Saturday, December 4, 2010

NEW YEARS DAY SPONSORED SWIM.(GALWAY BAY)


Galway 32csm will be holding a New Years Day sponsored swim,in aid of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association.

Anyone wishing to participate or sponsor an activist contact directly.
32csmgaillimh@gmail.com

donate/sponsor an activist through paypal address 32csmgaillimh@gmail.com,

venue and time.

12 noon New Years Day

Diving Board,Galway Bay

Salthill,Galway City.

www.irpwa.blogspot.com

remember the pows at christmas!

Friday, December 3, 2010

IMF not welcome in Ireland.


IMF not welcome in Ireland.


The confirmation that the Free State government is seeking aid from the International Monetary fund and the EU is a grim development in what has been a catastrophic two years for the Irish people. Incompetence, greed and corruption have destroyed the Free State’s ability to manage its own affairs and so with begging cup in hand they have crawled to the IMF.

The 32csm wishes to make clear that the IMF is not welcome in Ireland. Their track record has been one of attacking the working class to preserve the ruling class wherever they have intervened. Make no mistake there are plans being put in place to attack fundamental rights of workers in the 26 Counties. The minimum wage, social welfare and education for working class people are all going to be altered so as to facilitate the process of "recovery". We are calling now on the Trade Union Movement to fight back and to fight back ferociously. The leadership of these bodies have failed to protect workers and have signed deals to preserve social partnership; deals that are now being torn up with abandon.

Now is not the time for meaningless words about people sharing the burden. The burden must be bore by those responsible for it, the bankers, the political establishment and their apologists. Now is the time for a widespread campaign of resistance and fundamental to this must be a National Strike which brings the state to a halt and shows the government and their neo-liberal allies that the power is with the workers!

It*is also imperative to point out that an election called now will be*nothing more than a rubber stamp of approval for the IMF and their policies for none of the*Parties have the moral courage to take a stand for the Irish people above their own interests. The press conferences called by Fianna Fail are to reassure the international banking system not the Irish people. It is the duty of republicans everywhere to support the people of Ireland north and south in resisting these savage cuts, it is the time for unity and the time to resist!
Beir Bua

Monday, November 29, 2010

March: Galway Unites Against Budget Cutbacks


March: Galway Unites Against Budget Cutbacks

Saturday 4th December 13:00-14:00

Galway City Centre-Marching from the Cathedral to the Spanish Arch

The Galway Says No to Health Cuts campaign is calling on every individual/group/organisation in Galway opposed to budget cutbacks to help for the biggest protest march ever witnessed in Galway city. We are asking everyone affected by cuts to health, education & welfare services to join us on the streets on Saturday 4th December!

Galway 32 County Sovereignty Movement Will be in attendence,We call on all members and supporters to make an effort to attend.

UNITY IS STRENGTH

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

CLARE 32CSM POW PROTEST




Clare 32csm will be holding a pow protest.

Saturday 11th December @3pm

O Connell Monument
Ennis,
Co Clare.

Support The Pows!

Sovereign Nation nov/dec


The new edition of the Sovereign Nation is on sale now!


If you would like a copy please contact your local 32CSM representative or email 32csmgaillimh@gmail.com


2 euro each including postage

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Time to Act.


32 County Sovereignty Movement.

Time to Act.

After usurping the Declaration of Independence the architects of the Twenty Six County State invoked a sovereign legitimacy to use British guns on fellow Irish people. It continued to invoke this legitimacy to strap Irishmen to landmines, to execute Irish prisoners, to allow Irishmen die on hunger strike and to employ an English hangman to eradicate those who believed that Irish sovereignty does not stop at the border and that our national ethos should be modelled on the Proclamation.
Invoking a sovereign legitimacy it set about rewriting the terms of its own existence, not in accordance with those who defended it as a preamble to national reunification, but as a prologue for establishing a partitionist power base serving sectional interests. When it introduced its Constitution in 1937 it predicated that document on a definition of sovereignty as one which encompassed the whole island and its peoples. It spent the next sixty one years failing to restore that sovereignty culminating in its abandonment in 1998. It abandoned their fellow Irish people in the Six Counties, standing idly by whilst a sectarian gerrymander was allowed to masquerade as democracy.
Invoking a sovereign legitimacy it raised an army and called it Oglaigh Na hEireann. It placed this army on the border to reinforce its view that the Twenty Six County State had a sovereign right to exist. It sent this army into the world as a symbol of its sovereignty and generously referenced their peace keeping efforts, and their deaths, as a glowing tribute to this sovereignty.
Invoking a sovereign legitimacy it raised its own tax and allowed its governments to utilise these funds for party political interests. It allowed its Ministers to feather their own nests and encouraged a political ethos which was solely concerned with satisfying the local constituency. In pursuit of power it placed the Catholic Church and Financial Speculators at the heart of its policy making with disastrous consequences. Those that
opposed such economics were adjured to commit suicide and those who argued for complete Church State separation were marginalized and stigmatised.
And now it stares into the abyss created by its own abject failure to understand what Irish sovereignty actually represents. It has now surrendered the fate of its citizens to an institution whose sole concern is the making of money no matter the social cost. As a state it can neither look back nor look forward to redeem itself. Only its citizens retain the ability to rise above the penury the state has forced them into.
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement calls on all the Irish people to take back their sovereignty. We call on all republican organisations and the labour movement to unite and organise the shutting down of the state. This is not a time for righteous rhetoric or for tinkering with the status quo. It is a time to reach out and effect fundamental change for our people. Partition has failed on both sides of the border. The restoration of our national sovereignty is an essential prerequisite to achieving this change. It is time to act.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Francie Mackey Address 32CSM Ard Fheis 2010


