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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/obama-may-make-50000-illegal-irish-us-citizens-14266032.html?r=RSS
Friday, 10 April 2009
Irish-American immigration reform lobbyists were celebrating last night following news that President Obama is keen to implement reforms that could ultimately grant American citizenship to some 50,000 undocumented Irish living illegally in the USA.
Kelly Fincham, executive director of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR), warmly welcomed a statement on Wednesday by the President’s newly appointed deputy assistant, Cecilia Munoz, that she is keen to put in place a “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system”.
“It’s beyond encouraging,” she said last night. “It’s very good news and in any event, he’s signalling that he’s making it a priority.”
The President is reportedly set to embark on a campaign over the summer to sell the immigration reform package to the US Congress that could see some 12 million illegal immigrants apply for citizenship, albeit with some penalties for breaking the law.
But Bart Murphy, ILIR chairman, said the push for reform is a very welcome sign.
“It’s the start of a new debate. And we at the ILIR will be standing shoulder to shoulder with the various other immigration organizations, pushing for reform, as we have been in the past.”
Former US President George W. Bush had supported an immigration bill that would give legal status to the estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish living in the US but it was defeated in 2007.
However during his election campaign, President Obama said immigration reform would be a key priority during his first term in office. It’s believed he will make a speech on the issue in May.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0410/1224244361033.html
GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
Fri, Apr 10, 2009
FOR THE first time in memory, the Easter edition of An Phoblacht , which was published yesterday, does not contain the traditional Easter statement from the IRA.
Instead, the latest edition of the weekly paper, viewed as the house publication of both Sinn Féin and the IRA, carries a “Sinn Féin leadership Easter statement” recommitting members to the “achievement of our republican objectives”.
In the most symbolically important weekend for republicans, when the 1916 Rising is commemorated at republican gatherings, it appeared significant that there should be such a major break with tradition.
One mid-ranking republican source said he believed this was the first time there was no IRA Easter statement in the newspaper. Asked did this mean that the IRA had gone away, he laughed and replied, “No comment.”
At Stormont yesterday, Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness referred to the goal of achieving a united Ireland but did not specifically predict it would happen by 2016, the centenary of the Rising.
Mr McGuinness spoke after he and artist Robert Ballagh launched the first of seven pieces of art depicting the signatories of the 1916 proclamation. The works were commissioned by Sinn Féin. The first framed portrait of Pádraig Pearse by Ballagh was unveiled in the Sinn Féin offices at Stormont yesterday. Each year up to 2015 in the run-up to the centenary of the Rising a new piece will be unveiled of each of the six other signatories to the proclamation.
Sinn Féin leaders have spoken in the past of a united Ireland being achieved by 2016. Asked was this the timeline for Sinn Féin, Mr McGuinness said he always had stated that progress could be made on this issue. “I am certainly moving forward with confidence that the strategy that Sinn Féin is pursuing is one that will see the achievement of the reunification of Ireland. If it does not happen in 2016 then we try to make it happen in 2017, or as I am doing at the moment, try to make it happen in 2014,” he said.
The “Sinn Féin leadership Easter statement” extended solidarity to the “families of all our patriot dead” and to “those Irish republicans in prison”. “We are immensely proud of our patriot dead and of their families,” it said.
“The ideals and principles of the proclamation are as relevant today as they have ever been. The realisation of those ideals and principles is among the many tasks that we must complete in the time ahead,” it added.
The statement, in repeating that Irish unity remained Sinn Féin’s primary objective, said the party was right to resist those who have attacked the peace process. “This includes those in the British establishment who would seek to use recent events as an excuse to rush back to the days of militarisation and the abuses that flow from that,” the leadership added.
By implication the statement referred to the Real IRA murders of British soldiers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey and the Continuity IRA murder of Constable Stephen Carroll. “In Ireland today there is an alternative to armed struggle,” said the Sinn Féin leadership. “A small number of militarist factions oppose Sinn Féin’s peace strategy. Many are involved in criminal actions. Moreover they have no political programmes or strategies. There is no feasible alternative to Sinn Féin’s strategy for a united Ireland.”
© 2009 The Irish Times
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/10/northern-ireland-attacks-polish-migrants
* Henry McDonald
* The Guardian, Friday 10 April 2009
Local units of the two main loyalist terror organisations in Northern Ireland were behind events that have seen 40 Polish migrant workers flee in recent weeks, the Guardian has learned.
Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association in south Belfast organised the intimidation of the Poles over the past fortnight, security sources in the city said.
The attacks on Polish homes in south Belfast were believed to be in response to an outbreak of hooliganism by soccer fans from Poland during last month's World Cup qualifier at Windsor Park.
