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Shame on you Mary Lou for honouring a Nazi collaborator
 national |
politics / elections |
opinion/analysis
 Tuesday June 08, 2004 00:29 by Interested Party
Is Mary Lou McDonald Proud to Share a Platform with an IRA bomber to honour Nazi Collaborator and IRA Chief of Staff ? Eoin Ryan TD Asks the Question.
Less than 9 months ago Sinn Féin’s European Election Candidate in Dublin Mary Lou McDonald stood shoulder to shoulder with Brian Keenan, a convicted IRA bomber, to ‘pay respect’ (as described by An Phoblacht) to Nazi collaborator and former IRA Chief of Staff, Séan Russell.
Both McDonald and Keenan delivered passionate speeches at the foot of Russell’s statue in Fairview Park at a ceremony to honour his memory just last August.
Does Mary Lou have no shame? asks Fianna Fáil's European Election Candidate in Dublin Deputy Eoin Ryan TD.
Keenan was the leader of the notorious Balcombe Street Gang and has been linked to one of the Trouble’s most vicious atrocities – the slaughter of 10 Protestant workmen at Kingsmills in South Armagh. He is also reported to have masterminded a coach bombing in which 12 people lost their lives on an English motorway . He is a very senior figure in the IRA.
Less than two months ago Keenan showed at an Easter 1916 rally in Monaghan, that he hasn't been mollified by the peace process. “If the British army and the police and all their death squads, can arm, train, reinforce and bring in electronic devices, more troops, more helicopters and more guns, well, they shouldn’t be surprised if the IRA won’t go away, and long may it continue,” he told the gathering.
The people of Dublin and Ireland should know the kind of company Mary Lou McDonald keeps.
And what of the person McDonald and Keenan gathered together to ‘pay respect’ to, Séan Russell – a self proclaimed ally of Hitler, Nazi Germany and former leader of the IRA.
McDonald thinks nothing of speaking at commemorations to honour a Nazi collaborator and his contemptible memory. Mary Lou McDonald please explain to the people of Dublin, Ireland and Europe why you stood shoulder to shoulder with a brutal IRA bomber less than nine months ago to honour a friend of the Holocaust.
Shame on you Mary Lou and your warped principles.
Séan Russell voluntarily went to Berlin at the invitation of Adolf Hitler and enterd into an alliance with him as the Holocaust was getting under way, yet Mary Lou McDonald, a European Election candidate is not at all embarrassed to claim him as part of her heritage.
As Europe gathers this weekend, on Normandy’s D-Day beaches, to honour the memory of those heroic men and women who sacrificed their lives in World War II to liberate Europe and defeat the horror of Nazism, I ask Mary Lou to let the people of Dublin know what she stands for.
The EU grew out of a determination that Europe would never again experience the tyranny of a dictator like Hitler. You say you want to be a MEP, yet nine months ago you celeberated the memory of a Nazi collaborator. Russell, like others who freely aided the Nazis, are reviled today across Europe, and rightly so.
It is also to the enduring shame of our City that we continue to allow this statue of Séan Russell to remain standing. In democratic Europe, Dublin remains the only city that still contains a statue honouring an ally of Hitler. Dublin City Council must act immediately and free our city of the EU’s last remaining monument to a servant of the Third Reich.
Mary Lou McDonald, I challenge you to explain how you can represent Dubliners' interests in Europe while you honour an ally of Adolf Hitler.
You are asking the people of Dublin to send you to Europe - I believe they deserve an explanation, concluded Eoin Ryan TD.
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Comments (44 of 44)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44i don't like when people say this but
they must be really scared
For those genuinely interested there was a good article by Manus O'Riordan dealing with Russell and Ryan in the Irish Times about a month ago. Russell was never a fascist just naieve. Ryan was effectively a prisoner in Germany, he had no choice in going there.
Many were duped by Germany in this period.
The O'Riordan article deserves a wider audience. A google search might find it as well.
The essence of Russells mistake was the doctrine that the enemny of my enemny might be my friend.
On a footnote many in Asia welcomed the Japanese for similar reasons, including a father of a current icon.