Francie Mackey Address 32CSM Ard Fheis 2010
Chairperson’s Address
Ard Fheis 2010

A chairde, delegates and comrades; we are the spearhead of this struggle. Our innovation, political maturity, our activism and leadership has ensured that this struggle is to the fore in the minds of the political establishment. We are a movement that looks forward and moves forward. We have grasped the nettle of reality concerning our struggle and laid bare the fallacies which have mired it in suspicion and factionalism.

All this we have done because we put republicanism first. We put the objective first. We embraced democracy and married it to our republicanism. We have not cocooned ourselves within restrictive rules or dogmatic history. We took the strength of our argument and brought it to the national and international stage. A liberated republicanism is the proper vehicle for change. A unified republicanism is the most potent mechanism to achieve that change.

Republican unity is not going to go away. All that stands in its way is an unwillingness to engage with it. There is no ideological or political argument against it for if there were we would have heard it by now. It is not a case of the sovereignty movement calling for unity but the goals for which we struggle demanding it. We have no right to stand at the graves of our patriot dead and preach factionalism. We have no right to stand at the monuments of our great thinkers and invoke their words to justify isolationism. And we have no right to stand before our people and in their name give less than the sum total of our parts.

For our part we concentrated on the issue of national sovereignty. We did so because there is armed conflict in our country. As republicans we saw it as our duty to address the causes of this conflict in a clear and defined manner. Ending the armed conflict does not end the struggle for republican ideals. Squabbling over what those ideals should be will not end the armed conflict. War demands from us all an immediacy in our strategic thinking to find ways to resolve it.

We again put forward the view that a coming together of Irish republicans to fashion a course to remove the cause of armed conflict is essential if any of our ideals are to flourish in a unitary state. The sovereignty movement remains committed to this task. We have taken the view that republican unity is more than the coming together of republican organisations. The path the so called peace process has taken has left large numbers of disillusioned republicans searching for direction and new ideas. We are committed to providing these ideas by engaging directly with these republicans. Their contribution to this struggle has been immense and has earned them the right to determine where now they wish to continue it. We want their ideas, we want their commitment, we want their contributions; but we have to earn it. We have to demonstrate to them that our activism looks forward and not back: that our ideas are inclusive and adaptable and not insular and reactionary.

I say to all our activists here that the coming year will require you all to reach out and engage with this constituency. As ambassadors for the sovereignty movement you will need to be fully acquainted with our policies and strategy documents. Read them, and read them again. Discuss them regularly at cumann level but above all spread the thinking behind them. Knowledge of our policies must be the cornerstone of our activism.

There is always healthy debate in the sovereignty movement. It is one of our great strengths. Prominent in these discussions is the issue of policy formation on social matters and the various aspects of governance in a future unitary state. The number and depth of motions before us here today reflects this. I wish to address two points concerning policy and policy formation; firstly the context of our policies and secondly the cause of labour. From the outset I want to commend our activists throughout Ireland for their sterling work in their respective communities. Your innovation and commitment are a lesson for all those seeking social change and justice.

Because we are constituted to campaign on the singular issue of our national sovereignty all our policies must be geared toward this end. Sovereignty is not a narrow nationalist agenda but an agenda for real change and a precursor to Irish society taking charge of its own destiny. Sovereignty is not simply a Brits Out slogan but a charter for ownership returning to the people. It is within this context that our policies must be forged. We cannot adopt policy for policy sake or direct our limited resources away from our central goal. Our policies must satisfy a strategic objective. And because we are engaged in a national struggle how we adopt our policies is just as important as the content of those policies. This is why we campaigned vigorously for republicans to forge policy together so that the very act of unity advances their content. I reiterate to our members; when you sit down to think, and rise to act, be at all times focussed on where we need to go. Be pragmatic, be realistic, do not be distracted nor blindly influenced. Bring your ideas to your comrades so that your comrades can prepare those ideas for our struggle.

