The chummy photograph above, taken from Gerry Adams’ Twitter feed in March 2014, shows the then leader of Sinn Fein enjoying the company of the cream of the Democratic Party’s congressional leadership as they prepare for the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Washington.

The third figure from the left, wearing glasses and towering above Rita O’Hare, is a character called Joe Crowley. Until yesterday the Irish-American congressman for a district of New York that combines part of the Bronx and Queens had never been seriously challenged in his 20-year career in Washington.

Considered one of the most powerful Democratic Party bosses Crowley was being touted as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives if, in the November elections, the Democrats took control of the House and the current party leader, Nancy Pelosi was to retire, as some expect her to do.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – her primary win was a blow to Democratic Party bosses and Sinn Fein

Had all that panned out as it was supposed to then Sinn Fein would have had one of the most powerful politicians in the United States as a faithful friend and ally, someone who stood by Gerry Adams when he was arrested over the ‘disappearance’ of Jean McConville and unequivocally backed the party’s approach to the Good Friday Agreement through thick and thin.

That was until yesterday when a 28-year old, left-wing political neophyte called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thrashed Crowley in a primary election, upsetting the Democrat’s political apple cart and winning support for a radical program that included socialised medicine and opposition to Trump’s immigration policies.

With the fall of Joe Crowley, Sinn Fein have lost a powerful friend in the corridors of American political power. It was a bad day for the Democratic party’s cautious, centrist leadership; but it was also a bad day for the Shinners.

At last, someone who understands ‘I, Dolours’:

• ABOUT
• NEWS

I, DOLOURS

 

Maurice Sweeney,  Ireland and Northern  Ireland, 2017, 82’

In the big picture of Irish republicanism the lines are generally clear; the history of colonial oppression is punctuated by huge events: 1921; Bloody Sunday; The Good Friday Agreement, and many others besides. But one tends to forget the continuous nature of struggle, a phenomenon that links generations and elongates time, particularly for those incarcerated; particularly the lifers. Director Maurice Sweeney͛s portrait of IRA volunteer Dolours Price tells of both the collective and the individual and the tension between them in a film that is courageously candid, delicate, and beautifully shot. Using archive, interviews and re-creation Sweeney captures perfectly the ethos of her republican household in which – “We wouldn’t hear Little Red Riding Hood as a bedtime story but rather ‘Theyhanged my mate Jimmy’”. Sweeney confronts head-on the issue of the disappeared–traitors to the cause who were eliminated; spectres in Dolour͛s life that would follow her to the grave. Seamlessly the narrative changes form and in skilfully wrought re-creations the horror of solitary and force feeding is brought home. Sad, beautiful, delicate and finely crafted, this is a major film.

Please see note on parental guidance below.

Maurice Sweeney has been regarded as one of Ireland’s leading documentary filmmakers. In more recent years he has also begun to focus on fiction. As a director, Maurice has won four IFTAs. In 2010, he filmed and directed the widely acclaimed The Forgotten Irish, dealing with the emigration to Britain in the 1950s. Maurice’s first major drama deature, Saving The Titantic, has been sold throughout the world and has been watched by an estimated 10 million people, and winning several prestigious awards.

Director: Maurice Sweeney

Producer: Nuala Cunningham, Ed Moloney 

Camera: Kate McCullough

Editor: Mick Mahon

Sound: Stephen McDowell, Mick Cassidy

Music: Giles Packam

SCREENING TIME

Saturday 21st, 8.00pm, The RoadHouse Cinema (Q&A)

BOOKING NOTE

Please book your tickets online through the’Book Your Tickets Online Now’ tab on our menu bar. Once you book your ticket online you will be required to bring the ticket that was emailed to you, for entry to the film. You can print your ticket at home, or present your ticket to be scanned on your mobile phone at the door of the venue. It is recommended that you book your tickets in advance as their is no guarantee of tickets still being available at the festival site. In order to secure a seat for the film of your choice we recommend you book in advance. However, if you wish to book your tickets at the festival please note that the festival box office takes cash only. The nearest ATM to Headfort House is in Kells Town (approx. 2kms) & and there are no card facilities at the box office.

Parental Guidance Note These films have been recommended by the Guth Gafa Programming Team as suitable for children 16 and over. However, parental discretion is advised and we ask parents to consider the film synopsis and watch the film trailer before purchasing tickets.

June 19, 2018
By Jacob Rosenberg

After stating that he did not need to prepare much for a meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore, US president Donald Trump showed the North Korean leader a fake trailer depicting what his country would look like if it reentered the international community.”I think he loved it,” said Trump, who reportedly adored North Korea’s state-run TV service. He also told Kim that his country could have “the best hotels in the world” and announced that he would suspend US military drills in South Korea, but did not notify South Korea. Kim brought his own toilet to the summit.

