Gerry Adams's Blog, page 22

The Process of Change Must Continue: Voting for Bobby Sands

 The Process of Change Must Continue.

The recent loyalist sponsored violence and the provocative and inflammatory language of unionist political leaders has led to speculation about what the violence is really all about? I’m not alone in believing that it is in part an electoral strategy to maximise the unionist vote behind the DUP in advance of next year’s Assembly election. But it is also a reaction to the general direction and trajectory of politics, being shaped by the process of change including the potential of constitutional change in the relatively near future. It’s about intimidating nationalists and republicans and pushing back against the growing demand for the Irish government to begin planning for the unity referendum that is part of the Good Friday Agreement. Brexit too and the Irish Protocol with its border in the Irish Sea has played its part. It’s all of these things and more.

But at its core it is part and parcel of the traditional unionist response to anything perceived as threatening its dominance. Unionists look around them and see their electoral majority in the Assembly and at Westminster gone. They see political and demographic changes taking place that spell an end to the long held belief that the Northern state will have a unionist majority in perpetuity. Unionists have also been deserted and back-stabbed again by a Westminster government that negotiated the very Protocol the DUP now denounce. This recent period has also been marked by significant strategic mistakes by the DUP leadership in particular and Unionists leaders generally. They gave us Brexit and all that has come with it. People aren’t stupid. They know this.

So the winds of change are blowing up a gale around unionism and they don’t like it. The DUP East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson called for "guerrilla warfare" stating that the Protocol has to be destroyed. At the weekend it was reported that the UVF – one of the paramilitary groups the DUP recently met - ordered three families it believed to be Catholic out of a housing estate in Carrickfergus.

The decision by loyalists to shift the riots from areas like Newtownabbey to the Lanark Way interface last week was calculated. The social media messages urging loyalists to meet at various interface areas to “march on west Belfast” was not coincidental – it too was deliberate - it was planned. The intent was and is to foment sectarian conflict. Let me also state at this point that the PSNI should not be using plastic bullets, water cannon or dogs.

The reality is that in the 23 years since the Good Friday Agreement was achieved both Unionist parties – the UUP and DUP – have worked within the institutions to frustrate and delay the introduction of many of the equality, justice and legacy changes promised by the GFA and subsequent agreements.

More than any other factor it is this fear of change that is driving the current unionist agenda. Change can be difficult. It can be challenging. This is part of the human condition.  But there can be no backtracking on the changes that have occurred and will continue to take place in the time ahead. Democratic change must be defended. Constitutional change arrived at peacefully and democratically must be respected.

The rights of every citizen to equality, to respect and to parity of esteem must be accepted by all.

One thing is certain. Whatever the outcome of the debate on the constitutional future of the North the economic and societal changes that we have witnessed in the last two decades will continue. The best way to manage change is to manage it! My appeal to unionists is to join with us in managing that change in the interests of all knowing that it will be the people who decide the future.

 

Voting for Bobby Sands

As many readers will know this year marks 40 years since the 1981 hunger strike. It was a traumatic, difficult and yet historic year which undoubtedly shaped future politics on this island in ways none of us could have foreseen at the time.

Last Friday, 9 April was the day Bobby Sands won the Fermanagh South Tyrone seat and became the MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone. The by-election had been called following the death of Frank Maguire, the independent nationalist MP who had successfully won the seat in the 1979 general election. On that occasion Maguire had seen off the challenge of the SDLPs Austin Currie whose intervention had split the nationalist vote.

Following Frank Maguire’s death there commenced a serious discussion about the possibility of the National Smash H-Block/Armagh campaign running a prisoner candidate. Bernadette McAliskey said she was prepared to stand and Frank Maguire’s brother Noel was put forward as a candidate. However, when the decision was taken to stand Bobby Sands as a prisoner candidate, Bernadette and Noel withdrew. The SDLPs Austin Curry wanted to stand but he couldn’t get his act together before nominations closed.

