Interview with Comrade Stephen Murney of Saoradh and the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Association (IRPWA)
The following is an interview I was pleased to conduct with Stephen Murney, the Vice Chairperson of Saoradh, a Revolutionary Irish Republican Party, and a representative of the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Assocation (IRPWA), an association which aims to assist republican POWs and their families as well as spread awareness of the cause of republican POWs.
Q: Could you briefly describe the aim of your party, Saoradh?
A: As a Revolutionary Socialist Republican Party Saoradh aim to help create a 32 County Socialist Republic free from the shackles of imperialism, capitalism and British interference.
Founded on the 24th September 2016 following a significant collective of Irish Republican activists, who for a number of years acted autonomously, after a number of years of debate, consultation and organisation, constituted and launched a Revolutionary Irish Republican Party.
Saoradh aim to build campaigns to fight back against imperialism and capitalism to empower the Irish people in the ongoing struggle to regain our national sovereignty, end partition and build a new fair society.
Saoradh believes that Ireland should be governed by the Irish People with the wealth and wealth producing mechanisms in the ownership of the Irish people. This can not happen while British imperialism undemocratically retains control of Irish destinies and partitions our nation.
This cannot happen while a neo-colonial elite in a subservient supposed indigenous administration sells the nations labour and natural resources to international capital.
Saoradh does not believe that British imperialism or capitalist exploitation can be confronted in the structures they have created to consolidate their undemocratic control of the Irish nation. As such Saoradh believe any assembly claiming to speak for the Irish people without being elected by the united people of the Irish nation to be illegal.
Saoradh will seek to organise and work with the Irish people rather than be consumed and usurped by the structures of Ireland’s enemies, standing on a long and proud revolutionary Irish Republican history of resistance; inspired by the actions and words of Tone of Connolly, of Mellows, of Costello and of Sands .
Q: What kind of socio-economic structures would Saoradh hope to see in a 32-county socialist Irish Republic?
A: Well the current structures that are in place are designed to serve the best interest of capitalism. So they would need to be removed and replaced with a socio-economic system that serves the ordinary working class, with education and health at its core. Huge changes would also need to take place in terms of housing and infrastructure etc. It is only by achieving a Socialist Republic that the Irish people will have true freedom. Jumping into a neo-colonial Free State just won’t cut it.
Q: How much popular support does Saoradh enjoy amongst the Irish working class? What areas are considered your party’s strongholds
A: Saoradh are a relatively new political party. However since that time we have grown significantly across Ireland and Scotland. We also have well established party offices in Derry, Belfast, Newry and Tyrone. We have established a presence with members in each of the 6 counties and throughout the 26 counties.
We can say with confidence that our support base would be in the thousands.
Q: Could you describe what kind of community work in the service of the people Saoradh engages in?
A: Saoradh are involved in a wide range of community work. On a daily basis we assist working class communities with every day issues such as enquiries regarding housing and housing rights, we assist members of our communities in filling our welfare forms and mental health forms. Saoradh also take pride in making our party and our activists available to assist our communities in whichever way we can in particularly challenging situations. For example we have assisted communities in challenging drug dealers and drug factories in Belfast, in Newry we challenged fascists leafleting a proud working class community and in Derry we regularly assist communities in dealing with Anti-Community activity.
Our party members are also involved in residents groups, youth clubs, cultural and sporting organisations all across Ireland.
Q: Is support for Saoradh currently experiencing a rise and growth in the occupied six counties?
A: Saoradh are continually growing and are always receiving new member applications. In particular we seem to attract a lot of younger members who identify with our radical politics and activism.
Q: The activities Saoradh engages in in the occupied six counties is well-known, however Saoradh’s activities in the 26-county neocolonial Free State is less reported on. Could you describe Saoradh’s support level, activities and level of growth in the 26 counties?
A: Saoradh has very active Craobhs in Leinster and Munster and will be looking to expand in Louth & Connacht later this year, this is despite constant harassment from the Garda SDU.
Saoradh activists in the 26 counties are involved in many grassroots activities within their respective communities which include housing campaigns, sporting, Irish language & cultural organisations, resident groups and homeless services and action groups.
Our activists are also involved in citizens support and advice, social activism like campaigns against community taxes such as bin and water charges, the demand for community infrastructure ie sporting and recreational facilities in areas of social deprevation and Anti-imperialist agitation alongside like-minded groups.
Standing up to, and confronting, the rise of extreme right-wing groups and fascism, Involvement in justice campaigns, prisoner rights and campaigning to abolish the Special courts etc.
