In a huge possession along the Falls Road in Belfast Alex Murphy was laid to rest yesterday. In young years, he was the most junior political prisoner of the republican movement in the notorious Long Kesh prison, only being 15 years old. When British army officers in plain clothes attacked a funeral procession in 1988 by driving the car into the march and starting to shoot, it supposedly was Alex Murphy who killed both officers – at least this is what he was convicted and sentences for life for.
His funeral was attended by a hundreds of people. From all directions people flocked to the streets of Belfast and crowded the way to the church. Passers-by would stop on their way and salute when the coffin would be carried by. More than anything this clearly shows that vast sections of the Irish people not only support armed struggle, but long for it. No wonder that when on such an occasion shots are being fired by masked and uniformed man, the reactionary press and police starts to get nervous.
Murphy died on the 15th of August – which is also the night in which every year bonfires lighten the sky over the Occupied Six Counties, as this day marks the catholic festivities of the Feast of the Assumption. Pictures of one of such yet unlit bonfires shows it to be decorated with British flags, the flag of the British parachute regiment and a sign with “Fuck Soldier F” (the only ever officially charged soldier for Bloody Sunday, who's name is withheld), to be burned down to ashes when the bonfire is lit.
Within these turbulent movements of the masses, activists of the Irish Socialist Republican movement intervene with slogans such as “Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, “Irish Socialist Republic” and “Free Gonzalo” painted, together with hammer and sickle on the wall of Ireland capitol, Dublin (as can be seen in the pictures documented and disseminated by the Anti Imperialist Action Ireland).