Jim Monaghan
Sean Russell wasn't a Nazi. He was the then IRA Chief of Staff. He was tasked with the job or re-arming the IRA. The British were at war with Germany. He attempted to get German arms to fight the British. He also tried to get wepons from Soviet Russia. Does this make him a Stalinist? The IRA apparently took weapons from Libya during the 1980s. Does this make them Arabs? Also if Russell was such a Nazi, how come he died in the arms of Frank Ryan one of Ireland's leading socialist thinkers and writers? Mary Lou spoke with Brian Keenan at a local republican commemoration which takes place annually at Russell's statue in Fairview. Why shouldn'y Mary Lou share a platform with Brian Keenan? If she didn't, Eoin Ryan would say she was trying to hide from the past.
Whatever ones views about tactics and strategies at particular times in our history, nothing would be achieved by republicans airbrushing the past. Eoin Ryan is panicking that he may not get the EU seat and he knows Mary Lou will!
There was always a legend, in certain republican circles, that when Ryan and Russell were on that German submarine Ryan poisoned Russell to stymie attempts at a Nazi collaboration.
"The EU grew out of a determination that Europe would never again experience the tyranny of a dictator like Hitler. "
Aye indeed.
And instead of the tyranny of a dictator like Hitler, we should all be subject to the jackboot of the Brussels technocrats .... not to mention their local FF Gauleiters ......
Glad to see that this slieveen FF propaganda is going down like a lead balloon here. What utter nonsense. It's time we started asking questions about the last TD that went to jail (FF's Liam Lawlor) and the next TD that's going to jail (FF's Ray Burke) and all their accomplices in the First Battalion, Fat Cat Brigade, Ugly na hÉireann, who have terrorised the people of this nation for long enough. Pompous, arrogant cute-hoors.
The evil dastardly cad who expressed his condolences to the German Ambassador on the occasion of the death of Adolf Hitler in May 1945 ......
I wonder who he was ......
Let's be clear on something. The IRA are murderous scumbags. Anyone voting for SF knows that they are voting for a party that takes it's lead from these scumbags. Before you fall over yourselves in a rush to castigate me as a FF'er or something similar, it won't change the facts. Adams, McGuinness, Ferris and company would have thrived in the Gestapo.
Just as anybody voting for FF knows that they are voting for a party whose "leaders" take their orders from land speculators, high finance and the brown paper envelope "property development" brigade .... not bad for a party which regularly pays homage to Theobald "the men of no property" Wolfe Tone .....
Of course this doesn't change the fact that the IRA are murdering scumbags ... and the soldiers of the British Army are cool clean heroes ..... spent the last thirty odd years putting manners on the white niggers in the North and now they're off teaching those damned arabs in Iraq a lesson ......
Well then we are turning into a nation of 'scumbags' because SF's vote continues to rise with every election. Sad fuckers such as 'Insider' cannot conceal the contempt they hold, not for SF but for the ordinary people who have always retained republican support and sympathy but who for deacdes in this state were brow-beaten and bullied by pseudo intellectual thought police like 'Insider', the Sunday Indo and RTE. You will all be even more sad and bitter when you see the ballot boxes being opened on 11 June. Now go back to under the rock from which you crawled 'Insider' .
Insider who has all but admitted his FF allegience talks of an organisation that takes it's lead from scumbags. Oscar Wilde was right, critiscism really is "the highest form of autobiography" Unfortunately for insider section 31 is a thing of the past and rather than burning straw men of his own making he will actually have to deal with Sinn Fein on the issues and not his own terms and those of his buddies in the mainstream media. I'l be laughing into his face too come Sunday
Tiocfaidh ar La
... that seventy or eighty years ago the "respectable" Cumann na Gaedhal types were trying exactly the same type of muck-racking smear tactics against Fianna Fail the "slightly constitutional" party ..... that was of course way before FF became the builders, land speculator's and race horse owners party ..........
Sinn Fein may be murdering scumbags but at least they'll put you out of your misery quickly. Under a FF regime you will be condemned to mortgage slavery for life if you show such presumption as to want to own the roof over your head .... (unless your name is Liam Lawlor, Pee Flynn or Ray Burke or the like ...)
