Provisionals Attempt to Censor RSF in Tallaght

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Tuesday June 01, 2004 20:10

by Ailín Mac Giolla Bhuidhe - Dublin Republican Sinn Féin

rsf_tallaght at hotmail dot com

223 Parnell Street, Dublin 1

872 9747

Republican Sinn Féin Tallaght would like to take this opportunity to highlight ongoing attempts by the Provisonal Movement to censor and marginalise our organisation in the South West Dublin Area.

Members of the Wolfe Tone Cumann of Republican Sinn Féin had sold An Phoblacht in the Tallaght area since the mid seventies and have sold Saoirse-Irish Freedom since 1986 without hinderence. However at the turn of this year our members were refused entry into Molloys pub in the center of Tallaght Village and were therefore stopped from selling the party paper.

The reason given by the assistant manager at the time was that there was too many collections being carried out and that the sellers would have to arrange a time to go into the pub in the future. However when we tried to contact the manager of Molloys by phone he was unavailable. When we went to see him in person the story was a totally different one than that told to us when we were refused entry. According to him the local Provisionals and specifically Councillor Mark Daly worked out of the pub and were unhappy with the fact that a rival organisation was selling its paper in "their" pub. When pushed on the matter the manager made the amazing claim that if we wanted to sell our paper in the pub he supposedly managed we would have to go ask the Provisionals for permission and not himself. This is something of course we as Republicans would not do.

Provisional President Gerry Adams recently visited IT Tallaght where he spoke on the issue of involving more youth in politics and also against censorship. After his speech he was confronted by two young members of Republican Sinn Féin who asked him why his own party was censoring them from being involved in politics. Mr Adams stated his opposition to this practice and pledged to talk to local members of his movement. Of course not for the first time Mr Adams word could not be trusted. Repeated attempts to sell Saoirse and Easter lillies have met with point blank refusal with security staff issuing threats of a physical nature on one occasion.

A letter detailing the events outlined in this statement was sent to the Molloy group over two months ago asking them was it official policy for political parties to decide the patronage of their establishments. Seeing as we have received no reply to this letter we feel compelled to publicly ask what the Molloy group's policy is on this matter. Do their appointed managers have the final say on the managing of the pub or do they run it on the say so of outside influences?

Republican Sinn Féin in Tallaght is gaining support and new members and will not be deflected by anyone. We would call on the electorate to think of this censorship before they vote for the Provisionals in the local Elections. In their election literature they state "The times they are changing" We would ask are they for the better or worse?

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