Irish Campaign for
Irish Campaign for
http://indigo.ie/~goodwill/icnd.html P.O.
Box 6327, Dublin 6, Ireland e-mail: irishcnd@ireland.com Telephone:
(087) 231 1944
The Executive has met 10 times during the year, and individual
members have taken an interest in particular areas. However, the
small numbers of the Executive have meant that we have not covered
as many aspects as we ought to. In particular, we have nobody
keeping an eye on the Abolition 2000 international movement, illegality
of nuclear weapons, nuclear-free zones, arms trade or development
issues.
The Irish CND website was maintained to a certain extent, but
again the pressure of work has meant that it is not as up-to-date
as it ought to be. In the absence of an office, the website is
the main source of information available to the public, and enquiries
are often answered by a reference to the website.
As announced at the last AGM, Steve Gilroy had to step down as
Treasurer on moving out of Dublin. Mary McCarrick subsequently
agreed to act as Treasurer. Considerable effort had to be put
into transferring bank accounts, for which the bank appeared to
have lost some documentation. We must also thank Mary for hosting
Executive meetings and work-parties for Peacework.
We produced an article on the implications of the EU Constitution,
which was not accepted for publication as originally hoped, but
was subsequently expanded into a submission to the National Forum
on Europe.
John Goodwillie and Mary McCarrick attended various PANA meetings,
and John Goodwillie attended the founding meeting of the Campaign
against the EU Constitution. We affiliated to the latter campaign
on the basis that it would be the main focus of work on the EU
Constitution, but as you know the Irish referendum was postponed
indefinitely after the defeat of the French and Dutch referendums.
The Campaign continues to exist, distributing leaflets to public
events. John Goodwillie has followed its work by email, but we
have not committed ourselves to continue to support it indefinitely
as its relevance has clearly lessened.
The International Peace Bureau normally awards the Seán
MacBride Peace Prize each year, funded by Irish CND in lieu of
affiliation fees. However, no award was made in 2005. One of the
medals for the 2004 award, which had been returned for correction,
spent part of the year in transit, and we are awaiting news of
its safe delivery.
The Nuclear-Free Local Authorities organisation expanded into
Ireland and Councillor Tony McDermott of South Dublin County Council
has kept us well informed of its progress.
Messages of support were sent to a protest against a NATO conference
in Sweden, to the Hiroshima commemoration in Vienna, and to the
Hiroshima commemoration in Hiroshima itself, where our message
was delivered in person by Pauric Cannon.
John Goodwillie attended a conference in Manchester on a nuclear-free
and NATO-free Europe. Mary McCarrick attended a conference in
Dublin on nuclear power organised by Grian and No2nukes.com.
The year was marked by the unsuccessful conference on the NPT
treaty in New York in May. Attempts were made to interest the
Lord Mayor of Dublin in the Mayors for Peace delegation to this
conference, but without success. We sent a delegation to the Department
of Foreign Affairs who gave an informative briefing to us and
listened to our views.
We held our annual Hiroshima commemoration in August. We used
our email list as an additional method of notification, and whether
for this reason or others the attendance was around 50 or more,
which was slightly up on recent years. The Dublin City Council
Parks Department on our suggestion had moved the cherry tree which
was faring badly at its former location in Merrion Square. A commemoration
was organised in Cork on our behalf and we understand about 40
people attended it. As this was the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima
we sent reminders to the media in advance, but the response was
small.
Our email list was also used to send reminders for this AGM. However,
it still covers only a small proportion of people on our mailing
list.
Two issues of Peacework were produced, in addition to the
issue distributed to members at the last AGM and afterwards by
post. This process has used our computerised membership list,
but it also requires a considerable labour input from the members
of the Executive. Thanks to Fergal Brennan who has acted as editor
and production manager.
Finally, our impact would undoubtedly be increased if we could
persuade others to become involved in the work.
John Goodwillie
2/12/05