Republican News · Thursday 20 February 1997
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)
You may remember that last October Senator David Norris, speaking in the Seanad, described An Phoblacht as ``highly abusive, sectarian and racist''. He went on: ``As long as this journal peddles its message of hate and contempt how can anyone take seriously claims of the republican movement to be interested in genuine brotherhood with those whom it regards and describes as sub-human?''
I wrote to him, asking how he could justify his remarks. He replied, asking for the six issues of the paper previous to the time he made his statement. These I sent along with an invitation to give him space in the paper to analyse them.
He has now written back and I am happy to say that he has withdrawn his remarks on the record of the Seanad. He said it was ``certainly not my intention to be unjust in my treatment even of a publication with whose ethos I fundamentally disagree.''
Fair play to him for withdrawing his remarks. The offer of space for an article still stands and he has promised to take it up. And so dialogue begins.
Glasgow Celtic's crusade against anything republican continues and it is threatening to reach McCarthyite depths of paranoia. One well-known victim was Martin Meehan's play Insurrection, which was booked to play in the Celtic Supporters Social Club in London Road in Glasgow last July. The play was about James Connolly who happened to be born in Scotland.
yway, the booking was cancelled because, it was alleged, it was against Celtic's Bhoys Against Bigotry campaign. The case is now going through the Small Claims Court. The club's lawyers have claimed ``the theme of the musical play was of an undesirable political nature''.
We'll keep you posted about this particular witchhunt.
What is the fascination that the Crown Forces have developed with cars? Or, more precisely, dodgy dealings involving cars. Hot on the wheels of an alleged RUC stolen car racket comes word that British soldiers in Germany are making £1,000 profit from re-selling to British dealers the tax-free, 5% discounted, new, right-hand drive cars which are a perk of being based in Germany. So that's what this business is about - for Queen, country and whatever few bob you can fiddle on the side.
Our movement, I'm glad to say has moved on. Back in 1968 this little book was expected to be required reading. The title should give you an idea of what it's like. But the chapter headings are even more revealing.
There is Chapter One: Wolfe Tone and his Dream Woman. Or Chaper Twelve: O'Donovan Rossa and his Little Poetess Wife.
The introduction says the book was written for ``the young women of Ireland in the hope that they will base their lives on the heroines of their own history rather than on the false picture presented to them of foreign pagan, so-called stage and screen stars, models and what have you, who are paraded in our daily press and on our television and cinema screens as the ideals which should be followed in our so-called affluent society.''
Aye, indeed, beware them foreign pagans.
I see that former head of the RUC Jack Hermon is back in the headlines, denouncing the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Isn't it a coincidence when his autobiography is about to be published.
His pro-unionist sensitivities may be offended by the map which is carried in the book. That great nationalist stronghold known as Londonderry is marked as just plain Derry.
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