Well whatever about that and despite the fact that the current FF "leader" is the seemingly innocuous Bertie "Pint o' Plain" and "One of de Lads" Ahern, FF has provided Ireland with some of its most authoritarian and repressive Taoisigh, namely Eamonn De Valera and Squire Charlatan Haughty ..... not to mention all the dodgy beef dealing with dubious characters like Saddam Hussein and Colonel Qaddaffi (and that poor sucker the Irish taxpayer being left to pick up the tab in cases of default.)
Since Ireland is now well and truly governed by the multinationals, there is no longer any need for a charismatic "leader" figure like Squire Haughty. That's why we have the vacuously smiling muppet Ahern ....... a great man for signing the blank cheques ......
Jim Monaghan's requested a copy of Manus O'Riordan's letter about Seán Russell - here it is.
A notable feature of DeValera's government, and the Cumann na nGael administration which preceded it, was anti-semitism and bigoted Catholicism. A more enlightened Irish régime at that time would have welcomed Jewsih refugees from the Nazi terror in Europe.
This thought has some contemporary relevance - a good way for everyone to combat racism in the here and now would be to vote No on June11 next - and help the No campaign in any way possible in the next few days.
Mary Lou McDonald, for all her faults, is for a No; Fianna Fáil is for a Yes.
================
Madam, - Seán Russell was a man whom de Valera once considered worth making the effort to save from himself. Russell had given sterling service in the 20th century's first war for democracy - the Irish War of Independence fought to give effect to the democratic mandate of the 1918 elections. When de Valera failed to persuade Russell to accept the democratic mandate of his later Republican election victories of the 1930s, he was left with no option but to act ruthlessly and with resolve against Russell and his followers.
By all means condemn Russell, as I do, for his actions in defiance of de Valera, specifically his 1939 bombing campaign in England, followed by his request for Nazi German aid to mount an IRA invasion of the North. If Russell's plan had materialised it would have led to either a German or British invasion and occupation of Southern Ireland, bringing to naught de Valera's skilful safeguarding of this State from both war and fascism.
But condemnation of Russell is one thing; character assassination is another. Russell was not the Holocaust-champion that Kevin Myers caricatures in his Irishman's Diary of September 5th. The UK Public Records Office has released files which show that, after intensive post-war interrogation of German intelligence agents at the highest level, British intelligence itself concluded in 1946 that "Russell throughout his stay in Germany had shown considerable reticence towards the Germans and plainly did not regard himself as a German agent".
In his 1958 novel Victors and Vanquished, Francis Stuart observed of the Russell-based character's outspokenness in Berlin: "Pro-German when it comes to the English, and pro-Jew when it's a question of the Germans". One might dismiss this as another of Stuart's literary inventions were it not that this assessment was corroborated by a more significant witness - Erwin Lahousen, the first and most important witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in 1945. Lahousen had been head of the second bureau of the German Intelligence Service from 1939 to 1943. An Austrian clerico-fascist by conviction, Lahousen loathed Nazism and had been the key figure in an aborted pre-war plot to assassinate Hitler. By common consent, it was Lahousen's evidence at Nuremberg that ensured that Hitler's foreign minister Ribbentrop would be sentenced to death.
It is true that Lahousen's own ideological prejudices led him to make another set of wild and unfounded allegations, such as that Frank Ryan, whom he described as "a ruffian of a distinctly red complexion", had actually murdered Russell. But it is less easy to dismiss what that Nuremberg star witness said of Russell himself. Under the heading of "No Nazi", Lahousen's character reference on behalf of Russell was published as follows by The Irish Times on June 6th, 1958: "The Irishman was a hyper-sensitive Celt who, however willing he might be to use the Germans for his own political ends, regarded the Nazi philosophy as anathema. To the Austrian Catholic Lahousen, whom he found much more congenial, Russell poured out his private views of the Nazis, their attempts to convert him. . .Lahousen was sympathetic and took a strong and personal liking to the curious Irishman. . .He admired his integrity and honesty."
