Mary Lou McDonald – No Links to the IRA?

Martina Fitzgerald, RTE’s recently-axed political correspondent, published an analysis piece stating that Mary Lou McDonald was “a strong media performer and has no links to the IRA”.

Is it credible to declare that Mary Lou McDonald has “no links to the IRA”?

Forget all about embittered former SDLP commentator Brian Feeney writing in “The Irish Times” in August, 2015 that the IRA had developed into a wealthy Mafia-style organisation and that following the murder of Kevin McGuigan, the Irish and British governments should

“…find a way to stop Sinn Féin people from saying the IRA has gone away when self-evidently it hasn’t. Its military structures no longer exist, but there is an organisation. There has to be to manage its vast wealth.

In 2005, the Department of Justice estimated the IRA’s global assets at €400 million. Since then it has been privatised, with individual IRA members holding property portfolios and businesses in Ireland, Britain, Europe and the US in trust. Who controls it all? How?”

“Dr. Feeney slammed the Provisionals as “fascists” with a history of violence and corruption.”

Following the Irish authorities’ successful prosecution of Gerry Adams’ “good republican friend” and alleged IRA Chief of Staff ‘Slab’ Murphy for tax evasion and having secured a large tax settlement from him, is the Department of Justice wrong in its estimate of the IRA Army Council’s €400 million illegal wealth?

Does anybody really care if the IRA-AC controls a vast war chest earned through crime?

Forget all about Brian Feeney and the Department of Justice and the PSNI’s determination that the IRA Army Council still exists and is active…

As the IRA Army Council was developing its strategy of establishing its own invisibility, so it hit upon the idea of putting a skulduggery of skirts at the helm of the new hybrid IRA/Sinn Féin movement, with the proviso that those ‘appointed’ (and not ‘elected’) should be in every way obedient to the mass murderers of the IRA Army Council.

The slow ordination of McDonald to High Priestess of Sinn Féin occurred over a period of time during which she was often shown in the company of such IRA Army Council stalwarts as Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams.

The very public, overt ‘laying on of hands’ was to reassure the party faithful that the IRA Army Council fully trusted that McDonald (and O’Neill) would serve its interests and thereby the movement’s aims.

The slow ordination of Mary Lou by the IRA Army Council

An early sign of McDonald finding favour with the IRA Army Council was in 2003 when she spoke alongside former IRA Chief of Staff and former GHQ Quartermaster General Brian Keenan, friend of Libyan Dictator Muammar Gadaffy and early Libyan gun and SEMTEX runner.

Keenan was offering a eulogy to the Second World War IRA Nazi sympathiser and Nazi collaborator, the then IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell in Fairview Park where Dublin City Council placed a statue in honour of pro-Nazi Russell. Russell ran a bombing campaign in England beginning in 1939 at the request of Nazi Intelligence.

During the period that Russell was Chief of Staff of the IRA, three Garda detectives were murdered by IRA members in 1940, detective John Roche murdered in Cork City and detectives Richard Hyland and Patrick McKeown murdered in Rathgar, Dublin.

Russell’s death aboard a German U-boat 100 miles off Galway before he and Frank Ryan were to be landed in Ireland did nothing to stem the murders of other Garda detectives by the IRA – detective George Mordaunt in Donnycarney and detective Sergeant Denis O’Brien in Ballyboden.

Mary Lou dutifully offered homage not only to Nazi-agent Russell, as she was expected to do, but also to Brian Keenan, as she chose to do.

This Blog could not possibly find enough space to enumerate Keenan’s actions in support of the IRA’s bloody 1970s armed struggle, but one of his actions stands out even today at this remove from the horror of the IRA’s unnecessary campaign.

Keenan had worked in West Belfast in the Grundig factory and was later the mastermind in 1973 of the kidnap and subsequent murder of the Managing Director of Grundig, Thomas Niedermayer, who was also the Honorary German Consul to Northern Ireland.

After ransom attempts and other deals failed, the IRA beat Niedermayer to death (that’s right, they didn’t shoot him) and dumped his body in a shallow grave in an illegal dump in the Colin Glen area of Belfast. His body was not found until 1980.

A series of tragedies struck the Niedermayer family in subsequent years, possibly making for the saddest reading to come out of the IRA’s campaign of murder. Niedermayer’s wife, Ingeborg, and his two daughters, Gabrielle and Renate, all committed suicide in later years. Gabrielle’s husband also committed suicide later again. The evil visited upon this family by Brian Keenan and the IRA is forgotten.

An outstanding sign of McDonald’s willingness to fulfill any and all of the IRA Army Council’s wishes was when it was made clear that she would be appointed (and not elected) by a ‘special Ard Fheis’ (special party meeting) as the sole contender for the leadership post. This meant that all of the other would-be contenders got the message from IRA-AC to stand down.

Somehow then, and suddenly, not a single pinko/socialist/working class Sinn Féiner unhappy with McDonald’s Fianna Fail background, with her private schooling and her total inability to speak a focal-ing word of Irish – not a single opponent stood forward to make the leadership of Sinn Féin a contest.

Why not? Because everybody – Pearse Doherty, Conor Murphy, all the lads and lassies – got The IRA Army Council Message – Stand Down!

And some time later, Mary Lou was opining that the Presidency of the Republic of Ireland should be decided only by a contest – she who was not elected, but instead ‘appointed’ by IRA diktat!

Bobby Storey was not the sharpest M-60 in the bunker and his email order in November 2014 directing all Sinn Féin elected representatives about how they should handle the Maria Cahill IRA sex abuse scandal was quickly reported in the press.

Here was an unashamed and unelected leading IRA man instructing elected Sinn Féin members about the IRA Army Council’s requirements on how to fend off Maria Cahill’s complaints about being raped and abused by an IRA member.