We have also been involved in historical walks & talks, community-organised Hill walks and mountain treks.
Saoradh activists in the 26 counties are also involved in the IRPWA which provides welfare for Republican prisoners and their families but also tries to highlight the issues facing Republican prisoners.
Just before Christmas a Cork Republican was in court facing extradition to the six counties, his extradition was requested at the behest of MI5, yet there has been a complete media blackout of his case in the 26 counties.
Although media censorship ‘section 31’ in the 26 counties officially ended for Sinn Fein in 1994, in regards to Saoradh this censorship is still in place.
Any group that is classed as ‘anti agreement’ or ‘dissident Republicans’ there is an active media blackout on reporting on their activism.
The only articles about Saoradh that appear in the Irish print media are those that try and portray us in a bad light.
This is part of an overall strategy by the state to demonise us while ignoring the criminal bankers, criminal property developers, corrupt Gardai and corrupt politicians who have cost many lives and the economy billions.
Despite the media blackout of our activism and the constant attacks from the state Saoradh are determined to grow in the 26 counties.
Q: Many people are under the impression that the accords of 1998 brought an end to all hostilities in Ireland, and some even claim that a so-called “soft border” brought a practical end to occupation, can you explain in what ways the “peace process” is a misnomer, how the PSNI is an occupational force and in what ways the six counties are still under occupation?
A: The peace process is a misnomer in as much as the nationalist and republican people of the occupied six counties still face the same old issues at the hands of the British state.
In recent years we have seen an escalation in crown force activities in places like Derry and Belfast. The PSNI aided and abetted by the British Army and MI5 have locked down entire communities under the guise of policing .
Modern surveillance techniques and equipment are used to monitor the every move of republicans going about their daily business.
Draconian legislation like the justice and security act has also allowed the PSNI to harrass Republicans at levels never before witnessed . Many are victim to stop and search legislation on an almost daily basis making it almost impossible to live a normal life.
All of this is orchestrated at the highest levels within the British security services and MI5.
All this is backed up by a so called justice system that still sees men and women imprisoned for extended periods at tag hands of diplock courts, denied the right to face a jury of their peers.
Q: Similarly, many people think that the Irish Free State, headquartered in Leinster House, is a fully independent state. Could you explain how it continues to function as a neocolony for principaly British imperialism, but also US and EU imperialism?
A: Since the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 the Leinster House administration has always backed Britain’s interests in Ireland.
Since partition, the Free State has harassed, jailed and executed those who stayed loyal to the 32 County Irish Republic which was established in 1919.
The Free State has sided with Britain in every attempt by Irish Republicans to end partition and has abandoned the six counties even removing articles 2 & 3 of the constitution which rightfully claimed the six counties as part of the Irish nation.
The Free State’s support of British involvement in Ireland has extended to Britain’s & America’s imperialist wars internationally.
Despite its supposed policy of neutrality, the Free State supplied the NATO-led ISAF mission in the Afghanistan War in 2001 with a running total of 120 Irish troops as ‘trainers’.
In 2003 the Free State then a member of the UN Security Council, voted yes to Resolution 1441, which threatened “serious consequences” if Iraq did not comply with weapons inspectors.
Some United States Air Force planes were allowed to refuel at Shannon Airport before and during the invasion of Iraq, as were civilian aircraft transporting US military personnel; others had permission to overfly Irish air space.
Both these invasions showed ‘Irish Neutrality’ as a farce and it has started a downward spiral into the Free state joining an EU Army.
In February 2006, the then Free State Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea announced that the “Irish government would open talks on joining the European Union battlegroups”.
This was quickly followed up with the Free State joining the Nordic Battle Group in 2008, one of eighteen European Union battlegroups
The Free State joined the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) at its establishment in December 2017, which is part of the EU’s security and defence policy.
The Fine Gael-led government said it would participate on a case-by-case basis and membership did not compromise neutrality.
In March 2018 Ireland expelled a Russian diplomat in protest at the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Britain.
During the recent tensions between Russia and America, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said in Leinster House that “Ireland was “not politically neutral but militarily neutral” and that Russia’s massing of troops on the border with Ukraine was not justified.
It is clear that not only is our neutrality gone but the prospect of the Free State joining an EU Army and even NATO grow greater each year.
Q: Another misconception, perhaps one of the most common, amongst the general public, is the Republican Movement as a whole, and also acts of resistance carried out agains the British occupation in Ireland, are/were a “terrorist movement”. Can you describe how this is a falsehood and what differentiates the Republican Movement from actual terrorist movements?
