Pat O'Loan

Tyrone and Mid-Ulster Republicans learned with regret of the death on July 12 of Pat O'Loan of Omagh.

Pat served the Republican cause all his life and was particularly prominent in his work for the Sinn Féin prisoner-candidate Tom Mitchell who was elected for the Mid-Ulster constituency in 1955.

At subsequent by-elections, following the TD's disqualification by British law, later in 1955 and again in 1956 Pat was to the fore.

In the round-ups by British forces in 1956 and '57 he with many others of the Mid-Ulster election machine were taken and interned without trial in D-Wing of Crumlin Road jail, Belfast.

Faithful to the end, Pat told his comrade Hugh Darcy of Tattyreagh shortly before his death: "It does not matter how low the candle of Irish Republicanism burns as long as it remains alight."

He was laid to rest in St Mary's Cemetery, Knockmoyle, Omagh in July. Sympathy was extended to his sister Eileen O'Loan, Reaghan Road, Omagh at the July meeting of Comhairle Uladh, Republican Sinn Féin in Monaghan.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílís.
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Comhbhrón

BARRY, Deepest sympathy is extended to Pat Barry on the death of his mother Margaret. From the staff of SAOIRSE.

BARRY, Deepest sympathy is extended to Pat Barry on the death of his mother Margaret. From Carty/Fleming/McBride Cumann, Bundoran.

BARRY, Deepest sympathy is extended to Pat Barry on the death of his mother Margaret. From H-Block Martyrs Cumann, Ballyshannon.

BARRY, Deepest sympathy is extended to Pat Barry on the death of his mother Margaret. From Comhairle Uladh.

BARRY, Deepest sympathy is extended to Pat Barry on the death of his mother Margaret. From the North-West Comhairle Ceantair.

FIELDS, Deepest sympathy is extended to our friend and comrade Martin Fields on the death of his father Patsy. From the Corrigan/McKearney Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, Armagh city. May the green sod of Ireland lay softly on his grave.

FIELDS, Deepest sympathy is extended to the Fields family on the death of Patsy. From McGregor, Armagh city.

O'CONNELL, Deepest sympathy is extended to the O'Connell family, Cork and New York, on the death of Michael O'Connell, brother of the late Dáithí Ó Conaill. From the Ard Chomhairle, Republican Sinn Féin.

O'CONNELL, Deepest sympathy is extended to the O'Connell family, Cork and New York, on the death of Michael. From the staff of SAOIRSE.

O'CONNELL, Deepest sympathy is extended to the O'Connell family, Cork and New York, on the death of Michael. From Cathleen Knowles McGuirk.

O'CONNELL, Deepest sympathy is extended to the O'Connell family, Cork and New York, on the death of Michael. From CABHAIR.

O'CONNELL, Deepest sympathy is extended to the O'Connell family on the death of Michael. From Patrick Cannon Cumann, Raheny, BÁC.
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I gCuimhne

McKEOWN -- 25th Anniversary. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer Patrick McKeown, south Down -- south Armagh Óglaigh na h-Éireann, killed in action August 27, 1974. Remembered always by O'Reilly/Gennity/Watters Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, Killeavey, South Armagh.
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Beannachtaí

What They Said

A coalition with Fianna Fáil would be the most likely scenario. The relationship built up with Bertie Ahern during the peace process has been very positive, he says.
-- Seán Crowe.

"It depends when it would happen, but I think Fianna Fáil would be far more comfortable dealing with us than with elements of the old Democratic Left," he said. Alliances at local level now may ease the fall-out which would be inevitable if any of the main parties considered a deal with [Provisional] Sinn Féin in the future. "Outside of being Taoiseach", Crowe doesn't covet any position in government.
-- Seán Crowe.

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have exerted pressure on the Garvaghy Road group to allow Portadown Orange-men parade down the road, according to a spokeswoman for the residents' coalition.
-- Irish Times, July 5, 1999.

Where's Rosemary? Where's Rosemary? one shouted as he walked past. Orangemen beside him smirked with delight.
-- Comment from Orangemen at a march in Portadown, Irish News, July 5, 1999.

Well, because they will say that won't they? I mean every Republican, every, every . . . I would dare to say, almost every Ulster Catholic will say that.
-- Retired Para Colonel Derek Wilford, BBC Radio 4 Today programme, July 6,

1999 responding to a Bloody Sunday relative's statement that he had no Republican links. The day is coming when the spirited youngster down the street who was first to the barricades when this community was under threat of attack will be taking a seat behind a desk at Woodbourne [RUC] Barracks.
-- Former Provisional Belfast City Councillor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, Andersonstown News, July 10, 1999.

After two years of Blair and especially Mowlam, it is easy to get seduced into thinking that Empire mindset is a thing of the past: don't you believe it.
-- David Hanly, Sunday Tribune, July 11, 1999.

Democracy in France (in World War II) meant collaboration. One may say that the French people had no choice, that they made their decisions under threat, to coin a phrase, "of immediate and terrible war". But that is no excuse, is it, according to fashionable current definitions of democracy? The Resistance had no democratic mandate.
-- Historian Joe Lee, Sunday Tribune, July 11, 1999.

The minute we go [to US under visa scheme for RUC members] the [Provisional] IRA will join the new force. They'll be given legal guns and a licence to kill.
-- Unnamed RUC man at Drumcree, Sunday Tribune, July 11, 1999.

In each of us, and perhaps especially in those who most vehemently denounce the Irish language, reside two apparently conflicting ideas: one, that we are Irish and can never be anything else; two, that being Irish is perhaps the most unattractive of our attributes, this latter being the product of our experience of colonisation.
-- John Waters, Irish Times, July 13, 1999.

It is understood, however that NIO officials believe that at least some former paramilitaries will have to be accommodated in some way into the justice system . . . It [Restorative Justice scheme] would give paramilitaries an input into the justice system in their own areas without actually turning them into police officers -- a move which would infuriate many unionists and nationalists.
-- British Officials quoted in the Irish News, July 26, 1999.

When Éamon deValera came to power in the South in the 1930s, he recruited a number of IRA personnel into the Garda Special Branch -- and promptly started rounding up the rest.
-- Irish News, Belfast, July 26, 1999.

By October 31, 1998 -- according to RUC statistics -- 139,588 licensed weapons were in the hands of the unionist community, one gun for every seven unionists. Not one of these guns will be touched by decommissioning. This figure includes 12,000 handguns, banned everywhere else in the UK after the Dunblane massacre.
-- Irish News, August 4, 1999.
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