Did a single Sinn Féiner – feminist, radical, would-be democrat – oppose Storey’s diktat? No, not one…

Bobby’s background – 20 years in prisons, arrested and questioned about the Northern Bank robbery, about the IRA spy ring at Stormont, about the attempted helicopter escape of Army Council Quartermaster Brian Keenan from an English prison – said it all – the unelected IRA comes first and foremost in the republican movement.

Did the new deodorizing, sanitizing figurine of Mary Lou McDonald speak out against this IRA interference in Sinn Féin?

Are you kidding?

Mary Lou chaired a “night of celebration” in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin’s O’Connell Street for convicted and on-the-run-from-Colombia IRA veteran Jimbo ‘Mortar’ Monaghan in November 2015.

Mary Lou was untroubled by Monaghan’s long IRA service, by his conviction for training FARC cocaine rebels in Colombia and traveling on a false passport and his being on the run from Colombian justice – all of this latter paramilitary activity occurring AFTER the signing of The Belfast Agreement in 1998. Nor was she troubled by the precise details of the IRA Army Council’s deal with FARC – was payment to be made in cash from cocaine production or in coke?

Didn’t Mary Lou, as new leader of a party supposed to leave behind terrorism and criminality, ask Jimbo what he was up to in Colombia before she agreed to chair his night of celebration? Are you kidding?

Guidelines for the IRA Army Council’s control of the republican political wing were set out in an IRA strategy document seized by police in the Republic of Ireland back in 1977. The document, entitled ‘Staff Report’, states:

” Sinn Féin should come under Army organisers at all levels. Sinn Féin should employ full-time organisers in the big Republican areas. Sinn Féin should be radicalised (under Army direction) and agitate around social and economic issues which attack the welfare of the people. SF should be directed to infiltrate other organisations to win support for, and sympathy to, the Movement.”

How is it possible to claim that a woman set to be appointed by the IRA Army Council to lead its subservient political wing, without even a contest, has “no links to the IRA”?

How can someone who was schooled for the position by constant contact with IRA Army Council leaders like Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams be said to have “no links with the IRA”?

Martin and Gerry never handed on to Mary Lou the historical details of the IRA’s negotiations with British Intelligence and various British governments dating back to the 1970s? Not even about the troublesome OTR letters?

Gerry and Martin never handed on details of the IRA’s various fund-raising models that might come back to haunt Sinn Féin – such as petro-dollars from Gadaffi, the Northern Bank robbery, millions of dollars illegally transmitted from the United States over 30 years, narco-dollars from Colombia for IRA training, “the Colombia Three”, Euros from ETA for missiles, diesel laundering along the border in ‘Slab’ country – Mary Lou was not briefed on these matters?

And the IRA ‘house-cleaning’ murders of Robert McCartney, Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison, Kevin McGuigan, Paul Quinn – was the new leader of Sinn Féin not briefed on these murders by Martin and Gerry in order to be able to plausibly deny them?

And the top IRA members in Sinn Féin who are beyond the nominal Sinn Féin leader’s control – Bobby Storey, Bik McFarlane and Gerry ‘The Bolt’ Kelly – as they promote their private Maze Escape Tour, charging £10 at the door for the evening of revelry celebrating the IRA shootings and beating of prison officers – she was not briefed on their untouchability?

And the top IRA member of Sinn Féin in Dublin who was allowed to breach all Sinn Féin so-called rules on ‘the average industrial wage’ – Dessie Ellis – who was discovered in January 2018 to be taking home all of his €90,000 salary – Mary Lou was not briefed on his untouchability either? Dessie who was named in British Embassy Washington papers in 1982 as ‘linked to 50 murders’?

And the ongoing matter of the IRA lies about the so- called ‘disappeared’ persons – some now found, others still denied, such as Captain Robert Nairac – Mary Lou was not briefed by the IRA leadership on these matters?

And the IRA Army Council’s absolute requirement on every Sinn Féin leader to defend the indefensible commemoration and celebration of IRA murders and bombings ad infinitum – even those murders of totally innocent civilians, men, women and children – and to continue the denials of many other anti-civilian bombings – Mary Lou and her Tyrone deputy have faultlessly fallen into obedience on this requirement.

And the IRA Army Council qualification that Mary Lou and Michelle should NEVER admit to any Human Rights’ atrocities by the IRA, and should support the waging of sectarian Human Rights warfare by a cadre of one-eyed so-called ‘Human Rights’ lawyers – utterly blinded to IRA Human Rights atrocities – that this immoral, deceitful and lying warfare should be supported by the Sinn Féin leader – Mary Lou has bowed to this qualification also.

Forget Mary Lou’s tribute to the IRA with her “Up the rebels!” and her “Tiocfaidh ár Lá!” shouts (her only Irish language so far) – yes, of course she was sending a message of support to “the lads” with these…

Finally – and as the complete sign of total surrender to the IRA Army Council  – Mary Lou has uttered the Biggest Lie in the IRA’s Arsenal – Mary Lou has stated that she believes Gerry Adams when he says he was nivver in the IRA…

This puts Mary Lou exactly where Gerry wants her – giving homage to the IRA’s longest-lived leader.

How then can anyone, whether Martina Fitzgerald or anyone else, truly declare that Mary Lou McDonald “has no links to the IRA”???

Take your pick: “I never had sex with that woman” or “I was nivver a member of the IRA”…

[I contacted a large number of former IRA prisoners, including blanket-men, and all of them hooted with laughter at the notion that Mary Lou had “no links to the IRA”…]

Will the Truth ever be uttered in journalism in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland about the IRA’s total control of Sinn Féin?

Mary Lou – the IRA has told Big Lies you know – see here.

And you need to read about your dishonest colleague, Conor Murphy, here.