We will legalise abortion: the words no true Irish man or woman wanted to hear

These are the words no true Irish man or woman wanted to hear from an Irish government:
"We will clarify in legislation and regulation what is available by way of treatment to a woman when a pregnancy gives rise to a threat to a woman's life. We will also clarify what is legal for the professionals who must provide that care while at all times taking full account of the equal right to life of the unborn child. The legislation will be drafted in accordance with the 20-year-old Supreme Court ruling on the X case, which allows for abortion when a woman's life is in danger - including the threat of ѕυιcιdє." James Reilly (pictured right), Ireland's health minister, 18th December 2012
For a full account of the statement from the Ireland's Orwellian-titled department of health and children(!), the response from four Catholic archbishops, the background to the Irish government's announcement - please go to Pat Buckley's blogpost: Another day that will live in infamy: Irish government decision to legislate and regulate for abortion.

Significantly for me, and significantly for Catholics, the Catholic Church, and all men and women worldwide, Pat Buckley concludes his blogpost in this vein:
"It is heartening to note that the Archbishops have encouraged 'all to pray that our public representatives will be given the wisdom and courage to do what is right' ... we would add that the entire Church needs to pray like never before to defeat the evil of abortion.

"Everyone must understand that there is a supernatural dimension to all of this and Catholic legislators need to be reminded that they risk their immortal souls if they support the introduction of abortion either by voting for it or facilitating it."
Thank you Pat. Yours is a salutary reminder for all abortion-justifying Catholics, however prestigious or high in office they may be, lay or in Holy Orders.

Here's a take on Anne Ferris's intervention in the abortion debate where she said that the Tanaiste told the Taoiseach to "whip his people into line" on abortion. Deputy Ferris has never denied that it is her on the audio.

A forgotten night at Galway Docks
GALWAY ADVERTISER, FEBRUARY 12, 2009.
By Paul Mcginley

When Christy Moore sings his well known song, “Viva la Quinta Brigada”, in honour of those who fought against Franco in the Spanish cινιℓ ωαr one of his sardonic verses includes the lines:

“When the Bishops blessed the Blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain”

While it is historically true that some members of General O’Duffy’s Irish Brigade left from Dún Laoghaire to fight in Spain; the vast majority of that force secretly departed Galway Docks, on a dark winter’s night in December 1936.

It was an interesting time. Young Irishmen, most of whom held polarised political views at home, sailed to Spain to fight on both sides for what they believed in. The Spanish cινιℓ ωαr was a complex confluence of power, politics, principle, and faith which reached far beyond the Iberian Peninsula. Many of the Irish who took Franco’s side in the conflict did so out of religious as much as political conviction.

The Church of Christ the King in Salthill was first dedicated in August 1936. The opening sermon prompted the banner headline “Christ or Chaos” reported The Connacht Tribune. In his homily, the Bishop of Clonfert pointed out that ‘Russia, Mexico, Spain and other nations, in a less blatant manner perhaps, have risen in open rebellion against God.’ Many Catholics were outraged that Mexico had endured the Cristero-Calles war, and was despised for its treatment of Catholic clergy. Russia was home to godless Communism; while Spain had just begun a bitter war between absolute forces, intent on total victory.

At home Taoiseach DeValera, adopting a neutral stance, took a non–intervention path. This political policy did not deter those committed on both sides from making their way to Spain. General O’Duffy (the leader of the Irish ‘Blueshirts’, a quasi- military movement, which ideologically, and in terms of its rituals, had much in common with European fascism of the time), announced in November 1936 that Galway offered the best embarkation port for the majority of his volunteers. He urged his followers to assemble there.

Arrival in Galway

On the second Friday in December 100 of Franco’s Irish supporters left Dún Laoghaire bound for Liverpool, before making their way to Spain via Lisbon. When questioned by reporters at the quayside in Dublin, the departing volunteers refused to give their names, and were seen off by the man in charge of the operation: Captain Walsh, secretary to General O’Duffy.