Lahousen said that "Russell was the only one of the IRA with whom I dealt who was a real Irish Republican of the old school". After what Lahousen described as "one of Russell's fiery denunciations of the Nazi attempts to indoctrinate him", the IRA leader further proclaimed: "I am not a Nazi. I'm not even pro-German. I am an Irishman fighting for the independence of Ireland. The British have been our enemies for hundreds of years. They are the enemies of Germany today. If it suits Germany to give us help to achieve independence I am willing to accept it, but no more, and there must be no strings to the help."
This was extremely naïve. As regards his dealings with Nazi Germany, Russell is to be condemned more as a fool than a knave. But notwithstanding that condemnation, Seán Russell is still entitled to the integrity of his reputation, in death no less than in life. - Yours, etc.,
MANUS O'RIORDAN,
Finglas Road,
Dublin 11.
Good Friday Agreement.
Both governments bending over backwards for their demands.
Convicted murderers released.
Martin McGuinness Minister for Education.
We've swallowed a lot for the peace process.
WHY WILL THE IRA NOT GIVE UP THE GUN?
Inescapable conclusion - they won't give them up because they intend to use them again.
We've been sold a pack of lies. Sinn Fein are the fascists - if they don't get everything they want, they go back to bombing pubs again.
James
‘Soldiers of Liberty! Legion of the Rearguard! The Republic can no longer be defended successfully by your arms. Further sacrifices on your part would now be in vain, and the continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the Republic.’
Wow! All the little sensitive SF scumbag Provo apologists have their knickers in a twist! The working class prods murdered at Teebane just didn't get it. The men women and children incinerated at Le Mon and elsewhere should have gotten with the programme! It was all for their own good! When the Provos got theirs at Loughall and elsewhere SF squealed like stuck pigs. Get a life and fuck off out of ours. Keep your baseball bats, nail studded clubs and iron bars to yourselves you shower of paedophiles! Just how many brave volunteers did it take to grab Jean McConville from her kids? Was it 20 or 28? Tiochfaidh Armani.
Ahem ... paedophiles ?
Isn't it a bit rich for a supporter of the Free State establishment to be gratuitiously throwing this around as a term of abuse ...... ?
What about all the judges, priests, celebrity chefs etc. in the "establishment" who come under this category ?
Aren't you afraid of hurting their feelings ?
Dear insider your concern for "working class prods" in Northern Ireland might come across as credible and not feigned for political purposes if your friends in FF showed a little bit more concern for the "working class Taigs" in their own jurisdiction ......
However, given that FF in collaboration with the PDs have embarked on the most ambitious programme of shafting the working class since the inception of the Free State your words in this regard ring a little hollow .....
But what else can one expect from one deeply ensconced in the pocket of land speculators ......
You're pretty hot at snarling abuse but when it comes to the intelligent analysis of complex political issues I'm afraid there's considerable room for improvement .....
A bit of a temper there "insider" Just think what you'l be like after the 11th. Stock up on the valium your going to need it.
Language aside, your moral indignation about violence committed in another state would be a bit more convincing if you or your ilk had any record of applying the same outrage to the acts of violence committed by the Brits and their pseudo gangs. I,m thinking of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in particular, which happend in this state, and about which you and your ilk did absolutely nothing. Your moral indignation looks more like Boffonery to me. As for paedophiles, your at the very least an accessory after the fact to systematic child abuse carried out over many years by your friends in the church authorised by the state.
You know "insider" hypocrisy is the mother of all sins. There is a new dispensation on the way which wont tolerate hypocrites like yourself lightly. In an Ireland of equals a creature like you will sink. I promise you I'l be there laughing
Well Insider ?
Quick to condemn the nasty IRA for killing "working class prods" but no problem with the Brits and their UDA/UVF stooges murdering "working class Taigs" down the Free State ..... as long as it didn't interfere with the good life out in Kinsealy ......
No howls of moral indignation there .... I'm listening very carefully .....
With that level of contribution you are surely well qualified for a seat in Dail Eireann as a FF backbencher ......
I've not been brow-beaten by your arguments, but I take the point that I may have been a little harsh and apologise for my insult to Mary Lou McDonald.
While I remain an anti-republican, I realise that my comments could have been more measured.
Happy?
,,,,thank you Insider, but then again as republicans we do not suffer from any self-loathing from frustrated desires to return this country to the good old days of the empires whore.