James Connolly told us; “The Cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour, The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland.” The current economic crisis both in Ireland and throughout the world has brought the issue of labour to everyone’s door. We are no different. The question for the sovereignty movement is this; not whether labour must wait but in what capacity must labour act? As it stands the cause of the labour movement is not the cause of Ireland. As it stands the cause of labour is to forge an arrangement with capitalism with labour as the junior partner. The fallout from the economic crisis demonstrates this. Is there any point in marching with the labour movement if the cause of Ireland is left behind? Is socialism served by campaigning with the labour movement for better scraps from the capitalist table? Has not this very same approach on the national question led to the grotesque spectacle at Stormont? Is this a road we truly want to go down just so that we can say we are aligned to labour?

The struggle for sovereignty and the struggle for labour must be synonymous. Republican policy and activism must reflect this. A veneer of mutual association is not enough. At the recent Student demonstrations in Dublin both the veneer and the true alliance were evident. Labour is not a pedestrian stroll, politely shouting slogans for change. Labour must be at the coalface fighting for that change. Labour must be indifferent to the howls of establishment condemnations whenever labour chooses to act. I salute our activists present here today who acted in labour’s best interests. I quote the insightful Irish republican socialist Ta Power when he says ‘there is no parliamentary path to socialism’. Equally there is no waiting for the so called ‘right time to strike’. For revolutionaries it is always the right time to act. Partition and capitalism never postpone their activities and neither should we.

To other republicans and socialists we say this: for the cause of labour to be the cause of Ireland we must rebuild the labour movement by making the cause of Ireland the cause of labour. Connolly sought to do this by working with the national and cultural movements in his day. If we wish to move beyond rhetoric then we must come together to put the bones of this movement in place. If you cannot commit to this, if working together is beyond you then both the cause of labour and of Ireland is beyond you also.

On behalf of us all I wish to send solidarity greetings to Irish republican prisoners of war where ever they may be. We salute your courage and commitment. We send greetings to your families and loved ones and pledge to do everything in our power to be of assistance to you. I also wish to thank the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association for their diligent work on behalf of prisoners and their families.

The past year has seen our prisoners to the fore in our struggle. Once again Westminster has chosen this venue to try and undermine the republican struggle. And as before they will fail. The despicable use of degrading strip searches as a means of punishment has hardened our resolve. On this issue we did have republican unity and the benefits of it were clear for all to see. This needs to continue because perfidious albion is beginning to resort to form. The agreement reached between the prisoners and the prison authorities is steadily being undone. There is an undoubted political agenda behind this. It is not a case of rogue prison officers but a deliberate policy being overseen by their political masters.

During the year we marched in great numbers to protest. Our protest could not go unnoticed so they had to engage. And if needs be we must protest again, in greater numbers and with greater regularity. Every county must get the message. The plight of our prisoners must be to the fore in our activism. We must place this issue onto the national agenda and keep it there until such time that it is addressed. We can do no less when the prisoners themselves are doing so much.

The National Army continues to engage the enemy. Our right to national self determination will be protected and fought for. War is an inevitable consequence of the presence of the British government in our country. There are those who say that now is not the right time for armed struggle; that alternative strategies must be pursued. But it must be grasped that armed struggle is an inevitable reality and any strategy hoping to be viable must recognise this. Armed struggle cannot be wished away no more than it can be stored neatly in a box so that a political initiative can be aired in public. Avoiding reality cannot be a precondition for any strategy.


Comrades I wish to conclude with an impassioned plea to you all, at every level in our organisation, to both experienced and novice activists, make the coming year one of sustained activism within your communities. Bring the issue of national liberation with you. Demonstrate that there is an alternative and that they have it within their power to realise change.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Beir Bua Issue 3



Click Here For Full Edition

New Years Day Sponsored Swim.(Galway Bay)


Galway 32csm will be holding a New Years Day sponsored swim,in aid of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association.

Anyone wishing to participate or sponsor an activist contact directly.
32csmgaillimh@gmail.com


venue and time

12 noon New Years Day

Diving Board,Galway Bay

Salthill,Galway City.

www.irpwa.blogspot.com

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The ballad of Shell and Rossport


The ballad of Shell and Rossport
Galway Advertiser, November 04, 2010.

By Kevin Higgins

TO SAY that the Shell gas pipeline and terminal in north Mayo has been the subject of controversy would be to understate seriously.

To those not directly involved, the ongoing ‘debate’, which has regularly degenerated into violence with allegations of intimidation on both sides, has often seemed, like Northern Ireland in the seventies, to be one where it’s difficult to give either side unqualified support.

