Gerry Adams's Blog, page 21

Frances

FRANCES.

My sister Frances died two weeks ago. She asked that I say a few words at her funeral. This is what I said:

Our mother had thirteen children. Three died shortly after they were born.  They were our Seán’s twin Brendan; and Seamus and David the other twins. Sixty years later our brother Liam died in February 2019.  On the day of his funeral big Eamonn, our Anne’s husband, also died. And now today we bury our wee sister Frances.

Death is part of the story of life. Is é seo ar sceal. Sibling grief is a very special grief. Brothers and sisters usually know each other for the whole of their lives. So during these sad days Margaret and Paddy and Anne and Seán and Maura and Deirdre and Dominic and me are reflecting no doubt, in our own ways, on childhood memories and all the good times and bad times of lives bound up together.

So too with brothers-in-law and sisters-in-laws. And Frances’ friends. Everyone will have special memories of her.

It’s also a time when our generation ponders on the reality of our own mortality. But this isn’t just about our generation. It’s especially about Frances’ own wee family. It’s about Patrick and Ciaran, Liam, Sinead, Maura and their spouses and children. It is about our Frances, their mammy and mamo. 

Frances had a hard life. Let there be no doubt about that. Some girls and other young people, have injustice heaped upon them in their formative years. It is to their great credit that many of them, like Frances, survive to grow into strong, loving, caring independent women.

When the British Army brought their war to Ballymurphy our house in Divismore Park, opposite the military base at Henry Taggart, was a particular target for them.  Following the internment swoops and at the time of the Ballymurphy Massacre, wee Maureen McGuinness and Colette helped our mother to evacuate the younger children from our home.

Frances was among them. She was sixteen. As they fled the British Paratroopers opened fire. When asked what she did Frances would smile and say; ‘I ran as fast as I could’.  

Our family never returned to 11 Divismore Park again. The Paras took over the house and wrecked it.

This was Frances’ introduction to decades of war, of house raids and arrests, prison visits, protests in support of the prisoners, and political campaigning. She marched and demonstrated for a lifetime with the rest of the risen women of Ballymurphy and Belfast.

 But she also found love. She and young Patrick Mulvenna were married on November 11 1972. She was widowed less than a year later. Patrick was an active IRA volunteer. Along with another freedom fighter, the legendary IRA warrior Jim Bryson, Patrick was killed when they were ambushed by Brits firing on them from a concealed position on 31 August 1973 in Ballymurphy.

Frances was pregnant. She gave birth to Patrick’s son, Patrick on what would have been their first wedding anniversary. As a young widow – a single parent with a baby son - Frances faced up to all the challenges life threw at her with fortitude and courage. I am sure she wasn’t always in a good place but she persisted. And she prevailed.

And she found love again. With another IRA volunteer Billy McAllister. From that union came Ciaran, Liam, Sinead and Maura. Patrick was outnumbered by McAllister’s but they all thrived together.  Later Billy and she separated but they remained good friends. He used to bring Frances her dinner. She loved his cabbage.Billy died in March 2019.

Eventually through all the hard years of the conflict, a few house shifts and the ongoing arrivals of grandchildren Frances moved into 34 Springhill Avenue. She always described it as her favourite home. 

Her children, adults now, have nothing but praise for her. I know all of us probably think our mammy is the best mammy we ever had. But Patrick, Ciaran, Liam, Sinead and Maura are certain about that. As long as you knew how far you could go. They all agreed that you couldn’t cross her. If you went too far the reprimand was accompanied with a stern reminder. ‘I’m your Mammy and don’t you forget it.’

She spoke her mind and tried to keep them on the straight and narrow.  But if this wee woman - and she was tiny – all four foot and eight inches of her; if she was a good Mammy she was a Super Dooper Granny. It was as if she wanted to ensure that whatever she lost out on in her youth, her grandchildren would be cherished and nurtured so that they might reach their full potential, whatever that might be.

She told her daughters that her aunts – the generation before us - were the really strong women. She drummed into them that they were the best role models. I am glad my favourite aunts Síle and Brenda are still with us. And aul Paddy and Mrs Mulvenna.

Frances was a quiet republican. She told her children she wanted to see a United Ireland. When she was in hospital she said she wanted to go to the Conway Mill Republican Museum when she got out and the new one in the Roddy’s when it was finished.

She suffered from ill health for years. But she always said everything was okay, even when it wasn’t. She believed in prayer and Jesus and his mother.

She told me she didn’t want to die. Did she have a premonition that she would not grow to be too old?  Who knows?  She insisted on Patrick bringing her to Milltown Cemetery in March to pick a grave and she went to the Credit Union to pay for it. She was very fussy about her last resting place and rejected the overtures of the man from Milltown a few times before picking her spot.

‘I don’t want to be looking at the motorway’ she told him. ‘I need to see the Mountain and the Republican Plot’.

Afterwards she told Patrick she was silly. The headstone would block her view.  She also sorted out her funeral arrangements with Healy’s. When Patrick queried all this she dismissed his concerns. Everything was ok she told him.

Each of her clann will remember her many acts of kindness and giving. All her children benefitted from her love. But for me her presence at Maura and Michael’s wedding just a few short weeks ago - when she discharged herself from hospital in pain and under pressure - was an act of unconditional maternal love and of her desire for her whole family to have a good and joyful day out together. She wanted everyone to have a happy memory.

Patrick and Brídín, Ciaran and Mary, Liam, Sinead and Manuel, Maura and Michael. Maura you were right to bring your wedding forward. Your mammy wanted her family to be happy. All of us.

I always told Frances that she is my favourite sister. She knew I tell all my sisters that. But she knew I was telling her the truth. I tell all my sisters that as well.

She was a loyal friend to Colette and she had a special bond from childhood with our brother Liam. And now she is gone. Ar slí an fhirrine. So I want to finish by talking to Frances’ grandchildren and great grandchildren.

To Padráic, Cliodhná, Deirbhile, Mairtín, Seánna, Kevin, Orlaith, Ciara, Tiernán, Meghan, Cori, Liam, Caitlín, Miceal, Gerry Óg, Kyla, Caelán, Oisin, Barra, Conchúr, Olivia and Maebh. And her three great grandchildren; Freyah, Zara and Sieanna.

I want to ask the older ones who knew their granny better than anyone else to tell your stories of her to the younger ones. The wee ones missed the life you shared with Frances. Tell them about her.

Tá aithne an mhaith agaibhse ar bhur mamo. Níl cuimhneadh ag na daoine óga uirthi. Cathfidh sibhse a bheith ag caint faoi leo.

Caithfidh sibhse  na scealtaí a rá. Agus na deanagaí dearmaid. Tá bhur saol nios fearr inniú mar throid Frances ar bhur son. So sin bhur obair a gar phaisti nios aoiste agus na sean daoine eile.

The young women here and the girls should know especially that the rights you enjoy today - your entitlements- came about because many, many working class women like Frances fought for you even before you were born by taking a stand in their own homes, on the streets, the prisons and the churches.  

My daughters had daughters as brave as were their mothers. And my fourth green field will bloom once again said she.

All these extraordinary ordinary wee women standing up for us all and for your future.

Bhi fhios acu, agus ní chainteoir mór í Frances no a lan do na mná eile, níor thug sí nó siad óraidí de gnáth. Ach bhí fhios aice agus acu gan Saoirse na mBán ní bheidh Saoirse na hÉireann. Agus ní bheidh.

This is one of Frances’ big days. I can see her smile at me saying that. It is the day we tell her slán. Even though we did not want her to die we give thanks that she passed quickly eased by the wonderful nurses and carers and medical workers.

Let’s set aside the angry times. The sad times. The hard times. Let’s remember the good times. The funny times. We think of our lovely Frances. Let us give thanks for her life. Go raibh maith agat sister. All of us are privileged to have loved you and to be loved by you.   Slán Francesco. x

210621: Boris is a Chancer: Nor Meekly Serve my time: The biggest Cuban Flag in the World

Boris is a Chancer

Last week was not a good week for Boris Johnson. Even before the weekend’s G7 summit began in Cornwall the news agenda was already dominated by reports that the US government had issued a démarche to the British in advance of President Biden’s arrival.

I must admit I had never heard of a démarche. During my years of negotiations with the Irish, British, US and other governments it was not a piece of diplomatic speak I had ever come across.  

Apparently it is a formal diplomatic note or memo which expresses the grave concern of one side about the behaviour of the other. It’s not something that one ally normally issues to another. It’s certainly not something that usually finds its way into the media. There is no precedent for the stern message of concern delivered by the US government to the British government about Britain’s Brexit policy, and its threat to the Irish Protocol and to the Good Friday Agreement. And it did find its way into the media.

Some media reports after the summit reported that US President Joe Biden had a “candid” conversation with Johnson. Jake Sullivan who is President Biden’s National Security Adviser said: “All I’m going to say: they did discuss this issue... The president naturally, and with deep sincerity, encouraged the Prime Minister to protect the Good Friday Agreement and the progress made under it. The specific beyond that I’m not going to get into.”

The G7 is made up of the USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The EU is invited to participate as a guest as are a number of other guest states. This year’s meeting which was hosted by Boris Johnson had a wide-ranging agenda which covered everything from the pandemic, including the distribution of vaccines, to the climate change crisis and the upcoming UN summit on climate to be held later this year in Glasgow.

The summit was intended by Boris Johnson to be a showcase for Britain as it seeks to reassert its leadership as a global economic power. Instead it turned into a PR debacle with a succession of G7 leaders privately, and some publicly, suggesting that the British government’s policy approach to Brexit and the Irish Protocol is dishonest and untrustworthy.

To the annoyance of the British the media spotlight, especially the international media, turned time and time again to the British attitude to Ireland and the Protocol. One after another state and EU leaders questioned British sincerity and good faith.

In a tweet Ursula von der Leyen the President of the EU Commission wrote: “The Good Friday Agreement and peace on the island of Ireland are paramount. We negotiated a Protocol that preserves this, signed and ratified by Britain and the EU. We want the best possible relations with the UK. Both sides must implement what was agreed on. There is complete EU unity on this.” Michel Barnier who negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol for the EU put it more succinctly: “I expect him (Johnson) to respect his own signature.”

British Ministers tried to shift the focus and to put the blame back onto the EU accusing it of being belligerent and inflexible.

However, Johnson was repeatedly reminded in media reports that he had lied when he claimed that the Protocol would require no checks in the Irish Sea. He was reminded also that his government tried to pass a law in the British Parliament last year that would have opened the way for his government to unilaterally tear up an international agreement.

Elements of the British media were especially critical. An editorial in the Observer said: “The prime minister’s dishonest diplomacy and willingness to jeopardise Northern Ireland’s stability for Brexit will greatly diminish Britain’s role in the world.”