OK Insider - at least you've let the cat out of the bag ....
You're obviously a closet monarchist .......
Surely not FF anyway as I believe they usually peddle their wares under the label of "the republican party" ......
The people of Dublin gave you their answer with the vote for Mary Lou.
A right puck in the gob for him alright .... he's keeping very quiet now so he is .....
In what age of prehistory are monarchists like yourself stuck ... ?
Ha! Ha! You were talking when you should have been listening "insider" and co. Fuck you boffoon! Now crawl back under you rock and don't be annoying people with your half baked opinions. Go away while your betters begin the job of changing this country root and branch.
Tiocfaidh ar La
Sorry lads, I was knackered after spending the weekend counting votes on the local and europeans elections. It's a strange world, was talking to Martin McGuinesss, you'd never know he was second in command of a bunch of mass murderers in Derry. Mary Lou wasn't as much a babe as I'd heard. It was funny seeing her arm in arm with Gerry "I was never in the IRA " Adams. Doherty looked a real cold fish. Have never rubbed shoulders with so many kid killers! It was probably like this in Germany in the 1930's.The place was full of SF activists, loud, in your face democrats. Was reminded of Yeats " the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity". Am looking forward to seeing the shinners on Dublin City Council trying to come to terms with having to do something concrete rather than sitting on their arses with an opinion on everything. I'm a bit worried about SF's policy of equality for all. I really don't want a lobotomy to reduce me to a gibbering wreck, incapable of independent thougt or action. In the new SF world order do I really have to take my lead from Scumbag PIRA or can I opt out of their "equality" please????????????
As I've said before if arseholes like you tried to come to terms with the reality of SF rather than your silly stereotype you might be more sucessful in taking votes from them.
Having also been at the RDS all weekend I have to say that the athmosphere was relaxed and friendly and that everyone seemed to get on well.
For the record, the largest proportion of idiots seemed to be with Ivana.
Glad to receive your report from the front lines ....
Good to see that you survived that scary experience ....
As for Martin McGuinesss and "you'd never know he was second in command of a bunch of mass murderers in Derry" .... shure if you met the head of the Paratroopers Regiment you'd probably be thinking the same ...
I hope that they didn't detect your nervousness when talking to them .... otherwise they might suss that you are not "one of us" (or at least "ourselves alone") ..... have you had your knee caps insured ...... ?
But don't worry you sound like a flexible sort of chap, I'm sure that you will be able to adjust to your place in the new order ..... millions of respectable middle class Germans did it in the 1930s ......
In fairness, the SF activists were well behaved, a little triumphalist, but who wasn't when things went their way. Labour party workers admitted to trying to oudo the shinners in whooping and hollering. Has " Hee Hee Hee " put his /her name down to man the ovens? Sounds like the type that would be right at home with that kind of work.
The word nazi is bandied about on this site a lot. At one crucial point in history people had a choice to fight against (real) nazis. What was happening in Europe was everyone's responsibility including Irish people. Sean Russell chose to get in bed with the Nazis.
I don't think that relates to present day Sinn Fein though. I could never vote for Fianna Fail but also distrust Sinn Fein because of their criminal (violent and non-violent) nature. As for corruption, Sinn Fein is able to aqcuire far more cash than Fianna Fail (declared and undeclared).
How many times do you dimwits have to be told? Sean Russell was NOT a Nazi. He was a serving IRA Chief of Staff who saw it as his duty to acquire arms to fight the British. Around the same time the IRA were also trying to acquire weapons from Soviet Russia. Does this make Russell and the IRA Stalinists? They can't be both. You have a selective historical memory because it suits your agenda. The IRA, Sinn Fein and republicans in general are invariably lebelled as Facists, Nazis, Marxists, Communists, bourgeois nationalists, violent anarchists, terrorists- and that's only in the last few weeks! So please Voice of Reason take your place in the queue of Sinn Fein bashers. But your clearly wasting your breath as the most recent election results demonstrate!
And who fought the fascists (Blueshirts)here? The IRA. Where did most of the International Brigadiers come from? The IRA. Who has taken on the fascists here over the past 30 years (UVF, UDA etc)? - The IRA
All this about Russell is nonsense. When Russell went to Germany, he saw it as just another state from which it was possible to get weapons. Same reason he went to Moscow. Same reason he went to the USA.