Having secured Bobby’s nomination the task then was to fight the election and win it. The reality was that Sinn Féin activists had no idea of how to run an election campaign. The last time Sinn Fein candidates had stood in elections was in 1964 and on that occasion we were a banned party. So, we had to learn fast or face humiliation. In this we were also helped by a Kerry republican, well known in sporting circles, Joe Keohane. Owen Carron from Fermanagh was Bobby’s election agent. Many others like Bernadette, local nationalists with electoral experience and supporters of the prisoners from the South played key roles.

Hundreds of activists mobilised across the North to join in the work of postering and handing out leaflets and canvassing on the doorsteps. We opened two offices: one in Enniskillen and the other in Dungannon. They never closed during those long election days. We galvanised people in Fermanagh and Tyrone, and they responded with great commitment. I was rarely at home during that time, spending almost the entire campaign in the constituency. I met scores of great people and, in the midst of all the activity I enjoyed the wonderful beauty of those two counties.

Among those who came to help us where activists who had been working away for years in the background making sure that the electoral register was up to date. Their experience was invaluable. We learned about presiding officers, personation officers, how to campaign. It was exhilarating.

Most of us had no experience of after mass meetings. We would arrive outside a chapel and when mass was over and folks were coming out we would talk to them about the H-Blocks and Armagh Women’s prison and the conditions the political prisoners had been forced to endure for five years. Most would listen attentively and then applaud.

I stayed overnight in Enniskillen on the eve of the poll, then crossed the border to Clones the next day to report to Ruairí Ó Bradaigh, the President of Sinn Féin who was barred from entering the North. I was convinced we were going to win and I told him that. As I drove away afterwards to meet with Colette, I heard the news on the car radio: Bobby Sands had won the election. I was ecstatic. I thumped the car wheel and shouted with exuberance to the cattle and sheep in the fields adjacent to the country road I was travelling on.

In Belfast the news brought thousands out onto the streets in a spontaneous demonstration of solidarity with the hunger strikers. In the H Blocks and Armagh and other prisons the POWs were ecstatic.

Bobby Sands topped the poll with 30,492 votes. The British government and opposition, followed enthusiastically by the media, had constantly maintained that republicans – and especially the hunger strikers – represented nobody and enjoyed no support; that republicans were criminal ‘godfathers’ operating by intimidation; that they were isolated fanatics. Now that lie had been exposed. The British propaganda campaign had been refuted and the election victory resounded internationally.

Bobby’s success raised the hope that the British government would move to end the hunger strike by reforming the prison regime. I did not share that hope. In my view Thatcher and her government were convinced that the prisoners could be broken and through them the struggle for freedom. They were not for changing policy.

For our part Republicans had been challenged for years to submit ourselves to the ballot box, and now we had done so, demonstrating massive popular support in the election. Yet the British government, as we had feared from the outset, showed no willingness to make concessions in respect of the prison protest. Margaret Thatcher maintained her inflexible approach and, despite all the earnest assurances of their envoys, the Dublin government did nothing to shift her from it.

The Fermanagh South Tyrone by-election was one of those rare moments when, as Seamus Heaney once put it, ‘hope and history rhyme.’ Bobby Sands had a bigger mandate than Margaret Thatcher. The success of that campaign led to the decision to stand prisoner candidates in the Southern general election a few months later. Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew where elected as TDs and others, like Joe McDonnell and Mairead Farrell performed very well. Owen Carron was elected MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone after Bobby’s death.

These elections opened up the debate around electoral intervention that was already going on within Sinn Féin and ushered in a new political strategy and all that has flowed from it.

All a consequence of the courage of the Blanket men and Armagh women.

