"Ireland, unfree, shall never be at peace." - Padraig Pearse
Kansas City
Irish Northern Aid
1
Pat McGeown
Pat McGeown Unit
Irish Northern Aid is an American based, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which supports, by peaceful means, a free and independent 32 county Ireland offering justice and equality for all its citizens in accordance with the Proclamation of the Irish Republic issued on Easter, 1916.
Irish Northern Aid highlights the colonial and sectarian nature of partition and British misrule as the primary reason for present conflict in Ireland, and supports Irish political prisoners and their dependants as well as surviving family members of those killed as a result of political violence.
Additionally, Irish Northern Aid provides financial support to registered charities who are engaged in supporting those who have been affected most by the British occupation of the 6 counties of Northeast Ireland.
We invite you to look through our site, read a bit about the history and current situation in Ireland, and join with us in our work toward peace in a re-united Ireland where all are ensured civil and human rights regardless of their political or religious affiliation.
The Kansas City unit of Irish Northern Aid is named for Pat McGeown, known as the "11th Hunger Striker".
“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance
it accumulates in the form of facts.” - Henry Adams
No other “Irish” organization in the Kansas City area has been maligned as much as the Pat McGeown unit of Irish Northern Aid (INA). Ironically, no other “Irish” organization in the metro area has done as much to educate American citizens about the civil rights and human rights abuses perpetrated against the Nationalist citizens of the six occupied counties of Ireland. The mission of INA remains as it originated in the early 70’s, to assist with financial aid, the families of political prisoners of war as a result of “The Troubles” in Ireland. Another fact that may surprise the “uninformed expert” is that these monies are now and always have been available to the families of Loyalist prisoners as well as Republicans.
The local unit was chartered in 1971 under the national organization and included Bill, Tom, Mike, and Pat Quinn, Fred, and Tom Wyrsch, Marshall McDonald, Jerry Hayes, Wally Bell and Mike O’Neill. Over the past thirty years the unit grew with a membership of seventy-three dedicated to the fund raising goals and the reunification of a democratic Republic of Ireland. Local projects have included letter writing campaigns to American and British political leaders protesting such things such as denying POW status to the incarcerated prisoners, the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry, the use of plastic bullets against peaceful civil rights demonstrators and urging the independent investigation of the murders of civil rights attorneys, Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson.
Funds raised by INA are sent to “the north” and are distributed to families in need by Green Cross. Annual audits of the national organization’s books are conducted by the governments of Ireland, Great Brittan and the USA. No bookkeeping malfeasance, fraud or misdirection of monies has ever been alleged by any of the three auditing agencies.
While in the cities of Derry and Belfast, I have personally experienced the grateful comments of families who have benefited from the monetary gifts. Their appreciation was for INA money which purchased clothing, food, toys and school supplies for children whose fathers and/or mothers were incarcerated in British prisons.
The INA mission today focuses on raising financial aid for organizations which assist ex-POWs with personal, family and career counseling, job training and support in fighting social and economic discrimination.
Membership in Irish Northern Aid is open to anyone who desires to see a lasting peace with justice in an independent and united Ireland.
The next time you hear that uninformed expert telling you “all about Irish Northern Aid” ask them if they ever attended an INA meeting. Ask them if they have ever visited any of the families in the north of Ireland who have received the benefits of the INA effort. You might also ask them what they have done for oppressed and disenfranchised minority in the six counties other than quaff a green beer, walk in a parade or ride on a float on the 17th of March.
To learn more, give us a call.
Catholic schoolboy
beaten to death
Michael McIlveen
Posted May 11, 2006
A schoolboy savagely beaten in a sectarian attack in Ballymena on Saturday died in hospital on Monday night.
Two men were arrested in connection with the assault, which is now being treated as a murder inquiry.
While it was known 15-year-old Michael McIlveen was in critical condition, the death has still come as a shock.
Michael, a local Catholic boy, was with friends when they were chased from an entertainment complex in the town after getting a takeaway
pizza.
They scattered, but the teenager could not escape and was set upon. He was battered by a gang of unionist thugs, who cornered him and used a baseball bat before stamping on his head. The full extent of his injuries was only discovered after he managed to make his way home.
