VERSE
Christman, Bernice Bunn
opinion poll in Northern Ireland. This showed that 62 percent of the population in the area favor a special relationship with the Republic. Even among Protestants, support for the idea was 47...
...Tip" O'Neill, Governor Hugh Carey, Senators Ted Kennedy and Pat Moynihan and "~the many other true friends of Ireland in American political and business life," thanking them for their support for the economic development of Ireland as a whole "and in encouraging Irish Americans to desist from contributing to doubtful organizations in the U.S.mlike NORAID and the Irish National Caucus --whose activities are anathema to our patty and our Government...
...Conor Cruise O'Brien, a leading policy-maker on Northern Ireland in the coalition cabinet...
...Even among Protestants, support for the idea was 47 percent...
...In a narrow gulch as narrow as my bed I listen what it says what it says it says it says it says of trains of trains across the night...
...Hume's call as an excuse for a radical re-think of Northern policy, which would distance his party from the philosophy of Dr...
...Hume's call on the Republic's political parties for new thinking in what they meant by unity was eagerly seized on...
...Commonweal: 327...
...Finally, Mr...
...Frank Cluskey, also used Mr...
...FitzGerald was obviously using Mr...
...They tear, flap loosetent back to moon and drift until the echo on the rails clicks tinnily of trestles over a Kansas riverbedand a far Rocky in mountain spacechanging soundtracks...
...He also cited Mr...
...O'Brien's own Labor Party leader, Mr...
...Jack Lynch, leader of FiannaFail, joined the race for a seat on the Hume bandwagon...
...Let us hope that more and more people will heed his words...
...Lynch used his most abusive language ever to condemn the Provisionals for their "savagery" and "mindless bestiality" and the cotderence stood for a minute's silence in remembrance of the people killed and injured in the County Down restaurant bombing...
...Lynch had nice things to say about President Carter whose initiatives on Northern Ireland last year he welcomed...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 BERNICE BUNN CHRISTMAN NIGHT TRAIN Across the country dark of miles and houses asleepthe swaying shadow breathes grit through rattly lungs and shakes the snow-coops on the grades...
...Hume's call to announce that the party's administrative council would be asked to re-examine its Northern policy...
...Fine Gael was the senior partner (with the Labor Party) in the ill-fated coalition government which was massacred at the June 1977 general election, in which Fianna Fail won 84 seats, giving them a 20-seat overall majority, the biggest ever in Irish political history...
...Garret FitzGerald, leader of Fine Gael, the second biggest of the parties, immediately announced a major review of its Northern Ireland policy...
...So now all the main parties are committed to a rethinking of their Northern Ireland policies a~d while this is going on and in the absence of a British initiative in the pre-election period, a period of political inactivity is inevitable, leaving a dangerous vacuum which the Provisional IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries look like filling...
...The objective would be to achieve a solution which would enable the Irish people to govern themselves without any involvement by Great Britain in Irish affairs...
...DESMOND FISHER (Desmond Fisher is Commonweal's regular correspondent in Ireland...
...Then he added bitterly: "If those who contribute believe thdr money goes to support widows or orphans, let me make it dear that it goes to make widows and orphans...
...He told the Fianna Fail annual conference on February 18 that he proposes to set up a study group, representing North and South, .to examine the civil rights, legal and constitutional implications of Irish unity, i.neluding apossible federal arrangement, adding "and this is noth~: ing new: we have discussed it for many years...
Vol. 105 • May 1978 • No. 11
