Thursday, February 17, 2005

'THE PRESS' Newspaper , October 1797 - March 1798 .
Too Radical for the Radicals .......

....... there was hardly any activity by the 1798 Rebels in the county of Tipperary and , in order to keep it that way , the Brits covered that county with threatening posters .......


NOTICE

TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD OF TIPPERARY
IT IS ORDERED
That should a Shot at any Time be fired on the Military
from
any House or Cottage whether in the Town or County,

EVERY SOUL WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION found within
will be
PUT TO THE SWORD AND THE HOUSE DESTROYED

That should the Daringness of the disaffected lead
them
to Outrage or Cruelty on the Properties or Families of
the
peaceable and well-disposed the WHOLE
NEIGHBOURHOOD
WILL BE LAID WASTE

T.H. FOSTER
Colonel , Louth Regiment

British Colonel T.H. Foster was , by all accounts , the 'Sir' Richard Dawson Bates of his day ...

However - Arthur O' Connor and 'Lord' Edward Fitzgerald were the two 'main men' behind ' The Press ' newspaper ; it was based in Dublin , and published an issue twice a week , selling for 2d a copy .

Its Editorials annoyed not only the Brits , but some within the United Irishmen organisation as well .......

(MORE LATER).


LIGHTS , CAMERA , REAGAN !
By John Dean.
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , October 1980 , pages 30, 31, 35, and 37.
Re-published here in 20 parts .
(1 of 20).

When I was ushered into Governor Ronnie Reagan's Office I was mildly shocked ; he was wearing lipstick , a heavy coat of pancake makeup on his face and rouge on his cheeks . He looked as if he could have been in drag moments before my arrival , but had slipped out of his dress and into a well tailored, navy blue suit for our meeting ...

" Oh , this makeup " , he began with a nervous laugh , " well , you see , I've got to deliver my 'State of the State' message to the legislature this morning ... " . I nodded my understanding and proceeded to give my pitch about drug laws , which had become a nice little speech since by this time I have given it to a dozen governors .

It was January 1970 , and I went to see Ronald Reagan , then Governor of California , at the request of then Attorney General John Mitchell , who wanted me to visit with the governors of all the large states to convince them to adopt new drug laws consistent with a Federal Law being proposed by the Richard Nixon Administration .......

(MORE LATER).


BIG BROTHER HAS ARRIVED .......
An investigation into the extent of telephone surveillance in Ireland shows that with the aid of new technology , telephone tapping has reached alarmimg proportions and most of it is done illegally .
By Frank Doherty .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , December 1980 , page 19.
(3 of 6).

The IRA eavesdropping network was found only because of the arrest of Brian Keenan , the Provos' Director of Operations in Belfast . The discovery was identical to one made in 1973 when Brendan Hughes (now on hunger strike in one of the H-Blocks) was arrested in a house in Myrtlefield Park , off Belfast's Malone Road .

Besides IRA contingency plans for a Doomsday situation - which Harold Wilson read in the British House of 'Commons' - searching British Army troops found a huge quantity of recording tapes containing conversations of senior Civil Servants and British Army Officers , including Lt. General 'Sir' Timothy Creasey's predecessor as British GOCNI , Lt. Gen. 'Sir' Harry Tuzo .

Also recovered from the garage of the house was a Frequency Changer - a 'scrambler' device which allowed the Provos to decode conversations on ' VIP lines ' they tapped .......

(MORE LATER).