project. Bearing in mind that it was Queens Academic Paul Bew who effectively appointed Ed Moloney to the project and Bew who also selected his former PHD student McIntyre as the man to do the interviewing.
Meet the real, impartial and forensic whistle blower who gave a devastating account of the Boston tapes project:
Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
Lord Paul Bew and the GAL - the Get Adams League
Though we didn't know it at the time, the instigation of the Boston College oral history project signalled the launch of the GAL – the Get Adams League
Paul Bew - In 2002 he referred to Gerry Adams as smelling like “rotten cabbage”.
Up until a few days ago very few of the reports regarding the interview tapes of ex IRA members that led to the arrest of Gerry Adams, carried a mention of ‘Lord’ Paul Bew – a central figure within the British establishment and signatory to the neo-conservative Henry Jackson principles.
Yet it was Paul Bew who initiated the fiasco that was the Boston College oral history project and Paul Bew who appointed Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre to work on the project. This is not me saying this but both Ed Moloney and Boston College themselves – look at this from the preface of Ed Moloney’s own book
Voices From The Grave, which was based on some of the interview tapes. The book’s preface was written by Boston College officials Professor Tom Hachey (head of Irish Studies) and Dr Bob O'Neill (head of the Burns Library at BC):
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