The Department of Justice said in a report that a top FBI agent investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election had texted another agent that “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president, and that former FBI director James Comey had mishandled the probe into Hillary Clinton’s email server and used his personal email for FBI business. Paul Manafort’s bail was revoked, and the Supreme Court upheld Ohio’s ability to purge voters from its rolls. In Nevada, a legal pimp won the Republican primary for the state Legislature.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited the “wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government,” a passage that was often used to defend slavery in the 1850s, to justify separating immigrant children from their parents and the zero tolerance policy for those who illegally cross the US-Mexico border, including asylum seekers. An executive of Casa Padre, a nonprofit detention center inside a former Walmart in Texas, told journalists, “You might want to smile. The kids feel a little like animals in a cage, being looked at.” The shelter holds nearly 1,500 children, and has a mural of Donald Trump with a quote, in English and Spanish, from his 1987 book The Art of the Deal. Alphonso Davies, a 17-year-old Vancouver Whitecaps FC soccer player whose parents are Liberian refugees, stated, “The people of North America have always welcomed me. If given the opportunity, I know they will welcome you” during the final bid that won the United States, Mexico, and Canada joint hosting duties for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Animals are becoming increasingly nocturnal because of human activity.

AT&T purchased Time Warner for $85.4 billion; Comcast bid $65 billion “all cash” to acquire 21st Century Fox, which Disney is also trying to acquire. An electric scooter startup is seeking funding at a $2 billion valuation, Tesla eliminated 9 percent of its workforce, and Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of the blood-testing startup Theranos, was indicted on federal fraud charges. It was reported that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made at least $82 million in income outside their positions in the White House and that EPA chief Scott Pruitt had an aide help secure his wife a job at a conservative group after failing to get her a Chick-fil-A franchise. A woman is preemptively suing NASA to keep a vial of moondust that Neil Armstrong gave her; a dust storm the size of North America may have broken a NASA probe; and researchers found the source of microwave light emanating across the Milky Way may be hydrogenated nanodiamonds. Archaeologists think they have found the head of Jezebel’s husband. Czech president Milos Zeman announced a press conference, gathered reporters, and then had two firefighters burn a massive pair of red underpants in front of them. “I’m sorry to make you look like little idiots,” he said.

I hear that Rory Carroll has been made The Guardian’s Irish correspondent, replacing Henry McDonald who is moving to London but is currently battling illness on two fronts. We wish him a speedy recovery.

McDonald’s tenure at the Grauniad has been characterised by regular sniping from elements in the newsroom notorious for their sympathy for Sinn Fein and unhappy that their man in Belfast did not toe the line.

This was a tradition begun by the paper’s late deputy editor and Gerry Adams’ devotee, Georgina Henry (partner of playwright Ronan Bennett) and continued by luminaries such as Roy Greenslade, who once penned articles under the pseudonym ‘George King’ – King George backwards – for the SF/IRA journal An Phoblacht/Republican News.

Greenslade’s penmanship for the Provos was exposed by a Guardian colleague, Nick Davies. It later transpired that Greenslade was a friend of Pat Doherty, a former IRA Director of Intelligence.

He also stood surety for IRA member John Downey, accused of the 1982 bombing of Hyde Park which killed four soldiers.

I am led to believe that there was a more or less incessant campaign by elements in the paper to remove McDonald, especially from those hostile to his less than unctuous attitude towards the Provos.

I must declare an interest in this squabble since The Guardian was the only major newspaper in the British isles not to review my book, ‘A Secret History of the IRA‘. I think I know why.

On the eve of the book’s publication the late Martin McGuinness toured newspaper offices in Britain and Ireland – including my then employer The Sunday Tribune – to label me a dissident sympathiser (trans: ‘If you give this book a good review we’ll label you as well!’). Presumably he got a rapt hearing at the Grauniad.

While it seems that McDonald’s ill health did not provide the pretext for his removal, the Guardian‘s internal announcement made no mention of his health problems nor thanked him for his service.

Rory Carroll be warned.

I see from yesterday’s Irish Times (see below) that PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris is one of five candidates recently interviewed for the post of Garda Commissioner.

Don’t be surprised if the selection board plumps for the Northerner. It would be one of those ‘hands across the Border’ gestures that dovetails quite nicely with the post-Brexit political necessities. A gesture to the separated brethren and a middle finger to T. May.

