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Ireland in song, dance, photographs, videos, stories, music, literature, much of it sourced in YouTube by BrianClarkeNUJ
Showing posts with label Indymedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indymedia. Show all posts
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Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister to Accept Parliamentary Report on Marian Price
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister to Accept Parliamentary Report on Marian Price
international | rights and freedoms | news report 
Thursday October 18, 2012 12:21
by BrianClarkeNUJ - AllVoices 
Marian Price Irish Parliamentary Visit
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister to Accept Parliamentary Report of Group Visit to Marian Price
According to the Irish Times of 18/10/12
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister to accept Parliamentary report of Group Visiting Marian Price
According to the Irish Times of 18/10/12
"The Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore said he would accept a report from an Oireachtas group planning to visit jailed republican Marian Price in two weeks.
Ms Price was detained in May 2011, after the licence on which she had been released in 1980 for IRA bombings in London was revoked.
Mr Gilmore said he had raised the case with former secretary of state for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson on several occasions and, more recently, with the current holder of the office, Theresa Villiers.
“The Taoiseach also took the opportunity to raise the matter with secretary of state Villiers when he met her on October 2nd,” Mr Gilmore added.
“I will continue to raise this case with the British government and to convey my concerns, which are shared by all sides of this House, to them and to relevant Northern Ireland authorities.”
Mr Gilmore was replying to ULA TD Clare Daly, who said the treatment of Ms Price had been deemed to be tantamount to torture by the UN.
“Her medical treatment is not the best and does not adhere to various standards,” she added.
Ms. Daly said she was “an extremely ill woman who represents no danger to the public whatsoever and the longer she is incarcerated in solitary confinement and denied the support she needs, the worse her condition will get”.
Ms Daly suggested that Mr Gilmore join a number of TDs who are planning to visit Ms Price in two weeks.
Mr Gilmore said he was aware a parliamentary group intended to visit her and he would be happy to hear a report when it returned."
According to the Irish Times of 18/10/12
"The Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore said he would accept a report from an Oireachtas group planning to visit jailed republican Marian Price in two weeks.
Ms Price was detained in May 2011, after the licence on which she had been released in 1980 for IRA bombings in London was revoked.
Mr Gilmore said he had raised the case with former secretary of state for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson on several occasions and, more recently, with the current holder of the office, Theresa Villiers.
“The Taoiseach also took the opportunity to raise the matter with secretary of state Villiers when he met her on October 2nd,” Mr Gilmore added.
“I will continue to raise this case with the British government and to convey my concerns, which are shared by all sides of this House, to them and to relevant Northern Ireland authorities.”
Mr Gilmore was replying to ULA TD Clare Daly, who said the treatment of Ms Price had been deemed to be tantamount to torture by the UN.
“Her medical treatment is not the best and does not adhere to various standards,” she added.
Ms. Daly said she was “an extremely ill woman who represents no danger to the public whatsoever and the longer she is incarcerated in solitary confinement and denied the support she needs, the worse her condition will get”.
Ms Daly suggested that Mr Gilmore join a number of TDs who are planning to visit Ms Price in two weeks.
Mr Gilmore said he was aware a parliamentary group intended to visit her and he would be happy to hear a report when it returned."
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BBC 'Fix It Culture' Enables More Irish Child Rape than Catholic Church
BBC 'Fix It Culture' Enables More Irish Child Rape than Catholic Church
international | irish social forum | opinion/analysis Tuesday October 16, 2012 09:08 by BrianClarkeNUJ - AllVoices
Referendum
The BBC dominates the airwaves in Ireland, with Irish national broadcaster RTE still unavailable in most parts of British Occupied Ireland. Despite a peace process, the propaganda of the BBC still pollutes Irish politics and life. With the leader of the British Labour party, Ed Miliband calling for an independent inquiry into "horrific allegations" rather than a planned BBC internal cover-up of allegations on a BBC culture, of enabling child rape for decades. Many believe that the BBC's influence on the rape of children, to be of an even greater scale, than the Catholic Church.
