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Protest the Queen's visit to Ireland 2011

Irish traitors will bend the knee and grovel at the feet of 'Her Majesty', pacified natives will turn a blind eye and urge people not to oppose the...

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Lennon's relationship with the IRA is confirmed by the Provos' former Belfast Brigade press officer, Gerry O'Hare, in an interview with rock n'roll biographer Johnny Rogan. O'Hare, who later left the Provisional IRA and pursued a career in Irish journalism, said the Provos' high command sent him over to New York on a speaking tour shortly after Bloody Sunday. Through republican contact in the city, O'Hare linked up with Lennon.

Lennon had recorded political agitprop songs such as 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' and 'Luck Of The Irish', donated royalties to the Civil Rights Movement and had joined anti-internment marches the previous year. O'Hare, who in the early Seventies operated under the nom de guerre of 'P O'Neill', said the IRA leadership regarded Lennon as a useful ally.

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JohnLennonIRA

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Mar 21, 2011

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Dec 20, 2008

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The Beatles came from Merseyside - an area around the city of Liverpool which has the largest Irish population in England, mainly as a result of the exodus of people from Ireland during the Great Famine in the 1840's. Early in their career, the Beatles had played in Ireland three times: in Dublin and Belfast in 1963, and once again in Belfast in 1964. It was after the split of the Beatles in 1970, that both Lennon & McCartney began releasing songs about the Irish question - all of which were all banned by the BCC: McCartney wrote Give Ireland Back to Irish which became a hit single in 1972, and Lennon wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday, and The Luck of The Irish, both of which were on the album Some Time In New York City that was also released in 1972.

Lennon had got involved in Irish politics before Bloody Sunday in January 1972. He supported activists protesting against the policy of internment without trial, which was launched by the British army on 9th August 1971, and resulted in 342 people being arrested without charge in brutal dawn raids that netted very few IRA members, but for example led to the detainment of several members of the civil rights movement. The net was cast so wide and recklessly that within 48 hours 116 people had been released. However, 14 were "selected" by the British army and the R.U.C. to undergo a series of "experiments" in sensory deprivation and other forms of torture. It resulted in Britain being found guilty of using torture by the European Court of Human Rights for the second time - the only country in Europe which has this distinction (the other occasion was the torture of Greek Cypriot resistance fighters in the 1960's). Internment and the massacre at Bloody Sunday were the main reasons for many in the Nationalist community taking the decision to join the IRA and fight back. Lennon appeared at an anti-internment rally in London in August 1971, where he was photographed holding a sign that read: 'Victory for the IRA against British Imperialism !'" When asked how he reconciled his support for nonviolence with his sympathy for the IRA, Lennon stated: "If it's a choice between the IRA and the British Army, I'm with the IRA."

The FBI files also include an informers account of a meeting on February 6th, 1972, at the Irish Institute on W. 48th Street, New York, just seven days after Bloody Sunday. According to the FBI informer, some of the proposals included procuring weapons for the IRA, whilst another called for the boycott of British goods. But one thing that caught the FBI's attention was the willingness of Lennon to offer to perform at an "mass demonstration" organised by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The demo however, occurred sooner than expected - next day (February 7th, 1972) in a rally in Manhattan organized by the Transit Workers Union. Lennon joked at the rally how "the police were particularly cooperative as most of them were Irish". He then said that "The purpose of the meeting was to show solidarity with the people who are going to march tomorrow in Northern Ireland" Referring to his Irish ancestry, Lennon told the crowd, "My name is Lennon and you can guess the rest." He added that his native Liverpool was "80% Irish."

Lennon was already in contact with the office of Irish Northern Aid, in New York, an organization which raises money for the families of IRA prisoners and supports Sinn Féin. Furthermore, he assigned all the royalties from The Luck of the Irish to Irish Northern Aid. Although it has been claimed by the former MI5 spy David Shayler that Lennon secretly funded the IRA at the time

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Ireland

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Godfather of Ulster punk Terri Hooley has spoken about the time he got into a punch-up with John Lennon over the former Beatle's support of the IRA. The Belfast music impresario, credited with discovering The Undertones, met Lennon in London during the late 1960s when the Troubles hadn't long started. But Hooley, who was an active peace campaigner at the time, was disappointed to discover his hero wasn't the pacifist he expected him to be. Hooley was speaking after reports carried in several newspapers this week claimed that the Beatles legend offered financial support to the IRA by agreeing to perform a concert in Belfast. In a new Lennon biography, to be published this week, author Johnny Rogan alleges Lennon was keen to donate money to the Provisionals. Hooley said he wasn't surprised by the claims. He said: "Me and a few friends had just set up a pirate radio station in the Craigantlet Hills and were in London to get equipment for it when I met Lennon," he said. "I can clearly remember that one of Lennon's friends brought us to a garage and showed us guns and asked us if we wanted to bring them back home. "They obviously thought we were "the lads". We were " the lads", just not the ones they thought we were. "Later that night I met Lennon himself and got in an argument with him, about not being a pacifist. There was some talk of money being sent to the IRA and I chinned him. He hit me back." Hooley said the fight only ended when his glass eye landed on the floor. But he said that despite the row with Lennon, he still remained one of his idols

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BEATLES BRIGADE

JohnLennonIRA liked 10 months ago

Protest the Queen's visit to Ireland 2011