The threat by the British to unilaterally extend the 30 June ‘grace periods’ that delay the introduction of some border checks has also angered the EU. The so-called ‘sausage war’ and the bizarre image of a stern faced Sammy Wilson defiantly standing in front of an ‘Ulster is British’ poster holding a handful of British sausages, was a surreal moment in the midst of the current crisis.

This reflects the failure of the British government to negotiate and agree a mechanism to allow for the shipment of chilled meats between Britain and the North. Some unionist politicians have been moved to make the bogus and outrageous claim that the EU is intent on starving the people of the North.

The fact is that Brexit, the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol were all negotiated by Boris Johnson and his government, supported by the DUP. They were warned repeatedly of the significant economic and political risks they were taking but chose to ignore these.

In a scathing criticism the Johnson government a former British Ambassador to the USA and the EU, Nigel Sheinwald, warned: “There is no point in writing new Atlantic charters which depend on mutual trust, mutual confidence and the rule of law, when you are operating as chancers.”

Instead of trying to calm the situation the British chose to up the ante. Dominic Raab the British Foreign Secretary accused the EU of being “bloody minded” and “purist.” Johnson threatened to suspend the Protocol and invoke Article 16 which allows for either side to take unilateral action in the event of “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”.

The British tried to drag the verbal row into an argument over sovereignty by wrongly claiming that French President Macron had suggested that the North is a different country. A claim he did not make.

Finally, the decision by Edwin Poots to send President Macron a copy of the Good Friday Agreement deserves a special mention. This is the same Poots who said: “The DUP campaigned against the GFA, it consistently opposed and never signed it or signed up for it.”

 

Nor Meekly Serve my time

“They were real, they were young, they were full of life. They were like anyone else. They were like you.  The prison robbed them of their lives; we should never compound that by only recalling their deaths. The accounts from their friends and comrades that you are about to read, breathe life into them and make them real. You will enter their world and form an impression of them. You will get to know them a little.”

Those words, referring to the young men who died on hunger strike in 1981, were written by former IRA prisoner and hunger striker, Laurence McKeown, in his introduction to the recently reprinted 40th anniversary edition of the book he previously co-edited with Brian Campbell and Felim O’Hagan, Nor Meekly Serve My Time: The H-Block Struggle 1976-1981.

The book, containing accounts from 28 former blanketmen, was compiled clandestinely in the H-Blocks over 30 years ago to mark the approaching 10th anniversary of the hunger strike. It was written by prisoners whose memories of those protest years remained very fresh. Some were still in prison from the time of the protest; others had been released only to be re-imprisoned again at a later date. All of them could vividly recall their experiences of those years of protest, and for some, the last moments they spent with one or other of those who died on hunger strike. Sometimes it was a few words shared, a hug, or just a smile or a brief glance. No words necessary or no words adequate.

I recall reading the book when it was first published in 1994. On one page I found myself laughing out loud at some prank or other that a blanketman had played on a comrade, only to turn the next page and be openly moved to tears with some poignant recollection revealed – perhaps the death of a parent or sibling and being refused parole, or someone writing about those last moments shared with a hunger striker. And throughout the book the accounts of beatings; forced washes, mirror searches, wing shifts, and the casual daily brutality that went on day in day out, week in week out, for almost five years.

But this is not a book filled with despair; quite the opposite. What you are left with is a sense of camaraderie that is sometimes difficult to comprehend, so intense is it, and, throughout, a sense of hope. The human spirit rising above adversity.

It’s a story about young men. Like the story of their women comrades in Armagh jail they were determined that they would not be criminalised and nor would they allow the struggle they were involved in to be criminalised.

I’m delighted to see the book re-printed and I encourage everyone to take some time out during this, the 40th anniversary year, to read it. Its strength lies in its openness;  its value rests in its humanity.

‘Nor Meekly Serve My Time’ – The H-Block Struggle 1976-1981 is published by Beyond the Pale Books

www.beyondthepalebooks.com

It is available also at https://www.sinnfeinbookshop.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AnFhuiseog/

 

The biggest Cuban Flag in the World

Well done to Cuba Solidarity Forum Ireland, Gael Force Art, and others, including Chris Hazzard MP (who helped carry it up the mountain) - who last week erected the largest Cuban Flag in the world on the Black Mountain. The flag, which is 150 by 75 feet in size was accompanied by the hashtag #UnblockCuba. The initiative was taken as part of the campaign to win support at the United Nations for the lifting of the US led blockade which has been in place since 1962.Next week the UN General Assembly will vote on this important issue. In annual votes since 1992 the General Assembly has voted for an end to the blockade. In the last vote in November 2019 187 of the 192 member countries voted to end the blockade.So well done to all of those who took part in the Black Mountain initiative, #UnblockCuba

 

Dublin City Council vote to protect Moore St: A fine day, thank God: Frederick Douglass

Master Plan for Moore Street Unveiled

Most readers know that Moore Street in Dublin City Centre holds a special place in the history of Ireland. It was in Moore Street and the surrounding streets and laneways and at the nearby GPO that a fierce battle was fought between the 1916 republican forces and the British Army. Number 16 Moore Street was where five of the seven signatories of the Proclamation held their last meeting before the surrender. The National Museum of Ireland has described Moore Street as “the most important historic site in modern Irish history.”

Regrettably not everyone sees it that way. In the late 1990s the Moore Street terrace was scheduled for demolition. Later a developer Chartered Lands produced a plan that would have destroyed much of the site. An alliance of relatives of the signatories, of those who fought in 1916, republicans and a range of other groups and individuals commenced a campaign to save Moore St.

Their dedication to the development of the site as a cultural and historic quarter in which the 1916 buildings and streetscape would be preserved for future generations was matched by the determination of successive Irish governments to hand most of the land over to private developers for profit.

I have visited historic landmarks in other places. Robben Island in South Africa was an infamous prison where ANC and other political prisoners were held for decades under the most cruel regime. It is now a World Heritage Site. In Europe the battlegrounds of former wars are protected and the cemeteries of their dead protected and cared for. The same in the USA. I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution where debated and adopted. The building is a UNESCO site and is cherished.

But in Dublin we have Irish governments with no sense of the history of their own land, no imagination, no sense of history and no vision for the future.  Only four houses -14-17 Moore Street – were adopted by the Irish government in 2007 for preservation as a national monument. 14 years later and no work has been carried out. The buildings remain derelict and sealed off from the public.

In the meantime another developer – Hammerson – has been trying to achieve what Chartered Land failed at.

The public campaign to preserve Moore Street and the 1916 battlefield site entered a new phase last week with the publication by the Moore Street Preservation Trust and the Relatives of the 1916 Signatories of their preliminary plan for the area. The plan was published several days after the British-based property company Hammerson also announced that it had submitted the first three of six planning applications it intends lodging which cover the Dublin Central site.

In an initial response to the Hammerson plan James Connolly Heron, great-grandson of James Connolly, and spokesperson for the Moore Street Preservation Trust criticised the Hammerson plan has falling far short of what the site needs.

Connolly Heron was especially critical of the extraordinary intervention by An Taoiseach Mícheál Martin who provided an endorsement to Hammerson which they carried in the media announcement of their proposal.

Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald challenged the Taoiseach on this in the Dáil. She said: “We now have the disgraceful situation where we have a Government that ... supports a plan to turn one of the most significant sites in modern Irish history over to a private developer. Shame on the Government for taking that stance.”

Last Thursday the Moore Street Preservation Trust and the Relatives of the Signatories published a preliminary copy of their Moore Street Master plan. Commissioned by the Moore Street Preservation Trust and devised by leading architects Fuinneamh Workshop Cork and Kelly and Cogan Dublin.

The Master plan presents an imaginative and realistic way forward for an area neglected for generations. The 1916 terrace will be restored and the ground floor shops let with over shop living facilitated. Existing ancillary buildings at the rear of the terrace will be converted for retail, cafe/restaurant use. New builds within the block will provide 45 units in mews and loft style developments, a theatre space and public meeting hall. Incubator retail units and workshops will be woven into the ground floor of these developments.

The terrace gardens will be exposed and restored for public use and the centuries old street market trading tradition, long in decline will be retained and enhanced with the re-opening of all pitches and the provision of storage and wash room facilities for the traders.

The Moore Street Master plan conforms to the recommendations of the Ministers Advisory Group on Moore Street 2021 and the Lord Mayors Forum   2021. It also has the support of a wide range of individuals and groups including, The Easter 16 - Relatives of the 16 executed leaders; the GPO Garrison Relatives; Sinn Fein; People Before Profit; the Green Party, as well as well known writers, historians, artists and actors including Adrian Dunbar; Tim Pat Coogan; Damian Dempsey; Frances Black; Christy Moore; Ruan O Donnell; Paul Ronan; Saoirse Ronan; Fionnula Flanagan; Robert Ballagh and Jim Fitzpatrick.

So, if you want to preserve Moore Street and the laneways of history go to https://www.facebook.com/MooreStreetTrust/and join the battle to preserve Moore St.

Finally, a little postscript:

Dublin City Council passed an emergency motion on Monday evening this week adding the terrace (10-25 Moore Street) to the list of protected structures. These are the building occupied by the Volunteers who evacuated the GPO at the end of Easter Week 1916 and where the last meeting of the Leaders occurred.

The motion was proposed by Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha and was supported unanimously at the Council’s June monthly meeting. This is a hugely significant decision by the Council at a time when some of the buildings are under threat of demolition in a development plan proposed by property developer Hammerson. This vote begins the process of assessment towards listing them and as such they are now legally protected.

 

 

A fine day, thank God.

This column is launching a Celebrate the Good Weather While it Lasts  campaign. The CTGWWIL will endeavour to get people to express unconditional delight about whatever weather we have. Down with glumassessmentsabout our clime and that sort of thing.

Maybe its an Irish thing. Maybe not. Maybe otherpeopleare alsoobsessedby the weather. Or maybe not. We Irish  all the time converse about what lies in store for us weatherwise, sometimesquothing TV weather forecasters as if theywereancientprophets.

And we are usually pessimestic. Why do we describe a rainy day as “a bad day?” Why when the day is sunny do we warn all and sundry that it won’t last?

Some will even remark; “Well that’s our summer over” after a few hours of sunshine.

When I say to anyone “Its a fine day” they invarabley respond with “Aye ..... butthere’srain on the way!”

Nine times  out of ten that,  or a variation of it, is the reaction. It’s like they are wishing the sunaway.

And it affects unionists as well as the rest of us. Darkclouds are non party political. Many a time even the mostsunnycheerful DUP representative has greeted my “Good morning. Isn’ttheweather great?” with a “Ayebutit’sgoing to break later this afternoon.”