The BBC dominates the airwaves in Ireland, with Irish national broadcaster RTE still unavailable in most parts of British Occupied Ireland. Despite a peace process, the propaganda of the BBC still pollutes Irish politics and life. With the leader of the British Labour party, Ed Miliband calling for an independent inquiry into "horrific allegations" rather than a planned BBC internal cover-up of allegations of a BBC culture, of enabling child rape for decades. Many believe that the BBC's influence on the rape of children, to be on an even greater scale, than the Catholic Church.
David Nicholson, who worked as a director on Jim'll Fix It, claimed to have caught Savile, having sex with a girl in his dressing room, but was laughed away, when he voiced his concerns. Further reports of abuse emerged, relating to Stoke Mandeville hospital, Leeds General Infirmary, Broadmoor secure hospital, Haut de la Garenne children's home in Jersey, Tayside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire. British police say they have received allegations of abuse dating back to the 1960s, '70s and '80s. BBC director general George Entwistle dropped a Newsnight investigation into the Savile scandal.
Currently a referendum is happening in the Unfree Irish State, to draw a line in the sand with regard to the abuse of children, after a long struggle on children's rights. Irish children have not been well served by their country. The mistreatment of some of the most vulnerable children, still goes on at epidemic levels in both parts of the island. The island is generally still emotionally detached from the suffering, abuse and daily revelations of child torture with rape.
Savile was knighted in 1990, having already received the OBE in 1971. The BBC and British High society stand accused of covering up a "scandalous culture" that existed within the dark corners of Britain's Offiicial Secrets Act. The extent of the probem is said to be far greater than the scandal of the Catholic Church in Ireland.In 1990 Savile was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and pope John Paul II, for services rendered.
Meanwhile the changes proposed in the Unfree Irish State to the Constitution are steps to systemic change, like creating a new Child and Family Support Agency with constitutional change, that is broad and significant. The Constitutional change proposed in the up coming referendum is about making a clear statement from the people, to legislators, judges and society as a whole about how children should be treated.
So what does the referendum change propose, well according to the Irish Times;
"It says: we believe that children, if they are mature enough, should be able to express their views in legal proceedings that affect them. For instance if a judge is making a decision involving a mature 16-year-old that judge will be required to ask what the 16-year-old’s views are.
It says: we believe all children are equal. At present the laws relating to adoption are different depending on whether the child to be adopted is born “out of wedlock” or not. That’s an anachronism left over from a past century. All children should be equal.
It says: we believe that when a child is being starved, or beaten, or burned or physically or sexually abused social workers should be able to intervene to stop that.
It says: in essence, that children in Ireland have rights. That the State will recognise those rights. And that we will do everything we can to protect those rights.
Will that change the lives of Irish children? It is an important symbolic change with strong, practical impact. Change also comes from legislation, administration and resources.
What this referendum also does is draw a line in the sand. It allows us to leave behind us a legacy of failure. It allows us to say as a nation that we believe children have rights, just like everyone else. It allows us to set the legislature and judiciary on a different path than that which has pertained for decades.
It is unsurprising to some extent that the debate around the referendum is tending to focus on the legal and on the extreme because, shorn of semantics and sensationalism, the debate hinges on one central issue; do we, the people of Ireland, believe our children have rights we should protect?
I believe we do, NGOs like Barnardos, the ISPCC, the Children’s Rights Alliance and EPIC believe we do.
If you believe that, then vote Yes. We can argue about funding, we can argue about process, we can argue about systems, we can argue about services. Those are arguments for legislation. They are the arguments that are the stock-in-trade of the political system and they are arguments that will continue forever as the Dáil balances the needs of the people with the resources at hand.
The Constitution is not part of those arguments. Rather it defines the parameters of them. So if you want future generations of politicians and judges to be guided by a constitutional imperative to recognise the rights of children, the equality of children and the voices of children in decisions they make in relation to children, then vote Yes.
The decision to hold the referendum was agreed unanimously by all members of both Dáil and Seanad Éireann – a rare moment of consensus in Irish politics! That consensus tells us that on this very particular issue – the best interests of children – we share a common commitment and want to set the standard which will inform future policy and decisions."
