PROMINENT Tyrone republican Gerry McGeough is known for his strong views, and when he was interviewed on WBAI New York's Radio Free Éireann last week, and he didn't hold back.
Here's a taster of what he said...
On Sinn Féin:
Mr McGeough says they have to "get rid of the pathetic old Shinners." Above, leader of the Sinn Féin party, Gerry Adams. (Photo:RollingNews.ie)"They use most of their energy, when they’re not sucking up to the English or the Unionists, denigrating old comrades [...] and it would fit them better if they just moved over and let other politicians and other politically active people take the helm I think at this point in time."
"There is a strong possibility now that we can see political movement [towards a United Ireland] – if it’s properly harnessed and the right energy goes into it and the right thinking goes into it – and we get rid of these pathetic old Shinners who are just so sad it’s not funny and let’s get patriots back in the saddle again."
On the assassination of family members of republican volunteers during the armed struggle:
Host Martin Galvin asked Mr McGeough how common it was that the British forces in Northern Ireland "would not only try and attack and monitor and use their position as forces of so-called law and order to assassinate republican volunteers but that they would make do with family members in your area?"
He replied: "It was very common [...]What this did was it instilled a sense of terror on the one hand. It was very much a psychological operation and it was used to just to grind down the resistance of the people in a particular area."
"It was a kind of a psychological effort. It was used, quite obviously, to target individual people, either active republicans or failing that, as you mentioned, their families, to instil a sense of terror and a willingness to I suppose surrender."
"It was an attempt to ethnically cleanse parts of Tyrone here of Catholic nationalists."
On resistance and opposing British rule in Northern Ireland:
"It’s been a very psychological type of warfare this past 20 years and [...] a whole new generation has grown up who really only rely on information that’s anecdotal as regards The Troubles and they are being so anglicised it’s quite frightening; you know, they talk about ‘here in the UK’ and ‘Londonderry’ and nonsense like that, these are, some of them, the children of republicans. So it’s a constant struggle."
On Catholic judiciary in Northern Ireland:
You have Irish Catholics, traitors in effect, administering British rule here in the Six Counties.
"You have Catholic Nationalist, people from republican families, who are now sitting as Diplock court judges and prosecutors and all the other stuff of the day that you can’t possibly imagine and they are arrogantly passing judgment on patriots."
"You have Irish Catholics, traitors in effect, administering British rule here in the Six Counties."
On Brexit and the possibility of a United Ireland:
"All the Irish Republicans that I know voted to get out because they wanted to break up the United Kingdom in order to bring about a united Ireland. The only way we’re going to get a united Ireland is to break up the United Kingdom."
"Their presence here has been at the cost of the blood of the Irish so it’s time for them now to get out. We’ve had enough of them. They’ve been on our backs for too long. And then we’ll deal with all these other issues that I’ve been referring to, the collaborators and all the rest of it, but in the meantime we need to get our country re-united and we need to get the English out of here."
"Hopefully we may see Scotland making some attempt to seek independence and that really is our cue."
On the Republic of Ireland:
"They’ve no spark of patriotism, they’ve turned their back on their faith, everything you could possibly imagine – they’ve really no sense of Irishness worth talking about so we have to re-instill all that in them."