This could be said to mark a failure on the part of the Shell To Sea campaign; another case of the right side losing because it puts its argument histrionically rather than rationally and allows some - ie, those who would be better kept in the background, stapling placards or making sandwiches for visiting protesters - to be spokespersons for the campaign.

The ranting boys and girls of The Sunday Independent have been happy to do their bit to blacken the reputation of Shell To Sea. The ‘documentary’ by Paul Williams, aired on TV3 last year, which tried to paint the campaign as being the plaything of dissident republicans, was the sort of rag journalism one would expect from someone who now writes for The News of The World.

Lorna Siggins is a different kind of journalist and works with facts rather than bar stool opinions of either variety as can be seen from her new book on the subject Once Upon A Time In The West: The Corrib Gas Controversy (Transworld Ireland).

On page 215 she speaks to Sarah Clancy from Galway about the violence Clancy personally witnessed being meted out to protesters by gardaí. Now, while I doubt Sarah and I vote the same way at elections, I believe her when she says she observed a Shell To Sea protester: “being flung to the ground, with first two, then one garda kneeling on his back” as they “pressed his face into the dirt, all the while hitting him with batons”.

There were at least four gardaí involved in this, Clancy says. This is not to paint the campaign as a bunch of angels. I know from personal experience that there are those of the activist left who are willing to use physical intimidation as a tactic and others who are willing to make excuses for such behaviour. In Once Upon A Time In The West, Siggins makes an angel of no one.

The facts Siggins has gathered lead her to be more sympathetic to the protesters than she is to Shell. That as neutral an observer as Lorna Siggins could come to this view should give middle Ireland pause for thought.

If it is true, as Shell To Sea claims, that a natural resource worth hundreds of billions of Euro has been more or less given away to Shell with very little benefit to the Irish exchequer, then this is a very serious matter.

If the Shell To Sea protesters are even half right, then there certainly could have been, and perhaps still is, an alternative to slashing social welfare and services to the disabled and all the other miseries the Colm McCarthys and Peter Sutherlands are currently prescribing for us. Go out tomorrow and buy this book. You can’t afford not to.

link http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/33023

Play Your Part




Galway 32CSM is currently engaged in a recruitment drive of the greater Connaught area. Anyone interested in joining can contact us at:

32csmgaillimh@gmail.com

or

joinus@32csm.info

Monday, November 8, 2010

Saturday, November 6, 2010

IRA statement


The IRA's position regarding drug dealers is clear and our actions against them are motivated by the need to ensure the safety of the community.
These actions are welcomed by communities who are suffering at the hands of drug dealers.

Recently, a number of newspapers have run stories claiming that the IRA was involved in drugs and prostitution and that members of the Dublin Brigade had been stood down. The stories are lies.

Subsequently, the IRA sent a statement to the Irish Star Newspaper claiming responsibility for the execution of numerous drug dealers. The Star refused to carry the statement but instead carried statements from a Dublin drugs gang styling itself the "Criminal Action Force" which threatened republicans. The Star newspaper was raided by the Free State Special Branch but nothing was reported in any newspaper. We invite people to analyse these facts for themselves and determine who benefits from this policy of censorship and misinformation.

Copy of IRA statement sent to the Star (below):

17/9/2010

In Response to Recent Sensationalist Media Articles:

The leadership of the IRA wish to clarify our position on these claims: The IRA have never taken money from criminals and then allowed them to continue to operate, we have in fact relieved them of their finances and weaponry then closed down their operations.Allegations have been made that the IRA extorted a large amount of money from drug dealers and criminals. Anyone with evidence to support these claims should come forward immediately.

The leadership of the IRA have never sanctioned such actions and anyone using our name to tax drug dealers and criminals will be executed. In fact the only organisations in Ireland that take money from criminals and allows them to operate are state agencies, on both sides of the border, who take their assets and allow them to carry on their poison trade.

The IRA postion on drug dealers is clear, they deal death to our communities. We deal with them. Some examples are: Matthew Burns, Kieran Flynn, Jason Eagan, Colly Owens, Gerard Staunton, Kieran Doherty,and Sean Winters, amongst others.

To those who believe they can escape the reach of the republican movement, we have also executed drug dealers on the continent who believed they were safe, having fled the country. We have crippled, maimed and exiled numerous others.

Anyone caught up in the world of criminality, drug dealing, or issuing threats to republicans should come forward and admit their involvement now. Anyone who does not avail of this opportunity will face the inevitable consequences.
Those who wish to take on the republican movement should realise this. These parasites are members of a gang, the IRA are members of a disciplined army with experience of war.

Education Is A Right, Not A Privilege

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement in Galway wish to express our complete opposition to the proposed cuts to third-level funding. The Free State government is proposing a doubling of the registration fee to €3,000, decreasing the student grant by 10% and increasing the threshold for qualifying for the grant by 10% in the upcoming budget. This is simply unacceptable.

