Left Archive: An Phoblacht/Republican News, February 2nd 1980, Provisional Sinn Féin

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This edition of An Phoblacht/Republican News joins others in the Archive.

The front page article argues:

AS THE LONG-SUFFERING VlCTIMS of massive injustice the mass of the Irish people are also the too frequent objects of heavy-handed hypocrisy  from both our foreign and native oppressors -especially from those Fianna Fail   and SDLP collaborators who seek refuge and consolation in the pockets of the imperialist establishment.

And it continues:

In recent weeks out-spoken lovers of national freedom from foreign troops have sprung up everywhere. Not, however, to protest at the continued occupation of the Nor­thern corner of this country by fifteen-thousand British gunmen and a similar number of sectarian UDR and RUC auxiliaries, but to protest at the presence in Afgh­anistan of Russian troops.
A presentation of books to Uni­versity College, Cork, from the Russian embassy, due to take place on Wednesday, was cancelled because of that ‘invasion’. How many similar presentations to academic institution, from England  have been cancelled in the last decade, or before?

And it states:

Defending the Cork decision a learned professor from University College Dublin, spoke of the even more abhorrent ‘Internal exile’ of the Russian dissident Sakharov by
Soviet regime. How many academics and intellactuals, North or South, have spoken out against the much more horrific ‘internal exile’ of nearly four-hundred freedom-loving Irish ‘dissidents’ to naked solitary confinement in the H-blocks of Long Kesh? 

Other reports look at the H-Blocks, the funeral of Guiseppe Conlon, a report on a Birmingham march commemorating Bloody Sunday and a two page report on the 1980 Derry commemoration of Bloody Sunday. There’s also an interview with the director of the Patriot Game film.

There’s a short piece towards the back of the publication which notes:

AT THE RECENT Sinn Fein Ard Fheis, motions concerning ‘women’ were discussed for the first time and the point was made repeatedly, that Sinn Fein have neglected women’s issues. The concept of Economic Resistance, however, as outlined in the accepted ‘Eire Nua – the Social Dimension’ can include problems affecting the daily lives of women: contraception, family law, child­care and education. These problems ere both economic and social, and in some cases are heightened, in other cases caused, by British imperialism.
The new Sinn Fein Co-ordinating Committee on Women’s Affairs will soon be arranging a meeting for Sinn Fein women to discuss these problems, which may be controversial, but are surely pressing. Women interested should contact the Co-ordinating Committee on Women’s Affairs, 85b Falls Road, Belfast, or 44 Parnell Square, Dublin.