The following day, on a cold, wet and stormy Saturday (December 12, 1936), up to 700 of O’Duffy’s volunteers arrived late in Galway. Recently deceased Murt Rabbitt, of the famed Forster Street bar, often recounted that the only time the Garda Síochána requested him to open his premises after-hours was on that miserable night. He was asked to give shelter to men - the majority of whom were in the 20 to 35-year-old range – on their way to a war in Spain.

‘Extraordinary scenes’

We can see from the photomontage, on this page, some of the 700 Irish volunteers, gathering on the quayside on that Saturday night, while medical supplies were being loaded on the tender which would later meet the mystery ship. More of that in a moment, but note the four volunteers wearing the Irish Brigade cap. (Irish Independent December 14 1936 Page 3.)

The Irish Times described “extraordinary scenes” as cars, buses and lorries heavily laden with men descended on the city. They came from all parts of the country with 22 volunteers arriving from north of the border. County Galway, according to the Irish Independent report, supplied 14 of the volunteers, far below the more sizeable Cork (104), and Dublin (201) contingents.

The Dún Aenghus which then serviced the Aran Islands was to transport the men to rendezvous in the bay with the mystery ship. The familiar Galway boat was loaded with medical provisions, socks, pullovers and other necessities from a lorry, aided by car headlights. The medical supplies were furnished by the Irish Christian Front.

By two o’clock in the morning almost 50 cars and 15 buses had arrived at the docks. The departure was delayed by a mishap to a bus from Kerry en route to Galway. Waiting men paced up and down the quay to keep warm and calls of “Viva Franco” could be heard. At three o’clock the volunteers were marshalled by Captain Liam Walsh, secretary to General O’Duffy, down the gangway of the Dún Aenghus.

‘Where is Tighe?’

The Irish Press reported that three Galway men, standing alongside, were suddenly swept along by the enthusiasm of the scene and departed for Spain: “They ran up the gangplank and volunteered their services. They were Kevin Geoghegan, Ely Place, Galway, Ml. Donoghue, Fairhill, Galway, and J. McGrath whose father is a porter in the Munster and Leinster Bank, Galway.”

One scene touched all who saw it. Somebody called out “Where is Tighe?” “Here I am,” shouted a young fellow from the belly of the boat, and a member of the Civic Guard said; “You are wanted at home, your mother has taken ill.” The boy who was only sixteen years of age, returned with his father, Seán Tighe, proprietor of the Phoenix Cinema, to Dublin.

Two priests on the dockside blessed the departing men who sang “Faith of Our Fathers” and “A Soldier’s Song”, before the Aran tender headed out into a dark, and windswept bay. “Rev T Fahy, Professor of Latin UCG, and Rev Fr Donohue CC, Galway, were among those present to bid the men farewell,” reported The Irish Press which also recorded that “Blue shirts were waved and cheers raised for General O’Duffy as the tender left the quay.”

Side by side

The voyage out into the bay was far from a pleasant experience. The tender was tightly packed. Many below deck became seasick while those on the exposed deck were wet through. On reaching Black Head at 4.30am there was no sign of the promised ship which was to meet them. This disappointment greatly added to the discomfort of the men. The Dún Aenghus cruised around for an hour before Captain Goggins decided to bring the boat back into the shelter of the Clare coast and wait ‘till dawn for the delayed rendezvous.

At sunrise there was still no sign of the expected ship. Three members, seeking to find the cause of the delay, put ashore on a small boat in an attempt to contact London by telegram. But the mystery vessel did appear at 10.30 on Sunday morning and the three men succeeded in rejoining their comrades. The German ship, at the invitation of the Dún Aenghus, came into the bay to make the transfer of volunteers more manageable.

When the two vessels were moored side by side, rope ladders provided a difficult ascent in a gale for the drenched and departing Irishmen. Hot soup awaited them on the larger vessel. As the Aran tender turned for home its hooter sounded three times in farewell to O’Duffy’s volunteers.