This referendum takes place on Saturday, November 10th, and it will be an important opportunity to taste a form of genuine Irish democracy, at long last attempting to protect its most vulnerable. Oh that we could apply this across the board on other issues, in the small island of Ireland.
David Nicholson, who worked as a director on Jim'll Fix It, claimed to have caught Savile, having sex with a girl in his dressing room, but was laughed away, when he voiced his concerns. Further reports of abuse emerged, relating to Stoke Mandeville hospital, Leeds General Infirmary, Broadmoor secure hospital, Haut de la Garenne children's home in Jersey, Tayside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire. British police say they have received allegations of abuse dating back to the 1960s, '70s and '80s. BBC director general George Entwistle dropped a Newsnight investigation into the Savile scandal.
Currently a referendum is happening in the Unfree Irish State, to draw a line in the sand with regard to the abuse of children, after a long struggle on children's rights. Irish children have not been well served by their country. The mistreatment of some of the most vulnerable children, still goes on at epidemic levels in both parts of the island. The island is generally still emotionally detached from the suffering, abuse and daily revelations of child torture with rape.
Savile was knighted in 1990, having already received the OBE in 1971. The BBC and British High society stand accused of covering up a "scandalous culture" that existed within the dark corners of Britain's Offiicial Secrets Act. The extent of the probem is said to be far greater than the scandal of the Catholic Church in Ireland.In 1990 Savile was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and pope John Paul II, for services rendered.
Meanwhile the changes proposed in the Unfree Irish State to the Constitution are steps to systemic change, like creating a new Child and Family Support Agency with constitutional change, that is broad and significant. The Constitutional change proposed in the up coming referendum is about making a clear statement from the people, to legislators, judges and society as a whole about how children should be treated.
So what does the referendum change propose, well according to the Irish Times;
"It says: we believe that children, if they are mature enough, should be able to express their views in legal proceedings that affect them. For instance if a judge is making a decision involving a mature 16-year-old that judge will be required to ask what the 16-year-old’s views are.
It says: we believe all children are equal. At present the laws relating to adoption are different depending on whether the child to be adopted is born “out of wedlock” or not. That’s an anachronism left over from a past century. All children should be equal.
It says: we believe that when a child is being starved, or beaten, or burned or physically or sexually abused social workers should be able to intervene to stop that.
It says: in essence, that children in Ireland have rights. That the State will recognise those rights. And that we will do everything we can to protect those rights.
Will that change the lives of Irish children? It is an important symbolic change with strong, practical impact. Change also comes from legislation, administration and resources.
What this referendum also does is draw a line in the sand. It allows us to leave behind us a legacy of failure. It allows us to say as a nation that we believe children have rights, just like everyone else. It allows us to set the legislature and judiciary on a different path than that which has pertained for decades.
It is unsurprising to some extent that the debate around the referendum is tending to focus on the legal and on the extreme because, shorn of semantics and sensationalism, the debate hinges on one central issue; do we, the people of Ireland, believe our children have rights we should protect?
I believe we do, NGOs like Barnardos, the ISPCC, the Children’s Rights Alliance and EPIC believe we do.
If you believe that, then vote Yes. We can argue about funding, we can argue about process, we can argue about systems, we can argue about services. Those are arguments for legislation. They are the arguments that are the stock-in-trade of the political system and they are arguments that will continue forever as the Dáil balances the needs of the people with the resources at hand.
The Constitution is not part of those arguments. Rather it defines the parameters of them. So if you want future generations of politicians and judges to be guided by a constitutional imperative to recognise the rights of children, the equality of children and the voices of children in decisions they make in relation to children, then vote Yes.
The decision to hold the referendum was agreed unanimously by all members of both Dáil and Seanad Éireann – a rare moment of consensus in Irish politics! That consensus tells us that on this very particular issue – the best interests of children – we share a common commitment and want to set the standard which will inform future policy and decisions."
This referendum takes place on Saturday, November 10th, and it will be an important opportunity to taste a form of genuine Irish democracy, at long last attempting to protect its most vulnerable. Oh that we could apply this across the board on other issues, in the small island of Ireland.