That’s something else that we have in common.

I’ve got to thinking that maybe peopledon’t even reflect on what they are saying. It’s almost an automatic response. It doesn’t help that sunshinein Ireland seldomendures.Little wonder we have  a lot of  Irish  words and phrases  for rain. Butrememberwithout the rain our island would not be an Emerald Isle.But you wouldthink we shouldappreciatethe sunall the more whenit doesvisit us?

So let’s give thanks for the weather we have. Especially these days when the sun brightens up everything.

I remember talking to a friend of mine who did time in prison in France. He also did time in prison here. He was very unlucky.

“Whatwas the difference between doing time in Ireland and doing time in France?” I asked him one day.

He reflected for a wee while beforeanswering. Thenfinally and thoughtfully he said.

“ Nobody in jail in France talked about the weather. ”

I rest my case. Up The CTGWWIL!

 

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who travelled from the USA to Ireland in 1845. Douglass toured Ireland speaking about slavery and telling of his experience. Douglass gave his first Irish lecture in Dublin in September 1845. Over the following months he travelled to Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Belfast. He returned to Belfast another four times.

Ireland was in his own word “transformative” for Douglass. He said of his time here that he had become a man, rather than a chattel. He also came to see the issue of slavery not in isolation but as part of a wider campaign for equality and social justice.

Professor Christine Kinealy is the foremost expert on Douglass and especially on his time in Ireland. Professor Kinealy is the Director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University and in 2018 produced the definitive account of Douglass’s time in Ireland taken from his own letters: Frederick Douglass and Ireland
In His Own Words.

Most recently she has finished work on a walking map – Frederick Douglass Way, Dublin 1845 – 1846. She is currently working on a Belfast walking map which identifies many of the locations where Douglass addressed Belfast citizens.
Among the places identified are:

·        Grave of Mary Ann McCracken  -  Clifton Street Cemetery - abolitionist and humanitarian – founder of Belfast Auxiliary Female Anti-Slavery Society 

·        Lancasterian School Room, 42 Frederick St. Façade remains of Quaker house -  Frederick lectured on temperance  

·        Cathedral Quarter: Independent Meeting House – Donegall Street – first and final (6 October 1846) lecture. Now Redeemer Central  

·        Victoria Hotel (formerly, Royal Temperance Hotel), 12 Waring Street – Frederick stayed here 

·        Rosemary Street – First Presbyterian Church – Frederick lectured to ‘a large audience’ 

Douglass’s close association with Belfast should be a matter of great public pride. This map will be an important addition to his story. Plans are also advancing to erect a statue to him.

STOP PRESS.
Dublin City Council Commemorations Committee has agreed to erect a plaque to Frederick Douglass.  It will be on the Irish Film Institute, Eustace St, where Douglass spoke when it was the Society of Friends Meeting House.

It was chosen from the Dublin venues which he spoke in because of the central role the Friends played in his tour. The building next door - the current Friends meeting house - has a plaque to the Dublin United Irishmen who met there when it was the Eagle Tavern. The Douglass Plaque should be unveiled sometime this summer. The proposal to take this initiative was put by Sinn Féin Councillor Micheál MacDonncha. This column will share details as soon as they are available.

 

 

Preparing for Unity: Well done to loyalists trying to keep the peace:

 Preparing for Unity

Hardly a week goes passed without some new aspect or commentary emerging on the issue of Irish Unity. When will the unity referendum by held? What criteria should the British Secretary of State apply when deciding on the date? What is the role of the Irish government? What will the question/s be that will be asked of citizens? How will the referendums be structured and what new laws might be needed to facilitate them.

The fact is that there will be a unity referendum. When it comes it will be the most important constitutional debate about the future of the island of Ireland in 100 years. As we prepare for it, it is worthwhile reflecting on the recent role of referendums in encouraging greater public awareness of and an engagement in democratic decisions that achieved significant positive change.

The referendums on marriage equality and the repeal of the 8th amendment are the most obvious. The Irish Government helped prepare for these by establishing citizen centred mechanisms – the Constitutional Convention and then the Citizen’s Assembly – to examine constitutional and societal change. This process of maximising democratic engagement in the process of change and in the referendum process was a success.

23 years ago the May 1998 referendums that were held north and south came at the end of an intense period of negotiation and a wide-ranging debate on the merits or otherwise of the Good Friday Agreement. Those referendums achieved a massive majority in favour of the Agreement.

In stark contrast the failure of the Tory government of David Cameron to properly prepare for the Brexit referendum in 2016 resulted in an outcome that has sharply divided British society, encouraged the break-up of the British union and created economic turmoil.

The consequences for the North have been especially difficult. The election last week of Edwin Poots as leader of the DUP saw him trot out the same nonsense of his predecessor – that the EU and the Irish government have flouted the will of the people of the North. Poots went so far as to claim that the Irish government is “going to starve Northern Ireland people of medicines no less, cancer drugs and other materials, such as the food that's on our table.”

None of this is true of course. It’s a deliberate distortion to heighten fear around Brexit, the Irish Protocol and the growing interest in Irish Unity. The DUP is intent on whipping-up resentment to a Brexit crisis that it has been instrumental in creating. No mention of the DUP’s aggressive support for the Brexit referendum and for the vote to leave in 2016. No mention of the reality that the majority of citizens in the North voted to remain in the EU or that the DUP consistently refused to support any of the efforts by Theresa May to produce an agreement with the EU.

Democracy DUP style, which has its roots in the partition of Ireland a century ago, is a limited philosophy that excludes the rights and votes of nationalists and republicans. It ignores the reality that political unionism is now an electoral minority and holds just 40 out of 90 seats in the Assembly.

United Irelanders have to be inclusive of everyone. As we work to move the process of change ahead and seek to win the unity referendum we must include our neighbours and fellow citizens who identify as British. To do this effectively and democratically we must plan for the unity referendum and plan to win it.

Last week the Irish Times concluded ...”If it is plausible to think referendums on Irish unity could happen this decade, it would be prudent to plan for that possibility.” Last week also saw the publication of the final report from the ‘Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland.’ The working group is based at the Constitution Unit of University College London. It too supports the imperative of preparing for the unity referendum.

The Working Group is made up of 12 academic specialists in politics, law, sociology and history. They were brought together and have spent two years examining what the Good Friday Agreement provision for the referendum means in practice, what technical and procedural questions arise as a result and what steps are necessary to facilitate it and ensure that it fair and democratic. They have also received hundreds of submissions from individuals and organisations.

The report, which will require careful consideration, runs to 260 pages. It suggests what criteria the British government should use to determine when the referendum is held. These are; election results, opinion polls, qualitative research, a vote in Stormont, seats won at elections and demographic data. It asks whether the Irish government should present a clear model of the kind of United Ireland on offer before the referendum or instead propose a constitutional process to determine that after the referendum takes place and if voters say Yes. It asserts that; “A referendum should be called if a vote for unification appears likely, even if by a slender margin.” And it accepts the Good Friday Agreement principle that a Yes vote requires a vote of 50%+1. The reports states: “It would breach the agreement to require a higher threshold than 50% + 1.”

It also looks at the kind of political structures that might emerge as a result of the referendum and constitutional change.

These are big issues for consideration. And there are many more questions and issues raised in this lesson that we can draw from this report is that there is a need to prepare for the unity referendum. The Micheál Martin approach is not good enough. Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that this debate will go away represents a lack of vision and of leadership. An Taoiseach’s starting point like ours has to be the Good Friday Agreement. He needs to read it again.

 

Well done to loyalists trying to keep the peace

Last week the 27 leaders of the European Union met in Brussels to discuss a range of issues, including Brexit and the Irish Protocol. Speaking afterward the European Commission President von der Leyen laid the blame for the current crisis at the door of the Brexiteers, including the DUP. She said: “There should be no doubt that there is no alternative to the full and correct implementation of the protocol ... it is important to reiterate that the protocol is the only possible solution to ensure peace and stability in Northern Ireland, while protecting the integrity of the European Union single market... If we see problems today we should not forget that they do not come from the protocol but result from Brexit, that is the reason why the problems are there.”

DUP spokespersons and the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) again claimed that the Irish Protocol – which Boris Johnson negotiated and agreed with the EU – will destabilise the political situation in the North and risks violence. It is “oppressive and undemocratic” said Jeffrey Donaldson.

Much of their ire has been directed at the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The LCC Chairperson David Campbell described Mrs Von Der Leyen as an "ostrich with her head in the sand” and he warned that the North is set to "descend into chaos this summer." Like so many others Campbell decided that the LCC could speak for all the people of the North and not just the loyalist paramilitaries he represents with the claim that “the protocol has to go and will go - the people of Northern Ireland will not accept this diktat from yet another unelected German."

It is also important to realise that within loyalism there exist different voices and different opinions on the way forward. There isn’t unanimity of approach around the possibility of “chaos” or violence. There are many within loyalism and the community sector working within loyalist working class areas who oppose unionist politicians using their community as a stick to threaten others with. They see “chaos” being to the detriment of their community.

They are also trying to deal with housing need; unemployment; drug gangs; health inequalities; poverty, deprivation and disadvantage. They are especially concerned at the emergence of an underclass of young people – no hopers – who refuse to listen to anyone. The recent street disturbances at some of the interfaces witnessed a section of unionist youth prepared to tell loyalist leaders who tried to stop the violence where to go.

Tackling these problems in a heightened atmosphere of fear and with unionist parties normally disinterested in addressing these issues, is hugely difficult. There is a commonality of challenges facing our society in both nationalist and unionist working class areas. We are best able to tackle these if we are able to do so together.

So well done to those from within loyalism who are doing their best to keep the peace and to tackle disadvantage.

 

 

Two Fearless Belfast Women; Remembering Rab McCullough; Féile na gCloigíní Gorma.

Winifred Carney
Two fearless Belfast Women

Two Belfast women, Mary Ann McCracken and Winifred Carney, will soon have statues commemorating their heroism, leadership and commitment to social justice and freedom erected in the grounds of Belfast City Hall. It was agreed at the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee last week that the Council will nowbegin the process of costing and designing the statues.

In 2012 an Equality Impact Assessment confirmed what anyone with eyes already knew – that the grounds of Belfast City Hall were overwhelmingly dominated by white, male, upper class and unionist images. The City Hall did not reflect the reality of life in Belfast and especially of a changing Belfast.

To address this imbalance Sinn Féin brought forward proposals four years ago to transform the City Hall and grounds. The process has been slow as some within the Council have sought to frustrate this new direction. However, last Friday’s Council meeting has now moved the proposal around the two Belfast women a decisive step forward.

