O'Shea anyone arrested under the PTA dressing the rally. have been convicted of any offence. THE SUCCESSFUL defence of Dr Maire against charges of conspiracy to cause explosions, and her subsequent acquittal, is indeed a victory. It will cheer the hearts of every socialist fighting against injustice and repression directed at Irish activists. For Dr O'Shea the trial was the culmination of a year-long agony having been arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) at Right up to the start of the trial the prosecution hadn't produced a clear case against her. It became evident during the past three weeks that what case O'Shea is a 66 year old psychiatrist, who suffers from a sever hip problem, curvature of the spine and an illness which means she falls asleep at times in public. This is someone who was supposed to be the brains behind a 'mad bombing campaign' Her arrest however should have come as no surprise. It is no small coincidence that Dr O'Shea is president of the Irish in Britain Representation Group (IBRG), set up during the hunger strike of 1981. It is the first organised grouping of Irish peodemands. If Maire had been convicted, putting the IBRG president out of the way it would have served as a strong deterrent against Irish people To achieve this conviction the police mounted beginning and end of each day's session James Anderton's boys whisked the defendents in and out of the court in a convoy of siren-screaming Throughout her year-long struggle against the force of the British state however, Maire O'Shea was not alone. She has worked in this country in the field of medicine and in the labour movement for over 30 years. And she has many friends. In April of last year a defence campaign was set up on her behalf. At its first meetings there were well The lobbying, petitioning, defence costs fundraising, and demonstrating this committee was to undertake over the next eight months was to turn it into the most prominent campaign in defence of in Birmingham attracted over 2000 people, with MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Christine Crawley adThe committee was broad-based. It encomorganisations, Labour Parties, trades councils and port was crucial. Maire is a member of ASTMS Despite the leadership of her own union failing to ference to support her, considerable rank and file action was organised mainly through Associated Staff for a United Ireland (an ASTMS caucus). Everyday throughout the trial, ASTMS delegates ceedings. Other trade union activity included the leadership of COHSE donating generously to the because of the flimsy evidence against her. Many themselves imprisoned on such evidence. Maire is free today because of good defence - inside and This campaign should not now be disbanded. On the contrary it should be deepened and taken right into the heart of the labour movement. Over 6000 people have been arrested under the PTA since it was introduced. Only 0.6 per cent of these reason for retaining the PTA is to silence all political opposition to British policy in Ireland Trade unions and the Labour Party must actively campaign for the scrapping of this repressive
Socialist Action1986Socialist Action No. 131, 14 February 1986
Maire O'Shea victory
The scan: 131-feb-14-1986-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)
Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
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