He was taken from his house in the Dunvale estate to Antrim Area Hospital where his family maintained a bedside vigil until his life support machine was switched off at around 8pm on Monday night.
The assault is one of a number of recent attacks on nationalists in Ballymena, a predomi- nantly Protestant town which is the home town of
the DUP's Ian Paisley.
Speaking this afternoon before his condition deteriorated, Philip McGuigan, Sinn Fein assembly member for North Antrim, said there had been a number of attacks of a sectarian nature. "Action is needed now to avoid further acts like this and the kind of summer we had last year."
Ballymena has come to displace nearby Larne as the town with most sectarian reputation in the North. Two weeks ago, Michael's 20-year-old
friend Kirk McCaughern was stabbed. Tensions in the town was said to be at a new high following the latest attack.
Nationalist representatives had warned in recent months that lives would be lost if the sectarian attacks in the area continued.
Last year, dozens of attacks were registered against Catholic owned property in the Ballymena area. Paint bombers targeted several churches in the district, and arsonists attacked two Catholic schools.
In nearby Aghogill, several Catholic residents were forced to flee their homes after being singled out in loyalist arson attacks. In an
unprecedented move, the PSNI handed out fire blankets and smoke alarms to Catholic families in the district last August in case firebombers
attacked.
Numerous petrol and paint-bomb attacks were carried out on Our Lady's Church in Harryville throughout last summer, and it is feared there
could be similar attacks this summer. The church has been the scene of two unionist paramilitary blockades in the past decade.
Meanwhile, the home of a Catholic couple in Garvagh, County Derry, was targeted in a suspected sectarian attack at the weekend -- the fifth attack within the last two years.
Windows were smashed at the front of the Conway family home on the village's main street in the early hours of Sunday morning.
You have now read this article. If you are not already actively involved in helping to solve the problem in the North of Ireland, don't you think it's time you started?
Join your local INA unit.
Stand up and Make a Difference!
BLOODY SUNDAY
January 30, 1972
Irishman Seeks US Help
US politicians have been asked to help a County Derry man bring to account the police who he says framed him.
Charlie McMenamin served three years in prison in the late 1970s after falsely confessing to conspiracy to murder RUC/British army officers and other charges.
Mr. McMenamin was only 16-years-old when he made the forced admission. During three-days of questioning, he was held incommunicado and denied legal or adult representation. He also says he was psychologically and physically tortured, a claim corroborated by complaints and doctors at the time.
The teenager finally confessed despite his statements being riddled with glaring inaccuracies - for example a supposed hijacking at a garage, the owner of which said never happened. This charge was dropped, but he was still charged with having a gun for the alleged hijacking that never happened . It also emerged that, at the time of the supposed shootings, the youth was in custody on both occasions.
Shortly before Mr. McMenamin’s trial began in 1979, the director of prosecutions dropped the conspiracy charges against him and relayed this information to the then RUC, who ignored the direction and pursued the case. However, this was not made known to the victim or his defense team and the trial went ahead, putting the young McMenamin under serious pressure to plead for a lesser sentence instead of risking the life sentences he was in danger of receiving.
The County Derry man was convicted and served a total of three-years behind bars. It was only last May, 27-years after his original trial, that all of the convictions were quashed. Now Mr. McMenamin wants US politicians to help him make the cops who he says framed him accountable for their actions, not only in his case but others that they were involved in, including a case known as the Derry four.
The RUC officers who questioned him were senior serious crime squad Detectives and all were based at Strand Road RUC barracks in Derry City.
Mr. McMenamin said: “What I want American politicians to find out is where are the cops who beat and framed me, and what other miscarriages were they involved in? Were they retired early because of their well known traits in abusing suspects and did they face any disciplinary procedures for forcing me and others into making false confessions? If not, why not? Were they simply moved to a different section within the RUC, and are they still involved in that form of so-called policing in the North, or anywhere else in the world for that matter?”
Mr. McMenamin’s demands have won the support of top US lawyer Ed Lynch, National Coordinator of the Lawyers Alliance for Justice in Ireland who was a witness in Mr. McMenamin’s case. Mr. Lynch said the McMenamin case highlights how the British government allowed the RUC to abuse Irish men and women, knowing their actions would be covered up.