 

 

Bin the Orange Card: Inclusion and Reconciliation in the new Ireland

Bin the Orange Card

In recent months unionist politicians and parties have been increasingly turning to the age-old tactic of talking up the potential for conflict and the alleged threat posed by the legitimate aspirations of nationalists and republicans, as a way of preventing democratic and constitutional change. For nationalists and republicans the playing of the Orange Card is older than the northern state. It has its roots in the Home Rule battles of the late 19th century and the machinations of people like arch Tory Randolph Churchill and the unionist business and landed class, to defeat the Gladstone government’s efforts to pass a series of Home Rule Bills for Ireland.

It was used again in the years leading to the partition of Ireland and the creation of this dysfunctional, deeply corrupt and sectarian northern state. It was consistently used in the 1960s to stymie the desperately needed democratic reforms identified by the civil rights movement. It was used to justify the use of sectarian violence by loyalist mobs and the RUC and B Specials, against Catholic areas in 1969.

During the more recent decades of conflict time and time again we witnessed the leadership of political unionism whip up unionist anger and fear against any proposal that was deemed to threaten their political hegemony. This was the Orange state and in it unionists had the right to walk where they chose to walk; pass what discriminatory laws they wanted without any concern for their neighbours; and use whatever means necessary, up to and including state violence and collusion with death squads, to impose their will. For political unionism it was and still is a zero sum game in which they must reject any change, however democratic, because they believe change threatens their dominance, their culture, their Britishness.

Change can be difficult. It can be challenging. This is part of the human condition.  But no one is seeking to erode the sense of Britishness held by anyone in the North.  We leave that to British governments who constantly stab unionists in the back when English national interests are at risk. Nor is anyone threatening their sense of culture. Nor are republicans and nationalists looking to “put the boot on the other foot” by treating the unionist or PUL community in the same way that we were. That’s the road to ongoing conflict. What we do believe absolutely, and without apology, it that the rights of every citizen to equality, to respect and to parity of esteem must be accepted by all. The Good Friday Agreement, which a clear majority in the North and an overwhelming majority on this island, voted for in May 1998 upholds the right of citizens to identify as Irish or British or none. And it also asserts that the right of those who identify as British will be protected and defended in the event of constitutional change.

Unionist leaders  claim that they are democrats. Well, the Good Friday Agreement and the constitutional and political changes it contains were democratically endorsed in a referendum. Brexit was democratically rejected by the people of the North in a referendum. The debate on the unity referendum provided for by the GFA is open to all.

So, my appeal to unionist leaders is to engage. 

Engage in the democratic process – open a meaningful dialogue with the rest of us. Together we have the wit and the intelligence to reach a new accommodation on the island of Ireland. With a little generosity and openness of spirit we can create a better future from the past we have all known. 

Inclusion and Reconciliation in the new Ireland

Sixty one years ago this month South African police acting for the apartheid regime shot and killed 69 demonstrators and wounded almost 200 more as they protested against the Pass Laws which were part of the racist apartheid system. The 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, like Bloody Sunday in Derry just 12 years later, reverberated around the world. It drew huge international criticism of the apartheid South African government, including by the UN Security Council. The British government abstained in the vote.

In 1979 the United Nations General Assembly agreed that a week-long series of activities would be held annually in solidarity with people struggling against racism and racist discrimination. The 21 March – the date of the Sharpeville Massacre – was set as its starting point.

This year the theme of the ‘International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’ was ‘Youth standing up against Racism’. The aim of the campaign is to “foster a global culture of tolerance, equality and anti-discrimination and calls on each and every one of us to stand up against racial prejudice and intolerant attitudes.”

Despite these efforts racism, intolerance and misogyny are still very much part of societies around the world. The Black Lives Matters campaign has been very successful in drawing attention to it, especially in recent years. So too has the Me Too Movement which has put a focus on violence and discrimination against women. The recent cartoon in the Sunday Independent which depicted Úachtaran Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald as a witch is just one deplorable example of misogyny as well as of the anti-Sinn Fein agenda of many in the southern media establishment.

Hate crime, intolerance of and discrimination against citizens take many forms. Violence against people because of their race or colour, their sexual orientation or gender, their nationality or religion or their disability is wrong. All of us have a responsibility to make a stand against such injustice and intolerance whatever form it takes.