Winifred Carney was born in Bangor but was reared at 5 Falls Road. She attended the Christian Brother’s School in Donegall Street where she worked for a time as a junior teacher. She qualified as one of the first lady secretaries and short hand typists in Belfast from Hughes Commercial Academy. Subsequently she worked for a time in a solicitor’s office in Dungannon.

Winifred had a keen interest in the Irish language and culture and joined the Gaelic League. She was a strong advocate for the rights of women and was a committed socialist. She was very close to Marie Johnson who worked as secretary for the Irish Textile Workers’ Union. The union had been established by James Connolly in 1911.

When Marie became ill she asked Winifred to take over the responsibility. Two years later Connolly, along with Winifred Carney, published the Manifesto of Irish Textile Workers’ Union – To the Linen Slaves of Belfast.

Carney was also a member of the Cumann na mBan which she joined with Connolly’s two daughters Nora and Ina Connolly. She was also in the Irish Citizen Army. In 1916 she was the first women to enter the GPO during the Rising. She worked closely with Connolly in preparing dispatches. 

When the GPO was evacuated after five days of fierce fighting Carney was with the wounded Connolly as he was carried to number 16 Moore Street. There five of the signatories to the Proclamation held their last meeting as the Provisional Government. Julia Grenan, Winifred Carney and Elizabeth O’Farrell were present and when Tom Clarke broke down at the prospect of surrender Last Words tell us; “Miss Grenan and Miss Carney went across to him to try and consol him but instead they themselves dissolved into tears and Clarke comforted them.”

Following the surrender Winifred Carney was imprisoned in England. She stood unsuccessfully for East Belfast in the 1918 election and continued to work for the Transport Union. In 1920-22 she was secretary of the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependents Fund 1920-22. In 1922 she was imprisoned in Armagh jail.

In 1928 she married George McBride. He had fought in the First World War and was from the Shankill Road. They were both committed socialists although differed on the national issue and the Rising. Winifred Carney died on 21 November 1943 and was buried in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. Belfast Graves erected a headstone on her grave in 1985.

Mary Ann McCracken was the sister of Henry Joy McCracken, executed for his part in the 1798 Rebellion. She was a radical thinker, social reformer, who was implacably opposed to slavery and poverty, was a friend of the disadvantaged, and an advocate for the rights of women.

She was born in Belfast in July 1870 to a wealthy Presbyterian family. Her Uncle Henry Joy raised the funding for the construction of the Poor House by the Belfast Charitable Society – now Clifton House – in 1774. Mary Ann McCracken was a member of the Board of the Society and retained a close personal and working relationship with it until her death in 1866.

In July 1798 her brother Henry Joy McCracken was sentenced to be hanged for his part in the United Irish Rising. In a letter she later described the events:

“I took his arm, and we walked together to the place of execution where I was told it was the General’s orders that I should leave him, which I peremptorily refused. Harry begged I would go. Clasping my hands around him, (I did not weep til then) I said I could bear anything but leaving him. Three times he kissed me and entreated I would go; and, looking round to recognise some friend to put me in charge of he beckoned to a Mr. Boyd, and said ‘He will take charge of you.’ ... and fearing that any further refusal would disturbed the last moments of my dearest brother, I suffered myself to be led away.”

After the failure of the rebellion Mary Ann dedicated her life to many causes. The breadth of her interests and activism is remarkable. She helped provide education and apprenticeships for children through the Poor House Ladies Committee. In 1847 at the age of 77 she was one of those who established the “Ladies Industrial School for the Relief of Destitution” with the aim of helping those suffering as a result of An Gorta Mór.

Mary Ann was one of the first to support the “Belfast Ladies Clothing Society” and raised money for the “Society for the Relief of the Destitute Sick”. She was a member of the committee that lobbied for a change in the law to end the practice of ‘climbing boys.’ Their work involved scrambling up the chimney’s of the wealthy to clean them. The risk of falling and the impact on the health of the boys as they cleared away soot was significant.

Her opposition to slavery was relentless and total. When Waddell Cunningham, a merchant, proposed in 1786 that the Belfast Slave Ship Company be established the scheme was vehemently opposed by those who later established the United Irish Society. This and the publication of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and the French and American revolutions hugely influenced Mary Ann her brother Henry Joy and all of those who came to found the United Irish Society in Belfast in October 1791.

In a letter written in 1859 Mary Ann recalls how deeply Thomas Russell despised slavery. He was one of those: “ ... who in the days of Wilberforce (campaigned against Slavery in England) abstained from the use of slave labour produce until slavery in the west Indies was abolished, and at the dinner parties to which he was so often invited and when confectionary was so much used he would not taste anything with sugar in it ...”

Her opposition was such that as a small frail woman she would hand out leaflets opposing slavery to those boarding vessels to sail to the USA. In a letter written in 1859 – a year before the American Civil War began, she describes America: “...considered the land of the great. The brave, may more properly be styled the land of the tyrant and the Slave ... Belfast, once so celebrated for its love of liberty is now so sunk in the love of filthy lucre (money earned dishonourably) that there are but 16 or 17 female anti-slavery advocates, for the good cause paying 2/6 yearly – not one man, tho’ several Quakers in Belfast and none to distribute papers to American Emigrants but an old woman within 17 days of 89.”

Frail in body she might have been but strong in heart and spirit she remained all of her days. Mary Ann McCracken died on the 26 July 1866 aged 96.

 

Rab McCullough.

My condolencesto Marian and the family of Rab McCullough. Rabdied suddenly last week. He was one of Irelandsleading blues musicans. He played with AC/DC, Van Morrison, Rory Gallagher, Jimmy Hendrix and other global rock stars. He alsotaught Bobby Sands toplay the guitar when they were imprisoned in the 1970s.

I wrote a little piece about this recentlyafter Danny Devenneypublished hisiconic print - The Session- featuringBobby, John Lennon, Che, Woody Gutherie and othershaving a music session. Rabgave me some details of Bobby’s early efforts to learn how to play the guitar and of hismusical influences. He, Tomboy Loudan and Bobby used to jam together faoi glas na gallaimh.

Recently I askedRab if he would join Tomboy, BikMcFarlane and otherexprisoner musicans, post the covid restrictions, in a session of musicfrom the 60s and 70s that they played togetherwith Bobby in the Crum and Long Kesh. Rabwas delighted to be asked. He rhymed of a list of potential numbers from Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan,John Lennon and others. Tomboy also signed up. Bik agreed to ramrod that gig and we spokeabout it only last week. Unfortunately it won’t happen now. Not with Rab  anyway. But his music will live on. Belfast Blues is a classic.

Go deanfaidh Dia trocairear Rab. Mo comhbhrón le Marian agus a chlann.

 

Féile na gCloigíní Gorma.

Last week it was an honour for me to be on a panel discussion about the Belfast Hills. This discussion- on zoom- waspart of Féile na gCloigíní and includedLynda Sullivan, Friends of the Earth, Jim Bradley, Belfast Hills Partnership, Maria Morgan, Ligoneil Improvement Association, and Melina Quinn, National Trust.

I recalledthe role the local community played in gettingquarrying on the mountain stopped and how the campaign for the conservation of the Bog Meadows and Divis and Black Mountain developed. I made the point that none of this would have happened witout local activism and the efforts of Terry EnwrighSnr, Adrian Crean, Terry Goldsmith and others. Colin Glen has a similar history. Empowered communities can make a differance.

Getting my notes together for this event started me thinking of the time when my familygot a house in the late 1950s in Ballymurphy. At that time the Murph was surrounded by green fields. A river, nowmostly underground, ran parralell with Ballymurphy. That was one of our favouriteplaces to play when we weren’t on the mountain.  Springhill was yet to be built. It was a great green space - Husky’s Field- with a big red bricked house used as a clinic, at itscentre. We went there for codliver oil and orangejuice. What is now Springhill Avenue was a long tree lined avenue. The powers that be destroyed all that. Theyeradicated every blade of grass and built Springhill, agrey brick and black taramacked estate with all greeneryerased.

Thankfully that too now is gone, following sustainedhousing campaigns, from Divis to Moyard, Turf Lodge, the Shankilland other remenants of disasterous housing developments from the 1960s.

Therewere very old houses - The YellowHouses- at the corner of what is now Springfield Park. They were a reminder that this was a rural area. There were a number of workingfarms. One opposite Springhill.  Another beside  Corrigan Park. Yet another at the Top of the Rock at the lefthand junction of the Whiterock and Springfield Roads. We usually  went up the mountain via the mountain loney.

Therewas an old tin church enroute, opposite Dermot Hill,smallerbut not dissimiliar to Saint Matthias’on the Glen Road.Above and behind that therewere two flax dams with swans and an epidemic of frogspawnin the earlyspring. At the top of the loneythere was a spring of freshmountainwater, now piped off.  Behind it was a track – now blocked- up to the Hatchet Field. We spentchildhoodsummers on the mountain.Thattrack to the HatchetField was our main route upwards towards the acres of buebellswhich give Féile na gCloigíní Gorma its name.

We alsoused to walk up to Torneroy - close to Lamh Dearg and listen to the Corncrakesabove Turf Lodge.

It is good that Féile celebrates all this. But more importantly it alsolooks with hope to the future. A future in whichhumans can live in harmony with nature. In our case as Belfast people in harmony with our Belfast Hills. My thanks to everyone who has made this possible. Many thanks also to all who organise the many events ofFéile na gCloigíní Gorma. It is based on the princilples of Community, Solidarity and Wellbeing. Great work and very enjoyable also.

Poots elected; Ballymurphy: A Conspiracy of Cover-up

 There will be constitutional change

Edwin Poots has been elected as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. I want to wish him well. It’s going to be an interesting time as he faces up to the challenges of leadership in these changing times.

I remember when we were negotiating, just before I stood down as Uachtarán Shinn Féin, that in the course of those efforts Edwin was very constructive and positive and I came to like him.

We got to know each other better. This is what happens when you are locked away for long periods in negotiations with each other.

More recently Edwin led the charge to get rid of Arlene Foster and now he will face exactly the same challenges that confronted her. It’s all about positive societal change. Change is coming, including on constitutional matters. Edwin must know by now that the best way to deal with the change is to manage it with others. Standing aside may slow progress down but that will only serve to deepen difficulties and will ultimately fail.

I hope the Edwin who I came to like faces up to this. He may not. If so he will end up like Arlene.

But let’s see what happens.

I especially want to wish Michelle O’Neill well as she leads our team in the time ahead.

 

Ballymurphy - A Conspiracy of Cover-up

I was in Corpus Christie Chapel in Springhill as the Coroner Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan took almost three hours to read out her judgement from the Ballymurphy Massacre Inquest.