The vast majority of students who receive the grant depend on it to pay for food, rent, books etc. and would be unable to attend college without it. The raising of the registration fee is also completely unacceptable. Students, as well as many other ordinary people, are being forced to carry the can for an economic crisis that they played no part in causing.

It is estimated that there are between 70,000-100,000 graduates aged between 20-25 on the dole, a far higher proportion than in any other demographic. It is time that we tell the rich that we will no longer accept this, and that our basic rights should not be taken away because of their greed.

GALWAY POW PROTEST PHOTOS






GALWAY POW PROTEST PHOTOS (CONTINUED)






Sunday, October 17, 2010

Galway 32csm Pow Protest(DATE AND TIME CHANGED)





Galway 32 County Sovereignty Movement will be holding a pow protest ,Saturday 6th November,Shop Street,Galway City Centre,@3.00pm,to highlight the forced strip searching and beatings inflicted on pows held at Maghaberry Jail.

END THE BEATINGS

END THE FORCED STRIP SEARCHES

Friday, October 15, 2010

Gary Donnelly interview on 2010 dirty protest - www.joe.ie





JOE speaks to Gary Donnelly, a former prisoner in Northern Ireland’s high-security facility at Maghaberry, about a shocking, largely unnoticed protest by republican dissidents that erupted inside the prison ealier this year.

“The toilets were broken so we had to keep our excrement in plastic bags,” recalls Garry Donnelly, a republican from the Creggan area of Derry of his time in detention in a Northern Ireland prison. “But we had no way of getting rid of it. We were forced to liquefy the waste and pour it out through the sides of the cell doors.”


It sounds like an account from inside the H-Blocks during the darkest days of the dirty protest Provisional IRA prisoners engaged in during the height of the Troubles. Except this happened in summer 2010


According to the Prison Service of Northern Ireland there are currently 30 republican prisoners detained in the high security facility at Maghaberry. Although largely unnoticed by the media in the Republic, the men spent much of 2010 locked into a bitter dispute with the prison authorities.


Prisoners detained on charges relating to paramilitary activity won the right to be segregated from the rest of Maghaberry’s prison population back in 2005 after a lengthy protest led by men linked to the ‘Real’ IRA. However, the tension began to mount earlier this year amid claims of 23-hour lock downs, inhumane treatment and attacks on prisoners.


Among those detained was Gary Donnelly, whose role in the dispute started back in August 2006. He and eight other members of the ‘Derry Anti-War Coalition’ broke into the Raytheon factory in Derry after information emerged that the facility was being used to make missiles for Israeli and US forces. “We thrashed the place and threw their computers out the window,” recalls Donnelly.


The group, tagged the Raytheon Nine, was arrested at the scene. While being taken into court in handcuffs, Donnelly says he turned to wave at supporters when PSNI offers bundled him to the ground. “I was assaulted and carried into the court yet they charged me with the assault of three officers,” he says.


Although later acquitted of charges relating to the Raytheon factory break-in, Donnelly had to appear in court again to face the triple assault charge. He faced a lengthy prison term.


However, a journalist from the Irish News, Seamus McKinney, witnessed the event and came forward. The presiding judge, Judge Bates, said he had been “impressed” by Mr McKinney’s evidence and then threw out the case.


Just hours after winning his court battle on assault charges against members of the PSNI, Donnelly was stopped again. “That night I was in Foyle Street in central Derry with three members of the Raytheon Nine. The PSNI pulled up and one of them told me to get on the footpath so he could search me.
I was pushed face down onto the ground and one came down with his knee – and snapped my arm.


"I said he could search me where I was. He shoved me and as I went back he went to shove me again. I stumbled and two or three others jumped me. I was pushed face down onto the ground and one came down with his knee – and snapped my arm.”

Donnelly says he asked for an ambulance to be called but the officers refused, handcuffing him and taking him to station. “They didn’t deny handcuffing me in the trial. They eventually un-cuffed one of my wrists – but left the cuff on the broken arm,” he recalls.


The republican was released into the custody of his solicitor some time later and was taken to hospital. “My arm was in wrecked. They x-rayed me and found that it was broken in three places – I had a three-piece spiral fracture.”


Worse was yet to come. Donnelly was again charged with assaulting an officer. Presiding over the case was District Judge Barney McElholm. He acknowledged that there were a number of discrepancies in the evidence given by police officers during the trial, adding, "It surprises me somewhat that no-one took seriously enough Mr. Donnelly's protestations that his arm was broken." He pointed out that the circumstances surrounding how Donnelly sustained a broken arm were "unresolved and unclear" before finding him guilty of assaulting one of the officers.


“I was given a £400 fine but on a point of principle I appealed it.” Donnelly’s appeal was unsuccessful. He was given a seven month custodial sentence.

