Foreign media coverage of the reaction here

The anti-abortion movement was not cowed by the outcry over Savita's tragic death nor by the huge popular response marching in November. The Government plans legislation only to allow abortion when the woman's life is danger and the criteria for establishing that are not yet known. All opinion polls on the subject show a huge majority in favour of liberalisation of the laws -- a majority which is also rising over the years. The abortion rights movement has been publicly quiet for some time now while the opposition is loud and in public view. Can the movement for abortion rights summon the necessary militancy to achieve its objectives?

The long arm of the bond-holders

Press statement - Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes (CAHWT) 11 Feb 2013
Eyewitness reports of Garda violence at South Dublin County Council

19 year old protester hospitalised: plainclothes Garda ‘smashed my head on wall’

Campaigners against the property tax – who staged one of a number of peaceful protests at Councils today – have questioned why Gardai at South Dublin County Council used brutal and unnecessary force against them, including some plain clothes Gardai. Cannisters of pepper spray were also waved at locals who were manhandled and handcuffed. One is currently being kept in Tallaght Hospital for observation of his injuries.

Aaron Nolan (aged 19, now in hospital):
“I was standing in front of Shane Donnelly when one of the uniformed police pulled me to the ground. I stood up and tried to get in front of Shane again. A stocky man, with a light blue hoody, who I thought was one of the protesters, grabbed me and pushed me against the wall. He then grabbed my head with his two hands and smashed my head against the wall. I fell on the ground and when I was on the ground, he choked me with his two hands. I was dazed and unable to stand as he handcuffed me.”

Embedded Video Description: Arrests in South Dublin County Council of peaceful protesters

Irish Referendum Practice from McKenna (1995) to McCrystal (2012).

This is part two of a two part series. To read the first article in the series you can find it here

By Anthony Coughlan

“We will fix that Stalinist body" ... Comment by the late Brian Lenihan TD on the then Referendum Commission, Autumn 2001, in the lead-up to the second Nice Treaty referendum.



And How They Fixed It:
In December 2001 the Fianna Fail Government then in office put a Bill through the Oireachtas (Legislature) amending the 1998 Referendum Act so as to remove from the statutory Referendum Commission its function of setting out in a fair and neutral manner the relevant arguments for and against any proposed constitutional amendment. This was done on the last day before the Oireachtas rose for the Christmas holidays that year, when all stages of the relevant Bill were pushed through the Dail and Seanad in one day, with two days notice to the Opposition. Because of these circumstances this move went virtually unnoticed by the Irish media at the time.

Commemoration Event Poster

A wreath-laying ceremony to honour and remember the three busmen who were killed will take place in Sackville Place on the 4th of December at 11.30 am at the site of the pavement memorial: ‘A Fallen Bouquet’.
All welcome

Forty years have passed since that dark winter evening of Friday, 1st December 1972, when at 7.58 pm, the first ever car bomb exploded in the Republic of Ireland. It occurred beside the famous Dublin landmark, Liberty Hall, where the ITWGU had its headquarters. There were no fatalities but many people were injured. Several minutes later, a second explosion occurred at Sackville Place, off O’Connell Street, killing bus driver George Bradshaw, aged 29 and bus conductor Tommy Duffy, aged 23. Both of them were married men. George and his wife Kathleen had two young children. Tommy and his wife had a daughter and Monica was pregnant with their second child.

Three minutes before the first bomb exploded, an anonymous telephone call was made to the 'Belfast Newsletter', giving a warning that bombs planted at Liberty Hall and behind Clery’s would explode at 8.05 pm. The person who received the warning told Gardaí that the caller had spoken with a ‘Belfast English-type accent’. The warnings came too late as was almost certainly the intention. The result was devastating, two men dead and 127 people injured. Damage to property was extensive.

Related Links: Justice For the Forgotten |
Answers still outstanding about the Dublin and Monaghan bombings |
Wikipedia page on the bombings |
An Phoblacht article on the unveiling of the memorial to the three CIE workers |