Thar Saile

NEWS and Recent Events

Thar Saile mourns the passing of Irish Activist John Fogarty

July 18, 2010

John Fogarty, a local Irish leader from the San Francisco area is remembered most for his support of four Irish fugitives who were hiding in the Bay Area in the mid-1990s, died July 7 at a hospital in Stockton. He was 63.
Raised in the Bronx, Mr. Fogarty came to San Francisco - long known to have one of the largest and most vocal Irish American populations in the country - in 1968. Throughout the 1990s, Mr. Fogarty frequently traveled to Northern Ireland, which was then in the throes of political rebellion, to try to keep the peace during the annual pro-British and pro-Protestant marches in July.
Mr. Fogarty made a special point to preach nonviolence to rebel leaders in Northern Ireland, said Bobby Lavery, a former Sinn Fein member of the Belfast City Council from 1985-89 and 1993-2000. But it was Mr. Fogarty's work with the H-Block Four Committee that made him a well-known figure in San Francisco's Irish community.The committee supported four Irish fugitives as they fought lengthy extradition battles after escaping from the legendary Maze Prison near Belfast in 1983 with 34 other inmates, the biggest jailbreak in Britain's history.
The four - Jimmy Smyth, Kevin Artt, Pol Brennan and Terry Kirby - were sent to the prison after being convicted of either being involved in the IRA or participating in terrorist activities.
After their escape, they fled to the Bay Area and lived under false identities until the FBI arrested them in the mid-1990s. They were held in a federal prison in Pleasanton to await extradition back to North Ireland. Mr. Fogarty saw them as political prisoners who were being persecuted by the British government and became one of their strongest local supporters.
"People are finally seeing that what's been going on in Northern Ireland is wrong, that we're right, and that we have to give whatever kind of political support we can from this end ," Mr. Fogarty told The Chronicle in 1994.
Artt and Kirby said Mr. Fogarty was often their lifeline to friends and family while they fought extradition. British requests for the extradition of Artt, Kirby and Brennan were withdrawn as part of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and they were released. Smyth was extradited to Ireland in 1996.
Terry Kirby said Wednesday that Mr. Fogarty was "one of the first people sitting at my house waiting for me" after his release from the Pleasanton prison on bail in 1996.
He said Mr. Fogarty was generous with both his time and money. "He took every penny that he had and he put it into when he saw someone in need," Kirby said. "A lot of that was me calling collect from jail."
A public memorial service will be held in San Francisco on Aug. 14.

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Matt Morrison, Thar Saile President, Responds to Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June21, 2010

I remember clearly where I was on the 30th January 1972. I was a sixteen year old in the middle of a killing ground. Heavily armed British paratroopers shot thirteen Civil Rights demonstrators dead (a fourteenth would die of his wounds months later). Each and every one of those present died a little that day. We mourned with families of the dead; we tried to comfort them. Our collective grief turned to anger with the lies of the Widgery Report, when salt was added to our wounds with the horrible calumnies which branded our innocent dead as nail bombers and gunmen.

Last week, as I watched the people of Derry gather in the same Guildhall Square to await the Saville Report which publicly confirmed what we knew all along: that our relatives and friends, loved ones and neighbours, were murdered thirty eight years ago, I felt joy and overwhelming sadness. Bloody Sunday was a life-changing event, not only for Derry but for Ireland. The murders and the lies perpetrated by the British on the innocent and their families, set the scene for a massive escalation of the conflict. The sequels of that conflict would reach us in a way that we could not have predicted. Tens of thousands of young folk (myself among them) imprisoned, thousands hauled off to be interned without trial, the many wounded, the many dead. Such was the loss for all of us, for our families and for our community.

Even though the families of the Bloody Sunday dead had to wait thirty eight years for vindication, it did come finally, and with it closure and maybe understanding.

I cling to the hope that the United States Government will give a similar closure to those of us in Thar Saile, those ex-Irish Republican Prisoners who never would have seen the inside of a prison had it not for the unremitting oppression of our people by the same Government which last week offered a formal apology for Bloody Sunday.

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Danny Morrison tour!

Thar Saile is happy to announce Belfast native, Danny Morrison, is coming to the US in October for a multi-city speaking tour. A few dates are still available if anyone is interested in hosting an event. For more information inquire to gretchenbales@comcast.net.

Danny is a writer living in West Belfast, Northern Ireland. A committed Irish Republican who has served the republican movement in various capacities. He has served as editor of Sinn Fein's newspaper, An Phoblacht/Republican News as well as Sinn Fein's national director of publicity from 1979 until 1990.
Served as IRA Volunteer Bobby Sands, MP spokesperson during the 1981 hungerstrike and later that year during a crucial debate at Sinn Fein's annual conference (the ard fheis) on the topic of embracing political politics he coined the phrase "with an armalite in one hand and a ballot box in the other."
Danny went on to serve as an elected member of the Northern Ireland Assembly on an abstentionist ticket and stood in the Westminster general election as well as the European elections.
Danny also served time as an IRA prisoner and until 2006 was best known as a regular political commentator in newspapers, on television and radio. He now devotes his time to writing and arts reviewing.
Danny was arrested in 1990 and sentenced to eight years imprisonment upon the word of a British informer named Freddie Scappaticci. In 2004 Danny successfully applied for his case to be reviewed and in 2009 the appeal court in Belfast overturned the convictions. However, the British government withheld information from the case which makes it virtually impossible for a wrongful imprisonment suit.

Professional writer for 35 years, with experience in magazine, newspaper, and business writing. Books include:

• Rudi - Latest novel inspired by Knulp, the 1915 novel by Hermann Hesse.
• Rebel Columns - A collection of his political writings.
• All The Dead Voices - A part memoir.
• Then The Walls Came Down - Based on his prison letters.
• The Wrong Man - Began in prison, completed after his release. The Belfast Telegraph upon reviewing the book stated, "A novel that should come to be regarded as one of the most important books of the Troubles."
• On The Back of the Swallow - Written in prison and published nine months before his release.
• West Belfast - First novel.

Again.. for more information inquire to gretchenbales@comcast.net.

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