Donnelly was sent to the high-security prison at Maghaberry to begin his sentence. He was detained for a week alongside ordinary criminals before being moved to Roe House – the most high-security wing of the prison reserved for republican dissidents. “The cell doors only ever opened when there was a minimum of three prison officers to accompany you,” remembers Donnelly. “It was like something out of The Silence of the Lambs.”


The controlled movement of republican prisoners around the wing meant that for the next three and a half months, Donnelly never passed any other prisoners or entered anyone else’s cell. “You were lucky to get showered and fed, never mind an opportunity to mix with others.”


The situation in the republican wing of the prison was already beginning to escalate at the time. Republicans were refusing to eat in their cells because each one also contained a toilet. “It was like eating in a bathroom, so they refused to do it,” says Donnelly.


The prison authorities eventually ceded to the demand. “They would take us into a small kitchen one at a time,” says Donnelly. “We worked out that prisoners had approximately four minutes to eat their meal if everyone was to get out to eat but the prison officers deliberately slowed the process down so a lot of prisoners didn’t get fed.


“The evening meal came at 4pm so if you missed that you wouldn’t be fed until 8am the next morning. It meant that for sometimes three or four days in a row guys were getting their last meal of the day at 12pm."


One day a group of prison officers came to Donnelly’s cell and said his life had been placed under threat by one of the dissident republican groups, and they moved him to the isolation wing of the prison – the Special Secure Unit (SSU).


“I was put into a cell next to a guy called Robert Black, an Englishman, who is a convicted child killer,” says Donnelly. “I couldn’t accept being put in with people like that over a fictitious threat to my life. I went on protest and refused to eat.”

After seven days without food, Donnelly was finally moved back to Roe House. A week after his return, the prisoners escalated the dispute. “A group of prisoners took over the canteen after mass and refused to leave,” he recalls.
After a 36 hour stand-off, the protest was broken up by the prison’s riot squad. The ring-leaders were sent to the punishment block while all furniture was stripped from the cells of the remaining republicans. “Roe House became a punishment block,” says Donnelly. “From then on prisoners just refused to co-operate.”


According to Donnelly, the prisoners then heard that one of the republicans taken to the SSU was attacked by the guards. “It was a vicious attack. The riot team beat him in the back of a riot van on his way to the punishment block. They handcuffed him to a bed and ripped his clothes off him,” he says.


"The rest of the republican prisoners erupted when they heard news the allegations. We wrecked the place,” recalls Donnelly. “We wrecked the furniture in our cells, busted the toilets, busted the sinks and basically flooded the two landings


“Soon afterwards, they stopped letting people out to the toilets. Prisoners had to keep their excrement in a plastic bag because the cell toilets were not working. We were not allowed out to dispose of it so prisoners were forced to liquefy the excrement and pour it out through the sides of the cell doors.”


In response, Donnelly claims the prison officers brought in industrial cleaners, often in the early hours of the morning, and pushed the human waste back under the cells doors. Hot water was turned off in cells and showers and prisoners were refused permission to use hair cutting equipment.


According to Donnelly, they were no longer permitted to leave their cells to eat, and despite the fact that their cells swam with human waste they were forced into a climb-down. “At this stage the prisoners had to eat in their cells or else they were going to starve to death,” he says.


You would almost be doing a circus act, naked from the waist down. We decided we wouldn’t do this anymore.
He was finally released in June 2010. The protest, however, continued on until an agreement, brokered by two members of the trade union movement and an international observer from Sri Lanka, was reached two months later.


Under the terms of the deal, prisoners were no longer required to undergo strip-searches, which Donnelly maintains were deliberately carried out in a way designed to humiliate. “First you take your top half off, then you put it back on,” he says. “Then you take your bottom half off – everything. Next they order you to stand on one foot and show them the soles of your feet, all the time with your hands behind your back holding your top up.


“You would be standing like a chicken doing a balancing act on one leg. They would stand there saying, ‘higher, that’s not high enough’. You would almost be doing a circus act, naked from the waist down. We decided we wouldn’t do this anymore.”


Donnelly and the other prisoners’ refusal to cooperate with strip-searches had been taking a toll on their families. “When my family was coming up to see me they would single me out for a strip search knowing I would refuse,” he recalls. “I would be charged, and that gave them the excuse to deny the visit.


“My family, including my two-year-old son, would come in and would be allowed to get right into the seating area. They would sit down to wait for me but the screws wouldn’t even tell them. Other prisoners would have to go over and say, ‘Look, he’s been singled out for a strip search, he’s not coming.’ That’s hard on a two-year-old boy.”

