Guttersnipes continue to squawk

BY Cathal O Murchu

Paul Williams - notorious for his shoddy journalism and fanciful allegations against republicans

Last weekend again saw papers from the O'Reilly media empire engage in spurious attacks against Irish republicans in general and Sinn Féin in particular. The Sunday World and the Sunday Independent again churned out politically-motivated attacks aimed at damaging the party.

One article in the Sunday Independent claimed "IRA-style death threats" were made to Shell and Statoil workers engaged in work on the Corrib pipeline. The Sunday World meanwhile, repeated its line, trotted out in the previous week's edition, that republicans were involved in the murder of Dublin man Joseph Rafferty. In another story the trashy tabloid claimed that "local sources" in Cobh believed "republican subversives" were behind a vigilante campaign against alleged drug dealers in the County Cork town.

In the Sunday Independent article Jerome Reilly stated that workers on the Corrib pipeline reported receiving threats "invoking the name of the IRA". The background to the story was the ongoing Rossport 5 campaign — which Sinn Féin has supported from the beginning. The article stated that two Scottish Statoil workers had received death threats. Two other workers were apparently threatened and other workers had received threatening phone calls. Responding to the article local activist Ed Moran said: "These allegations are total rubbish and have no basis of truth whatsoever." He further stated that "in actual fact there are no Statoil workers in the area as the workers in question are employed directly by Shell which has a policy of laying off workers as a result of the ongoing protests. Shell are complicit in perpetuating these reports which are entirely malicious in intent." This same story was also carried by the Irish Examiner.

An article in the Sunday World by Niall O'Connor on vigilante attacks against drug dealers in Cobh, County Cork cited Garda sources as saying that "IRA involvement was one line of inquiry being investigated". Among others pictures, the story was illustrated with a photograph of local Sinn Féin Councillor Kieran McCarthy. McCarthy has stated that any implied involvement of Sinn Féin or mainstream republicans was false and that the Sunday World and the Gardaí have colluded in creating a misrepresentation. He further stated that the Gardaí "made no effort to investigate these attacks and local people were not interviewed in relation to them. The Sunday World likewise made no effort to interview local people as regards these attacks."

In another article in the Sunday World, Paul Williams, notorious for his fanciful allegations against republicans and slavish adherence to any old nonsense trotted out by so-called 'security sources' repeated false claims that Joseph Rafferty was murdered by a member of Sinn Féin. He also repeated his slur and that Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan "done nothing" to help the Rafferty family when they received threats from local thugs. As reported in An Phoblacht last week Sinn Féin has denied all of these allegations and called for people to do everything they can to assist in the apprehension and charging of Rafferty's murderers.

In an outrageously opportunistic piece of brass neck a PD Senator is quoted by Williams as accusing Councillor Doolan of "going to ground" in his constituency since the original Sunday World article. As is widely known in the local area and which could have easily been checked if Williams bothered to contact Sinn Féin, Daithí Doolan has been abroad on holidays since before the story was published.