Before the crucial Northern Ireland versus Poland match in Belfast on March 28, a group of Polish hooligans smashed up pubs and attacked local fans.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland released figures yesterday revealing that in the aftermath of the soccer violence at least 40 Polish nationals had to flee their homes in the south of the city.
One senior security source said last night that a series of revenge attacks had been co-ordinated by local UDA and UVF units.
"The attacks were not carried out officially in the name of either organisation but all the intelligence points to the involvement of loyalists who are of course meant to be on ceasefire and not engaged in paramilitary activity," he said.
The nationalist SDLP and the Green party in Northern Ireland condemned those behind the assaults.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0410/1224244361013.html
Fri, Apr 10, 2009
In a climate where many are in denial about compromise, the onus of leadership is on unionists, writes FRANK MILLAR London Editor
ELEVEN YEARS after that famous Good Friday, there seems little mood for celebration in Northern Ireland. The calendar there remains packed as ever with important dates for commemoration of past victories and defeats, yet this anniversary of the Belfast Agreement – a truly marvellous moment offering liberation from decades of terrorism and communal conflict – may go largely unmarked.
In one sense, of course, this would be understandable, and might even seem a good thing. After the ultimate DUP-Sinn Féin deal, the long goodbyes of Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, days with Ian Paisley in Dublin and at the Boyne, “the like of which we never thought to see”, last year’s 10th celebrations were attended by a real sense that the political classes (and the media) had somewhat overdosed on “historic” breakthroughs.
“Time for the hard work to begin” was the prevailing sentiment a year ago as Peter Robinson prepared finally to succeed the Big Man. This was informed by the realisation that the political process had really been coasting in the heady aftermath of Paisley’s decision to abandon the oppositionist politics of a lifetime to jointly head a new powersharing administration with Martin McGuinness.
Following the Real IRA murders of two British soldiers and a PSNI constable, there is also some contentment that Robinson and McGuinness together are beginning to show the kind of leadership the governments in London and Dublin yearn to see. Yet it is salutary to recall that the Executive over which they preside failed to function for five of the past 12 months – a symptom of what many outsiders see as a disturbing tendency still on the part of the two major parties to continue “the war” by other means.
Even while they “share” power, too many on both sides appear in a state of denial about the nature of the enterprise, and the compromise, to which they have signed up. Robinson, naturally, won’t be raising a toast to the original deal negotiated by David Trimble and Séamus Mallon. DUP mythology requires us to see the St Andrews Agreement as the alternative to the Good Friday accord, rather than its natural offspring.
In the end Sinn Féin effectively killed off Trimble’s Ulster Unionist leadership, Gerry Adams concluding that the deal with Paisley was the one that would stick. Sinn Féin’s mythology, on the other hand, requires at least the party’s own supporters to believe that nothing about this settlement is intended to stick and that Northern Ireland remains in “transition” toward a united Ireland. This in turn fuels the arrogance of those in the DUP who behave as if the unionist majority has been restored at Stormont, their mission seemingly to deny Sinn Féin at every turn.
From the so-called “moderate” sidelines, likewise, comes only a succession of discordant, unhelpful and confusing noises. The SDLP might be up for a celebration of the Belfast Agreement, yet that party too seems in denial about the nature of the settlement, locked as it is in a presumably doomed struggle to out-green Sinn Féin. Sourness and disillusion at finding itself supplanted informs the persistent SDLP charge that Sinn Féin is routinely out-negotiated by the DUP. Some displaced and unhappy Ulster Unionists, likewise, seem ready to carve a defeat from their previously claimed victory – questioning the sincerity of Sinn Féin’s commitment to the democratic path while contemplating, with their new Conservative allies, a “voluntary coalition” model to replace compulsory power-sharing.
Nobody ever explains which of the main parties gets to be excluded under an alternative “voluntary” arrangement, but none of the parties can have forgotten where the politics of exclusion took Northern Ireland. Bertie Ahern has acknowledged that, in time, politics may evolve and permit, maybe even demand, the “normal” operation of government and opposition.
With the current partnership arrangements still in their infancy, however, that time surely remains a long way off.
It is unclear whether unionists collectively are guilty of laziness or some dishonesty. What can be said of some is that there is a significant discrepancy between their demeanour and the position they have separately and collectively articulated, namely that – while rewriting the rules for its governance within the union – the Belfast and St Andrews agreements have secured Northern Ireland’s constitutional position.
The unionists should start behaving as if they believe it, and act accordingly in terms of their approach to the republican and nationalist communities. For what must also be said is that the onus for maintaining a settled and stable Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom rests with them. Nobody else is going to do their job for them.
Frank Millar is the author of Northern Ireland: A Triumph of Politics (published by the Irish Academic Press) and David Trimble: The Price of Peace (by the Liffey Press).