Friday, October 5, 2012
WAKE to F**K up IRISH PEOPLE !
Ireland fares worst in Western Europe for surgical outcomes
national | miscellaneous | other press Wednesday October 03, 2012 17:15 by volunteer 13
Irish patients have the highest risk of dying in Western Europe
October 3, 2012 By Dara Gantly
The first large-scale study to explore surgical outcomes across Europe has found that Irish patients have the highest risk of dying in Western Europe and the fourth-worst mortality rate among 28 European countries. Ireland is placed behind Poland, Latvia and Romania in the overall mortality table, published in a recent issue of the Lancet (2012;380:1059-65), but is worse off than Slovakia or Croatia.
However, within Western Europe, patients in Ireland had the worst mortality rates when compared with the UK, with an adjusted odds ratio of 2.61, followed by Italy (OR: 1.70), Belgium (1.65), Portugal (1.43), and France (1.36).
Overall, national estimates of death following general surgery have been too optimistic, the study noted. New estimates generated using a snap-shot of death after surgery in more than 46,000 patients from 500 hospitals in 28 European countries indicate that overall crude mortality is 4 per cent, which is more than double previous estimates.
In the UK, the mortality rate was 3.6 per cent, well above the highest previous estimates of between 1 and 2 per cent. Ireland recorded a rate 6.4 per cent.
Of the 856 Irish patients studied, 66 were admitted to critical care (7.7 per cent) and 55 died in hospital.
Lead author Dr Rupert Pearse from Queen Mary, University of London, stated that nearly three-quarters of patients who died were never admitted to intensive care: “Failure to allocate critical care resources to patients at greatest risk of death is a serious public health concern for patients undergoing surgery in Europe.”
Editor: Link to the Lancet publication is below. To read the full text requires a subscription
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2961148-9/abstract
Comments (3 of 3)
by T Thu Oct 04, 2012 21:00
There is a report carried on Channel 4 news website about this study. The most interesting quotes are:
....The researchers investigated more than 46,000 general surgery patients, who had all been monitored for up to sixty days after their operation.
In the UK, the post-op death rate was 3.6 percent, more than double the figure from an earlier study, which collected data over a much shorter time period.
The research also found a wide variation in death rates between countries,: patients in Poland, Latvia and Romania had the greatest chance of dying after surgery, while in Iceland the mortality rate was just 1.2 percent.
The study leader, Dr Rupert Pearse, blamed a lack of resources. "Nearly three quarters of patients who died were never admitted to intensive care", he said. "Failure to allocate critical care resources to patients at greatest risk of death is a serious public health concern for patients undergoing surgery in Europe."
The UK, which had the biggest number of cases involved in the study, was used as a reference point to compare the performances of other countries. Several other Western European nations had a worse record, including Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and France.
But the European Surgical Outcomes Study also found that heart patients, who are routinely admitted to critical care after a surgical procedure, have a much lower mortality rate of 2 percent.
So it seems in all countries a lack of resource after surgery is a big factor in the case of death since those that received critical care (-I guess that would be intensive care to most people), had a lower death rate.
And given that Ireland is in the poorer outcome end of the spectrum then that has to be because we are allocating those critical resources to bankers, speculators and bondholders rather than the patients that need it. And as we know more big cut backs are on the way to help pay off those poor bondholders
The study was carried in April 2011
....The researchers investigated more than 46,000 general surgery patients, who had all been monitored for up to sixty days after their operation.
In the UK, the post-op death rate was 3.6 percent, more than double the figure from an earlier study, which collected data over a much shorter time period.
The research also found a wide variation in death rates between countries,: patients in Poland, Latvia and Romania had the greatest chance of dying after surgery, while in Iceland the mortality rate was just 1.2 percent.
The study leader, Dr Rupert Pearse, blamed a lack of resources. "Nearly three quarters of patients who died were never admitted to intensive care", he said. "Failure to allocate critical care resources to patients at greatest risk of death is a serious public health concern for patients undergoing surgery in Europe."
The UK, which had the biggest number of cases involved in the study, was used as a reference point to compare the performances of other countries. Several other Western European nations had a worse record, including Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and France.
