Thursday, May 26, 2005

Be The First One On Your Block...

...to own an MI-5 bugging device found in a Sinn Fein office in Belfast in September of 2004! I am not making this up, such an item is now available.

Check out the Sinn Fein Bookshop site for more information (also a great source of books about the Troubles).

This is not only a curiosity and an interesting piece of history. This is a token of the ongoing struggle and distrust that exists between Sinn Fein and the British authorities in the north of Ireland. The Brits said they didn't trust Sinn Fein's word after the December 2004 bank heist in Belfast that was blamed on the IRA. The situation worsened when the IRA revoked its promise to disarm in the wake of these claims in March of this year.

No progress will ever be made if spying, violence and distrust are allowed to rule the day. All I, as an American supporter of Irish nationalism, and the regular people of the north want is to live in real peace and free from the police state that the British have been enforcing for almost thirty-five years. No more spying, killing, robbing or bombing in the name of causes. Let's work for real solutions that make all happy, safe and free.

"Ireland unfree shall never be at peace." - Padraig MacPirais (Patrick Pearse), at the funeral of O'Donovan Rossa, 1915.

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