No-one knew the real nature of the Nazi state when Russell went there and according to Manus O'Riordan he refused to collaborate in any way with the Nazis while there.
So get another hobby horse. This one's dead.
I don't dispute the election result. We still have a democracy. Winning elections doesnt mean you are right though.
If Sean Russell tried to acquire arms from the Soviets that hardly improves his moral position. The Soviets made a pact with the Nazis which they strictly adhered to. during that time they invaded Finland, the Baltic states and Moldova. Stalin's "Terror" is well known about. Stalin only ended up at war with the Germans when he was shocked to find that they had invaded the USSR, out to annihilate communism and enslave the East.
As you have brought the issue up Voice of Reason, what is your 'moral position' on the issues of that time including the partition of Ireland etc? Russell may be criticised for poor judgment but he he did act. Other republicans before and since, many of whom would have disagreed with Russell also acted, whether in the International Brigades fighting facism in Spain or against our own homegrown facists- the Blueshirts, or in pursuing a national liberation struggle in Ireland. There is no point 'hurling on the ditch' and slamming revolutionaries who act as they see best without offering political alternatives.
"Dont take guns off nazis. Don't take guns off commies". Unfortunately for Voice of Reason there was no internet in the 1930s and '40s so that Russell et al could just sit around posting messages on Indymedia rather than trying to carry out their function. Try and live in the real world for once!
Over 50,000 Irish anti-nazis took the train to Belfast during WW2 and joined the British Army to fight the Nazis. Isn't it about time we recognised these patriots properly in this state? How about a bit more attendance at memorials for the anti- nazis who went and fought Hitler rather than those who sat on their arse at home blathering on about the integrity of neutrality. Respect to ALex Maskey who as Mayor of Belfast took the major step forward of recognising the Irishmen who fought in the first world war, not to defend the union, but to try to ensure Home Rule. Now is the time to honour the generation who followed them into the British, American, Canadian and Australian armies to fight fascism.
No disrespect to those who fought in either was (had two great uncles in Dublin fusililiers later joined RA) but how many of them joined up for any ideological reason - Home Rule or to fight the Nazis?
Surely most joined as most always do join armies - for adventure, a job, wanting to kill people
The problem with attending these commemorations is that they a run as pro-British, militaristic affairs which actually glorify imperialism and imperial adventures. The Irish soldiers in WW1 were used as cannon-fodder for British imperialism. If these commeorations were divested of their ideological baggage that may be a different affair. Republican commemorations for Russell or anyone else are presumably commeorating Russell's and other particpants parts in the Easter Rising which was a blow against imperialism. By the way Disprin what is wrong with neutrality? Are you merely pro-British union or are you genuine in wanting to commeorate all those Irish people who have died in wars?
If you consider that Britain was on its own in Europe against the Nazis in 1940. What sort of "freedom" could Sean Russell have achieved with the Germans?
Breton nationalists, and others made the same mistake and got nothing for their efforts.
**Shame on you Mary Lou for honouring a Nazi collaborator **
FIrstly I am not pro-british or pro-union (except for my trade union).
Secondly, i used to think the same about commemorations but then I actually attended one and i didn't find it in any way to glorify war or justify imperialism. In fact all of the people who i met there agreed that these guys were butchered by the aristocracy of Europe and that there was nothing glorious about it at all. I would challenge you, if you ever have the chance, to visit either the Menin Gate or Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium. The tragedy and wastefulness of war are what hit you when you see row upon row of gravestones and plaque upon plaque full of names of those whose bodies were never found. And no matter where you look you see the Irish names looking back at you. If more people went there and saw the actual results of belligerence and ultra nationalism, rather than the mythology of heroism and glorious sacrifice that all sides peddle to justify their positions, then we could get on with making the world a better fairer place for ordinary people rather than pursuing the discredited political agendas of the past.
Finally, I believe Alex Maskey the Sinn Fein Mayor of Belfast made a great step forward in commemorating the fallen Irish of WW1, would you call him pro-british???