“since the Fitzgerald credentials for liberalism were su impressive.…”

« ‘4 since the Fitzgerald credentials for liberalism were su impressive.

We soon had a practical test when the Gardai, to say the least, ‘seriously overreacted” by assaulting anyone (demonstrator or not) within their reach after H-Block protestors tried to march on the British Embassy in Dublin. Several journalists were attacked and Gardai continued attacking people until well after the march was over. Several examples were given of Gardai assaults on people already injured or lying on the ground. They even went to the GPO, two and a half miles away from the embassy, smashed up the stalls outside dealing with H-Block and beat up the people holding a vigil. Despite this, the government stood by the obviously false claims of the Garda Press Office.

This means the’ t!¢ Gardai have been told that they van do as they like as far as the ‘liberal’ Dr Fitzgerald is concerned, Lastly we have the evidence of how Fitzgerald has approached the hunger strike itself. He has used the slightest excuse to try and openly line up with Thatcher. After the British had to face condemnation even from the moderate Irish Commission for Justice and Peace (ICJP), a subcommittee of the Catholic hierarchy, Fitzgerald joined their call on the he commented that no one should worry British to directly negotiate with the Coalition Blueshirts in action st British Embassy hunger strikers. However, when the British made the patently fake move of sending in civil servarts from the Northern Ireland Office in the early hours of one morning, who only repeated some public statements of Atkins, Fitzgerald’s office issued a statement that the British had met the demand for negotiations+ This soon rebounded. Thatcher used Fitzgerald's comments in a reply to Edward Kennedy and other Irish men) to defend herself against their charge of ‘inflexibility’. Fitzgerald, realising that this could do him no good at all, complained of his views being ‘misrepresented’, decessor. However, it is faced with a stronger anti-inmiperialist :novement, which has a far better understanding ists are far less isolated politically as well. The effects of this are clear: Fitzgerald wriggling from side to side through keeping the mass movement ducks for this government’s attacks.