by Chris Fogarty

HOLOCAUST MASS GRAVES. Another, in Co. Louth, was brought to my attention yesterday by long-time friend Malachy Towey. Like so many other Holocaust (famine) mass graves, it is outside the wall of a consecratedcemetery- Slarmore. It’s a few fields west of the Collon road some miles from Ardee. Malachy informs me that the Ardee workhouse haulier required a four-corpse minimum to make the cemetery trip, and made a few trips some days. Thank you, Malachy! It is to your credit that the murders of the innocents buried there will not be permanently concealed.

ANOTHER, IN DUNFANAGHY, Co. Donegal, thanks to George McFadden.

TIME RUNS SHORT. My book nears completion. Of the hundreds of Holocaust mass graves in Ireland, only two, so far, have markers that bear honest witness. Most lack markers of any kind, others have a worn “famine graveyard” sign; so we must register the remaining known mass graves before they are lost forever. This might be the last chance for the mass grave near your birthplace to be publicly acknowledged and put on the map along with the others. It’s your choice as to attribution. If you prefer anonymity, that’s fine; just be sure to inform me of the mass grave you know about. Call 312/664-7651 or eMail me: fogartyc@att.net.

THE “IRISH” GOV’T, a main Irish Holocaust denier, opposes installation of mass grave memorials. Meanwhile, it promotes a different memorial, to Irish purveyors of British violence. Pat Muldowney sends the following (shortened here) from Ireland:

GALLIPOLI “PILGRIMAGE.” In an official visit to Turkey in March Irish President Mary McAleese is scheduled to unveil a memorial to the Irish soldiers killed at Gallipoli in World War 1. Ireland’s elected representatives are being invited to participate in a “Pilgrimage” to Gallipoli as part of the ceremonials.
Should this invitation be accepted? In 1915 Irish, Australian and other invaders descended on Turkey armed to the teeth with the deadliest weapons and technology of destruction available at that time. Why were they there? Did they incite the Turks to do the same to the Armenians a few years later? The Gallipoli attack was the beginning of a campaign by which the Western powers secured control of most of the Middle East and its valuable oilfields. They continued to wage war throughout the twentieth century to keep control of the region. Since Gallipoli, Western armies have plagued the Middle East, so that it is now one of the most dangerous and tormented areas on earth.

It is unlikely that most of the individual Irish soldiers buried in Gallipoli went there to capture oil and territory, or to start a century of western military aggression, colonisation and domination in that region. So why were they there trying to kill Turks? What were their reasons and motivations? Some of them were poor men who thought they could better themselves if they signed up for killing other people. In other words they did it for the money. Others were persuaded by patriotic propaganda that it was a good idea to invade another country and kill people there. In other words, they were duped. Some people signed up in order to get a gun and have adventures. In other words they wanted to kill for pleasure.

Which of the Gallipoli dead should be admired, honoured and commemorated? Those Turkish soldiers who heroically sacrificed their lives defending their homeland from foreign invasion? Or the invaders who engaged in aggressive warfare for money, for pleasure, or to help their governments to steal the territory and natural resources of other people? How would we feel if a foreign head of state came to our country to honour and commemorate jihadist soldiers who died while trying to conquer us, change our way of life, and seize our land and resources, using religious words like “Pilgrimage”? It may be that the Irish President thinks that the population of Ireland can be brought together by focusing on some military event in which both sides participated, while mindlessly closing our eyes to the meaning, purpose and consequences of that event. The reality is that we are just emerging from a period of armed conflict in Ireland. Such violence creates division, not harmony. The militarism and slaughter of the Great War generated anger, disillusion, bitterness, destruction and chaos. The Middle East in particular is still suffering grievously from the consequences of Gallipoli.

The Irish dead in Gallipoli should be allowed to rest in peace. If anything, some official amends should be made for the horrific crime they helped to perpetrate on the people of the Middle East. There are many peaceful and honourable projects in which people of good will can join together in common cause. So why should we now dwell on some violent project which Irish people participated, for opposing and mutually contradictory reasons, in order to inflict death and destruction on people in a faraway country who had never harmed us? Why should we now expect to be inspired and elevated by the uninspiring fact that armed unionists and nationalists were prepared to defend each other from a third party against whom they had joined together in a savage and unprovoked attack?

The real meaning of Gallipoli is carefully concealed from us. Why? Could it be that we are being softened up to make us amenable to present-day Gallipoli-style savagery in other faraway countries? If Gallipoli is so commendable as to be worthy of State Visits and “Pilgrimages”, surely we should be eager to involve ourselves in similar military activities today? In fact, Gallipoli was one of the most shameful, divisive and brutal episodes in our history, and that is what we should remember about it.

IN DUBLIN on its January 30 anniversary, people commemorated Bloody Sunday of 1972 in which British soldiers shot thirty peaceful Derry human rights marchers, mostly in the back, killing fourteen of them.

While the murderers have proven to be above the law, “Irish” police including Dets. Kevin Doherty and Joe Higgins photographed the Dublin commemorators and threateningly demanded IDs. Thus, in official Ireland, mass murder by the Brits is something to abet while treating commemorators as terrorists.

MY MARY asks me to include this: “It wasn’t only millions of jobs that were lost,” said the Los Angeles Times’ Marc Cooper. “We have lost our guiding principles as a nation.” After the twin towers fell, “we were stampeded” into an unnecessary war “by an administration that cynically manipulated our deepest but unfounded fears.” Executive power was expanded in a manner that would make “Dick Nixon blush and Thomas Jefferson roll over in his grave” and our global standing was “drowned in the CIA’s torture pits and in the horror dungeons of Abu Ghraib.” And let’s not forget how it all began—with the “charade” of an unelected, blatantly partisan Supreme Court picking our president.

CALL THE WHITEHOUSE (202/456-1111) Ask for cessation of US funding for murderers of union organizers in Colombia and Honduras. Demand an end to funding and munitioning of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. Then phone/write your US Congressmen and Senators about the same.

GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT, beneficial? See www.michaelmckevitt.com, and ww.friendsofcolinduffy.com.

WHICH BRIT REG’T murdered your relatives? See www.irishholocaust.org.

WHO ARE THE TERRORISTS in Occupied Ireland? See www.terrorismireland.org.