Tara Hill

HARPERS OF IRELAND TO GATHER AT DÁIL TO SAVE TARA

On Saturday 22nd September 2007 at 3 p.m. the harpers of Ireland will gather at Dáil Éireann to demonstrate publicly the strength of their opposition to the destruction of historic cultural sites at the Tara/Skryne Valley as a result of the current route of the M3 motorway.

The harpers will assemble with their harps along Kildare Street, and will submit a petition to Minister John Gormley insisting he implement alternatives to the continued destruction which is taking place.Ireland is unique in having a musical instrument, the harp, as its national emblem. This indicates the primacy of the harp in Irish culture. The sites currently under threat are inextricably linked with the harping and bardic traditions for more than 2,500 years.

Tara was the gathering place for thousands of harpers to 142 kings, and the harp was an integral part of the ancient Irish parliament at Tara. The harp has been used in the coat of arms of Ireland since 1270 and is the symbol of the Irish State today. It is found in the seals of the President, Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Government Ministers, on State currency and is the insignia of the Irish Law Courts.

It is an outrage that the Irish people should be forced to choose between infrastructure and heritage. As a country we are embarrassed internationally by profit-driven, shortsighted planning as exemplified by the fact that World Monument Fund has placed Tara on its list of 100 most endangered sites worldwide.

Many can rightly point out that it would be an archaeological loss, and a historical one. It is also a spiritual loss, since even before the conversion by St Patrick of Ireland’s High Kings it was a place where the Irish sought to express their spirituality. And significantly for us as a nation, it was the place of birth of Christianity in Ireland. The gathering of harpers says that it is also a musical and cultural loss and asserts that the sound of Tara’s harp will not be drowned by traffic jams and the cash registers of toll plazas.

Harper events will also take place in NY, Chicago, and Los Angeles outside Irish Consulates.

coffee break

Who Should Make the Coffee?


A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning.

The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee."

The husband said, "You are in charge of the cooking around here so you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee."Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides it says in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."

Husband replies, "I can't believe that! Show me."

So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says, "HEBREWS." TGIF Dear Friends

DUBLIN, Ireland

DUBLIN, Ireland:
Britain has fulfilled its promise to reduce its troops and military bases in Northern Ireland to peacetime levels, an expert report on the cutback program concluded Monday.

The report from the Independent Monitoring Commission said Britain had more than honored its two-year cutback plan, which was launched in August 2005 in response to peacemaking moves from the outlawed Irish Republican Army.

The commission — a four-man panel tasked with assessing the activities of British security forces and outlawed paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland — was appointed jointly by the governments of Britain and Ireland. Its members include a former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and an ex-commander of Scotland Yard's anti-terror branch.

Britain in August 2005 published a detailed plan promising to cut its military strength in Northern Ireland to a maximum of 5,000 troops operating from no more than 14 bases by the end of July 2007.

But the troop reductions have run "consistently ahead of schedule," the report said. The number of troops at the end of July had fallen to 4,275 and all but 13 bases were shut down or demolished.

The panel said British authorities needed to concentrate on two remaining areas: reducing the use of non-jury trials in Northern Ireland in cases involving crimes committed by paramilitary members, and the failure to remodel police stations to make them look less like frontier forts.

"In our view the pace of defortification needs to be increased," the report said, referring to the elimination of car bomb barriers, anti-rocket netting, bulletproof sentry posts and other security measures designed to protect police from IRA attacks.

Britain's cuts have been dependent on good behavior from the IRA, which killed nearly 1,800 people from 1970 to 1997 but renounced violence in July 2005 and disarmed the following September.

The experts repeated their view that the IRA, though still in existence, posed no threat to troops or police because its leaders were instructing members to get involved in politics and community work. They said IRA dissidents continued to pose a sporadic threat to police and politicians but do not "have the capacity to mount a sustained campaign."

From July 2005 to July 2007, the report found, the number of troops fell from 10,028 to 4,275; army bases from 24 to 13; and border watchtowers from 10 to zero.

Those troops that remain in Northern Ireland are training exclusively for deployment overseas, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, the same status as anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Britain's Justice and Security Act 2007 permits soldiers to be used to support the police — the army's original mission in Northern Ireland in 1969 — only if ordered into action by Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward, the senior British government official in the province.