A: The occupier will always use the tool of false proganda to portray resistance movements as “terrorists”. This has been the case, not only in Ireland, but around the world.
Generally those opposed to imperialism live amongst their people in their own communities, whereas those who occupy and plunder are the strangers and outsiders.
Of course revolutionaries will argue that resistance is not “terrorism” and will point to the age old adage that “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist”.
However we can’t simply resort to throwing out clichéd quotes. The fact remains that any population unfortunate enough to find themselves under foreign colonial occupation have the legitimate right to defend themselves against that occupation and imperial aggression. Whether it was the French resisting the Nazis or the Vietnamese resisting US imperialism, the same context can be applied to Irish people resisting British occupation.
That simply isn’t “terrorism.
Q: Coming to the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Association (IRPWA), could you describe the IRPWA’s functions and the work it does for republican POWs, their families and their dependents?
A: The IRPWA is a long established welfare organisation whose main aim is to assist and aid Republican Prisoners and their families.
Q: There is a common misconception that the “peace process” brought an end to internment and political imprisonment in Ireland. Can you explain in what ways this is not true?
A: Since 1998 to today thousands of Irish Republicans have found themselves incarcerated in British and Free State prisons. Internment by remand and via the revoking of licenses remain in place. Political imprisonment is commonplace and sadly as long as Ireland remains under British occupation Republicans will undoubtedly find themselves imprisoned for opposing that occupation.
Q: What are the conditions, republican prisoners in Magaberry, Portalaoise, and other gaols kept under?
A: The situation Republican Prisoners are currently facing is dire. Without taking anything away from our Prisoners in Portlaoise and Hydebank, I would like to answer this question by focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on the conditions in Maghaberry.
There are currently a number of outstanding issues in Maghaberry that remain unresolved and they are forced strip searching, controlled movement, the isolation of republican prisoners and no visits.
Strip searching of Republican Prisoners has been taking place for decades, Today little has changed despite the advances in technology. The forced strip searching that takes place in Maghaberry today is still brutal, humiliating and very degrading.
Controlled movement is designed to severly limit your movement within the Gaol. Several screws are in place to accompany one single prisoner wherever they are moving to on the landing.
The isolation of Republican Prisoners is a vile tactic that has been used by the MI5 led Gaol administration for years. In these cases they select a political prisoner and place them in 24 hour lock up, away from their comrades on the Republican wing. Some prisoners have found themselves in isolation for several years during which time they have no contact with any other prisoner, only their captor.
As it stands Republican Prisoners in Maghaberry and Hydebank haven’t had any family visits in 2 years. Some haven’t had a chance to hold or event meet their newborn children.
While society continually re-emerges from lockdown, Republican Prisoners in the Occupied Six Counties find themselves once again denied basic human rights, the right to fair access to their families and full access to their legal defence teams.
Visits with family and friends are the shining highlight for a Republican Prisoner.
Today both regimes in Maghaberry and Hydebank have used the cover of Covid to create totalitarian boxed visits, knowing full well that Republican Prisoners will never accept this format.
To achieve these basic human rights and help achieve a conflict free environment the regimes in Maghaberry and Hydebank should meaningfully engage in dialogue with Republican Prisoners.
I should add that conditions in Portlaoise Gaol have been condemned by human rights groups here and abroad including the fact that European judgements have been ruled against the Dublin Government in relation to Cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners regarding forced ‘slopping out’.
Republicans are housed in cells with no toilets, no showers and no wash facilities. Recent changes to Parole hearings for lifers are also likely to be challenged.
Q: Which organizations and movements does the IRPWA and Saoradh maintain friendly relations with and extend its solidarity to?
A: Saoradh and the IRPWA have healthy relationships with many political and community groups across Ireland. We also have strong links with international groups such as the Communist Party of Nepal, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], Anti-Fascist organisations in France and Anti-Imperialists in Greece to name but a few.
Q: In your view, what can comrades and friends of the Republican Movement and Struggle internationally do to help the cause of Irish freedom?
A: Irish Republicans have a long history of showing solidarity and support to oppressed people around the world. Likewise those unfortunate enough to find themselves suffering under occupation and imperial aggression have always extended the hand of friendship to revolutionaries in Ireland.
International solidarity is vital for any revolutionary struggle. Spreading awareness that Ireland remains occupied by Britain would greatly help to smash the myth that the “Irish question” is resolved. International comrades highlighting the plight of Irish Republican Prisoners is also something that would greatly help to highlight the human rights abuses and injustices that take place.