© 2009 The Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0410/1224244360604.html
AODHAN O'FAOLAIN
Fri, Apr 10, 2009
A SINN Féin local election candidate is to seek a High Court injunction restraining Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea from slandering or making any defamatory comments against his character.
Limerick-city based Maurice Quinlivan claims he was defamed and suffered damage to his reputation in comments made by the Minister in a newspaper interview published on March 10th last, linking him to an apartment at Clancy Strand, Limerick, which gardaí found was being used as a brothel.
Mr Quinlivan (42) has strongly denied he has any interest with the apartment. While it is accepted the apartment was owned by his brother, he says his family has no knowledge or involvement with any illegal activity that occurred there.
Mr Quinlivan, who is Sinn Féin’s joint national treasurer and a local election candidate in Limerick’s north ward, has brought an action seeking damages against the Minister.
He is also seeking an injunction under a 1923 Electoral Act restraining the Minister from making false statements about Mr Quinlivan’s personal conduct and character and restraining the Minister from repeating comments, which, it is claimed, are made with intent to slander, similar to those made in an interview with a Limerick newspaper.
Yesterday, at the High Court, Mr Justice John Edwards refused to grant Mr Quinlivan an interim injunction against the Minister.
The court heard from Michael Fitzgibbon, for the Minister, that his client need time to prepare a replying affidavit. Mr Fitzgibbon said Mr O’Dea, who was not prepared to give any undertakings to court in the interim, intended to file “a full defence” to the action.
Séamus Ó Tuathail, for Mr Quinlivan, said the case was urgent due to the proximity of the local elections in June. The judge, who acknowledged the urgency and the importance, agreed to adjourn until next week to allow the Minister to submit a replying affidavit.
Next week the court will hear Mr Quinlivan’s application for an interlocutory injunction preventing the Minister from making alleged defamatory comments until the full action is determined.
In an affidavit, Mr Quinlivan said that earlier this year, he criticised Mr O’Dea for what he claimed was abusing the privileges of his office by having civil servants engage in his constituency work at huge expense to the taxpayer.
This was after Mr O’Dea confirmed in a parliamentary reply to Sinn Féin’s Arthur Morgan that he had six civil servants working on constituency matters at a cost of between €165,000 and €225,000 a year.
Mr Quinlivan criticised the Minister over unsolicited correspondence, to a Limerick resident making a planning application, on Department of Defence-headed paper.
In his response, published in the Limerick Chronicle, the Minister said Sinn Féin was “running a big campaign. The money from the Northern Bank must be stretching fairly far. Quote me on that. While occasionally we send out letters to planning applicants on the wrong paper, we have never been involved with anyone who shot anybody or robbed banks or kidnapped people.”
The Minister is then quoted as saying: “I suppose I’m going a bit too far when I say this, but I’d like to ask Mr Quinlivan is the brothel still closed?” Mr O’Dea was referring to a case heard last January where three women were found to be running a brothel from an apartment owned by Mr Quinlivan’s brother, Brixton prison escapee Nessan Quinlivan.
© 2009 The Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0410/1224244363125.html
DEAGLAN de BREADAN, Political Correspondent
Fri, Apr 10, 2009
SINN FÉIN deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald will be among the participants in the annual reading of the names of all the victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles in Dublin today.
The Dublin MEP will join the congregation of the Dublin Unitarian Church in St Stephen’s Green, where the list of more than 3,500 people who have died as a result of the conflict will be read out.
Prominent Catholic and Church of Ireland clergy, Mgr Tom Stack and Canon Patrick Comerford, will also take part. The DUP, partners of Sinn Féin in the powersharing administration at Stormont, declined an invitation.
This annual act of commemoration, now in its ninth year, is believed to be the only religious service of its kind in Ireland. The solemn reading of the names begins at noon, continuing until after 3pm. Ms McDonald is scheduled to read for 20 minutes.
Noting that Sinn Féin had distanced itself from the recent violent activities, Unitarian minister the Rev Bill Darlison said: “Whoever wishes to come and to read will be demonstrating their commitment to peace.”
Ms McDonald said: “It’s important to remember everybody who lost their lives in the course of the conflict. Remembrance is important also because the peace process has transformed Ireland.”
A statement from the organisers said: “This reading of the names illustrates powerfully the terrible, random nature of death in war and civil conflict.”
© 2009 The Irish Times
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072vjc
Go to link to hear BBC program.
http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Liams-love-now-focuses-on-his-kids-42771007.html
By DEBBIE McGOLDRICK
Irish Voice Editor
Published Thursday, April 9, 2009, 3:43 PM
Updated Thursday, April 9, 2009, 3:43 PM
Liam Neeson spent a couple of days in Toronto recently to tidy up filming commitments in the wake of the shocking death last month of his wife, Natasha Richardson, and now he seems to be solely focused on coping with the enormous emotional wounds that he and his two sons will be dealing with for the rest of their lives.
