Results 1-14 of 14 for ira speaker:Gerard Craughwell

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Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (28 Feb 2024)

Gerard Craughwell: ...I will not be lectured by somebody who would not be in this House but for the fact that people were willing to talk to terrorists in Northern Ireland. I am speaking specifically about the Provisional IRA. People were willing to bring them to the peace table and allow Sinn Féin to come into parliament in the Republic and in the North of Ireland. I have many friends in Sinn Féin...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (11 Jul 2023)

Gerard Craughwell: ...am calling for a full investigation into the Irish Prison Service, particularly in the area of bullying and harassment. Some weeks back, I mentioned the case of Sean O'Brien, who was involved in an IRA prison escape in Portlaoise. That man has spent 20 years of his life trying to get information on what happened on that day. He is severely traumatised and the Prison Service is totally...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (30 May 2023)

Gerard Craughwell: ...They have debased the medal to the point of its being worthless. Yet, Billy Kedian is entitled to a military medal for gallantry. He gave his life to save 14 men. Paddy Kelly from Athlone was shot by the IRA during the Don Tidey kidnapping. The garda who was beside him got the gold Scott medal. Paddy Kelly, or Patrick Kelly, got nothing. Dick O'Hanlon, Martin Fahy and two others,...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (25 Apr 2023)

Gerard Craughwell: ...given permission to use his name today. Members will recall that this was at the height of the Troubles. I have been informed that during an escape attempt by Mr. Paddy McVeigh of the Provisional IRA, the deputy governor of the prison, gave O'Brien an order to pursue the prisoner. Senators might remember that a large crowd was outside Portlaoise Prison at that time waiting for McVeigh...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (19 Feb 2021)

Gerard Craughwell: ...years I was stationed in the Western Command in Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa in Galway. I am very proud of my time in Óglaigh na hÉireann. On Monday of this week, I was contacted about the commemoration of an IRA bomber in London. Looking at Senator Fitzpatrick and the brave men that she referred to a few moments ago, I wish to say that these people who went to London and...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (2 Dec 2020)

Gerard Craughwell: ...Finucane in 1989 any more terrible than the senseless killing of Jean McConville in 1972? Did the Ballymurphy killings by the Parachute Regiment justify the Narrow Water killings by the Provisional IRA? Collusion is dealt with in the University of Portland's Pilot Scholars report on "British Collusion in the Irish War on Terror". It analyses the legal and ethical implications of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: European Committee of the Regions: Discussion (22 May 2018)

Gerard Craughwell: ...and the European Union have contributed nothing to peace. He is living in France, by the way, which is rather ironic. He inferred that in the Northern Irish peace process, the British beat the IRA and that is it, it is all over, thank you very much indeed. I think most of us agree that is not really what happened. In Europe, the Germans got tired of fighting, according to Mr. Lawson,...

Seanad: Northern Ireland and 20th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement: Statements (18 Apr 2018)

Gerard Craughwell: ...peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. As we had lunch, I recalled 1974 and being dragged out of public houses or wherever I happened to be to reassure my mother that I was alive because the IRA had sentenced me to death purely because of a career choice I made when I joined the British Army.Hundreds like me came under the same threat. One colleague from my battalion was taken from...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Legacy Issues Affecting Victims and Relatives in Northern Ireland: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Nov 2017)

Gerard Craughwell: ...the Border, away from their families, and we have airbrushed it out of history. We need something to mark that, such as the national service medal. The war was a dirty war. It did not just involve Sinn Féin-IRA, as it is referred to in the North of Ireland, though I would prefer to say IRA. It did not just involve the UVF. It also involved security services, including some, as...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Legacy Issues Affecting Victims and Relatives in Northern Ireland: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Nov 2017)

Gerard Craughwell: I apologise. I qualified it by saying that is what it is referred to by some in the North of Ireland but IRA is the term I used.

Seanad: Order of Business (12 Jul 2017)

Gerard Craughwell: I read this morning in The Irish Timesof Michael Hayes's "courageous apology" for the IRA bombings in Birmingham in 1976. How hollow that reads. How is that courageous? This man allowed six men to languish in jail for 16 years-----

Seanad: Death of Martin McGuinness: Expressions of Sympathy (21 Mar 2017)

Gerard Craughwell: I put the following message up on Facebook this morning. It states:Notwithstanding the fact that those claiming to speak for the IRA in 1974 put my family through hell, I am deeply saddened at the passing of Martin McGuinness. It took two men who wanted peace, McGuinness and Paisley, to find in their hearts the wherewithal to commence the journey of understanding of each other's tradition....

Seanad: Northern Ireland: Statements (26 Jan 2017)

Gerard Craughwell: ...Irish Rangers. It is also no secret that Sinn Féin voted for me to have me elected to this House. I have no axe to grind with Sinn Féin and I never had. I would not have seen eye to eye with the IRA down through the years. One of the things that has frightened me considerably is a rise in polarisation in the North. For the first time, in as far as I can remember, I was...

Seanad: Order of Business (16 Jun 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: ...the place with the UVF and UDA. When I saw what went on there I was horrified by it. I know decent, good people on both sides of the religious and political divides in the North. In fairness, the IRA, who are no friends of mine, have taken some hammering over the years for the atrocities they carried out. We need to impress upon the Taoiseach the need now to open up what happened on...