Tomás Ó Flatharta

Ed Moloney has written a very good obituary of the Sunday Tribune :

http://thebrokenelbow.com/2011/02/08/the-death-of-a-newspaper/

For many years it has been an excellent independent news-source on six-county issues, way ahead of the establishment media which has lived by an old discredited motto “we must say or do nothing which….damages the peace process”.

This followed naturally from its parent “we must say or do nothing which helps the Provisional IRA”  ; a policy which got its supreme moment when Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave made a  state-wide TV and Radio live broadcast hours after loyalist bombs had killed over 30 civilians in Dublin and Monaghan car-bombings in May 1974.  The Fine Gael leader denounced the IRA – no wonder the police investigation failed miserably!

One of the few sane voices those days was the radical North Munster workers’ magazine the Bottom Dog, which featured Mr Cosgrave on its cover, shortly before his discredited government left office after a humiliating general election defeat :

http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/left-archive-the-bottom-dog-the-working-class-paper-of-north-munster-august-6th-1976/

Let us draw inspiration  from these sources, as a Fine Gael / Labour government looms after February 25, likely to be headed by Mr Cosgrave’s spiritual son, Enda Kenny.