The SS Urundi

The German ship, which sailed under the Swastika flag, was called the SS Urundi. A cargo steamer of the Deutsche Ost-Africa Line (German East Africa line). It was built in 1920 in Hamburg, the port from which it left on December 8, 1936.

While on its journey to Spain there was a blank opposite the Urundi’s name on the daily sailing list. It was reported to be “not on the usual service at present”. The Connacht Tribune (December 26, 1936) carried a letter from the Limerick Steamship Company pointing out that the Urundi was not a steamer of the Hamburg American Line, which they represented. The same newspaper reported that the German East Africa Liner Company denied any knowledge of the voyage to Spain: “We don’t know anything about her being due at Sanlucar de Barrameda in Spain, and we are not aware that she is carrying 500 Irishmen. We understand the ship will be back at Hamburg next week.”

The nαzι emblem

Press reporting of the departure was interesting. Locally The Galway Observer and East Galway Democrat gave the story a prominence not afforded it by the Connacht Tribune. However a photograph of volunteer Thomas Walsh was carried in the December 26 edition of the Tribune, in a picture story which reported that Walsh “was one of the Roscommon men who sailed from Galway”, to fight in General O’Duffy’s brigade.

The Irish Times and The Irish Independent featured the story on the inside pages of their Monday editions. The Irish Press alone afforded it front page status and carried banner headlines proclaiming “Liner Flies Emblem of German nαzιs”. DeValera’s paper, unlike the others, also reported that 80 Republicans left the country that same weekend to fight against Franco, 40 of them “on the same ship to Liverpool with General O’Duffy’s volunteers on Friday night”. “Mr Frank Ryan, the well known Republican, will be their leade.”

Hidden from history

The Galway contingent of O’Duffy’s brigade arrived in Caceres, and the Christmas Eve edition of the Irish Independent records a spirited welcome: “The Bishop, the Mayor, the civil and military governors and a huge cheering throng greeted the safe arrival of the Galway and Lisbon contingents marching in mass parade on Sunday.”

Their leaving was inauspicious on a dreary December night in the darkness of Galway Bay. The cause, now largely forgotten - drove young men on both sides to defy government orders and fight on foreign fields against an enemy that might include fellow Irishmen.

Of the 693 men who set out the night before, 50 returned to Galway on the Dún Aenghus. They were unable or unwilling to transfer from one boat to the other. Perhaps the experience of that first night at sea convinced them to return to the quayside. The Irish Times reported that on their return, without money, this group made its way to Eglinton St Garda Barracks. Supt Seán O’ Murchadha, Sgt O Hanluain and other guards made a collection to provide enough money for a meal. The gardai advised the returned volunteers to leave the town, which they did on foot.

But the rest of the Blueshirt departure from Galway, clandestine in its preparation and execution, has remained to this day hidden from history and shrouded in the mist of forgetfulness. The promised glory they sought proved evanescent. They were not to be numbered with the Wild Geese of legend.

i hope you are right, john, but where are they......surely their are some brains left to lead us..... i know the good people who stand outside stopes, in all weathers, taking abuse, even the local priests hurry by.... i know your feelings on YD, but they are all we'v got.......

It's a terrible thing that the few remaining vestiges of Christ's Social Reign are being blasted away.

A couple things to contemplate:

1) A society where fornication and illegitimacy are considered normal behavior, so that the years of the former prior to marriage is behavior expected from the typical young woman, is a society that will never firmly oppose abortion.

2) Migration from non-Christian and post-Christian third-world societies will always produce allies for the pro-abortion movement.

Because of the first reason I sense that much of the pro-life movement is not truly serious.  Consider the politician Santorum with a wife who had cohabited with an old man who was an abortionist when she was young.  It seems to me that the opposition displayed to abortion from such people is less about seriously changing society and more about having a flag to rally around.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound too critical of pro-lifers.  I'm glad there are people promoting the pro-life cause, I'd never want to discourage them.  However, without a culture that truly promotes chastity in the parishes, powerful opposition to abortion will not materialize.

