We look at the stories that were making the headlines this week in 1983
Organisers Joe Armstrong, Harry and Michael Collins, Joe McKeown and Ted Hazard at the Hatfield Bar Spina Bifida darts fundraiser
H-Block Irish speakers
THE 300-plus Gaelic speakers in the H-Blocks have put their names forward for Glór na nGael, the prestigious 32 County competition to determine the community which does the most to promote the Irish language.
Craobh Bhloc-H, the prisoners' branch of the Gaelic league (Conradh na Gaeilge), submitted the necessary entry forms last week and a reply is expected soon.
The prisoners have a variety of schemes planned, as their contribution to Glór na nGael. Among these are Irish classes, the supplying of articles and crosswords for Irish language newspapers and a campaign to obtain basic Irish language rights within the prison. At present there is a blanket ban on letters in or out, novels, cards and newspapers in Gaelic. It is also forbidden to speak Irish during visits.
If, as expected, the Belfast Gaelic League enters West Belfast for the Glór na nGael (literally Voice of the Gael), activities will be organised in co-operation with the Republican prisoners.
Liz Brown (supervisor) with Community Help trainees Jackie, Catherine, Geraldine, Deana and Marie prepare Christmas hampers for the elderly
Prison protests continue in H-Block and Armagh gaols
19 Republican prisoners in Armagh and H-Block are continuing with a no-work protest as part of their demand to be recognised as political prisoners.
As a result the authorities are punishing the prisoners by deducting ten days remission from every 28 and by permitting only three rather than the normal four visits a month. Just before Christmas over 100 H-Block inmates came off the no-work protest, which they had been pursuing since the end of the Hunger Strike, for "tactical reasons”.
However the decision to abandon the protest was a personal one on the part of each prisoner and six men, all from Belfast and all in H-8, decided to continue their action.
In Armagh Gaol 13 women involved in a no-work protest are refusing to carry out "menial penal-type" jobs being alocated them by the prison governor.
Senior prizewinners Tommy Boyd, Mary Boylan, Margaret and Billy McLean, Susan Curran and Mary Kelly at the St Agnes' Bowling Party
Editorial: Questions for Dr Daly
WILL Bishop Daly please answer a number of questions we wish to put to him? This is a community newspaper; like the community it serves it is anti-British, anti-partition, pro-Irish Ireland. It is not the voice of any political or military group.
1. Everyone will regard your views on violence as legitimate; everyone will agree with most of what you said in your New Year message. Why have you nothing to say about the violence inherent in partition and British occupation of the Six Counties? Is it not obvious that almost all of the violence in Ireland stems from the fact of Britain's presence?
2. Do you believe that it is sufficient to say about the methods employed by the British Army and the RUC in implementing British Government policy, that those methods play into the hands of the 'terrorists?'
3. Why is it that a small group of military people with limited arms and resources, no official status or security, are seen by you as 'abusing the democratic process and practising pseudopolitics of Utopia and false promises;' while another group with unlimited arms and resources, full official backing and full pay and pension rights, are seen as good and honorable people going about their legitimate occupations?
4. Many of the people you condemn are members of your own flock, as are their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers and family circle – who don't regard them as criminals or blackguards. Have you no words of reassurance or understanding for these people?
5. Do you realise that this kind of message, which seems to many of us to be one-sided, simply plays into the hands of the British Government who will use it, as they have done in the past, as propaganda for themselves, as justification for what they are doing in Ireland, and as an excuse for further 'excesses' of the kind witnessed on Andersonstown Road last week?
We have no interest in point-scoring or in putting anyone on the spot. These are questions being asked by many of our readers, not just at the present moment but for many years. Many thousands of our people are involved [through the prisons, for example] with the people and the movements you condemn. Are they not entitled to an answer to their questions?
Hatfield Bar Spina Bifida darts fundraiser
