Britain Challenged on the Streets – End 42-Day Detention!

10/08/08

The British government’s carefully crafted efforts to avoid attention being focused on their repressive detention policies were challenged yesterday (Saturday) as éirígí activists and supporters took to the streets in several locations across Ireland.

Antrim town, Belfast, Dublin, Enniskillen and Lurgan all saw well-attended demonstrations on what was the 37th anniversary of the introduction of internment in the Six Counties.

The socialist republican party’s demonstrations commenced in mid-morning and continued through to the late afternoon, with many members of the public expressing support.

Antrim town RUC-PSNI Barracks was the scene of the first protest at 11am, with around 30 people, including many from éirígí’s south Derry ciorcal, attending.

In what was to become a familiar pattern of the day’s events, members of the RUC-PSNI closely monitored those attending the Antrim protest and permitted unidentified men in a civilian car to film activists. Parts of Antrim have traditionally been strongholds for unionist death squads.

In Lurgan, the presence of the Armagh football team in Croke Park for their All-Ireland quarter-final against Wexford failed to deter around 50 local people from turning up for the demonstration outside Church Place RUC-PSNI Barracks at midday. As the protest was ongoing, éirígí activists distributed information on 42-day detention and the British occupation on the main routes into the town centre.

Just this week, Crown Forces launched a number of raids on nationalist homes in Lurgan and detained a local republican.

RUC-PSNI personnel in armoured land rovers maintained a presence in the vicinity for the duration of the hour-long protest, and were left with a ringing noise in their ears for their efforts, as passing motorists regularly expressed their support for the demo with their car horns.

éirígí s Belfast protest took place at New Barnsley Barracks on the Springfield Road and capped off a week of intense activity for activists in the city. Hundreds of leaflets and petitions were distributed highlighting the detention legislation, while banners and stencils with a similar message were erected in several locations.

The present barracks on the Springfield Road is only yards away from its forerunner - the infamous Henry Taggart base from where British soldiers emerged to abduct local people on internment morning 37-years-ago.

In the days following the introduction of internment in 1971, 11 local people were shot dead by the British army in the area, many of whom were operating from the Henry Taggart base.

The appropriate siting of yesterday’s anti-detention demo was not lost on the many local residents who turned up to show support, ignoring the large RUC-PSNI presence and the intrusive efforts of the video-camera topped armoured jeep.

Earlier in the afternoon, up to 60 éirígí activists and supporters gathered for a colourful picket outside Dublin’s British Embassy. The location was fitting given the fact the original British Embassy in the centre of the capital was burned to the ground by protesters in response to the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972. The march that was attacked in Derry that day had itself been calling for the end of internment without trial in the Six Counties.

The current location of the British Embassy, in the heart of the exclusive Dublin 4 area, was the scene of serious violence when Gardaí attacked a march in support of the hunger-strikers in 1981. If proof was needed of how little has changed in the relationship between the Gardaí and the British Embassy in the intervening 27-years, it was there for all to see at yesterday's protest. In what appeared to be a blatant act of collaboration, Gardaí were seen to relay a list of names and addresses of those at the protest to an unidentified man inside the Embassy gates.

While the gathering of names and addresses of those attending republican gatherings is an all too common occurrence in the Twenty-Six Counties, the apparent handing over of those names to a foreign government in such a public manner is almost unheard of. Republicans are well aware, however, that the sharing of such information in a less public manner has gone on since the foundation of the Free State.

Enniskillen was the venue for the last protest of the day. Around 20 republicans gathered outside the RUC-PSNI Barracks in the town to round off a day of significant opposition to the British policies, and their very presence, in Ireland.

Speaking from outside the British Embassy in Dublin, éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson commended all those who made the effort to attend the five demonstrations.

“At a time when the normalisation agenda of the British government appears to be in the ascendancy, it is encouraging that so many republicans have taken to the streets to oppose their policies in Ireland.

“Today was proof that there is still a groundswell of support for a radical republicanism that will challenge the British occupation and all the bad laws and human rights abuses that that occupation entails.

“éirígí intends to build on that support in the time ahead, mobilise it and launch a renewed challenge to the British presence in Ireland. We appeal for all like-minded people to join us in this endeavor.”