“To my knowledge, no member of the former RUC has been called to account for criminality in a British court, and for the gross violations of human and civil rights that were commonplace during the period of civic unrest in Northern Ireland beginning in 1969”, said Mr. Lynch.
“Despite all the high-minded promises, there has been no cleaning of house. The RUC abusers have quietly slipped into secure retirements courtesy of their fellow taxpayers, some of whom were their victims. This hardly bodes well for a society in which reconciliation and respect for the law are necessary building blocks of a true participatory democracy.”
Mr. McMenamin openly admits that during his three-day ordeal at the hands of his RUC interrogators he contemplated suicide. He said: “I self-harmed. While the cops who beat and framed me sat drinking tea during a break in interrogation, I slashed my arms with a metal screw. It was an act of distress, but I tell you this, if I had had access to a rope I would have hung myself.
“I can’t explain just how bad it was in there. You have to remember I was only 16 years old and I was denied access to an adult or lawyer. I just wanted it to end, and if that meant taking my own life at the time, then so be it.”
Making matters worse for Mr. McMenamin was the fact that it was physically impossible for him to have conspired to murder policemen. “When the shooting incidents were supposed to have taken place in 1976, I was locked up in a boys home in Belfast. I couldn’t have done any of it – but that didn’t matter to the cops who questioned me. They just wanted a fall guy.”
The McMenamin case has striking similarities to other major Troubles-related miscarriages of justice.
The Birmingham Six, Guilford Four and Maguire Seven served a total of 136-years in prison, despite the authorities knowing they could never have carried out the crimes for which they were convicted.
Although a victim of a terrible conspiracy, Mr. McMenamin is not bitter. All he wants is justice.
He added: “I want the cops who beat me and then forced me to confess to something I couldn’t possibly have been involved in to face some sort of justice for ruining my life and those of others. It’s not right that I lost three years of my life, and that the men who framed me are now maybe sitting at home enjoying large pensions. They should face the courts. They should be made to explain why they framed a 16-year-old boy with trumped-up charges that almost drove him to suicide. I want US politicians and Irish-America to help me achieve this. I am determined not to let what happened to me be brushed under the carpet.”
Mr. McMenamin's Derry based Solicitor, Mr. Padraig MacDermott, is currently seeking redress from the Northern Ireland Office in relation to this miscarriage of justice which he suffered. This is, according to Mr. McMenamin, "another uphill struggle.” No apology has ever been offered in relation to these types of cases in Northern Ireland.
This article originated from Ciaran Barnes of the Irish Echo
Please Contact Your Elected Representatives Concerning This Matter
to find contact information for your representatives, go to:
In February 1979,four ordinary Derry youths, Michael Toner, Stephen Crumlish, Gerard Kelly and Gerry McGowan – all from Derry City – now known as the Derry 4, were arrested in a series of early morning raids by the RUC. The teenagers were taken to the notorious Strand Road barracks and questioned about the killing of a British soldier, Steven Kirby, in the city two weeks previous.
The four had absolutely no involvement in the soldier's death, nor in any type of political activity that could have brought them to the attention of the 'police'. However, after three days of physical and mental torture by plain clothed RUC detectives, they signed statements implicating themselves in the killing.
The teenagers were charged with murder and spent seven weeks on remand in Belfast's high security Crumlin Road prison until, in a bizarre turn of events and breach of practice at the time, they were released on bail on April 26. For the next 18 months Michael, Stephen, Gerard and Gerry reported every day to the local police station.
The case went to trial in October 1980, but on the second day the four, through fear, decided to jump bail, because they had no faith in receiving justice, and fled the jurisdiction to start a new life in the South of Ireland. Senior figures in the Catholic Church had earlier advised the teenagers that the trial was a sham and they could be sentenced to 30-years each.
The four lived openly in the South for the next 18-years until a sequence of events led to a review of the case and their eventual acquittal in 1998. However, during that period they suffered many hardships because of their incarceration and were unable to return to the North – missing the funerals, weddings, birthdays and baptisms of various family members and friends. Now the men are calling on Irish-America to help them track down the RUC detectives, some who were in senior positions, who framed them for murder.
