“Please don’t ask for credit, as a refusal may often offend” (4/2012)

“Please don’t ask for credit, as a refusal may often offend” (4/2012)

Hung on Sinn Fein shops, this is a sterling message to those young militants who took up arms against the state in the 1970s and 1980s.

From distant recall, the British Operations Handbook which I handed over to Pat Doherty’s nominees, "Jim" (Derry) and Raymond Smith (Ballyboden,Rathfarnham,Dublin), contained the following political directions at the beginning before I moved on to the detail of what I called the Peace Process by way of forcing the English to a sincere negotiating position in Ireland by bombing Thatcher’s financial backers in the 1987 election.

My instructions for what I termed a "peace process" was inspired by the glasnost revolution of the social democratic leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They were

1.     reconciliation with unionists and a return to Stormont

2.     taking seats in Stormont as part of a power sharing arrangement

3.     the end of the armed struggle  and eventual destruction of arms and dissolution of the IRA when there was real progress on funding

4.     recognition of the southern parliament (1983)

Taken together these formed the leitmotiv of a movement which reached fulfilment in 1998.

As a secret leader in those days, I can take the responsibility for the positive developments in republicanism but abhor their subservience in our times to MI 5 monitors in their ranks as part of “confidence building measures” (Adams) and “reciprocal arrangements” (McGuinness). 

Joseph Paul McCarroll

That plan and me 2/2012

In APRIL 1989 I devised a Programme of Irish Socialists which I circulated to over three hundred trade unionists, unemployed groups, tenants groups, residents groups and politicians. In 1995 this plan became the National Development Plan after fourteen and a half million Irish pounds had changed hands between the brother of the General Secretary of the Labour Party at that time,Ruairi Quinn, and Guinness Mahon Bankers.

Judge for yourself from what I recall from the contents of this plan as to who is responsible, as principal, for the transformation of the South.

The plan was on one page as follows:

1: Transport. Motorways between Dublin and Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Derry and Belfast. A tramway for Dublin. Electrification of the railways.Extension of the Dart to all suburbs in Dublin.Construction of an Undergound to link Connolly,Heuston and Pearse Street Street Railway Stations.Western Orbital Route.Short haul buses for Dublin.

 2: Health. Public health insurance.

3: Education. Free university education. Democratic control of primary and secondary schools.

4.: Housing. Demolition of all slums and construction of family houses.

5: Communities. Libraries, sports centres, leisure centres,town theatres and community halls. Olympic stadium .

6: Dublin Pedestrianisation of streets with O’Connell  Street turned into a concourse for public meetings .Extended National Museum to include  Leinster House and National Library witth  Dail moving to College Green  and Trinity's copyright status to be trnsferred by law to National Library in West Dublin.

7: Taxation .A progressive income tax.

8: Defence. Compulsory military service

9: The North. Irish Unity and decriminalization of the IRA.

10: Irish language. Irish language TV station.

11: Fiscal matters. Repudiation of the national debt.
12.Agriculture.Keeping as many on the land as possible.
13.Nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
14.European Community.Democratisation.
.
Ruairi Quinn is still the prisoner of these ideas in the field of education as is is Adams as regards the national debt.

I have moved on and returned to the church.

Joseph Paul McCarroll Ll.B