On the Net:

Independent Monitoring Commission report,

Peace at any price

The elders of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ireland aren't usually on the streets of Belfast at 2 a.m., an hour more associated with sin than with the business of their church. So, when they emerged from the Martyrs Memorial Church after a five-hour meeting Saturday to make an announcement, the time of day alone was an indication that something unusual was afoot.


Northern Ireland First Minister Dr. Ian Paisley, right, stands with Irish President Mary McAleese for the first time, at Somme Heritage Center, which honors the sacrifices of British soldiers from Ireland in World War I, at Conlig in Northern Ireland, Monday, Sept. 10, 2007.
The bombshell announcement? Ian Paisley, the First of Minister of Northern Ireland, had suddenly decided to step down as moderator of 12,000-strong Protestant congregation in January, after almost 57 years in charge. Retirement shouldn't be far from Paisley's mind at the age of 81, but the circumstances indicated he may be jumping before being pushed by an unprecedented revolt among his most ardent followers.

The Free Ps, as they are known in Northern Ireland, have for decades been the bedrock of support for Paisley, who founded the fundamentalist church in 1951 and whose leadership ever since has been unquestioned and unchallenged. It was also the network behind the Democratic Unionist Party he founded 20 years later, and which in turn propelled him to the First Minister's office this past May.

It's his new job that's the problem for his flock: Paisley's earthly power is the result of a peace settlement that requires him to share government with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, the nationalist movement he has devoted his political career to fighting. Many Free Presbyterians have buried relatives killed by the IRA; others were simply upset by the compromises he made and appalled by photographs of Paisley laughing heartily alongside Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader.

Paisley was well aware of the unrest. A delegation of Free Presbyterian ministers had urged him last May to reject the peace deal last May, and some became openly critical when he ignored their advice. Theological warfare ensued: One senior cleric accused Paisley of "abandoning of a truly Biblical position regarding murderers in government." Paisley hit back in a Church newsletter, accusing his critics of "slandering God's leadership" and warning that "it is the ploy of Satan to attack those whom God has signally appointed and specially anointed as leaders in His work."

But the First Minister may have underestimated the depth of opposition among his own base. Paisley's followers had confidently predicted he would be reelected as Free Presbyterian moderator last week, but the strength of feeling at the church meeting changed all that. A deal was crafted that allows Paisley to step down without a vote. In return, critical articles were taken off the Internet by his opponents, although they described his removal as "a start."

The move is a worrying sign that despite Paisley's credentials as the longtime firebrand militant leader of the most uncompromising wing of the pro-British loyalist community, his path of compromise has failed to convince large sections of the Protestant community. Mindful of concerns among his base, Paisley's party has suggested that public contact between him and McGuiness might be scaled back. But the settlement that brought them together remains sound. Paisley has been in politics almost as long as he's been in the pulpit: he ensured that his rivals for the unionist vote were beaten at the ballot box before he took the plunge with Sinn Fein, so his internal critics currently have nowhere to go. Politically, he can afford the loss of his church. The Free Presbyterians, when children are counted, still amount to only a little over 5% of the DUP's vote.

Paisley preached as normal later on the Sunday morning of the church coup, and had put his First Minister's hat back on by Monday afternoon. He talked about making sure their political apparatus represents "all sections of society": practically that means his office funds things like Belfast's growing gay pride festival, even as Paisley the preacher continues to condemn "sodomites." It's a contradiction much of Northern Ireland can live with. In a society plagued by religious division, Ian Paisley may have become the unlikely example of the separation between church and state.

Church of Ireland

Churches in Ireland can no longer rely on simple strength of numbers to put forward their point of view, according the primate of the Church of Ireland, Archbishop Alan Harper. Instead, the power and quality of the argument of their case and strength of analysis would be the litmus test, he added in this week’s edition of the Church of Ireland Gazette. The Archbishop said:

“We can no longer rely on having a place as of right in terms of public affairs, or the influence that the church used to exert simply by being the churches. “We have now to command that, as a result of delivery and providing a critique of society that others can take with a degree of respect…. persuading people by the power and quality of our argument and the genuine strength of our analysis,...