Around me sat some of the relatives, victims and witnesses of those terrible events in August 1971 which left 11 people dead. Ten, including a priest and a mother of eight were shot dead. Nine were victims of the Parachute Regiment. The available forensic and other evidence could not confirm that the tenth, John McKerr was killed by the British, although it is widely accepted that he was. All were deemed entirely innocent by the Coroner who described the use of violence by the Paras as “unjustifiable” and “disproportionate.” The 11thvictim Paddy McCarthy died of a heart attack after he was assaulted and threatened by British soldiers. His case was not part of the inquest hearings.

Later the families responded with an emotional mixture of joy and sadness at the outcome of the inquest. I was struck by the similarities between this occasion and that almost exactly 11 years ago when the families of those killed on Bloody Sunday in Derry heard the outcome of the Saville Inquiry.

Martin McGuinness and I were in the Guildhall Square that day in June 2010 as the families of the 14 victims of the Parachute Regiment expressed their delight at the conclusion of the Saville Report.

That same day the British Prime Minister David Cameron addressing the British Parliament apologised for the actions of the Paras. However, he then sought to defend the record of the British Army in the North by claiming that “Bloody Sunday is not the defining story of the service the British Army gave in Northern Ireland from 1969-2007.”

The Ballymurphy Massacre which took place six months earlier than Bloody Sunday and the Springhill Massacre in which 6 people proves that Cameron was wrong. Bloody Sunday like Ballymurphy and other killings are exactly the defining story of the British Army’s involvement in Ireland. Over 360 men, women and children were killed directly by the British Army and RUC and many hundreds more were killed as a result of collusion between those forces and unionist paramilitaries.

The response of the Tory government of Johnson, like that of Cameron and of every British and Unionist government for 50 years has been to cover-up the culpability of their forces in the killing and wounding of citizens. On the day that a Coroner found that nine innocent citizens were murdered by the Paras Downing Street issued a statement in which it said that the British government intends introducing “a legacy package that delivers better outcomes for victims, survivors and veterans, focuses on information recovery and reconciliation, and ends the cycle of investigations. This package will deliver on the commitments to Northern Ireland veterans, giving them the protections they deserve as part of a wider package to address legacy issues in Northern Ireland.” This is effectively an amnesty.

This is a unilateral breach of commitments made by the British government in the Stormont House Agreement. It is in part the pandering to the right wing English nationalist sentiment that created Brexit and still thinks it has an Empire. It is also the inevitable consequence of a political and military strategy that has its roots in Britain’s counter-insurgency strategies in colonial wars through the 1940s to the late 1960s. It should never be forgotten that British policy in the North was dictated in large part out of this experience and by the policies advocated by British General Frank Kitson.

In 1969, the year before he was sent to the North to take command of the 39thBrigade, which covered the Belfast area, Kitson published, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency. To defend British national interests Kitson wrote: “Everything done by a government and its agents in combating insurgency must be legitimate. But this does not mean that the government must work within exactly the same set of laws during an emergency as existed beforehand. The law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal, in which case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public.”

The subsequent decades of conflict must be seen in this context. Understand this and you begin to understand the rationale behind British state collusion with unionist paramilitaries; their use of sectarian killings; the torture of citizens and of prisoners; the use of the shoot-to-kill policy; plastic bullet deaths; the extensive human rights abuses inflicted by the state and its agencies; the imposition of emergency powers that stripped away peoples fundamental human rights; and the mass killing of civilians on Bloody Sunday, the Ballymurphy Massacre, the Springhill Killings, and much else.

The reality is that the Coroner’s conclusions in the Ballymurphy case will not have surprised the security mandarins that run the British system. Every government, Conservative and Labour, has known the truth of these events since they first occurred. That’s why they have stalled and prevaricated, rejected and obstructed every effort by the families to get to the truth and to ensure accountability.

Regrettably the Irish government was not much better. In November 2008 the families and I met Dermot Ahern who was then the Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs. In May 2010 I facilitated a meeting between the families and the then Minister of Justice Micheál Martin. We visited the sites of the murders and the families told Mr. Martin of the circumstances of the deaths of their loved ones.

After I was elected to the Oireachtas the Ballymurphy Massacre families visited Leinster House on several occasions to lobby for support in their dealings with the British government. In November 2011 I read the names of those killed into the record of the Dáil for the first time.

“I would like, if I may, to read into the record the names of those killed in Ballymurphy: Fr. Hugh Mullan, who was 38 years old; Frank Quinn, 19, a father of two; Joan Connolly, 50, a mother of eight; Daniel Teggart, 44, a father of 13; Joseph Murphy, 41, a father of 12; Noel Phillips, who was 18; Eddie Doherty, 28, a father of four; John Laverty, who was 20; Joe Corr, 43, a father of six; John McKerr, 49, a father of two; and Paddy McCarthy, who was 44 years old. I once again implore the Government to assist and support the families' campaign and their demand for a full independent investigation.”

In March 2015 the Taoiseach Enda Kenny met the families and in July an all-party motion in support of the families was passed. The motion also supported the Stormont House Agreement on legacy issues.

Regrettably, the Irish government never adopted a strategic approach to challenging the British government on the Ballymurphy case. As in so many other instances these issues were generally viewed as an irritant in the government’s discussions with the British.

The response of An Taoiseach Micheál Martin following his meeting last week with Boris Johnson underlines this. Mr. Martin couldn’t bring himself to speak about the murder of civilians by the British forces but waffled his way around what he described as “the Ballymurphy situation.” It was he said a “good discussion” with Johnson and this after the families had been contemptuous of Johnson’s response.

I outline these meetings as evidence of the enormous courage and tenacity of the Ballymurphy families. For decades, but especially in the last 15 years they have never wavered in their determination to prove their loved ones innocent of any wrongdoing and the victims of state murder. I am in awe of their courage.

Finally we should not forget that their journey for truth and accountability is not over. There are more steps ahead as they seek to overcome British government efforts to protect those responsible for the murder of the innocent victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre. We must walk each new step with them on the way forward.

 

A Calendar of Cover-ups

Over many years the Ballymurphy families have met successive British Secretaries of State. This is an example of the record of shame by the British government. Successive politicians have been part of the cover-up of the Ballymurphy Massacre.

·         In February 2009 I facilitated a meeting between the Ballymurphy Massacre families and the then British Secretary of State Shaun Woodward. The meeting took place in Hillsborough Castle and Woodward was visibly shaken by the accounts of the families. He was considerate and seemed willing to help. The families asked for an inquiry. Six months later Woodward wrote to me referring to “those who died” while commending the work of the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), a body the families had previously told him they had no confidence in.

·         In October 2010 the families and I met the next British Secretary of State Owen Patterson. Like his predecessor Patterson pointed the families at the HET as the way to resolve their concerns. He did so while wearing a green wristband expressing his support for the Royal Irish Regiment. The families left the meeting expressing their deep disappointment at the attitude of Patterson.

·         Two years later Patterson rejected the families request for an investigation claiming it was “not in the public interest.”

·         In 2011 the Attorney General for the North agreed to reopen the inquests into the Ballymurphy Massacre.

·         In 2012 the Coroner John Lecky suspended the inquests on the grounds that the Attorney General had no authority to order them.

·         In February 2013 the Coroner changed his position when it was pointed out to him that there no legal barriers to the inquests being held.

·         In 2013 the families met the next Brit Secretary of State Theresa Villiers. They asked for the setting up of an independent review panel into the events in Ballymurphy.

·         In April 2014 Villiers dismissed the families request claiming it would not serve the public interest. At an emotional press conference Briege Foyle, whose mother Joan Connolly was one of those killed, tore up the letter received from Villiers. Briege told the media: "We will fight for this until we die and then our young family will come in and they will fight for it, we will get our day."

·         In her letter Villiers said that: “In my view, the balance of public interest does not favour establishing an independent review.”

·         In September 2016 the Ballymurphy Massacre families met the next British Secretary of State James Brokenshire. They specifically asked him to release the funding, requested by the Lord Chief Justice, needed for the scores of inquests that were waiting to be heard. Brokenshire refused and the families walked out.

·         John Teggart said afterward: “It was a terrible meeting. It was just the same old, same old. The families poured their hearts out about what had happened to their late relatives and were basically pleading for him to release the funding, but it was going nowhere.”

 

Ballymurphy Massacre Victims - Innocent: Standing Idly by. Again!: Antrim Gaels sign letter to An Taoiseach

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Innocent

This week the long running campaign for truth and justice by the families of the 10 people killed by the Parachute Regiment in Ballymurphy during internment in August 1971 was vindicated with the judgement in the Inquest findings.

I sat in Corpus Christi chapel, close to where it all happened and where John McKerr was killed, with relatives of those murderedand other local people  as the Coroners’ verdict was live streamed to us. ‘All the deceased are entirely innocent.’Mrs Justice Keegan told us at the end.

Her concluding remarks were greeted with a standing ovation and throughout the proceedings as she gave her conclusions in each of the cases applause from other family members in the courthouse and in other venues rippled back to Corpus Christi to be added to by us. I was honoured to be there.

I was also in Ballymurphy at the time of the massacre. It was deeply humbling to be there fifty years later in the company of such heroes and heroines. I want to commend the families for their courage and resolve in the face of fifty years  of British government lies and obstruction. Well done to their legal teams and to the Coroner also.

 

Standing Idly By . Again!

In December 2017 the then Taoiseach, Mr. Varadkar said: “To the nationalist people in Northern Ireland... You will never again be left behind by an Irish Government.”

That was warmly welcomed by most right thinking people at that time though some of us thought it was unlikely to be true. We were right to be cautious.  Maybe Mr Varadkar meant what he said when he said it. But we need more than fine words, though they are important. We need political leaders to lead. That includes An Taoiseach.  He - and so far they all have been hemales - needs to do his job.

Little wonder then, in the crucial relationship between the Irish government and the British government Dublin continues to be treated as a junior partner by a British government which has eyes only for its own national and largely English interests. 

This was underlined when the Johnson government first briefed last week that it planned to introduce Amnesty legislation to protect its military personnel from prosecution arising from murders in the North.  The news was broken initially in “informed briefings” to the main establishment papers in London – the Daily Telegraph and the Times. Those briefings followed just a week after the Overseas Protection Act was signed into law giving legal protection to British military personnel from criminal and human rights violations arising from investigations their behaviour overseas, mainly in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There was widespread criticism in the North of Johnson’s intention to break previous agreements on legacy, including an international Treaty signed with the Irish government in 2015. 

The Irish government was completely blindsided by the British decision.They got no notice of this briefing even though senior ministers were in discussions with their counterparts just before this development. The current  An Taoiseach Micheál Martin said: “There is an agreement in place with the British government, with the parties in Northern Ireland and indeed with victims’ groups and that is the Stormont House Agreement of 2014. Any move from that would be a unilateral breach of Trust.”An Taoiseach reducing his role to that of a commentator.  A big deal!