Irish republicans believe that society must reflect and include the entirety of its people, not some of them. People have rights and entitlements. Their human dignity must be acknowledged and upheld. Inclusivity is vital. Equality is vital.

The colonisation and partition of Ireland and the periods of intense conflict which resulted from it created significant divisions within Irish society. These remain unresolved. Foremost among these is the right of the people of the island of Ireland to self-government and to have maximum control of that government.

A second crucial challenge is posed by political and religious sectarianism. As the debate increases around Irish Unity so too must the debate on building an inclusive and reconciled society evolve and grow. Reconciliation and healing must be at the heart of the transition to Irish unity. But they cannot be a precondition to achieving it.

As part of our desire for a greater understanding of the issues involved and of the measures needed to confront sectarianism and hate Sinn Féin this month commenced an internal dialogue on inclusion and reconciliation. Declan Kearney and others in our leadership are holding online conversations in the coming weeks with activists across the island to examine what practical steps are required to tackle sectarianism and provide for a reconciliation strategy. Among the contentious issues that will be discussed will be the role of commemorations, the legacy of the past, as well as examining the function of political institutions, political leadership and policy and community and civic society.

So, as the discussion on a unity referendum and a united Ireland increases. As new ideas and proposals emerge with increasing momentum around the shape and form of that new Ireland we need the most informed debate possible. Everything should be on the table for discussion. That’s the way forward.

Bronntanais Mala Na Casca

The recent United Ireland Easter Egg - an Bronntanais Mala Na Casca -  was a great success. The problem was there were not enough of them. We knew that from the start. But I made a mistake of saying they were available only in Belfast. That angered some of our non Belfast Easter egg lovers. I should not have mentioned Belfast and said limited availability instead.

Fact is we did distribute to other places.  From Dublin, all of the Six counties except Fermanagh as well as Leinster, Dublin, South East Ulster and Louth. So, well done me and RG.

Now this was always going to be a tester and a teaser for next Easter. On the basis of the current and ongoing interest it is a success. Getting a United Ireland Easter Egg is like the search for All Ireland tickets in the past. 

Le cuidiú De next year we will do a big United Ireland Easter Egg extravaganza. And intensify our Uniting Ireland activism in the meantime. Have a good Easter. Wear a lily. Honour our Patriot Dead. 

 

PostScript.

In my recent Saint Patrick’s Day musings I reminisced about my Uncle Paddy and his books of Joyce’s place names. Luke Callinan from the West, contacted me with the very welcome news of a link to electronic versions of these wonderful tomes.

Their proper name is The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, published in 1910. The author is Patrick Weston Joyce. 

They are in the University of Toronto collection.

And the digitizing sponsor is MSN. The link is: https://archive.org/details/originhistoryofi01joycuoft/page/n3/mode/2up.

If you have a grá for the names of our townlands and other places then you will find Mr Joyce’s research very interesting. Go raibh maith agat Luke.

 

 

Micheál Martin has it badly wrong on Irish Unity: and Cats

 Micheál Martin has it badly wrong on Irish Unity

For almost a quarter of a century I used to spend my St. Patrick’s Day in the United States talking to Irish America and political leaders in Washington. It’s important to understand that the St. Patrick’s celebrations in the USA usually last a week – not a day. Consequently I could be in New York to take part in the celebratory St. Patrick’s Day breakfast with hundreds of others before heading off to Philadelphia, followed by a couple of days of meetings in DC. I have some very fond memories of meeting Irish Americans at these events where they joyfully celebrated their Irishness through music and dance, poetry and craic.

On one memorable occasion we arrived in Syracuse in upper New York State for a St. Patrick’s Day parade in the midst of a blizzard. We were not dressed for a blizzard. I walked shaking with the cold beside Pat Aherne the Grand Marshall who was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was wearing a top hat as he waved enthusiastically to all the heavily muffled spectators. John’s repost to the fact that you could barely see twenty yards down the road was; “We parade in March because we are hardy. Anybody can walk in July.”

