Despite months of advance warning of Thursday’s IRA statement,
the news has still came as a shock to many.
![[Irish Republican News]](https://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/rn.gif) | ![[Irish Republican News]](https://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/harp.gif) |
July 30, 2005
Republicans express mixed feelings
Building confidence in peace
The first confirmation that a sequence of historical events was
about to unfold this week was the emergence from prison on
Wednesday of political hostage Sean Kelly.
What next for loyalism?
Unionist paramilitaries are under immense pressure to follow
Thursday’s announcement by the Provisional IRA by stating that
they will call an end to all paramilitary and criminal activity.
NO MORE EXCUSES
The Irish peace process is expected to move rapidly over the
next twelve months following a unilateral move by the
Provisional IRA to stand down and disarm.
Key statements
The full text of statements issued on Thursday.
What they said
A few nuggets from the carnival of reaction that
greeted Thursday’s statement.
Great statement but what happens now?
By Gearoid O Caireallain (for Daily Ireland)
The reporter from the TG4 news wanted to know where they could find a group of republican supporters and nationalists in Belfast at lunchtime yesterday gathered around a television set, eagerly devouring details of the IRA statement and relieving their indigestion with generous dollops of political analysis and grassroots reaction.
Adams succeeded where Dev failed
You can parse yesterday’s IRA statement any way you like but you
end up with the same result. It’s this: For the first time since
the establishment of the Irish state in 1922 the IRA has decided
there is no need for an armed campaign. This time it’s not just
a matter of dumping arms which the IRA has done a few times
before.
July 25, 2005
London shoot-to-kill draws Irish parallels
Irish families have accused British authorities of hypocrisy
after police apologised for shooting Brazilian Jean Charles de
Menezes dead on the London underground.
Churches attacked
Holy Cross Catholic church in north Belfast came under petrol
bomb attack at the weekend.
Speculation over Provisional IRA statement
Republicans are working hard to enable the Provisional IRA to
abandon its armed struggle, but others have their parts to play,
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said tonight [Monday night].
Translation problems in Kerry
A debate is raging in an Irish-speaking town in County Kerry,
where local residents are to vote on changing the town’s name
back to its original Irish form.
HELD IN CONTEMPT
Five Mayo men protesting against the construction of a dangerous
gas pipeline through their community were sent back to jail
on Monday -- despite confirmation that some of the construction work
was carried out without official permission.
LVF forced out as feud escalates
Scores of unionist paramilitaries forced supporters of the rival
LVF out of an East Belfast housing estate as PSNI police stood
by today.
Poetry of Terence McSwiney
In 1920, during the Tan War, the British had withdrawn political
status, which had been won after the death of Thomas Ashe in
1917 and after the 2-week mass hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail in
April of 1920.
All the Hallmarks
By Bill Delaney
An innocent man, brutally shot dead in cold blood. Lies, dissemination and spin by ‘anti-terror’ British police and the usual cabal of media and politicians.
July 16, 2005
Sectarian violence continues
A Catholic woman whose north Belfast home was hit by blast
bombers today said she believed the attack was meant to kill.
Prisoners ‘punished’ over segregation
Tyrone priest Monsignor Denis Faul has warned of a danger of a
Republican hunger strike in Maghaberry prison because of poor
prisoner conditions.
PKK blamed for death of Irish tourist
An Irish teenager from County Waterford has died in a suicide
bomb blast in Turkey blamed on Kurdish separatists, the PKK.
Loyalists’ suicide jibe provokes anger
Unionists erected a slogan on a bonfire in Belfast earlier this
week mocking nationalists who have taken their own lives.
CIRA MAKES CLAIM
The Continuity IRA has claimed responsibility for a blast bomb
attack on British forces amid rioting in north Belfast on
Tuesday.
Notes on the marching season
Journalist Anne Cadwallader gathers memories about the marching
season -- some of them hers, some, not but all of them, true.
Decommissioning chief arrives
The head of the arms decommissioning body is already in Belfast
awaiting developments ahead of an expected move by the
Provisional IRA to disarm.
July 12, 2005
Support for Truth Commission
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said Ireland could
learn from his country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Sectarian attacks mark Twelfth
Arsonists attempted to murder a Catholic family in north Belfast
at the weekend.