The issue of victims was discussed between the Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and the British Secretary of State Brandon Lewis when they met in Dublin on Wednesday last week. However, the Irish side were given no hint of such a far reaching policy shift by the British. Simon Coveney said he was “frustrated” when he read the media reports.A bigger deal!

Responding to the media speculation Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that such a move would be a violation of the Stormont House Agreement. The Irish government, he said, was “very alarmed and deeply disturbed that the British government is even considering such a move.”Another even bigger  deal! I'm sure Mr Johnson is quaking in his boots.

On Tuesday, as the judgement in the Ballymurphy case was being given by the Coroner the British government issued a statement in which they said it was their intention to introduce a legacy package that will “end the cycle of investigations. This package will deliver on the commitments to Northern Ireland veterans, giving them the protections they deserve ...” In effect an amnesty for past criminal actions by British military and security forces in the North.

The reality of course is that no one will be surprised by this move from the British government . Since the Eames Bradley report in 2009 the British government has engaged in a strategy that political parties and others, including this columnist, believe is primarily about protecting its military personnel. This political imperative has increased for the Tories because of the growing numbers of legal cases that have emerged alleging murder and torture by British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The protection of its troops, irrespective of their crimes, has become a political priority as popular support for such a move has gained significant public traction in England.

The relatives of Bloody Sunday victims and the brother of 12 year old Majella O’Hare killed by a British soldier in South Armagh are just some of many relatives who have criticised the British move.

British soldiers murdered Irish citizens in all of these incidents and were directly responsible for deaths in many others. In hundreds more killings British agents were responsible for murder through state collusion. The Tory Government is putting the interests of these soldiers and agents above the desire for truth and justice for the victims and their families. 

The Irish government cannot sit back and do what it has done so often before. Previous Dublin governments have refused to take a stand when confronted by British duplicity or criminality. One example of this is the Glenanne Gang which killed over a hundred people, including 33 in the Dublin Monaghan attacks in 1974. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice in its Final Report concluded that it was “in no doubt that collusion between the British security forces and terrorists was behind many if not all of the atrocities that are considered in this report”.

It also concluded that it was of the view that “given that we are dealing with acts of international terrorism that were colluded in by the British security forces, the British Government cannot legitimately refuse to co-operate with investigations and attempts to get to the truth”. Successive Irish governments chose to ignore this.  

Last week the Police Ombudsman produced a scathing report on the failure  of the RUC  to properly investigate the actions of their own members who killed four people during the August 1969 pogroms in west Belfast.

 The Irish government must stop playing second fiddle to the British. It has to use all of the political and diplomatic means at its disposal to oppose an amnesty or statute of limitations in the north. That's one way to show  that no Irish government would ever again leave nationalists in the North behind.continued refusal to do this is proof that  Successive Irish governments have failed in their  duty and responsibility to defend the rights of Irish citizens in the north. This is highlighted even more now with a British government, led by an English nationalist, who cares even less  for the people of Ireland than his predecessors.  

Nor can Micheál Martin continue to turn a blind eye to the imperative of planning for the referendum on Unity and for a United Ireland. The Irish government is a member of the Security Council of the United Nations. It is also a member of the European Union. What use is holding membership of prestigious international bodies iff it doesn’t use them to challenge British government obduracy and promote lasting peace in Ireland through Unity?  

 

A GREAT RESULT. 

It's great that our games are back. The Antrim hurlers’ win against Clare last Sunday  was mighty. I am a big fan of TG4 but when I sat down in eager anticipation to watch the game  I  quickly grew frustrated at the breakdown in service. Watching on Twitter, while trying to hook up to TG4,  is hardly an enjoyable experience. The wee bits I did see, showed Corrigan looking  immaculate against the back drop of Black Mountain. And our hurlers played like the warriors they are. Well done to them all and to Darren Gleeson and  the Management team. A great start to the season.

 

Well done also to the three thousand plus Antrim  Gaels who signed the letter to An Taoiseach, published in last Saturday’s Irish News. The letter itself is straightforward.  An appeal to An Taoiseach to plan for the future in an inclusive manner. The Antrim Gaels involved propose that the government convene  a Citizen’s Assembly to “achieve maximum consensus on a way forward” toward an “agreed shared Ireland.”

I think it is a wonderful achievement to get over three thousand Gaels from our county to sign up for this initiative. Those who put it together have done a great service to the Gaeldom, to civic society and to the process of agreeing an inclusive future for everyone on this island. This initiative, and the support for it, is also a good indicator of the mood within a section of nationalists. Gaels contribute in a huge way to communities across this island and throughout the world. Gaelic games are part of what we are. The Antrim Gaels initiative is a gentle reminder that all of us have a stake in the future and that the Irish government has a duty to include us all in planning for that. So well done Antrim Gaels.

 

 

 

 

The Reality of Partition

The Reality of Partition

100 years ago today the Government of Ireland Act 1920 became law and Ireland was partitioned. What did partition mean for nationalist families trapped at that time in a state that didn’t want them?

Recently I published the latest of my series of Léargas books. It tells the story of Kathleen Thompson (born Kathleen McCready) who was born in 1943. Kathleen was a fine singer and musician. Her rendition of Four Green Fields and its symbolism of “one of them's in bondage” continues to resonate today 50 years after the LP was released.

When I came Kathleen’s story I was very mindful that she and her siblings were part of a generation that was born into the Northern State in the years after partition.

They were hard times, especially for Catholic families living in Belfast and in a Unionist dominated state. Upper Library Street, where she was born, was part of a Catholic enclave called Carrick Hill which is situated at the bottom of the Shankill Road. It was bordered by Peter’s Hill, the Old Lodge Road and the Shankill on one side and was separated from the Catholic North Queen Street and New Lodge area by Clifton Street and Donegall Street.

This is an extract from the book which recounts the events leading to 1921 and after.

 

“At the start of the 19th century Belfast was a small town with a population of about 20,000 citizens. Upper Library Street was then part of its northern boundary. The basis of Belfast’s early growth was the linen industry, which did not threaten English commercial interests. The mills required machinery, which led to an increase in engineering. The 1850s also saw Belfast become one of the biggest centres for ship building in the world.

By the middle of the 19th century the population of Belfast had increased tenfold and by the end of the century the population had reached 350,000. The shipyards, rope works, tobacco works, the mills and engineering factories had expanded significantly and by the start of the twentieth century Belfast had a bigger population than Dublin.

The number of Catholics living in the city also increased from 4,000 in 1800 to just under 100,000 in 1900.

Living and working conditions were appalling. Overcrowding in slum housing with no sanitation was the norm for working people. Hours were long and child labour was prevalent. Conditions for women in the Linen mills were notoriously difficult and dangerous.

A structured system of discrimination, encouraged by an alliance of the unionist political elite, the Orange Order and employers meant that all of the well paid, skilled work, and trades were predominantly protestant, especially in the shipyards and engineering firms.

The exploitation of sectarian divisions among workers was to the advantage of the owners as it prevented the development of effective labour organisations able to fight for better wages and conditions. Playing on these sectarian divisions also ensured that political unionism was able to retain the loyalty of working class Protestants with whom they otherwise had little in common.

It is no accident that the worst years of riots and violence in Belfast, including expulsions of Catholics from the shipyards and other engineering factories, coincide with the introduction of the three Home Rule Bills for Ireland – 1886, 1893 and 1912 – and the Government of Ireland Act in 1920. Carrick Hill was frequently the target of sectarian violence. For example, on 21 April 1893 following the news that the British Parliament had passed the second Home Rule Bill Catholic premises in Peter’s Hill, adjacent to Carrick Hill, and Catholic homes in Carrick Hill were stoned by loyalists.

The next morning the shipyard workers employed by Harland and Wolff held a meeting where they decided that the 600 Catholics employed in the yard would “be dealt with.” Catholic workers were then warned by notices posted up around the yard that they would return to work on Monday “at their peril.” Many did not and those who did were attacked.

In July 1912 up to 8,000 catholic workers were expelled from the shipyards and other factories in the city and eight years later the pattern was repeated with up to 10,000 men Catholic men expelled from the shipyards and four major engineering works and 1,000 women from the linen mills.

One British Labour leader summed it up well in 1912, the same year Titanic was launched in Belfast, when he said: “In Belfast you get Labour conditions the like of which you get in no other town, no other city of equal commercial prosperity from John O’Groats to Land’s End or from the Atlantic to the North Sea. It is maintained by an exceedingly simple device ...Whenever there is an attempt to root out sweating in Belfast the Orange big drum is beaten ...”

In 1911 as the Titanic was being built the census recorded that there were 6809 shipbuilders in Belfast. Of these 518 or 7.6% was Catholic.

Workers had no rights. They were hired and fired at the whim of employers. Children often worked from a very young age. In Belfast in the 19th and early 20th centuries the linen mill-workers lived under the shadow of the mills where they worked. Female and child labour predominated. Children, mostly girls, worked the same hours as ‘half-timers’. They worked three days one week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and went to school on Tuesday and Thursday. The following week it was the reverse and they did this until they were 14.

They worked in appalling conditions. The spinning and weaving of linen required the atmosphere to be very hot and humid. This was worse in the cotton mills. In the spinning rooms the floors were always wet and the workers, adults and children, worked barefoot. The spray from the spindles ensured that their clothes were always soaking. These working conditions allied to the absence of a health service, no antibiotics, and cramped and unsanitary living conditions meant that the greater number of these workers died before the age of 45. Children generally were badly developed and small.

One mill worker in 1911 described the conditions: “When you were eight you were old enough to work... If you got married you kept on working. Your man didn’t get enough for a family. You worked till your baby came and went back as soon as you could ... and then counted the years till your child could be a halftimer”.

Other citizens lived and worked in appalling conditions in the docks, the shipyards and in casual labour.

In 1911 James Connolly was appointed Belfast organiser of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. Connolly organised the workers of Belfast, and especially the linen slaves.

He described their conditions: “Many Belfast Mills are slaughterhouses for the women and penitentiaries for the children...” where “with clothes drenched with water, and hands torn and lacerated as a consequence of the speeding up of the machinery, a qualified spinner in Belfast receives a wage less than some of our pious millowners would spend weekly upon a dog.”

In 1920, just two decades before Kathleen was born, the British passed the Government of Ireland Act. This legislation partitioned Ireland into two states. The ‘Free State’ in the southern 26 counties, and ‘Northern Ireland’ in the six north east counties. The border between the two snaked its way for 300 miles across the landscape from Derry in the North West to Dundalk in the East.

