The Fifth Column

SDLP's Mark of allegiance to the Queen

THE SDLP has come over all republican in the media in recent weeks. So how do they reconcile that with all the shenanigans they have to go through in practice to take their seats in Westminster?

SDLP supremo Mark Durkan has taken a stand on the oath of allegiance to the British queen by making a non-religious affirmation of... allegiance to the anti-democratic and anti-Catholic House of Windsor.

It is some consolation that Mark will not say: " I, Mark Durkan, swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God."

Instead the SDLP leader will state: " I, Mark Durkan, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law."

So, it's onwards to the Republic then, Mark?

Foyle MP's fidelity to Paras' chief

THE "HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS" that the SDLP leader and MP for Foyle has pledged his loyalty to include the next in line to the throne, the self-styled Prince of Wales, Charles Windsor.

Prince Charmless is also the incredibly proud Colonel in Chief of the Parachute Regiment, but he has Mark Durkan's "faithful and true allegiance" nevertheless.

Up John Drennan's nose

SCRATCH the bluenoses at the Sunday Independent and likely you'll uncover a brand of racism (ie against Sinn Féin voters) that wouldn't be tolerated against other groups of people.

Columnist John 'Dreadful' Drennan described SF voters as "the most debased European electorate west of Serbia".

Voting SF? That's part of democracy, John, and you'd better get used to it. Or maybe you and the Sindo actually yearn for a bit of Serbian-style democracy, where voters are made to vote the way Establishment wants them to vote.

Carpeting 'carpet baggers'

AND the Sindo has railed against the call by Sinn Féin for Irish citizens in the Six Counties to be given the right to vote in Presidential elections, and has opposed the idea that MPs for MPs and MEPs from all parties elected in the Six Counties be accorded speaking rights in the Dáil.

The Sindo fulminates: "Unelected carpetbaggers from another jurisdiction have no rightful place in Leinster House."

The Sindo, part of Ireland's most powerful media group with enormous influence over the country's political and social life, is owned by knight of the British realm, Sir Anthony O'Reilly, unelected carpetbagger to the Queen.

Mind you don't scrape your nose bowing too low on the Queen's carpet, Tony.

Statues of liberty

AFTER toy-town revolutionaries defaced James Connolly's statue at Liberty Hall with graffiti and anarchistic symbols after the May Day 'Reclaim the Streets' actions (as highlighted by letter writers last week), some of their chums added to their list of 'battle honours' by defacing the new Peadar Ó Cearnaigh Memorial at Dorset Street.

Ó Cearnaigh (Brendan Behan's uncle) wrote the Soldier's Song, later translated as Amhrán na bhFiann, our national anthem. This time, the vandals left a calling card because they wrote in black marker on the memorial the website address of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers' Party (countries liberated by Trot revolutionaries = none).

Now the 5th Column knows that members of this ultra-left sect often refuse to stand for the "bourgeois nationalist" national anthem, but do they stand over the defacing of a memorial to this 1916 Volunteer, a real revolutionary?

Lack of Continuity

THE Evening Herald's editorial line in dealing with republicans — "Make it snappy, make it up" — sometimes catches them out even in their own stories.

Tuesday's Herald carried a story about a Kerry councillor's home daubed with graffiti reportedly because he opposed the release of republican prisoners from Castlerea. The headline was "Family targeted by IRA graffiti." Trouble was, Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris was also targeted with some choice comments by the same culprit.

But the Herald insists that Martin is on the Army Council of the IRA, so the "IRA graffiti" doesn't make sense if you follow the logic of the Herald. The daubing actually referred to the so-called "Continuity IRA". The Herald wouldn't be intentionally misleading readers, would it?

MEPs' scales of justice

THE following letter appeared in Saturday's Daily Ireland.

"Now that MEPs have voted to request European Union money for the McCartneys, does that mean that the family of Séamus Ludlow in Dundalk — who was killed with nobody having been made responsible — will be able to access similar funds in their pursuit of justice?"

Little diamond

MICHAEL McDOWELL'S PD Rotweiller is complemented by Fianna Fáil's Jack Russell, Willie O'Dea, muttering through his broomy moustache about alleged criminality by republicans. But Willie has some explaining to do himself as a self-styled 'republican'.

Defence Minister O'Dea has been revealed by Vincent Browne's Village magazine as being a self-confessed shareholder in a firm called African Diamonds, mining gems in Sierra Leone, Botswana, Lesotho and Guinea.

'Diamond' O'Dea has backed the US/British invasion and occupation of Iraq and he has offloaded the Iraq oil exploration shares he held up to at least 2003 but hasn't said when he divested himself. Village quoted Diamond O'Dea as saying on RTÉ's Questions and Answers that oil "has quite a lot" to do with the Anglo-US war.

Diamond O'Dea claims to be a republican and is proud of being in Fianna Fáil, the "Soldiers of Destiny"; profiteering through plundering Third World countries of their natural resources seems more like being a Soldier of Fortune.

Titanic profits

WHERE ARE all the captains of industry and their cheerleaders in the PDs and Fianna Fáil, showing us how "a rising tide lifts all boats" after last week's announcement by the Bank of Ireland of record profits of more than €1.3 billion?

The big bankers in the boardroom are to thank staff for all their hard work and commitment in achieving this boost to their executive pay and shareholders' profits — by sacking 2,100 of them.

A rising tide "man the lifeboats" for the crew below decks at the Bank of Ireland.

Be decisive...sort of

THE GREEN PARTY annual conference in Cork last weekend included a motion opposed joining the Fine Gael/Labour alliance ahead of a general election.

Dublin TD and failed Presidential nominee Eamon Ryan argued against the motion, declaring that this was a time for "bold and decisive action" — and then telling delegates NOT to take any decision yet.

Ryan lost the argument by a majority of 9-1.