From the newswire (our correspondents are everywhere)!:

April 27th 2005 (Indymedia.ie) Yesterday, Circuit Court Judge Carroll Moran was the guest speaker at a public talk hosted by the University of Limerick Law Society. Two local people with an interest in judicial standards heard about it and decided to attend. The judge gave a one hour talk on “A judge’s perspectives on Circuit Court Practices” in which he outlined his insightful views on the jury system. He was not comfortable with some of the questions at the end which related his own conduct while presiding over the trial of Mary Kelly (see previous indymedia.ie coverage).

The talk began at 6pm in the Charles Parson's Theatre in the University. Most of the audience were either studying law or teaching it. There was brief introduction listing Judge Moran's career path from a solicitor in 1970, to being a barrister, and then a judge. After this the judge briefly outlined the different tiers of the courts system in Ireland: District Court, Circuit Court, High Court, Supreme Court.

He said that there was a culture of expediency in the Circuit Court, where a case could be heard in a week that might take months to argue in the High Court.

He then spoke about the different parties in the Supreme Court: solicitors; barristers; jurors; witnesses; and the judge.

Given the audience he had (mostly aspiring solicitors and barristers) his discussion of solicitors and barristers was limited to comparing and contrasting them as careers rather than their functions in court. He also told his audience that they “probably know more law than [he] does, as one forgets so much of it after graduation, but compensates for this with experience and practice.”

Judge Moran had some interesting things to say about jurors though! He described the Jury System as a slow, expensive system that evolved by accident. He also said that “the jury system is not something we would invent if we were starting from scratch today”. He disagreed with the view expressed by some that a Jury is somehow the “democracy on the ground” of the judicial system.

He explained how in earlier times jurors had to be householders, “people who were considered safe, and reasonably pro-establishment.” He said that now many such people will beg to be excused from jury duty because of work, children or holidays, and that “juries tend to be mostly made up of unemployed or retired people”.

Five Peace People from Ireland joined about 50 others from several countries in a week long campaign in Israel to stop the sanctions aganst Mordechai Vanunu and to start a campaign to secure his full freedom.

Extract From Report: On Friday, 22 April, at a morning vigil at the Paris Park, protestors held portraits of Mordechai Vanunu and signs that read "We are all Mordechai Vanunu" and "Wherever we are, Vanunu Is" along with the names of the places from which the delegates had come. The vigil was followed by a slow procession to the Sharon HQ where an attempt to hand in or read a letter was prevented by Mossad, Ann Patterson acting as negotiator. Police escorted the delegation back to the Park where Justin read the signed letter publicly. It was later posted to Mr Sharon in the post tray at the College of St George.

One year ago, on Mayday 2004, the summit of the EU heads of state took place in Farmleigh House in the Pheonix Park. The entire park was filled with surveillance cameras, ringed with fences, draped with barbed wire, buzzed by helicopters, rigged with motion detectors and surrounded with riot police. In the end water cannons were deployed to keep a protestors out of the park

History is normally written by the winners and it is common to find each new generation of radicals having to rediscover the stories of those who went before them. Thus, it is not surprising that many of those who protested last year probably were unaware of the history of battles between radical movements and the state that the park played host to in the past.

While the park hosts many of the symbols of power in Ireland - past and present - from the monument to the arch-reactionary Wellington, to the US-ambassador's residence and the Garda Headquarters, it has also seen its fair share of opposition. The invincibles assasinated the British Secretary there in 1882, it was the site of many early 20th century trade union ralies and the magazine fort in the park was captured at the start of the 1916 rising and was raided again by the IRA in 1939. The phoenix park is, in many ways, a symbolic battleground for the soul of Ireland. In recent years radical movements in Ireland have re-energised Mayday in Dublin. This year, even without the pomp and grandeur of the EU heads of state, a series of radical events are planned to span the weekend. A festival of radical opposition that is once again bubbling to the surface. And once again the Phoenix Park is on the menu.

Mayday Radical Events: Anarchist 1st of May picnic in Phoenix Park | DCTU May Day Demonstration - Solidarity with Migrant Workers including a Get up stand up block to help organise the unorganised | Reclaim the Streets

From The Newswire: The emergence of a number of independent republican candidates in this years northern council elections has highlighted a growing discontent within the traditional republican base vote which Sinn Fein could previously have taken for granted.

Although small in number, the fact that these independent candidates have emerged from within working class republican communities across the entire 6 counties, indicates that a growing number of republicans no longer feel that Sinn Fein articulate or represent their ideological beliefs, whether republican or socialist, and that this dissent exists across the entire occupied area.

It also appears that their decision to contest the elections and oppose Sinn Fein's stranglehold within the republican base has been spontaneous and not part of any organised electoral effort by any political grouping.

From the National University of Ireland, Galway and the Kurdish Human Rights Project, London:

Plans for large dams in southeast Turkey including the discredited Ilisu dam project may yet go ahead in spite of adverse impacts on cultural and environmental rights, according to a new report by the National University of Ireland, Galway and the Kurdish Human Rights Project.

The report provides new evidence from hydroelectric dam projects planned for the Munzur, Tigris and Greater Zap rivers.

The study, a report of a fact-finding mission to the region carried out by Maggie Ronayne, Lecturer in Archaeology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, demonstrates how archaeology in particular supports the case of thousands of villagers adversely affected by these projects, most of whom do not appear to have been consulted at all about the dams and many of whom want to return to reservoir areas, having already been displaced by the recent conflict in the region....