To the Editor;

In response to numerous inaccuracies in the letter from Joseph A. Salvayon (“Clarification on Cumann na Saoirse”), I would like to present the following facts; which seem to have been forgotten.

In regards to Mr. Salvayon’s statement that “The Irish Freedom Committee… was founded in 1986 and has not operated or styled itself under any other name since” – documents filed with the State of New York in November of 2000 show that the group associated with John McDonagh, which includes Joseph Salvayon, are now indeed operating under a different name – “National IFC”.

As to repeated references to the “expulsion” of activists from Chicago and Boston in April of 2000; this is a mythical event. No member named was ever informed of this supposed action, until post-dated documents appeared on the NIFC website in April 2001 in a hurried attempt to distance Mr. McDonagh and his associates from David Rupert. Indeed, on the date chosen for this supposed “expulsion”, April 29, 2000; David Rupert and John McDonagh were attending a closed meeting together in New York to expand the republican movement in the US.

Furthermore, Mr. Salvayon’s statement that “Mr. Rupert never held any position with in the national executive of the organization” is utterly false. The invitation-only 1998 New York meeting that re-founded the local IFC as a national organization was attended by David Rupert; and a New York meeting in April of 1999, chaired by John McDonagh, placed David Rupert on board as a National Trustee of the IFC. Mr. Rupert was hence referred to as an IFC Trustee in all documentation coming from New York, and he attended virtually every Executive meeting of the IFC in New York thereafter.

Finally, those looking to the NIFC website “for more information” are more likely to find a series of defamatory cartoons directed at Chicago activists, who have been targeted in the latest government effort to bring down Irish organizations using paid moles with backgrounds full of Federal crimes. It might bear remembering that when Mike Flannery, George Harrison and 3 others were set up in the same manner by paid government witness George DeMeo, numbers of Chicagoans-- including a highly respected veteran republican, now despicably caricatured on the NIFC website-- flew to New York to attend the trials and lend support to the 5 men set up by the DeMeo mole.

How soon they forget.

Deirdre Fennessy
The Irish Freedom Committee
Chicago

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