Drew Harris

One person unlikely to extend a warm welcome to the PSNI chief  is retired SF leader Gerry Adams. Harris was Assistant Chief Constable in charge of Crime when orders were given to pursue the Boston College oral history archives for material dealing with the ‘disappearance’ of Jean McConville.

This came amid mounting accusations that Adams had given the order to send the widowed mother-of-ten to an unmarked grave on the shores of Carlingford Lough.

Gerry Adams

Drew Harris has a very personal reason to detest the IRA, its works and leaders.

His father Alwyn Harris, a Superintendent in the RUC, was killed in October 1989 by a booby trap bomb attached to his car – a so-called ‘up and under’ – as he and his wife were on their way to church from their home in Lisburn, Co Antrim.

His wife was not seriously injured but the policeman, who was on sick leave, died. Such booby trap bombs invariably caused terrible injuries. The IRA admitted responsibility.

Drew Harris will also be remembered for giving secret evidence at the Smithwick Tribunal in 2013 saying that the PSNI and MI5 had intelligence that the IRA in Co Louth had wanted to spare the life of accused Garda spy, Tom Oliver but when they brought their plea to a senior Provo they were turned down.

Harris was asked to write down the name of the senior IRA figure and pass it to the presiding judge, Peter Smithwick. There has been intense speculation about the identity of this Provo, who is believed to have doubled as a Sinn Fein activist.

You can read about all that here and here.

And here is the text of The Irish Times report on the selection of a new Garda Commissioner:

Tue, Jun 19, 2018

Five have taken part in final interviews for Garda commissioner

If an internal Garda candidate is chosen, appointment likely to go ahead in August

Sarah Bardon

Five individuals have participated in the final round of interviews to become the next Garda commissioner, The Irish Times understands.

Former commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan stood aside last September after weeks of pressure on her position. Dónall Ó Cualáin is the Acting Commissioner.

Final interviews for the role are understood to have taken place over recent days and a decision may be taken as soon as within the next fortnight.

The Public Appointments Service will make a recommendation to the Policing Authority for consideration of Government, which will accept or reject the person for appointment.

The authority and Government were both represented on the interview panel by chair of the authority Josephine Feehily and a former secretary general at the Department of Justice.

If an internal Garda candidate wins the process, their appointment would likely go ahead in August. However, for an outside candidate, a security check would be required and possibly a work permit.

Appointed

Those additional steps in the process would mean the next commissioner would be appointed next September at the earliest.

It is understood Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll and Assistant Commissioner Pat Leahy are the only two internal candidates in the running to head the Garda.

That would mean the commissioner would be appointed around the same time the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland reports to Government after a year-long review process.

The commission had previously warned that the new Garda commissioner should not begin until its work was concluded next September.

Internal candidates

It is understood Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll and Assistant Commissioner Pat Leahy are the only two internal candidates in the running.

Deputy Chief Constable with the Police Service of Northern Ireland Drew Harris is understood to also be in the final five.

The Government agreed last December the new Garda commissioner would be paid a salary of €250,000 a year, compared to the €180,000 paid to Ms O’Sullivan.

This September 2016 article on the US neo-Nazi website ‘Radio Aryan‘ suggests Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un’s North Korea may have more in common than most people imagine:

This piece in the Indo below more or less speaks for itself. Getting into government has become about getting into government. Nothing else.

SF chiefs keep open option of talks with FG and FF

Kevin Doyle

June 15 2018 2:30 AM

Sinn Féin chiefs have amended a motion that will be put to its membership this weekend in a bid to keep its coalition options open after a general election.

A Dublin-based branch of the party has tabled a motion for debate that would limit Mary Lou McDonald’s engagement with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

It said that, while Sinn Féin could talk to any party, its “only objective will be to form a broad left-wing government comprising parties and independents of a similar political ideology”.

As Sinn Féin’s adopts motions from its ard fheis as policy, this would have effectively banned the leadership from entering government with either Leo Varadkar or Micheál Martin.

However, party bosses contacted the cumann in Templeogue seeking agreement to make the motion more ambiguous.

It will now say that Sinn Féin “should attempt” to form a left-wing coalition, rather than having this as the party’s “only objective”.

Deputy leader Pearse Doherty confirmed the change, saying Sinn Féin wanted to meet with all independents and parties after an election “to see whether we could deliver a programme for government that deals with the big crises”.

The leadership of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have both categorically ruled out working with Sinn Féin.

Mr Doherty said Sinn Féin’s aim was to be the biggest political party.

“Obviously the bigger the mandate we have, the more influence we would have in those negotiations,” he said.

Party members will also debate whether Sinn Féin should contest a presidential election later this year.