Partition separated farmers from their land, businesses from their customers, and children from their schools. Streams and rivers, bóithre, country roads, fields became the boundary for this new border. The front door of a home was suddenly in a different state. Towns were cut off from their natural economic and social hinterlands. Communities were divided and separated. Partition was imposed at gunpoint by the British Government.

The northern state was born in a maelstrom of sectarian violence as thousands of Catholic workers in Belfast were forcibly and violently expelled from their jobs. In addition 40% of the workforce was out of work.

The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was unable and unwilling to police the worsening situation. The Unionist political leadership lobbied the British government to recruit loyalists into the state forces. While waiting on the British to respond Unionist leaders began to reorganise and drill the UVF.

On 21 July 1920 nearly five thousand Catholics who were working in the two Belfast shipyards were expelled from their jobs. “Hundreds were surrounded and kicked. Several were thrown into the water, 25 feet deep and pelted with bolts and others missiles as they struggled for life.” Many were seriously hurt. Over the following days more Catholic workers were expelled from the engineering and many of the textile mills across the city.

Around 93,000 Catholics lived in Belfast at that time, most living in poverty and in overcrowded unsanitary conditions. The financial and human impact on families and communities of so many Catholic workers suddenly losing their jobs was devastating. There was no welfare safety net to support destitute families.

In the following days Catholic areas of Belfast, including Carrick Hill, North Queen Street, Clonard and Ballymacarrett were attacked by loyalist mobs, the UVF and the British military. According to ‘The Belfast Pogroms 1920-22’ July 22 was “marked by unprecedented looting and burning of Catholic property, especially in Ballymacarrett. The Orange mobs, many of them drunk with looted whiskey, began early and worked late. When all the Catholic shops in the Newtownards Road area were cleaned out, they even looted a few belonging to their own co-religionists.” These attacks continued for weeks afterward.

A report in the Daily News at the end of August 1920 said: “All but a very few of the business premises of Belfast Catholics, except those in the very heart of the city or in the Catholic stronghold known as the Falls, have now been destroyed.” Over the next two years this pattern was repeated. There were attacks daily.

A few months later, in November, a letter in the Dublin Evening Telegraph from James Baird, a Town Councillor in Belfast and one of the Protestant workers who had been forcibly expelled from his work in July wrote: “On the 21st July and on succeeding dates, every Roman Catholic – whether ex-service man who had proved his loyalty to England during the Great War, or Sinn Féiner who claims to be loyal to Ireland and Ireland alone – was expelled from the shipyards and other works; a number were flung into the river and while struggling for life were pelted with rivets and washers; others were brutally beaten, but the majority, hearing the fate of their fellows, escaped injury by beating a hasty retreat, leaving behind costly tools and other personal belongings. Almost 10,000 workers are at present affected, and on several occasions men have attempted to resume work only to find ‘loyal’men still determined to keep them out...”

In October 1920 James Craig, the first Prime Minister of the Unionist regime, addressed a crowd of workers at the shipyards. Referring to the July and subsequent pogrom Craig said: “I think it only fair that I should be asked a question in return, and it is: “Do I approve of the action you boys have taken in the past?’ I say YES.”

That same month unionist paramilitary organisations were recruited almost to a man into the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). The UVF joined en masse. The USC was divided into three groups: A Specials who were full time: B Specials who were armed and part time: C Specials part time. By June 1922 the Specials numbered around 50,000; that is one in every five adult male Protestants was a Special.

Michael Farrell, in his definitive ‘Arming the Protestants of Ulster’ concludes: “The USC was effectively a Protestant force from the very beginning and the British government made no effort to avert this …”

On 22 September 1921 the first session of the Northern Parliament took place. The British transferred ‘law and order’ powers to the new Unionist Parliament in November and the USC was issued with 26,000 rifles.

The violence against Catholics across the North escalated. In one incident, on 13 February a bomb was hurled into a group of Catholic children playing in Weaver Street in North Belfast. Four young girls were killed along with two women. In March 1922, one particularly notorious attack occurred when Specials burst into the McMahon home in north Belfast. They lined up all the male members of the house and shot them. The father, three sons and a barman were killed and two other sons wounded.

The following week Stanhope Street, Park Street, and Arnon Street all in Carrick Hill, the neighbourhood in which Kathleen was reared, were the scene of attacks by armed loyalists which saw four Catholic men shot dead and a fifth killed when his head was smashed with the sledgehammer used to break into his home.

This extended pogrom against Catholics, which had by now lasted three years, was only the beginning of decades of state institutionalised violence against nationalists/republicans and Catholics in the North.

In the first years of its existence the Unionist Parliament moved to consolidate its dominance. This was done through the systematic gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, the denial of the vote in local government elections, and the extensive use of structured discrimination in employment and housing. Catholics were less than second class citizens.

In the decades after 1921 the Unionist establishment solidified its control through the imposition of an apartheid regime in which nationalists and republicans were reduced to the status of non citizen.

Life was hard for working people including working class Protestants. Poverty was endemic. Over a quarter of houses in Belfast were overcrowded. Nine thousand couples had no homes. Eleven per cent of houses were deemed unfit. A housing survey carried out the year after Kathleen McCready was born concluded that the North needed two hundred thousand houses and half of these immediately. But within a couple of years of its foundation the Northern state had instituted discrimination policies in housing which ensured that few Catholics were allocated housing.

Another survey five years earlier concluded that 36% of the population was in absolute poverty. This means they had little food, clothing or fuel to sustain health. Belfast children from unemployed families were on average two to three inches shorter and ten pounds slighter than those in middle class areas. The death rate was 25% worse than that in Britain.

After the brutality of what the Irish News at the time described as a ‘carnival of terrorism,’ and the abandonment of nationalists by the political establishment and government in the South, there was a general sense of hopelessness among the besieged nationalists.”

 

Let's plan our Future Together: ANC supports Unity Referendum and a United Ireland; Lá breithe Chuck

 ANC supports Unity Referendum and a United Ireland.

Irish Republicans have long enjoyed fraternal relations with the African National Congress. For much of the last three decades there have been ongoing solidarity links between Sinn Féin and the ANC. During the years of armed struggle, according to ANC leader and Government Minister, the late Kadar Asmal, the IRA assisted MK, the ANC’ s army. MK was founded by Nelson Mandela and others in December 1961.

In the 1990s as our own peace strategy evolved Sinn Féin and the IRA called its 1994 cessation Sinn Fein leaders, including myself and Martin McGuinness, Rita O’Hare and others travelled to South Africa. After the Good Friday Agreement was achieved in 1998 ANC leaders, including the current President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa travelled to Ireland to speak to the republican grassroots and went into the prisons where they met Republican POWs. 

Recently the Sinn Fein leadership held a series of bilateral meetings with representatives of the leadership of the ANC. Republicans are very mindful that in the early 1990s, following the release of Mandela and others in the ANC leadership, an intensive period of negotiations took place to bring an end to the apartheid regime and create a new democratic South Africa. This included detailed discussions on new constitutional arrangements for this new South Africa.  

Last week Lindiwe Zulu, the Chair of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) Sub-committee on international Relations held a bilateral meeting on Tuesday 20 April with Declan Kearney, Sinn Féin’s National Chairperson.

In a significant statement afterward Comrade Zulu spoke of the “special historical bond, dating back to the Global Campaign against apartheid and the Irish Peace Process” shared by the two parties. Commenting on the partition of Ireland the ANC representative asserted its “commitment to assisting Sinn Féin in its quest for the reunification of Ireland.”

Crucially, the ANC also agreed to raise the issue of Irish unification through “several multi-lateral fora including the United Nations, African Union, the G20 and other relevant bodies. The party will also mobilise support in its engagement with liberation movements, progressive parties and the trade union movement.”

Currently work is underway in the preparation of a “Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)” that will “underscore key mutual objectives for the two parties to collaborate on common focus areas and solidarity work.” 

This re-energising of the long standing solidarity links between Sinn Féin and the ANC is hugely significant. Sinn Fein long ago recognised the importance of international solidarity in helping to advance the process of change and the peace process in Ireland. In the 1990s most of that solidarity came from Irish America and its ability to influence the policy of US Presidents and administrations.

But the 1990s also saw us reach out to others in the international arena, including the ANC. In 1995 I led a Sinn Fein delegation to South Africa. In June 1997 Martin McGuinness led another delegation there for what he  later described as one of the most memorable experiences of his life. Nine delegations representing parties in the North attended a conference to see if there were any lessons for us in South Africa’s conflict resolution process.

Later in April 1998, at the special Sinn Féin Ard Fheis called to decide our approach to the Good Friday Agreement, Thenjiwe Mtintso, the Deputy Secretary General of the ANC addressed the conference. She spoke of her experience of struggle as a soldier in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and of her experiences of negotiations. It was a powerful contribution, which caught the mood of the moment and touched on many of the fears evident among republicans.

As a follow up we asked President Mandela if he would send a senior ANC delegation to Ireland to speak to republicans about their process of negotiations, and the challenges this presents. We were surprised but deeply honoured when Cyril Ramaphosa, Mac Maharaj, South African Minister for Transport, Matthews Phosa, the Prime Minister of the Eastern Transvaal, and Valli Moosa, ANC Executive member and Minister for Provincial and Constitutional Affairs, arrived to offer their opinions. They had all been key participants in the process of negotiations in South Africa.

These comrades travelled widely speaking to audiences eager to hear their thoughts on struggle. Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking to a crowded Ulster Hall in Belfast said; “Negotiations are about give and take. Had we wanted everything or nothing, we would have ended up with nothing.” Ramaphosa and Matthew Phosa also visited the men and women in Long Kesh and Maghaberry Prisons and in Portlaoise prison.

So, the significance of the ANC preparedness to support Irish Unity, to be prepared to lobby for it in international forums is very welcome.

Next month this process of enhanced solidarity will take another step forward when the President of the ANC, Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa, and Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald meet.

In many ways the timing of that meeting will be appropriate. 40 years ago on 5 May 1981 Bobby Sands died on hunger strike. On a calendar on his cell wall Mandela wrote on that day: ‘IRA martyr Bobby Sands dies.’

Let’s plan our own Future together

Michelle O’Neill hit the nail on the head in her interview on the Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy last Friday evening. She said: “In the light of Brexit there is a stark choice that has opened up for people. Which Union do you wish to be part of? Do you wish to be part of an inclusive inward looking Ireland? ... There is something better for us to own our future together. Plan it. Find a way to insure that both Irish identity and British identity can live side by side – we have lived apart for far too long. Now’s the time to plan something that we all have a stake in and that we are all benefiting from.”

She’s right and a lot more people than just those who support Sinn Féin believe she is right. The BBC Spotlight opinion poll last week asked should the North “stay in the UK today.” 43% of people said they would vote for a United Ireland in the Unity Referendum. 49% opposed an immediate poll. The gap between the two positions is amazingly narrow, especially if you consider that there has been no date set for the referendum, no plan discussed, no outline shape of the new Ireland agreed, and the question asks for people’s voting intentions on something that is to happen ‘today.’

