![[An Phoblacht/Republican News]](/web/19990129025738im_/http://www.utexas.edu/students/iig/archive/aprn/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)
An Phoblacht/Republican News · Thursday November 30 1995
``As an Englishman I was so incensed and enraged that your new found `charm offensive' would stoop so low by some of your followers and cohorts. On the 20th October 1995 I was listening at home to the radio station (Talk UK) which is a national phone-in, when a man with a Liverpool-sounding accent calling himself Patrick was on air live. I do not know what pretext he used to get on but after saying hello to the DJ he said, and I quote, `Why are the British establishment doing this to the Irish peace process'. The next thing heard was a long loud toilet flush gurgle.
``The DJ was quite shocked and quickly moved on to another caller. I was exasperated to say the least.
``This kind of behaviour is not how political affairs are conducted and is not on!
``If you have truly chosen the ballot box over the gun and want to join in debate you must behave like true democrats, our historic democracy is not a plaything. Please take note!''
Whew! That's really telling us. The writer is Charles Ashley JP (Retd.) of Bristol but what I really want to know is who is the very imaginative telephone caller from Liverpool?
Another controversy raging in Liverpool is about the birthplace of Big Jim Larkin. Last month his grandson, known as Young Jim Larkin, launched a book in the presence of Dick Spring in Iveagh House, Dublin. Called In the Footsteps of Big Jim, it claims that Larkin was not born, as hitherto believed, in Liverpool, but in County Down. Angry Irish Liverpudlians are contesting this claim.
The James Larkin Society in Liverpool, has written to me enclosing a copy of Larkin's birth certificate which confirms that Big Jim was indeed born at 41 Combermere Street, Liverpool 8 and baptised at St Patrick's Church, Park Place. ``The reason of course Big Jim was born in Liverpool was similar to the countless number of Gaelic Irish refugees of that bleak century in Irish history, forced to leave their own land because they could no longer sustain their lives due to British imperial rule,'' writes the society.
I think I know the man to sort this out. Keeping the spirit of Larkin alive in Liverpool the local Saoirse campaign for the release of political prisoners recently hosted Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Austin on a speaking tour where he met councillors and trade unionists and joined campaigners unfurling a banner on the Mersey ferry. Now our Joe is known for his ability to be economical with the truth when the occasion demands. I think he should be sent to suss out who the fibbers are and establish once and for all where Big Jim was born.
In an unfortunate choice of words a US reporter last week told one of my journalists that Bill Clinton's visit to Ireland was not seen as a ``magic bullet for the peace process''.
A chief superintendent in the RUC has taken legal advice about suing members of the Ulster Unionist Party (OUP). Bill McCreesh was not amused when the Portadown branch of the OUP pointed to the fact that he is a Catholic and criticised his handling of a Sinn Féin rally that was banned from entering Lurgan town centre at the end of July this year.
The statement was released in the name of Arnold Hatch, a close associate of new UUP leader David Trimble, who was photographed carrying him shoulder high the day he was elected to the leadership. The local UUP branch apologised to McCreesh and Trimble disassociated himself from the remarks. However this does not seem to have satisfied McCreesh who was accused of being ``provocative'' and of employing tactics that ``heightened tension''.
``Given that many of them are still too young to join, I think it says an awful lot about just what the British army, and the Irish Guards in particular, can offer. The new recruits face an exciting induction.''
So said Lieutenant Colonel Sebastion Roberts, Commanding Officer of the Irish Guards after his regiment recently held an open day at Ballykinlar and recruited 41 ``boys''.
Fast forward a number of weeks to Monday, 27 November, and we discover what Lt Col Roberts meant. Rodney McNamee (21) a member of the 1st Batt, Irish Guards, appeared in Cookstown Court on Monday 27 November charged with possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life and wounding another guardsman with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm. Both charges relate to an incident that took place in the RIR barracks in the town on Saturday night. The injured guardsman, David Molloy, was shot in the thigh. McNamee was remanded on bail into military custody. ``Exciting induction'' indeed.