The same group of detectives were responsible for framing another Derryman, Charlie McMenamin, whose story featured in the Irish Echo earlier this month.
Charlie, who was just 16-years-old at the time, confessed to conspiracy to murder charges after being tortured at Strand Road barracks a year before the Derry 4. He served three years behind bars in the late 1970s, and was not acquitted and cleared of the false convictions until last year. "It's crucial that we find out where the cops are who not only framed us, but also framed Charlie and loads other Derry men at the time. The linkage is crucial," said the Derry Four's Michael Toner. "We want to know did they face disciplinary action for torturing us, if so why were we not informed of this, it could have saved us years of misery. Were they moved to a different section of the RUC, where they are living now, and whether they are still involved in policing? It's important that we learn this because these so called policemen could be in another part of Ireland, or anywhere else in the world, doing the same things again." During Michael's time on the run he missed the funerals of his father, brother and sister. His three friends experienced similar heartbreak.
The 47-year-old resents never getting the chance to say goodbye to his loved ones.
He added: "It was heartbreaking for me. I just couldn't take the chance to go back to Derry because I would have been arrested and locked up for something I did not do. It's shocking that the cops who tortured and framed us have been allowed to get away with it. Even when I was living on the run in the South of Ireland it was like serving a prison sentence – there was so much in life that I wanted to do, but couldn't because of the restrictions on travel.
"I want to bring these men to justice, I want them to face the courts and explain to the world why they tortured and framed four innocent teenage boys."
The Derry Four's case, and that of Charlie McMenamin, has won the support of prominent Irish-American lawyer Ed Lynch – the National Co-ordinator of the Lawyers Alliance for Justice in Ireland.
This article originated from Ciaran Barnes of the Irish Echo
Please Contact Your Elected Representatives Concerning This Matter
to find contact information for your representatives, go to:
There are at least fifteen former Irish Republican activists and their families living in the USA. The children and spouses of these men are American citizens. The legal status of the ex prisoners, known collectively as "the Deportees," is unclear and ambiguous. They are denied the right to live with any peace or security in the form of denied and delayed work permits, denial of travel authorization papers, bureaucratic obstructionism, incarceration, threat of deportation and an uncertain future.
Furthermore, they are denied the basic human decency of visiting dying family members or attending funerals of parents and siblings, knowing there is no guarantee of re-entry once they leave the US .
Consequently, these ex prisoners, with the support of Irish Northern Aid, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish American Unity Conference, have established Thar Saile, (Overseas) to provide mutual support and resources to former Irish Republican POWs living in the United States, with the ultimate goal of resolving their legal and residency status permanently and unequivocally so that they can live, work, and travel as any other legal resident.
Pól Brennan, a member of Thar Saile, has lived in the U.S. as a tax paying and constructive member of his community. He was arrested in Texas by US Immigration and is currently being held in a State prison because he was traveling through the U.S. with an expired work authorization card. Pól, had applied for a renewal of his authorization card, but, as has been the experience of many of the former Irish Republican POWs living in America , the process of renewing these cards often takes upwards of a year or more. Pól currently languishes in a Texas prison while the courts play political football with his legal residency.
We believe that peace in Ireland can only occur in an atmosphere that promotes frank and open dialogue amongst all parties to the conflict in the North of Ireland. This includes the United States , which acting as an "honest broker," facilitated a political atmosphere that allowed for the birth of the current peace process. The end product of a lasting peace based on enduring democratic principles is now at hand.
In this spirit, we must state forthrightly that the United States Government, by actively pursuing the deportation of Pól Brennan and other former Irish Republican activists, is markedly out of step with all other parties involved in this political endeavor. The US Policy undermines the concept of a peace dividend. By extension this policy undermines the peace itself.
Thar Saile, with the full support of Irish Northern Aid, the Irish American Unity Conference and The Ancient Order of Hibernians calls on our friends in these United States of America to support the immediate release of Pól Brennan and campaign for a final political resolution in the form of full legal status for ex prisoners now living in the US.
We believe that our best chance of succeeding is through united action. We ask for your kind donations to assist our efforts to be mailed to Thar Saile, PO Box 891054 , Temecula , CA 92589-1054.
