Tag Archives: IRA

_69203686_stackBrian Stack

 

Full statement of the IRA leader to the family of murdered prison officer Brian Stack:

“I want to acknowledge that the IRA was responsible for the death of your father. I regret that it has taken so long to clarify this matter for you. This was a secret guerrilla army. It kept no records of its military operations. During the 30 years of war activists were killed, many thousands were imprisoned and leaderships at all levels were constantly changing. Reliable information is therefore not readily available and sometimes not available at all. The IRA did have rules and regulations, including a rule which prohibited any military action against Irish state forces. Regrettably at times these rules were breached.

Between the 1970s and 80s there were prison struggles in Britain, the north (of Ireland) and south (of Ireland). The prisoners resisted these harsh regimes. Prison officers were killed by the IRA in the north. These killings were sanctioned by the IRA leadership but none were sanctioned in the south and none was asked for in the case of your father. In Portlaoise a brutal prison regime saw prisoners and their families suffer greatly.

This is the context in which IRA volunteers shot your father. This action was not authorised by the IRA leadership and for this reason the IRA denied any involvement. Some years later, when the Army Council discovered that its volunteers has shot Prison Officer Brian Stack, the volunteer responsible for the instruction was disciplined. Those who carried out the attack were IRA volunteers acting under orders.

The IRA was responsible for your father’s death. This operation should not have taken place.While the IRA can no longer comment on this matter let me express my sorrow for the pain and hurt your family suffered.”

Stack statement from IRA leader (Citybeat)

Admission that IRA killed prison officer Brian Stack (BBC News NI)

gerry-adams-beretBNh0yDqCEAA-h49 BNh02KrCAAEOjo7

 

41 years ago this week, a Provisional IRA delegation consisting of a 23 year old Gerard Adams met representatives of the British Secretary of State on the outskirts of Derry city. Notes from the meeting detail Adams’ respectful approach to the British addressing them as “Sir”.

Their behaviour and attitude appeared to bear no relation to the indiscriminate campaigns of bombing and shooting in which they have been prominent leaders.

 

British propaganda or was Gerry just there to make the tay?

YOU decide.

Via ConflictNI

903036949030370090303696-19030369890303728903037019030372190303736903037389030374290303774Scenes from the funeral of former IRA Chief of Staff Ruairi O’Bradaigh at the Sacred Heart Church and St Colman’s Cemetery in Roscommon this afternoon.

Everybody stay cool.

Previously: Nobody Knows The Troubles He’s Seen

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

90258152

Uncompromising republican Ruairi O’Bradaigh, who has reportedly died today, and the Sinn Fein split in 1986. From Peter Taylor’s 1997 BBC documentary ‘Provos’.

Via Brian Whelan

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)

Capture22

Richard O’Rawe, was IRA public relations officer in the H Block during the Hunger strike.

Writing on Ed Moloney’s blog ‘The Broken Elbow’, O’Rawe this week says he believes Gerry Adams not Margaret Thatcher must carry blame for most of the deaths during the hunger strike.

According to O’Rawe:

An offer was made to a committee headed up by Gerry Adams which would have gone some way to meet the prisoners’ demands i.e., prisoners could wear their own clothes, prison work would be “educationally based” and [they] would be segregated from loyalist prisoners in Long Kesh.

Danny Morrison delivered the British offer to the prisoners’ O/C (Officer Commanding) Bik McFarlane on July 6, 1981.

McFarlane, in turn notified O’Rawe, who said there was enough in the offer to end the hunger strike.

Within 24 hours, a ‘comm’ was received from Gerry Adams saying the offer was not acceptable and did not validate the deaths of the four hunger strikers.

A further six men died before the strike ended on October 3.

O’Rawe asserts that Adams and his committee should accept culpability in the deaths of those men and should be honest in their account of the strike.

Meanwhile, Gerry Adams in today’s Impartial Reporter says he was “very philosophical” about Mrs Thatcher’s death and could “forgive” her.

“It isn’t up to me to forgive her for what she did to the prisoners; that’s up to them and their families. I can forgive her, because I think we have to be about forgiveness. I can forgive her for anything that was done to me under her rule and I don’t have any problem with that – I actually believe in forgiveness. I just know as an individual; hatred or failure to forgive is most corrosive to the person involved as opposed to the perpetrator who mightn’t even be conscious of what you are thinking about him or her.”

 

‘Adams, Not Thatcher, Culpable For Last Six Hunger Strike Deaths’, Says Former IRA Prison Leader (The Broken Elbow)

Gerry Adams: I can forgive Thatcher (The Impartial Reporter)