Neeson and his boys, 13-year-old Micheal and Daniel, 12, were in London over the weekend to take in a Premier League soccer match between Fulham and Liverpool. Also joining them for the Saturday outing was Natasha’s mother, Vanessa Redgrave. The boys must be fans of Liverpool, as they appeared happy with the team’s 1-0 win.
On Sunday Neeson was spotted leaving the Ivy Restaurant in London on his own, looking quite forlorn. It’s not known how long he plans on spending in England, or whether his itinerary includes a stop home to Ballymena, Co. Antrim, where his mother Kitty still lives.
Meanwhile, the well-received film about the Northern Irish Troubles that stars Neeson and James Nesbitt, "Five Minutes of Heaven," aired on Sunday night on BBC2 in Ireland and the U.K. The docudrama, which earned glowing notices at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, centers on one man’s journey from violence to peaceful conflict resolution.
Neeson plays Alastair White, a 17-year-old Loyalist who killed a Catholic and received a 12-year life sentence. During his incarceration, White made the journey away from violence, realizing its devastating effects on a community.
The real White, a former member of the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force who consulted on the film, met Neeson on the set, and couldn’t have been more impressed.
“Even though he’s a movie star and used to working with the rich and famous he showed great interest in my work in the field of reconciliation,” White told the Belfast Telegraph.
“And I honestly felt that he wanted to be there to talk with me, that he wasn’t just dong this as part of his job.
“I also think Liam Neeson is one of the most genuine and warm people I have met, and my heart goes out to him as he copes with the loss of his wife and the prospect of bringing up their two young sons without their mother.”
Northern Irish actor Nesbitt, who plays the brother of the Catholic murder victim, also sent his sympathies to Neeson.
“My heart goes out to Liam and his family. I feel shocked by the events and very much saddened for them all,” he said.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/movies/2009014091_mr10hunger.html
By Jeff Shannon
Special to The Seattle Times
Thursday, April 9, 2009 - Page updated at 08:01 PM
"Hunger" is a harsh, difficult and at times strangely beautiful film to experience.
Unless you're well-informed about the Irish "Troubles" and the politically charged hunger strike of Bobby Sands in 1981, the film may seem vague and narrowly focused. It breaks traditional rules of narrative, but it's not experimental. Its challenges are purely intentional, and it bores into your eyes and ears until it becomes hauntingly unforgettable.
Winner of the Camera D'Or (for best first film) at Cannes last year, "Hunger" marks the feature debut of celebrated British video-artist Steve McQueen, who calls the film "an abstraction of what it is to die for a cause ... [with] no simplistic notion of 'hero' or 'martyr' or 'victim.' "
That's a fair description, and although McQueen and Irish playwright Enda Walsh wrote "Hunger" before the horrors of Abu Ghraib, anyone can (and should) draw parallels between Maze Prison in Belfast in 1981 and any other place in history where political prisoners are stripped of their rights and subjected to torture.
It was in Maze's infamous H-Block that Sands and other Northern Irish republicans posed a hunger strike to protest Britain's refusal to recognize the political status of prisoners convicted of terrorist crimes. Sands died (at 27) after 66 days, by which time he'd been elected to Parliament by his many ardent supporters. Nine other protesters died after him, but "Hunger" is not a history lesson.
It's an immersive experience, urging viewers (in McQueen's words) "to see, hear, smell and touch the H-Block in 1981."
In this and other respects, the film is a harrowing triumph, unfolding in three sections. The first introduces ill-fated prison officer Ray Lohan (Stuart Graham) and two prisoners (Brian Milligan, Liam McMahon) amid the almost indescribable horrors of H-Block. Dialogue is minimal as McQueen (with the aid of meticulous sound design) pores over every minute detail of a hellish environment.
In the second section, dialogue flows freely in a brilliant 22-minute scene (including 17 minutes of one long, unbroken shot) in which Sands (Michael Fassbender) and a Belfast Catholic priest (Liam Cunningham) debate matters of protest, politics, faith, martyrdom and the sanctity of life. It's a blazing, thought-provoking conversation that shifts, in the third section, to the almost silent, hallucinatory decline of the now-skeletal Sands as he slowly fades away.
None of this is intended as entertainment. "Hunger" is a poke in the eye and a punch to the gut. Some will prefer a more conventional take on these events (for that, there's Terry George's fine 1996 drama "Some Mother's Son," currently unavailable on DVD), but there's something to be said for the power of McQueen's stripped-down, audiovisual strategy.
"Hunger" is an upsetting, vivid film about going to the ultimate extreme in defense of one's beliefs.
Jeff Shannon:
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo, other than personal use, must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail with your request.
Updated: 10/4/2009
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