In response to another question 48% of people in the North said that partition was a negative development “which should be regretted” with 41% disagreeing.

One observer on Twitter – Declan Lawn - who worked for BBC Spotlight in 2013 reminded us that in a similar poll then 65% of people in the North wanted to stay in the UK. Just 17% wanted a United Ireland.

So the political and demographic shifts are changing the face of northern politics. An Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s continued refusal to even contemplate commencing the process of planning for the referendum has become increasingly threadbare. More so when he appears to be echoing the parroting the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who told the Spotlight programme  that he cannot see the referendum taking place for a “very, very long time to come.”

What should we make of Boris Johnson’s stance? Should we believe him? This is the same Tory Prime Minister who said there would be no customs border down the Irish Sea. And yet he was the leader who negotiated the Withdrawal Treaty and agreed the Irish Protocol and introduced the customs border.

This is the Tory leader the DUP has put its trust in – again – even after he has stabbed them in the back. He is not to be trusted. How many times does unionism have to be betrayed by British governments before it learns the lesson that it’s time to put its trust in and make friends with its neighbours on this island.

Michelle O’Neill is right. “Partition has failed us all. Not just nationalists or republicans. Those from a unionist background. Those with a British identity. So there is an imperative for us to be ready. Have the conversation. What does the free Irish National Health Service look like for all of us who live on this island? What does education look like? What does the economy look like...?

There is no threat in the constitutional change that may come in the future and I personally as a republican and as the Joint Head of government will want to ensure that in any new constitutional position in the new and agreed Ireland that the British identity lives side by side and is protected and there is no threat to anybody’s identity.”

 

Lá breithe Chuck

I phoned Chuck Feeney and his wife Helga at the weekend. Last Friday was Chuck’s 90th birthday. Chuck is an amazing human being. Last year he succeeded in his ambition of giving away almost all of his wealth through Atlantic Philanthropies.  Through his ‘giving while living’ approach to philanthropy Chuck has given over €8 billion to a variety of education, cancer research, music, sport and human rights projects, including many here in Ireland.

As an Irish American he also took a close interest in our peace process and was part of the Connolly House Group of leading Irish Americans from business, politics and the trade union movement who contributed to the conditions leading to the first IRA cessation in 1994.

Chuck is an extraordinary individual. I have had the honour and pleasure to have known him for almost 30 years.

When I spoke to him and Helga I’m glad to say that they are both well. I thanked him for his generosity, his solidarity and his humanity. Breithlá sona agus gach dea-ghuí.

 

Finally.

Many thanks to our firefighters. From Kerry to Down they risked life and limb tackling the fires which engulfed parts of our most scenic and wild mountainscapes. Well done.

 

Inflexible Unionism; Black Mountain and Palestinian Prisoners Day

 Inflexible Unionism

The current unionist narrative seeks to present the present political crisis as the fault of everyone else except themselves. Mostly they blame the Irish Protocol element of the Brexit Withdrawal Treaty, the Irish government and the EU, and the funeral of Bobby Storey ten months ago. The fact that the Protocol was negotiated by the Johnson government encouraged by the DUP is simply ignored. The fact that the protocol is a child of Brexit and that Brexit is a child of the DUP is also ignored.  They also claim, as Arlene Foster did last week, that Republicans are waging a ‘cultural war’ on Unionists. At the same time the DUP stall and stall again on their commitment to introduce Acht na Gaeilge.

According to Peter Cardwell – a self-professed unionist and advisor to two former British Secretaries of State - unionists are confused, bewildered, frustrated. Writing in the Irish Times last week Cardwell admitted that “the key tenet of unionism, in its essence, is its inflexibility.” “What is unionism without the union?” he asks.

Next month Unionists will celebrate 100 years of the Northern State – Northern Ireland. Nationalists and republicans will not be joining them.

The Government of Ireland Act 1920 which established two socially conservative states on the island of Ireland was the culmination of forty years of Home Rule agitation and three Home Rule Bills by Liberal governments. All failed to deliver even the minimalist self-government to Ireland that was promised. The Conservative Party successfully exploited the issue in its efforts to replace the Liberal government by using what Lord Randolph Churchill described as the Orange Card.

The Tories engaged in a calculated campaign to inflame passions and undermine British Parliamentary democracy by supporting an insurrection against the government. A provisional government was established in the North. In the political negotiations around partition that followed the British spoke out of both sides of their mouth in their dealings with the unionists and the nationalists – promising each what they wanted to hear.

So, here we are 100 years later and the unionist leadership is again playing the Orange Card. Whipping up fear and uncertainty; encouraging sectarianism and violence; making emotive and untruthful claims, all with the intent of intimidating everyone around them into conceding to their demand that nothing can ever change. In other words they demand that the constitutional status of the Northern state must continue in perpetuity because the key tenet of unionism is its inflexibility. They insist that the commitment in the Good Friday Agreement to the unity referendum be set aside because unionism finds it objectionable.  

None of this is acceptable. Partition was an undemocratic act by a British government in support of a national minority in Ireland. The rejection of the Good Friday Agreement because a minority of citizens in the North do not like the possible outcome of the unity referendum is equally unacceptable.

This is not 1886 or 1912 or 1920. There is a different spirit abroad. The new Ireland is not the Catholic state of 100 years ago. It will be a modern democracy in which the rights of all citizens will be respected and protected including those who identity as British.

No amount of huffing and puffing by unionist leaders can stop this dynamic. The debate on Irish Unity continues to gather momentum. Several weeks ago Úachtaran Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar held a widely welcomed and respectful discussion on Irish Unity. Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan spelt out his vision of a new Ireland in an online debate with Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University. On Monday Neale Richmond a Fine Gael TD presented a paper, Towards A New Ireland, to an audience from the same college. While Richmond accepted that there is no good time to discuss the shape of a new United Ireland he acknowledged that it does need to be planned for.

Cardwell’s analysis of the health of unionism deserves attention. His recognition that the comments on the Claire Byrne show of former Ireland international rugby player Andrew Trimble around a “fused British, Irish and Northern Ireland identity” is the “true threat to the union” is a reflection of the old unionist war cries of ‘No Surrender’ and ‘Not an Inch’. But in Trimble’s comments about the shifts in identity are the seeds of progress and of a reconciliation between the people of this island in the years ahead.

 

Black Mountain.

I’m pleased to say that I sent the final draft of my new book to O Brien Press this week.

The galley proofs will come back mid May for last chance editorial scrutiny.

Publication is in August and I’m grateful to Féile an Phobail for agreeing to host the book launch in virtual or reality format, depending on Covid regulations at that time.

My original book title was The Witness Tree but I’ve opted now for Black Mountain and Other Stories. There are eleven new ones and five which were previously published.

The new book title came from the publisher - one of the stories is called Black Mountain - and I’m very happy with the notion of Sliabh Dubh as the over arching witness to many of the events I’ve written about in this new tome.

So Black Mountain it is. Watch this space for further details. Save the date for publication of Black Mountain and Other Stories during Féile in August.

 

 

Palestinian Prisoners Day

12 years ago this month I visited Palestine and Israel as part of a Sinn Fein delegation that included Ted Howell, Harry Thompson and Richard McAuley. For four days we met with NGOs, Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, women’s groups, community organisations, University heads, senior United Nations representatives, trauma counsellors and Palestinian and Israeli elected representatives. We also spent two days in Gaza

At that time Senator George Mitchel had recently been appointed US Envoy to the region and Tony Blair was acting as the Middle East representative of the Quartet – the European Union, the USA, Russia and the United Nations. Our visit to Gaza took place just three months after the end of a three-week invasion and assault on the area by Israeli forces in which 1400 people were killed, including more than 400 children and over a hundred women and over 5,000 people were injured, including almost 2,000 children.

We saw for ourselves the extent of the devastation. Schools destroyed; hospitals damaged; homes and businesses flattened. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) the Israeli attack “caused extensive international displacement of the civilian population with more than 50,000 people seeking refuge in 50 UNRWA schools.” All of this added to the hardship that the Israeli blockade and siege of Gaza by Israel was inflicting on the almost two million people who live there. The siege of Gaza has been maintained by Israel since then.

In the intervening years life for the Palestinian people in Gaza and on the West Bank has deteriorated even further. Israel continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian Land, steal water rights; demolish homes and evict Palestinian families; destroy education, community facilities built with EU funding and farming equipment; and last year in the midst of the Covid pandemic the Israeli authorities destroyed more Palestinian homes than at any time since 2016. 

Last Saturday was Palestinian Prisoners Day. It is an important date in the Palestinian calendar. Since the Israeli occupation commenced in 1967 it is estimated that one million Palestinians have been arrested by Israel. That means that every family has experienced the trauma of a family member or members being arrested, often brutalised and detained in horrendous conditions. Currently there are four and a half thousand Palestinians in Israeli prisons. According to the most recent statistics this includes 41 women and 140 children below the age of 18. Approximately 550 political prisoners have significant health care issues with at least 10 suffering from cancer. Some Palestinian prisoners have been in captivity for 40 years.

This August nationalists and republicans in Ireland will mark 50 years from the introduction of internment. It was a disastrous unjust British policy, demanded by the Stormont regime, which exacerbated the divisions in Northern society and led to a dramatic increase in conflict. Israel took this British colonial practice that had been used by them in Palestine and gave it a new gloss as ‘administrative detention.’

Palestinians can be detained without charge or trial for indefinite periods and their detention is based on ‘secret evidence.’ Some have been held for 15 years under this system. Palestinian children are tried before a quasi-military court. Some are imprisoned while others are held under house arrest with their parents forced to pay fines if their child is found outside the house.

The decades of ill-treatment of the Palestinian people is a scandal. The international community should be ashamed. The Irish government is now a member of the UN Security Council. It lobbied during the vote for this prestigious position that it would be an advocate for human rights. And yet it still refuses to recognise the state of Palestine – as agreed in a motion passed by the Oireachtas – and prevents the passing into law of the Occupied Territories Bill that would block goods originating in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land being imported into the Irish state. It is long past time that the government used its unique position within the UN Security Council to encourage the peace process in the Middle East while standing up for and defending the democratic and human right of the Palestinian people.

For now, I want to extend my solidarity to all Palestinian political prisoners and to wish the Palestinian people well as they prepare for elections to the Palestinian parliament in May and Presidential elections on 31 July. These are important elections and they offer the Palestinian people a significant opportunity to build new alliances, develop new strategies and reach out to the international community for support as they seek to achieve Palestinian Statehood, on the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.