By the time of his release, Donnelly had amassed 50 charges for non-cooperation, including a count of mutiny over his involvement in the taking over of the canteen. He claims that since his release, he has been the victim of harassment by the PSNI. “I was charged three weeks ago with possession of an article likely to be useful to terrorists,” he reveals. “A phone.”


The former prisoner believes that his family too has been targeted by police, who he says has been using stop and search legislation as a means of harassment. “I’ve been stopped and searched twice this week,” he says.


“My children have been stopped with me on numerous occasions. My two-year-old son has been stopped with me three or four times. I made complaints to the Children’s Commissioner about it but then my home was raided about two months ago and they seized correspondence from the Commissioner to my solicitor under the terms of the Terrorism Act.”


JOE contacted the Prison Service of Northern Ireland for comment on the protest but none was received at the time of publication. Although we have been unable to verify whether stop and search legislation is being used as a means of harassment, PSNI figures suggest that some 17,000 stop and searches were carried out, under the terms of Terrorism Act, in the first half of this year. Security forces, meanwhile, estimate that dissident republican paramilitaries number in the region of 200 individuals.


Robert Carry


http://www.joe.ie/news-politics/joe-investigates-2/dissident-revolt-the-2010-dirty-protest-005886-2

Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association


Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association

IRPWA condemn brutal harassment of Colin Duffy


The Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association condemn the Brutal harassment currently being handed out to Lurgan Republican Colin Duffy by the Northern Ireland Prison Service and members of the Prison Officers Association. Colin has been badly assaulted and forcibly strip searched on a number of occasions the last being this morning despite the fact that the prisoners, facilitators and prison service signed an agreement on August 12 that all strip searching would end. There is every indication that these attacks will continue every time Colin is brought to and from the prison and the IRPWA urge all republicans to stand behind the POW’s and resist the efforts of the NIPS to renege on agreements reached and their efforts to break their morale. The welfare of republican prisoners is of paramount concern to the IRPWA and we will not stand back and allow POW’s to be mistreated by a vindictive and draconian prison regime.

Fianna Fáil ? - Fianna Failed !

Fianna Fáil ? - Fianna Failed !

HSE West is currently facing severe cuts to vital health services. A recent report from British consultants Mott McDonald suggests that up to 1,000 temporary jobs could be cut, and it is possible that a whole hospital could be closed as part of a plan to save between €44 and €54 million.If this happens, as stated, the responsibility for the above will lie fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Fianna Fáil.

Controversy surrounding health care is nothing new in the West of Ireland. Fianna Fáil TD for Galway East Michael Kitt issued the following pre-election statement on Tuesday 8th May 2007:
“Tenders are being sought from private developers for the construction of the Healthcare campus on the grounds of the former Bon Secours Hospital, Tuam. It is hoped that building work could commence on the site early next year (2008). The Health Service Executive (HSE) has stated that the development will consist of a 77 bed community hospital including long stay, respite and palliative care beds. An ambulance base is also included in the plan as are mental health facilities, a primary care unit, a health centre and a medical assessment and minor injuries unit.” 3 years later and there is still no sign of a hospital for the people of North Galway and South Mayo".

Since the issuing of that statement it has become apparant that the Tuam hospital project was merely falsified rhetoric specifically designed to fool the public into thinking that Fianna Fáil and their cohorts would be bringing back vital public services to the communities.It has subsequently transpired however, that the rhetoric would not be backed up by substance once the lies had worked and the votes gleaned.

Tuam Council now push a different agenda... that the district court now be moved to the site of the former Bon secours hospital at the expense of the Healthcare campus and to the detriment of the local communities.These people are not acting in the interests of the communities and have failed those they were elected to represent.

To further compound the shelving of the Healthcare campus in Tuam, the Free State Government are now planning to cut €24 million from the budget of the University College Hospital, Galway.
People who have had no choice but to avail of the Hospital facilities in the west of Ireland already know that the Hospitals,clinics and surgeries are already running on empty.They will have seen the patients who have been abandoned in the corridors due to lack of wards,beds and facilities.The vulnerable in Ireland are once again having to pay the price for the Governmental mismanagment of the economy where the fatcats have been bailed out using funds and resources stripped from the working class.

The working class people of Ireland are continually having their pockets picked by the government to shore up the accounts of the fatcats and banks who gambled the wealth of Ireland and lost.
They are being kept in the style in which they have become accustomed and " YOU " are paying for it !

Fianna Fáil represent themselves as a Republican party.They claim to uphold the 1916 proclamation which states:

"The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally."

It appears however... that in the eyes of this government....some are more equal than others !