Someone recounted his experience:

Quote

"Which once again shows how utterly clueless religious conservatives are in transmitting their faith and values to the next generation.

I’m in my early 30s and grew up in a conservative Catholic parish where a half-dozen children to a family was common (but not common for the wider culture in the 80s).

I remember back in the day, my friends’ and acquaintances’ parents were crowing about how they were going forth and multiplying while the secularists aborted and contracepted themselves out of existence.

Yet this was a upper-middle class community where all the privileged daughters were not at all prepared for their own marriage and family. They were sent to college on daddy’s dime or got lucrative scholarships with family connections.

I’ve been following most of my childhood friends/classmates on Facebook and not a single one is following the mold of a traditional religious family with large numbers of children.

A huge percentage of both the boys and girls I grew up with are still single and childless in their 30s. The ones that do have children typically have 1 or two within a dual-career, dual-income household."

Liberalizing Trads WILL NOT produce a posterity that truly values the Catholic Family and the sanctity of life.  They will become a rapidly diminishing group, unless they are truly converted, in particular away from their suburban attitudes that lead to the corruption of their young people, particularly the corruption of their young women.

As to the problem of mass migration, and its relation to abortion, one should consider the illegitimacy problem of Latin America:

Quote

Latin America has the highest rates of non-marital childbearing in the world (55–74% of all children in this region are born to un-married parents).[19] In most countries in this region, children born outside of marriage are now the norm. Even during the early 1990s the phenomenon was very common: in 1993 the rate of children born out of wedlock was: in Mexico was 41.5%, in Chile - 43.6%, in Puerto Rico - 45.8%, in Costa Rica - 48.2%, in Argentina - 52.7%, in Belize - 58.1%, in El Salvador - 73%, in Panama - 80%.[20][21]
In 2007 Paraguay - 70%, in Dominican Republic - 63%.[21]

The reality is that the Catholic family is dying as a social force.  The neo-modernists, Freemasons and Jєωs have done immense damage to that "Catholic bastion."

So when we see liberalization in those around us, particularly pertaining to attitudes regarding how young women are supposed to conduct themselves in life, then we must recognize that as the writing on the wall.

Going to pro-life rallies isn't a substitute for the maintenance of the natural order.  A large proportion of Catholic fathers, particularly those who are middle class, treat it as though it is a substitute.  As though the major force supporting abortion were not enough pro-life enthusiasm, and not instead a culture, that by the social expectations it imposes on its young people, and hypocritical manner in which it discourages marriage while encouraging the "independent young woman" practically guarantees fornication is the typical behavior of young women - yes, even "Catholic" ones.

Taoiseach: Abortion plan 'not to replace contraception'
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 - 05:25 PM

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the Government's plans on abortion are not to allow for terminations on demand, or to replace contraception.

The Coalition is to introduce legislation and regulation to allow for abortion in certain cases when a woman's life is at risk, including the threat of ѕυιcιdє.

Mr Kenny has told the Dáil this was to be in line with the Supreme Court 'X' case.

He said: "This matter is to deal with the clarification of the Constitution, and therefore the law, by the Supreme Court in the X Case, and therefore it does include the question of ѕυιcιdє arising from the X Case.

"No intention here of this being seen as abortion on demand or abortion replacing contraception."

Fianna Fáil's Billy Kelleher and Sinn Féin's Caoimhghin O'Caoláin have said they need more information to be sure that the Government is going down the right route.

Mr Kelleher said: "It is vague, the announcement, in terms of that there is no legislation published.

"We will be giving that careful consideration, we want to play a meaningful role in this very divisive debate, but clearly we will have to wait for the actual legislation to come forward."

Mr O'Caoláin said: "We hope that government will, as early in 2013, publish both the legislation and the regulations in order that both can proceed without any further delay."