But the European Surgical Outcomes Study also found that heart patients, who are routinely admitted to critical care after a surgical procedure, have a much lower mortality rate of 2 percent.
So it seems in all countries a lack of resource after surgery is a big factor in the case of death since those that received critical care (-I guess that would be intensive care to most people), had a lower death rate.
And given that Ireland is in the poorer outcome end of the spectrum then that has to be because we are allocating those critical resources to bankers, speculators and bondholders rather than the patients that need it. And as we know more big cut backs are on the way to help pay off those poor bondholders
The study was carried in April 2011
by T Thu Oct 04, 2012 21:18
The graphic shows how far down the league table Ireland lies. It is from the Lancet study referred to in the above article
In the figures produced by the study for the percentage of people who died in hospital of those considered in the study was 6.4% for Ireland. The UK was 3.6% or almost half.
In the figures produced by the study for the percentage of people who died in hospital of those considered in the study was 6.4% for Ireland. The UK was 3.6% or almost half.
by BrianClarkeNUJ - AllVoices Fri Oct 05, 2012 08:45
So essentially what all of this means, if recent announcements about cuts in Irish Government's Children allowance, Old Age pensions and disability benefits are correct, is that combined with these reports on hospital surgical care, the bankers take all of the most vulnerable money.
All of this with a supposed Labour in Government overseeing this daylight robbery. WAKE to F**K up IRISH PEOPLE ! Spain's leader says today, that they don't want a bailout, while their unemployment is nearly 25 percent ! The European system is untenable and the bankers will start another fascist war like last time, to get rid of several million unemployed, while making huge profits with their industrial war complex.
All of this with a supposed Labour in Government overseeing this daylight robbery. WAKE to F**K up IRISH PEOPLE ! Spain's leader says today, that they don't want a bailout, while their unemployment is nearly 25 percent ! The European system is untenable and the bankers will start another fascist war like last time, to get rid of several million unemployed, while making huge profits with their industrial war complex.
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Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3On the same day the Parker report was published on 2 March 1972, the United Kingdom Prime Minister stated in Parliament, that its torture techniques in British Occupied Ireland would not be used ever again in future. The Prime Minister's statement, directives expressly prohibiting the use of the techniques, whether singly or in combination, were then issued to their forces by the Government.
At a hearing before British Courts on 8 February 1977, the British Attorney-General declared that the 'five techniques' would not in any circumstances be reintroduced either collectively or individually.
The Irish Government referred to the Commission of International Human Rights in Strasbourg, cases of persons submitted to the five techniques during interrogation, at the unidentified centre or centres between 11 and 17 August 1971.
In a recent article SPOOKY BIZARRE BRITISH SECRET EXPERIMENTS the details of the torture of Marian Price were covered, which clearly demonstrates the British have broken their promises and undertakings to the international community with regard to their torture. They have also re-introduced internment without trial in various disguise.
The Republic of Ireland v. The United Kingdom
Before the European Court of Human Rights
18 January 1978
The British Government introduced special powers of arrest and detention without trial, which were widely known as internment without trial.The Government of the Republic of Ireland brought an application before the Commission of International Human Rights in Strasbourg (ii) that various interrogation practices--in particular the so-called 'five techniques', which included wall- standing, hooding and deprivation of sleep and food--and other practices to which suspects were subjected amounted to torture and inhuman or degrading treatment contrary to Article 3...The Commission unanimously found that the five techniques did constitute a practice of torture and that other practices amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment
Both were attacked by reactionary fascist forces, culminating in the assassination of King, with the Irish peaceful demonstration attacked by the British Army, resulting in the murder of 13 of Marian's peaceful fellow demonstrators. This action coupled with interment without trial of all peaceful dissident voices, resulted in further reactionary violence from the Provisional IRA.
Now its very easy for us in the comfort of hindsight or removed from the first hand experience of watching human blood flow on the streets, to condemn activity at this time. Most people do however, totally overlooking the injustice that breeds all of this violence. There are many people who call for peace, without working for the justice that underpins, any realistic long term peace. This is as shallow and insincere as your average modern self-centered, selfish in the extreme, consumer.