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Galway Petition Against Royal Visit




Republican Monument Upkeep






Members of Galway 32CSM undertook the task of restoring the Tuam Martyrs Monument to its former glory.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Bringing The Republican Message To Galway






Galway 32CSM will be operating a stall every Saturday on Shop St, Galway city,selling the Sovereign Nation ,highlighing the plight of POW's, handing out Beir Buas. We would like to thank all of those who took the time to stop at the stall and showed their support and the cumann hope to build on the ever growing support in the west over the coming weeks and month. The west is certainly awake.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Private Members Draw

32 County Sovereignty Movement Galway Private Members Draw

Galway 32CSM Liam Mellows cumann are running a bi monthly prize draw,

1st prize €100

2nd prize Framed Proclamation

3rd prize Framed Republican Picture

4th prize €50

Tickets €5 each limited to 100 tickets


For tickets contact a known member or email Liam Melllows cumann at 32csmgaillimh@gmail.com

Galway 32CSM Recruiting


Galway 32CSM is currently engaged in a recruitment drive of the greater Connaught area. Anyone interested in joining can contact us at:

32csmgaillimh@gmail.com

or

joinus@32csm.info

Friday, January 1, 2010

32CSM New Year Statement 2010

32 County Sovereignty Movement
New Year Statement 2010


We commend our activists for their dedication and hard work in pursuit of the republican goal in 2009. We commend all other republican activists for being true to their beliefs and for being generous and inventive in listening to the beliefs of others. 2009 was a year which witnessed that inventiveness being translated into political action which was widely recognised throughout the republican base. It represented the most potent expression of solidarity with imprisoned comrades. It is solidarity in action with those who were bereaved in the struggle. It is also the way forward for Irish republicanism.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement has a clear vision for the year ahead. The reclamation of our sovereignty must take real form. We must give leadership to our communities to help them achieve this. Throughout Ireland communities have been betrayed by the institutions of faith, finance and state which have long purported to speak and act on their behalf. The abundance of trust placed in the integrity of individual leaders has proved misplaced. They have been left leaderless.

They have not, however, been left powerless. It is in recognition of this reality that the 32CSM will now engage with our communities. In a disciplined approach the 32CSM will liase directly with local communities to explore ways of reclaiming their sovereignty, and under these auspices, help them pursue their political and social objectives. We will focus our efforts in ensuring that all community activity will by default be a pursuit toward national sovereignty. Such a process will be a challenge to both states. It is a first step in filling the vacuum left by those who are now wholly subsumed into the apparatus of partition.

Communities so organised can become the template for national freedom. The republican objective is twofold; to secure our sovereign independence and to organise a just society within that independence. Like our republican forebears we can now enact our aspirations, we can involve our people with our beliefs in real and tangible terms. Republicanism cannot be detached from the people and the people cannot be detached from the strategies deployed to secure their freedom. We can only lead through democratic involvement with our communities.

Because it is a first step it must be taken with due diligence. We have prepared our arguments and are refining our position as mandated at our Ard Fheis. It will be democratic. It will be a learning process which will require discipline, patience and pragmatic political judgement. Republicans cannot interact at a distance. We need to create a new interface between ourselves and our people which will allow us to seek their mandate for our struggle. This mandate will not be measured by a gerrymandered vote. Its value will be in its democratic integrity and its sovereign credentials. For us the ballot box means more than just numbers. Democracy can only be returned to the Irish people when their national sovereignty is recognised.

Because it is a challenge to the state the state will obviously respond. Mistakes will be made, but also learned from, and it is this disciplined approach which will allow for this engagement to spread successfully to other areas. In part the success of this project may be gauged from the state’s reaction to it. They will not be alone. Establishment Nationalists will also have a vested interest in seeing this project fail. They will seek to divide and conquer. But a clear understanding as to the implications of its sovereign distinction and clear democratic practices will thwart them. After all it was disdain for democracy within their own organisations which led them into the cul de sac they now find themselves.

The 32CSM will be active on other fronts. Two major international initiatives will be launched in the coming year. We have observed how issues at play on the international stage are geared toward political events in the occupied six counties. We have made our intentions known to the relevant governments that we are determined to follow a particular path challenging any move that would seek to de-legitimise the republican struggle. These initiatives are for the benefit of Irish republicanism, we will not claim sole ownership of them. But we will provide the leadership that will open up counter arguments for all republicans to employ against these nefarious measures.

Republican unity in 2009 resulted in impressive demonstrations on a range of issues. The continuing media and political demonising of republicans is proof of their effect as is their grudging admission of our growth. The media and political establishment’s objective is to ignore us but through mutual cooperation we have made this impossible. In the coming year this cooperation can be galvanised within our communities as these issues now become their issues in pursuit of our national objectives.

The British Government’s strategy of finally destroying any vestige of republicanism within the provisional movement will not be allowed to undermine the separatist ideal. A resurgent republicanism will demonstrate to both governments and the international community that the destruction of the provisional movement was the liberation of Irish republicanism. It is up to all of us to ensure that 2010 clearly demonstrates this reality.