"Grief turned to pride for Sinn Fein this week as tens of thousands paid their respects to a leader who came to symbolise peace in Ireland and the process through which the Provisional IRA gave birth to a political powerhouse," Irish Republican News said of the March 23 funeral of Irish republican leader Martin McGuinness, who died on March 20 aged 66, in his beloved Bigside neighbourhood in Derry in the six counties of Northern Ireland still claimed by Britain.
Ireland
Irish republican leader Martin McGuinness, who was Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland until stepping down due to ill health earlier this year, passed away on March 20 aged 66.
Born in 1950 in Derry in the six counties occupied by Britain, he came face to face with the discrimination and sectarian bigotry against Irish nationalists and Catholics that marked the partitioned statelet.
Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon says she plans to trigger another independence referendum. The Scottish National Party leader said the new poll should be in 2018 or 2019, Irish Republican News reported on March 13.
“Right now, Scotland stands at a hugely important crossroads,” Sturgeon said, referring to the “Brexit” vote that will take all of Britain out of the European Union, despite a majority in Scotland voting to remain.
Women were striking, protesting, and rallying for their rights across the United States and around the world on March 8 in honor of International Women's Day.
Irish Republican party Sinn Fein attained its highest ever share of the vote in the six counties that make up the Northern Ireland statelet still claimed by Britain, in emergency assembly elections on March 2.
Elections were called after power-sharing between Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) collapsed over a corruption scandal involving the public energy program. When DUP leader and Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster had refused to resign over her role in the scandal, Sinn Fein withdrew from the administration.
Northern Ireland is in the grip of a deep political crisis.
The power-sharing administration in the six northern Irish counties still claimed by Britain between the Irish republican party Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) collapsed when Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness resigned on January 9 and called for new elections.
Explaining his decision to resign, McGuinness cited “growing DUP arrogance and lack of respect, whether that was for women, our LGBT community, ethnic minorities or the Irish-language community and identity.”
While Fidel Castro is known as a committed internationalist, supporting independence movements in Angola to South Africa, Nicaragua and even French Polynesia, less is known about his support for the Irish struggle, TeleSUR English said on December 2.
But in 1981, when Irish Republican prisoners were in the midst of a historic hunger strike against the British state, it was Fidel who once again sided with the oppressed.
A bill in Ireland to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, passed the first stage of approval on October 27 as lawmakers voted it through the country’s House of Representatives (Dáil Eireann).
Tens of thousands marched through Dublin on September 24 calling for abortion rights, Morning Star reported the next day. Marchers carried banners calling on the Irish government to “repeal the 8th,” the amendment to the Irish constitution which gives foetuses a “right to life” deemed equal with that of pregnant women, rendering almost all abortions illegal.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Dublin on September 17 in a national demonstration against water charges, Morning Star said on September 19.
Irish republican party Sinn Fein has condemned the British government’s non-apology over police collusion in a 1994 massacre in the six northern Irish counties still claimed by Britain.
On June 18, 1994, masked men armed with assault rifles burst into a pub in Loughinisland in County Down as Catholic civilians watched a Republic of Ireland World Cup football match. Opening fire, they killed six people and injured five.
Celtic fans defy a UEFA ban and police threats to fly the Palestinian flag during against against an Israeli team.
During Glasgow-based football club Celtic FC's August 17 European Champions League qualifying fixture in Glasgow against Israeli club, Hapoel Beer Sheva of Israel, Celtic supporters defied an explicit UEFA ban to fly Palestinian flags in solidarity with Palestine's struggle for freedom.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams addresses the June 29 rally for Irish unity.
Hundreds of people packed into the Liberty Hall Theatre in Dublin on June 29 as calls for a referendum on a united Ireland continue to grow following Britain's June 23 vote in favour of leaving the European Union.
It came after the six counties in Ireland's north still claimed by Britain voted to stay in the EU.
THERE are calls for referendums on Irish unity and Scottish independence as both the North of Ireland and Scotland look set to be dragged out of the European Union despite voting overwhelmingly to remain.
Huge votes in favour of a so-called 'Brexit' in England and Wales gave a final result of 52% voting to leave European community which Britain joined in 1973.
In the North almost 56% of citizens voted to remain in the EU.
Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney MLA says there is now a democratic imperative for a referendum on Irish unity:
Martina Anderson, a Sinn Fein Member of the European Parliament, has said that Ireland faced huge implications from a partial disengagement or full scale withdrawal (a “Brexit”) by the British state from the European Union.
Anderson said the implications of a Brexit for Ireland included the formal repeal or significant erosion of human rights protections, which would have hugely negative implications for Ireland in the six northern counties still claimed by Britain and in the south.
The 100th anniversary of Ireland’s Easter Rising against British rule was commemorated over the Easter weekend in Ireland and across the world. Although the rebellion failed, it spurred the Irish liberation struggle amid widespread anger at savage British repression.
In 1918, Sinn Fein swept elections in Ireland to British parliament, with Sinn Fein MPs refusing to take their seats and instead declaring independence. A war for independence ended in 1921 with a treaty that partitioned the island — provoking an Irish civil war.
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