Bearing in mind that opinions are like arseholes and everyone has got, It is my humble opinion, that those participating in militant action, have a moral duty to explore all alternatives, before resorting to violence. It is very difficult for me to encourage younger acivists to explore the concept, that the pen is mightier than the sword, with the extent of British sponsored censorship currently in Ireland. It is also very difficult for the likes of me, to encourage the possibilities of traditions of community consciousness, rather than organized, exclusive based rules, to get where freedom loving people like Marian want to go, who are interned without trial in British secret courts by British secret services, under the cloak of Her Majesty's Official Secret's Act, in British Occupied Ireland.
Marian has said it herself. If the British are have something to charge her with, let them do it in open court, before her peers, she will accept their verdict. So far judges have thrown out the British charges against her twice and she was pardoned for her 'violence' of almost 40 years ago as witnessed by the leader of Ireland's largest spiritual community. It is vindictive to torture, intern and censor her. Any reasonable minded person would agree, in the context of contemporary Ireland, that Marian's internment for activity 40 year ago, does not serve the interests of either justice or peace in Ireland.
Many people like myself, who do not agree with the tactics of even IRPWA, never the less understand, where internment without trial is leading. It has been tried in very decade since the formation of the two current scum states of schizophrenic ireland. I believe there are non violent alternatives to freedom and justice in Ireland but not many young, impatient, abused, people are going to listen to me, with the current political reality of social and neo-colonial state violence, exerted on the Irish community, whether it's internment or political policing in both parts of Ireland. This ultimately is a class struggle against contemporary, creeping, fascism.
Old Bailey bomber ashamed of Sinn Fein
Suzanne Breen
A well-dressed, articulate, middle-aged woman, Marian Price wouldn't look out of place on a Sinn Féin negotiating team meeting Tony Blair or Bertie Ahern.
But she'd face jail and hunger-strike all over again rather than take part:"I would be ashamed to be on any delegation to Downing Street given what’s on the table. The only reason for going there should be to negotiate the freedom of our country.
"If I went to agree to British rule, restoring Stormont, or signing up to a partitionist police force, I'd hope at least to have the decency to hang my head in shame."
The last time Price visited London was to blow it up. With her sister Dolours and Gerry Kelly, now a Sinn Féin negotiator, she was part of an 11-strong IRA unit which in March 1973 planted bombs at the Old Bailey, New Scotland Yard, Whitehall, and the British Forces Broadcasting Office.
They were arrested attempting to fly home from Heathrow Airport. A 200-day hunger-strike and force-feeding regime made the sisters household names. "I did what I believed in," Price says. "Nothing Provisional IRA or Sinn Féin leaders do can denigrate that.
"But I'm very angry when I see so much has been sacrificed for so little. All these lives have been lost - IRA volunteers, civilians, policemen, British soldiers - and for what? If this is what they’re settling for, we all could have joined the SDLP back then."
Price (50) came from a staunch republican family in west Belfast. She believes IRA membership is too often explained away as an emotional response to events: "I made an ideological choice to join. It wasn't a reaction to Bloody Sunday, internment or anything else."
Her childhood ambition was to be a nurse. She left school with a string of 'O' and 'A' levels and secured one of only five places on a course at the Royal Victoria Hospital. She denies there was a huge contradiction between IRA membership and nursing.
"One day, a wounded British soldier was brought into casualty. He was wearing a dirty vest. He looked frightened. I felt very sorry for him. That night, I told my comrades and one joked that I should have finished him off.
"I asked why on earth I'd do that. He was no longer a soldier, he'd been taken out of the battlefield. He was a patient now, I'd have no difficulty looking after him."
The bombing mission was the Provisional IRA's first to England. The idea and planning came from the sisters. Price travelled on the Dublin-Liverpool ferry with one of the four car bombs which was then driven to London.
Did she never consider the morality of planting bombs in densely populated areas?: "The warnings given were twice as long as in Belfast. That was a conscious decision because we knew the English lacked experience of evacuation. We didn't want civilian casualties, from a moral or pragmatic viewpoint."
