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Ancient Order of Hibernians press Obama to speak out on Northern Ireland

JANE WALSH,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, May 9, 2011, 7:58 AM

Updated Monday, May 9, 2011, 7:58 AM

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President Barack Obama

Photo by EPA

The National President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America (AOH), Seamus Boyle, today released a letter he sent to President Obama in anticipation of his visit to Ireland later this month.

“England has blocked Ireland’s efforts to secure the truth about the slaughter on May 17th 1974, of innocent people in Dublin and Monaghan towns,” stated Boyle,“ and President Obama could remind the British that the ultimate success of the Good Friday Agreement is a peace based on truth and justice.”

Thirty-three lost their lives, in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Ireland’s ‘9/11’ and Her Majesty’s government from day one until today has refused to cooperate with Ireland’s search for the truth.”

Former National President Ned McGinley expressed his hope that President Obama will take this opportunity to remind Prime Minister Cameron that Pope John Paul II in 1979 at Drogheda, pleaded with politicians “to show that peace achieves the work of justice,” stated McGinley: “No Nation claiming sovereignty can write off the unsolved murder of nearly 1000 of its Catholic religious minority as too expensive or taking too long, unless of course, the answers are known and a cover-up would prove embarrassing to the British Government!”

President Obama knows well how important lawyers were in the U. S. civil rights struggle and so, too, in Ireland’s freedom struggle, stated Joe Roche, former National President: “In 1986 the Hibernians established an award in the name of the most honored Irishman ever, Nobel Laureate Dr. Sean MacBride, a founder of the International Association of Lawyers, who represented Anwar Sadat, Archbishop Makarios and Jomo Kenyatta and, of course, many Irish men and women. We have urged President Obama to promote a truly independent inquiry into the deaths of solicitors Patrick Finucane and Rosemary Nelson who worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor and persecuted and were murdered for it.” Continued Roche: “What a gift to the Irish people if President Obama, in citing the MacBride legacy, could underscore the importance of justice for peace and send a message to Britain to finally release what they know.”

For more information contact National President Seamus Boyle at: 215-676-4535 or email shay39@comcast.net

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18 Comments

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patriot | May 17, 2011, 04:05 PM EDT

Dear FallsRat: This is not over. This will never be over until the last brit is dead or gone. PERIOD.

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patriot | May 17, 2011, 04:03 PM EDT

Anyone killed by the IRA deserved it. Both in 1916 and now. There are no innocent protestants on our island. Be gone and be safe. It is as simple as that.

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patriot | May 12, 2011, 02:13 PM EDT

Who argues with quislings? Their names are already as black as the british hearts they love and kneel to.

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Kilsally | May 12, 2011, 06:09 AM EDT

I believe the First Minister and Deputy First Minister have already instigated such an investigation into Catholic Church in Northern Ireland similar to the one released last year into the Rc Church in the South of Ireland.

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supersurvivor77 | May 11, 2011, 03:15 PM EDT

CATHOLICABUSESURVIVORSNI.COM would the hibernians and all right thinking people press the u,s president to have a full scale public inquiry into child sex abuse and ill treatment of children. the sole responsibity of the state of n,ireland, and not the shambolic,benign,apathy stormont one headed by primeminister peter robinson controlled by the stakeholders the catholic church.

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FallsRNat | May 11, 2011, 03:08 PM EDT

Pat Finucane was on the loyalist hit list for many a year, some targeting by paramilitaries just followed PIRA members & who they associated with, they knew his brothers were in PIRA. Finucane used to visit bars & shebeens in west belfast on regular occasions late night, an Callaghan isn't the only republican who knew where his sympathies lay, he was another who believed in the armalite & the ballot box. What pushed it all into prominence & allowed PIRA to hijack his killing was the Douglas Hogg statement in the House of Commons which stated that some lawyers were unduly sympathetic to the terrorist cause especially the republican. Everybody knew he was talking about Finucane, a british cabinet minister confirmed the loyalist suspicion that he was at least a PIRA sympathiser or at worse a full blown member of PIRA, history suggests somewhere between the former & latter, Finucane's mistake was to think that he was untouchable, but history has a way of showing that 'those who live/justify the use of the gun in politics, are sometimes killed by the gun' themselves.

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johnymac60 | May 11, 2011, 09:58 AM EDT

Kilsally: you said "but a `human rights lawyer murdered for defending the persecuted and poor` is not accurate." How would you describe it?

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FallsRNat | May 10, 2011, 04:54 PM EDT

patriot - it was a simple fact that the republicans killed more people & more catholics in the troubles, you can research CAIN, Irish National Archives in Dublin, McKitterick's book Lost Lives, Irish Times, Irish Examiner archives, why the deniability, my family lost 2 republican family members to PIRA bombings. You can't deny the truth, as to your nonsensical rambling reduce the brit majority in NI, how do you propose to do that, the 26 counties don't have the stomach to invade, the 6 county catholics want peace & freedom. A sad bunch of ageing dissidents will not cause an uprising, loyalist murals are re-appearing on the streets with UVF gunmen on them - they needn't worry, there maybe some avowed republicans here still, but most decidely of the committed democratic kind who will no longer countenance the use of violence for a UI - the brits won & this has been ratified by both the IR & NI in the GFA.

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Kilsally | May 10, 2011, 04:03 PM EDT

Care to point out the lies `patriot`? Stats for deathsinthe Troubles are freely available on the University of Ulster CAIN website - google it- compiled by cross-community workers. A simple google search on AOH and `Good Friday Agreement` will bring up plenty showing the AOH support for the GFA supported by Sinn Fein, Irish Gov, Britsh Gov, US Gov and some Unionists which put in law the early release of convicted mass murdering Loyalist & Republican terrorists.

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Kilsally | May 10, 2011, 04:00 PM EDT

Kilsally is Northern Irish, thanks!

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patriot | May 10, 2011, 03:01 PM EDT

Kilsally is a british liar. Plain and simple

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patriot | May 10, 2011, 03:00 PM EDT

If a majority in the North wish to remain british they should simply be reduced to a minority by any means necessary, just as they themselves have done to myriad peoples and races across the globe.

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HoundofUlster | May 10, 2011, 09:42 AM EDT

AOH = Ancient order of Hypocrites.

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eiriamach | May 10, 2011, 06:57 AM EDT

If it's a matter of justice or equal treatment for any group except white male, middle-class, Catholic Americans of Republican Irish descent, the AOH either isn't interested or is actively working against it, as good soldiers of the USCCB. The AOH should begin to realize that, in the eyes of most Americans, they behave like a highly sectarian and bigoted group that opposes equal rights for LGBTs, opposes women's access to reproductive health--even birth control--and is indifferent or hostile to the rights of any group except white male Catholics. I'm sure Obama will be polite to them, but why in the world would anyone listen to them?

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Kilsally | May 09, 2011, 02:48 PM EDT

The `Brits` ran as many if not more agents within Republican paramilitaries as Loyalist ones, who committed acts of terrorism in order to infiltrate said organisations, indeed the FBI ran agents in the IRA too yet it is conveniently glossed over yet it is exactly the same infiltration that is called `collusion` when talking of Loyalist paramilitaries. Stakeknife/ Freddie Scappaticci / Denis Donaldson and a host of others committed IRA terrorist activities or assisted them whilst infiltrating the IRA for intelligence gathering (although they also passed intelligence and may equally have saved many lives).

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