Hostility grows to expected IRA statement
Speculation that a statement by the Provisional IRA on its
future direction is expected within days are being discounted by
some republican sources.
ARDOYNE ANGER
A number of injuries were reported in north Belfast this evening
as an anti-Catholic Orange Order parade was forced through the
republican Ardoyne community.
Brutal feud ‘execution’
An ongoing feud between unionist paramilitary organisations has
left another man dead and another critically injured.
The Glorious Twelfth
By Susan McKay (for the Irish News)
And so dawns the Glorious Twelfth after a weekend which saw the attempted murder by arson of a Catholic couple in north Belfast, and the terrifying eviction from her home in Ahoghill, Co Antrim, of Kathleen McCaughey.
SF concern over Criminal Justice reform
Criminal justice oversight commissioner, Britain’s Lord Clyde,
has published his fourth oversight report on the progress of the
recommendations.
British ethos to blame for lack of equality
By Brian Feeney (for the Irish News)
Equality of status and parity of esteem. That’s a phrase you don’t often hear these days. Yet it was a fundamental concept of the Good Friday Agreement. All the participants in the talks in 1997 committed themselves in the Declaration of Support for the Agreement to equality and mutual respect.
July 8, 2005
PSNI accused of sectarian policing
A County Derry man has spoken out against an attempt by the PSNI
to recruit him as an informer as loyalist attacks in the area
are ignored.
Ahern discusses North with Pope
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Pope Benedict XVI discussed the North
of Ireland at the Vatican on Thursday.
Nationwide protests back Rossport 5
Over 1,000 people staged a nationwide protest last night to
support five north Mayo residents jailed over their opposition
to the construction of a high-pressure gas pipeline through
their lands.
London attacks condemned
The attacks in London on Thursday morning have been strongly
condemned throughout Ireland.
APPEAL TO AVOID TWELFTH VIOLENCE
North Belfast is “a tinder box” and people could be killed amid
tensions over contentious July 12 marches, Gerry Adams has
warned.
The Alternative G8
AN address to the Alternative G8 Summit, ‘Ideas to Change the World’,
by RSF Vice-President Des Dalton.
CIRA mount attack in Armagh
Dissident republicans are again targeting British Crown forces
after a device was found in County Armagh.
Orange Order public relations disaster
By Danny Morrison (for Daily Ireland)
It is almost the Twelfth, when Orangemen across the North march in their thousands to celebrate the victory of William of Orange over James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. It was 300 years ago, but doesn’t it seem as if it were only yesterday?
July 4, 2005
British laud Adams and McGuinness
British Direct Ruler Peter Hain has heaped praise on Sinn Féin’s
leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, describing them as
“visionary” for urging the Provisional IRA to end its armed
struggle.
Sectarian attack as tensions mount
A man has been left with a deep facial wound after being
attacked while walking along the Oldpark Road in north Belfast.
Anger over British Army shooting
People in the border town of Crossmaglen have dismissed the
official version of a shooting in the town last week.
Protests after jailing of Shell opponents
A series of protests have been organised after five men were
jailed at the insistence of the multinational Shell company over
their opposition to a gas pipeline being built across their
lands in County Mayo.
Ardyone braces for Twelfth stand-off
There are fears that serious violence will erupt after the
Parades Commission allowed the anti-Catholic Orange Order to
march twice through nationalist Ardyone on July 12th.
BACK TO THE FEUDING
A feud-related murder by the unionist paramilitary UVF in
Belfast could lead to “a bloody summer of tit-for-tat killings”,
according to the Ulster Unionist Party.
Shell and Co. come to Mayo
The Corrib Gas Field off the west coast of Ireland is being developed
by three multinational companies, headed by Shell. They intend to
refine the gas in a forest which is 9 km inland. Shell intend to bring
the offshore pipeline to the refinery through this 9 km stretch of land
along and under the public road and in close proximity to houses.
Silence over parades issue is immoral
There is only one
route to follow. It is not with banners and bands or with rocks
and bottles. It is the arduous and risky road to mutual respect
and a modicum of understanding.