Yet there were casualties. Two bombs were defused but those at the Old Bailey and Whitehall exploded, injuring 200 people, mainly with flying glass. Price expresses regret but says the injuries "weren’t intentional".
"I've never had a sleepless night over anything I've done as an IRA volunteer. Bombs are weapons of war. Western states have used them far more brutally than we ever did.
"George Bush and Tony Blair send other people's sons out to die without ever venturing onto the battlefield themselves. They drop far bigger bombs from B52s on women and children and they don't give any warnings at all." Price is an atheist: "When I look around the world, I think if there’s a God, he's a bad God."
After her arrest at Heathrow, she was interrogated for five days. "I was stripped in the police station and given a grey blanket to wear. I was embarrassed because there were a lot of policemen about and I was sexually innocent.
"They used no physical violence but I wasn't let sleep once. The lights were kept on in my cell and the police were there at all times. If I started to doze off, they clapped their hands."
She remained remarkably unfazed: "I remember a detective saying to me, ‘I bet your mother will be proud of you' and I thought 'yes, she will be very proud of me'. My father was on a bombing mission to England in the forties, so it was a family tradition."
The sisters were charged and moved to Brixton prison. They were strip-searched daily and locked 23-hours a day in cells where again the lights were permanently on.
As a 19-year-old facing potential life imprisonment in England, wasn’t she depressed?:"It never entered my head. I'd known what I believed in and the risks involved.
"My mother, her sisters, and my granny had been in Cumann na mBan. My Aunt Bridie was badly injured lifting an IRA arms dump in the 30s. It exploded and she lost her hands and sight. She was 26.
"When we were growing up, it was never a case of 'poor Bridie'. We were just proud of her sacrifice. She came home from hospital to a wee house with an outside toilet, no social worker, no disability allowance, and no counselling. She just got on with it."
Price claims that during their 1973 trial, the bombers learned they had been compromised by a high-placed informer in Belfast who knew all the details but didn't take part in the operation.
"It emerged in court that customs at Liverpool realised one of the cars had false number plates. They phoned Scotland Yard but were told to wave it through.
"The authorities allowed the bombs to happen. They had details of the operation in advance that could only have come from a senior figure in Belfast. We learned that photos of Dolours and I had been circulated at airports and ports across Britain nine hours before the bombs exploded,”
says Price.
She claims that during the trial they agreed it would be less damaging for the IRA if they appeared "young, stupid and incompetent", rather than publicly exposing an informer. She claims to know the identity of the alleged informer whom, she says, remains in a leadership position.
The Price sisters, Gerry Kelly and Hugh Feeney went on hunger-strike in Brixton prison in November 1973 as part of a campaign to be repatriated to serve their sentences in Northern Ireland.
"Four male prison officers tie you into the chair so tightly with sheets you can't struggle," says Price. "You clench your teeth to try to keep your mouth closed but they push a metal spring device around your jaw to prise it open.
"They force a wooden clamp with a hole in the middle into your mouth. Then, they insert a big rubber tube down that. They hold your head back. You can't move.
"They throw whatever they like into the food mixer - orange juice, soup, or cartons of cream if they want to beef up the calories. They take jugs of this gruel from the food mixer and pour it into a funnel attached to the tube.
"The force-feeding takes 15 minutes but it feels like forever. You're in control of nothing. You're terrified the food will go down the wrong way and you won't be able to let them know because you can't speak or move. You're frightened you'll choke to death."
Price was force-fed 400 times over six months. "I knew nothing about force-feeding beforehand," says Price. "I thought it was like when you hold a baby's nose and put a spoon in its mouth. Ignorance was bliss."
After the sisters went on hunger-strike, the British Home Office dispatched eminent psychiatrist Peter Scott to examine them. "He said he’d been sent to certify us so we could be force-fed. He left saying we knew exactly what we were doing and the problem was we were too sane,”
Price says.
They built a good rapport with Dr Ian Blythe, the prison doctor: "He called us 'my girls'. As the hunger-strike went on, he arm-wrestled with us, pretending it was a game but really testing us to see how much we were weakening."