Mise agus Pat Ahern
Richard and I only survived thanks to the generosity of DeDe Walsh, the wife of the then Congressional representative for the district Jim Walsh, who graciously lent us some coats and gloves. Rita O’Hare delighted in telling us off for ignoring her warning that it was going to be a cold walk in the snow. She still delights in telling that story.

While no one was able to travel to the USA this St. Patrick’s Day because of the pandemic restrictions it was still nonetheless a good couple of weeks for the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement, the demand for the referendum on unity and for the campaign for a United Ireland. Friends of Sinn Féin successfully fund-raised the money to pay for major adverts in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Irish American papers. Under the banner headline: ‘A United Ireland: Let the People have their say’, the message was clear.

“The Good Friday Agreement has changed Ireland for the better. Challenges remain but twenty-three years on Ireland continues to seek the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The Unionist  electoral majority in the North is gone. Their rights, and the rights of all, are guaranteed in a United Ireland. It will be a welcoming home for all...

It is now time to have an inclusive, informed and respectful discussion. We appeal to the Irish Government to promote and plan for Unity. As Americans, we call upon our government and public representatives to urge the British Government to set the date for the Unity Referendum.”

The initiative was supported by the Ancient Order of Hibernians; the Brehon Law Society; Friends of Sinn Fein, USA; Irish American Unity Conference; James Connolly Irish American Labor Coalition; Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians.

A few days later a cross party group of Senators introduced a resolution in the Senate reaffirming bipartisan support for the Good Friday Agreement and for the Protocol. U.S. Senator Bob Menendez Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was joined by Senator Susan Collins and 13 other colleagues. They said: “This bipartisan resolution signals our support for the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, as well as subsequent agreements including the Stormont House Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol.”

Subsequently Úachtaran Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald and Joint First Minister Michelle O’Neill briefed the Congressional Friends of Ireland Caucus on Capitol Hill.  And later still Michelle joined with DUP leader and Joint First Minister Arlene Foster in a conference call with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Once again the US administration made clear its support for the Good Friday Agreement. However, more telling was the administration’s public backing for the Irish Protocol. Normally US administrations play with an even handed diplomatic bat when talking to parties in the North but in this instance it came out against the DUP demand for the protocol to be scrapped.

One DUP response to all of this was given by Sammy Wilson who last October in the midst of the Presidential election tweeted: “Joe Biden is a parrot for Irish Nationalism and their falsehoods re the Belfast Agreement. I would far rather have an American eagle in President Trump than a nationalist parrot in the White House.”  Having failed to achieve that goal Wilson plumbed new depths in a recent interview with Russia Today (RT) where he referred to President Biden as “the bigoted ignoramus who has now taken over in the White House.”

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin in response to the Irish American ads again rejected any possibility of planning for the unity referendum or even planning for a united Ireland. Instead Martin stuck to the line that now is not the time to talk about unity. He told an audience in Washington: “I think it is divisive and puts people back into the trenches too early.” His strategy – if it can be called that – is to put reconciliation and a unionist majority in favour of unity as preconditions to any discussion or planning on unity. This is a clear breach of the terms of the Good Friday Agreement which requires a simple majority in favour of unity. It is undemocratic and would hand to unionism a veto over future constitutional change. Martin’s stance fundamentally subverts a key component of the Good Friday Agreement.

Micheál Martin’s approach - which I suspect has more to do with his electoral fears about the growth of Sinn Féin in the South – is also unpopular within his own party. In an unusual move Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan addressed Cambridge University on Tuesday. O’Callaghan made a number of proposals aimed at reunifying Ireland. These include the Dáil or Seanad sitting in Belfast and unionist parties given positions as of right in a future all-Ireland Cabinet.