A motion calls on the ard comhairle to “positively consider” putting a candidate forward regardless of whether President Michael D Higgins seeks re-election or not.

Irish Independent

June 12, 2018
By Sharon J. Riley

The leaders of Canada, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, the UK, the United States, and 12 other countries gathered for the annual G7 summit, held this year in Charlevoix, Quebec. US president Donald Trump arrived late to a meeting on gender equality, missed a meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron, refused to sign the summit’s joint communiqué shortly after agreeing to sign it, and said that Russian president Vladimir Putin should have been invited.Trump left the summit early, after less than 24 hours in Canada, in order to travel to Singapore for what he described as a “get-to-know-you situation” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at a five-star resort on the island of Sentosa, which was once known as the Island of Death from Behind for housing a Japanese execution site during World War II and now has a theme park and two golf courses. Doug Ford, a label and packaging magnate who is the brother of Toronto’s late mayor Rob Ford, who was once filmed smoking crack, was elected premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. In Surrey, British Columbia, it was reported that feral peacocks were attacking cars after seeing their own reflections.
Austria’s government announced that it would close seven mosques, and the government of Bavaria, Germany, made it mandatory that every public building display a Christian cross at their entrance, and said that it would consider using private jets to deport migrants seeking asylum. US attorney general Jeff Sessions ordered federal immigration judges to “generally” deny “claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors,” and to complete a quota of 700 cases a year; the US government plans to transfer 1,600 detained immigrants, including asylum seekers, to federal prisons; and an Ecuadorean pizza-delivery man was arrested after trying to deliver pizza to a military base in New York. It was reported that children had been separated from their parents while attempting to cross the US border in 1,768 cases over 17 months, and a Senator touring a detention facility said that children were being kept in “big cages.” A Massachusetts kindergarten teacher rewrote “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” with the lyrics “Lockdown, lockdown, lock the door. Shut the lights off, say no more” as part of a drill for school shootings. A two-year-old boy died after being shot by his 13-year-old brother in Ohio; a four-year-old boy was shot in South Carolina after playing with a gun he found under a mattress; a 10-year-old boy was shot while playing in his yard in Mississippi; a two-year-old boy was shot in the head and a nine-year-old boy was shot in the stomach while shooting targets in Tennessee; a four-year-old boy was shot at a gas station in Missouri; a five-year-old boy was shot while sitting on a porch in Louisiana; a five-year-old boy was shot in Pennsylvania; a six-year-old boy in Kentucky died when a gun he was playing with went off; a 12-year-old girl died after being shot by two teenagers in Georgia; five-year-old boy was shot by his eight-year-old brother and seven people were shot at a child’s birthday party in Illinois; and a ten-year-old boy was shot in the head at a birthday party in Virginia. NRA Family, the National Rifle Association’s website “for families and beginning shooters of all ages,” posted a “Fun Friday Quiz” titled “Which Rifle Are You?”
A member of the National Guard was arrested after leading police on a two-hour chase in a stolen armored vehicle in Virginia. Police in Mesa, Arizona, released a video showing a group of police officers punching and kneeing an unarmed 33-year-old black man because he wouldn’t sit down on the floor; a 24-year-old black man in Chicago, was killed after being shot in the back by police; and the National Sheriff Association announced a new program to teach police how to reduce the use of lethal force against pets. A pastor conducting a baptism in a lake in Ethiopia was killed by a crocodile, a woman in Florida was dragged into a lake by an alligator while she was walking her dogs, and a cashier on her break at a Florida Home Depot was attacked in the parking lot by a spider monkey named Spanky.It was reported that Chinese demand for donkey skins was causing a decline in Kenyan donkey populations. A 340-ton machine in Tennessee that can calculate 200 quadrillion mathematical equations per second overtook a Chinese mainframe to become the world’s fastest supercomputer, and it was reported that researchers in Germany were developing a robot that gives good hugs.

This article, from yesterday’s (Sat) New York Post, may help to give an answer to those who have been wondering what Gerry Adams might do, now that he has handed over the leadership of Sinn Fein to Mary Lou.

To be asked to eulogise someone known as ‘the contractor to the stars’ on the same platform as Martha Stewart at a fancy Hampton’s funeral suggests to me that the bold Gerry is well got amongst New York’s rich and famous.

Don’t be surprised if one day you pick up your paper or read on social media that the one-time IRA Chief of Staff has relocated himself to that part of the world, where no-one mentions Jean McConville or has even heard of Brian Stack – much less Tom Oliver.

Martha Stewart delivers eulogy at ‘builder to the stars’ memorial

June 9, 2018 | 6:46pm

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Martha Stewart