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Calendar of Events

February 2011

February 17, 597
Feastday of St. Fintan of Clonenagh “Father of the Irish Monks”

February 18, 2011 at 7:00 PM
Great Guinness Toast
Hotel Congress
Largest Irish Toast!
Featuring Live Irish Rock Music by The Keltic Cowboys and the Dusky Buskers!
$10.00 cover

March 2011

March 1, 2011
Next Meeting 1-March-2011 @ O’Malley’s 6:00 PM

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News / Previous Events

28 June 2010

Bloody Sunday: Saville Inquiry’s Report Confirms British Army Responsibility
by Rory Fitzgerald

The word “sorry” has never cost so much. On Jan. 30, 1972, British paratroopers opened fire on unarmed civilians in a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland. Fourteen were killed; seven were teenagers.

Only now, in 2010, have the events of that winter’s day finally been put to rest with the publication of the Saville Inquiry’s Report. The inquiry was set in motion by Tony Blair in 1998. After 12 years, 30 million words of testimony and £191 million, it tells us what everyone here in Ireland already knew:

“On balance,” it says, the British soldiers fired first, on unarmed civilians. “In no case was any warning given before soldiers opened fire” and none of the soldiers “fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombs.” The soldiers later “knowingly put forward false accounts in order to seek to justify their firing.”

Lord Saville’s findings also confirmed that many of those shot were fleeing the troops or assisting the wounded. After the report’s publication, Prime Minister David Cameron told a hushed British House of Commons:

“The conclusions of this report are absolutely clear. There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong. . . . The Government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of our armed forces and for that, on behalf of the government — and indeed our country — I am deeply sorry.”

Bloody Sunday, as it came to be called, started as a protest against the incarceration without trial of IRA suspects. It became the spark that ignited a fire in Northern Ireland that was to burn out of control through the subsequent decades of beatings, bombings, murder and sectarian hatred. The British government’s initial report, The Widgery report, only added fuel to the fire: it whitewashed events, and disparaged the dead, accusing the victims of firing weapons or handling bombs, heaping insult on top of grief. These false conclusions were based in part on faulty forensic evidence.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Brian Cowen of Ireland referred to the “discredited and disgraceful” findings of the Widgery tribunal, saying, “The Saville Inquiry was made necessary not by the events of Bloody Sunday, horrific though they were . . . but by the whitewash that was the Widgery report.” Of the victims he said, “Their names are carved in stone in Derry where they fell; their memories are etched in the hearts of their loved ones and their deaths are inscribed indelibly on the pages of Irish history. . . . They were innocent. May they rest in peace.”]

Yet some people have already derided the inquiry as a pointless waste of time and money. However, its lasting value may not lie so much in the report itself, but in the reaction to it: In Derry several families triumphantly quoted the report, joyful that it at last cleared the victims of the allegations that they had been gunmen or nail-bombers.

John Kelly, whose 17-year-old brother, Michael, was killed by the paratroopers, told a crowd outside the Guildhall: “What matters above all else — what has been in our constant thoughts all these years — is the innocence of our loved ones. That’s the verdict we wanted. That’s the verdict we have today. That will be the verdict of history for all time. That is what matters.”

At last, the truth is known about Bloody Sunday. So what next? There is speculation that the soldiers involved in the killings will stand trial for murder. Yet vengeance is not necessarily what the relatives of the victims want.

Jean Hegarty, whose 17-year-old brother, Kevin McElhinney, was shot that day while trying to crawl to safety, has said she wanted the paratrooper who killed him to explain his actions in court — but not be sent to prison. The peace process has seen the release of a huge number of convicted paramilitaries on both sides, she noted, saying, “I have no great desire to see a [now] 60-year-old man go to jail.”

Eamonn McCann, chairman of the Bloody Sunday Trust, who was on the 1973 march and witnessed the events, said, “That would be the majority opinion in Derry and also among the families.”

To those who lived through Bloody Sunday and the carnage it unleashed that became known simply as “The Troubles,” such expressions of forgiveness in the face of injustice are the foundation stones upon which lasting peace will be built. In addition to the 14 who died on Bloody Sunday, 3,500 other people were killed in Northern Ireland’s ensuing war, including 700 British soldiers.

Even if the word “sorry” never cost so much, justice and truth are priceless, and have made forgiveness possible. And that is a precious balm for such a wounded and divided society.

Northern Ireland’s experience is now being offered as a template for conflict resolution throughout the world. The political agreements, treaties and power-sharing arrangements all played a vital role. But if the people of Derry can today offer the world a lesson, it is that the true font of peace ultimately lies in the hearts of ordinary people:

The key to peace is in the dignity, humility and strength that is required to resist the urge to strike back. It is in the moment when we somehow rise above the desire for retribution that is the engine of human conflict, and we forgive.

May 27, 2010

It is with a very heavy heart that I announce the passing of John Dunn. John was an integral and crucial member of the Tucson Irish community and the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee. His intellect and drive was only surpassed by his sense of humor and joy of laughter. He was a man of strength, dignity, and honor; a real friend in the truest and most noble meaning.

This has been an unexpected and devastating shock for his mother, Carol, and his brother Steve. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation towards the final arrangements.

Steve and Carol Dunn
2123 N. Edison Terrace
Tucson, 85716

Tá tú i dteagmháil léi le saol an oiread sin, agus gach duine a bhíonn tú ag shaibhriú. An chuid eile i síocháin i mo dheartháir. Beidh tú go deo beo inár gcroí. Bí ag faire amach ar Neamh go bhfuil sé ar tí é a fháil bríomhar. Le grá mo chara a ardú mé pionta agat!

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