5 years for a poster
THE possession of a poster and the hearsay of a Garda
superintendent resulted in Cork Sinn Féin organiser Don O'Leary
receiving a five-year sentence for IRA membership at the Special
Court in Green Street, Dublin, on Thursday 19 November.
For some years, `evidence' of this character had been thrown out
of the Special Court but the three judges under Judge Barr made
use of the witch-hunt atmosphere following the Enniskillen
tragedy to savagely reduce the right of free speech in the 26
Counties and to victimise a Sinn Féin activist.
Don O'Leary is a voluntary worker at Sinn Féin's Cork shop-front
city offices in Barrack Street. On sale at the offices, among the
books and pamphlets, are a number of posters. One of these is a
picture of an IRA Volunteer with the slogan `IRA Calls the
Shots'. This poster has been a bestseller.
Sinn Féin's campaigning work among the working-class communities
of Cork's Northside, in which Don O'Leary played a leading role,
has angered the Cork Examiner newspaper and the city's TDs by
showing up their lack of concern for ordinary people.
Phoblacht 26 November 1987
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