Dolours was first to be force fed, three weeks into the hunger-strike. "I met her in the exercise yard afterwards. She was in a terrible state. She said it she couldn't go through that again. I told her she didn't have to, she could come off the hunger-strike immediately, but I'd stay on.
"She said we'd come off together or not at all. She was much braver than me because she was so much more afraid of force-feeding yet she didn't give in." Two days later, Marian was force-fed.
While Dolours endured the procedure once a day, Marian suffered it twice daily because she vomited so often afterwards. "I always threw up when they pulled the tube out of my stomach. It was vile. I would be exhausted afterwards but you couldn't even lie in bed in your cell in privacy because the screws came in with you.
"Sometimes when they arrived to force feed me, I would struggle; other times I didn't have the energy to fight. The low point was having no control over your weight. But not for one minute did I think of giving up. They were never, ever going to break me."
One day, a doctor put the tube into Price's lung, not her stomach, and water flooded in. "I felt like I was drowning. I passed out. They carried me back to my cell. The doctors were standing over me when I came round. If had been food, not water in the tube, it would have killed me. The medical and prison staff told the authorities they wouldn't force feed me again."
A fortnight after that incident in May 1974, the hunger-strike ended and a deal was reached. The sisters were moved to Armagh prison the following March.
The British Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, was loathed by republicans for his treatment of the hunger-strikers. Price says she doesn't hate him: "He was caught up in the politics of the situation. He followed orders. I once asked the psychiatrist Peter Scott who knew him to invite him to Brixton to visit us. He said he wouldn't come because if he met us, he’d want to send us home."
Price was freed after five years in Armagh jail, suffering from anorexia and tuberculosis. Ten-and-a-half stone when she was arrested, she left prison half that weight.
On release from jail, she says she was in no physical or mental state to rejoin the IRA and had no interest in a Sinn Féin career: "I like politics but not politicians. To be a politician, you must be a liar and a hypocrite."
Still, she was initially positive about Sinn Féin's rise, believing it would strengthen the IRA campaign: "I remember watching TV as Sinn Féin swept down the stairs in Belfast City Hall with Tricolour ribbons and champagne after an election victory.
"My father was disgusted. He pointed to Gerry Adams and said, 'I've been around longer than you, that boy will sell you out'. I told him to give Sinn Féin a chance. I was wrong."
From 1994, Price had "serious concerns" about the leadership's political direction but "loyalty to the movement" kept her quiet. Eventually, she spoke at one 'republican family' meeting in west Belfast, expressing doubts. A senior IRA member visited her home: "He told me what I was saying wasn't appreciated and he'd shot people for less."
She claims the republican movement underwent a transformation: "People began to make financial gain from the movement. Those who had never worked a day in their lives, now had better homes, cars, and holidays than their neighbours.
"It used to be what you could do for the movement, now it's what the movement can do for you. In the past, to be a republican brought financial hardship. But that was okay because to be a republican was to be something special. You knew you were right."
Price says that while the peace process has secured "a measure of equality" for Catholics, a British withdrawal and the ending of partition is further away than ever.
Five years ago, she joined the 32 County Sovereignty Movement which security sources say is the Real IRA's political wing, a claim the group denies. She says her military days are over but she won't condemn others "for doing what I did myself".
She claims 'armed struggle' is morally justified "while the British occupy part of this country". The Real IRA has proved itself incapable of waging a sustained campaign against the state and lacks popular support. Physical force republicanism has never been weaker in recent decades.
Price refuses to recognise 'armed struggle' is now pointless: "Sometimes it’s necessary to do something just to let it be known there are people out there who don't accept the status quo.
"Being a minority of a minority is nothing new for republicans. You don’t join for an easy life or to be popular. As a child, I remember 50 people at an Easter parade on the Falls Road."
Despite everything, she has no regrets: "Disappointments maybe. I’m disappointed in Gerry Kelly. I expected more of him but I'd never detract from the physical bravery he showed. Gerry Adams and I were once friends. We certainly aren't now. He may have difficulty admitting his IRA past but I'm very, very proud of mine."
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