Whatever the merit of these suggestions they have now become part of the necessary debate that is urgently needed. However hard Micheál Martin pushes back against the public clamour for a public debate on a united Ireland the issue is not going away. Has he the political sense to set aside his antipathy for Sinn Féin and do the right thing? Now that he has gone international with his negativity I suspect not but I live in hope.

 

Twinkle

CATS.

I’m a doggie man. Ever since two of my uncles went to Canada aeons ago and I inherited Darkie, my first madadh, dogs have been a constant in my life. In fact it is possible to measure your life journey by the dogs who have befriended you along the way.Cats? I know lots of cat lovers. Some were converted to cats as a consequence of their amourous relationships.  The catscame with the partner. So needsmust. Men who woudn’t look sideways at a feline quickly embraced them as well as their female mistresses. I mean the cats mistress of course. .

I’m not allowed a cat. When Colette wasyoung someone threw a cat at her and it landed on her face. She has had an aversion to our feline friends ever since. Hardly the cats fault.  Her umbrage should be agin cat throwers not the unfortunate cat.  But sometimes logic doesn’t get a look in. Not that I am very anxious to get a cat. I’m currently trying to prepare the ground for a wee terrier. That’s a challenge given that we have two dogs already.

I love dogs. I have a slightly different relationship with cats. I respect cats. They are independent, haughty, sometimes arrogant.  They could live without us humans. Some behave like aristocrats. No part of the house is out of bounds to them. One of my pals regularly turns up covered in cat hairs. He seems oblivious to them. Sometimes I have an urge to comb him.

A neighbour of ours the late Frances Forte used to feed all the cats in the street. Frances was an amazing old lady. She supplied me regularly with pasta when it was less popular than it now is. That and stories of how her family came to Belfast from Italy to be part of the Forte’s ice cream family business away back in the 1920s. They were chased out off York Street by a unionist gunman. Cats used to lounge about Frances’ front garden at meal times.

Then some feral fellows joined them. They were like bad boys.Corner boys. Sprawled out on her window sills. Sullen and slightly menacing. Kittens followed. Eventually Frances’ cat community got out of hand. The appropriate agencies had to intervene to deperse them.

There were feral cats in Long Kesh. They used to hoke in the bins. Maybe they are still there. Like wee ghosts haunting the place. The odd time a few were persuaded to accept titbits from cat loving or mice and rathating political prisoners who looked to the cats for rodent control.  That was in the Cages. I think of them when I see a cat slinking along the yardwall in ambush mode for the wee birds feeding at the birdtable. A bell around the cats neck would even things up. Make it a fair dig.

So why do I tell you all  this? It’s on account of Twinkle. Twinkle is Sorcha’s cat. Sorcha is Sara and Flair’s daughter. Twinkle went missing on March 9.  I know this because of the poster which was distributeda round this neighbourhood. It said Lost Cat. Twinkle. A grey and white tabby. A photo of Twinkle was included along with a request to check gardens, sheds and hedges.

So that’s what I did. I looked everywhere for Twinkle. I remember when I was Sorcha’s age my dog of that time, Rory, Darkie’s sucessor, went missing. I searched all over the Murph for him for days and cried myself to sleep every night for months. So I know how Sorcha must have felt about Twinkle. Rory nevercame  back. Thankfully Twinkle did. We got the good news a few days after she went absent without leave. I wonder what adventures she had? But all is well that ends well.  I suppose this is a shaggy dog kind of story.About a cat. With a happy ending. Well done Twinkle. And well done Sorcha.

Here is a poem written by Sorcha’s mummy Sara aboutTwinkle.

Saol an Pangur Bháin 

After Seamus Heaney 

Pangur Fecking Bán had it easy, 

living his life in a monastery. 

Child-playing around some mouse’s den, 

the diligent monk, hunting with pen. 

The master was poised, the cat was curled, 

both inoculated from this world. 

Not demanding much from each other, 

they worked well without care or bother. 

Pangur has been praised in four-line rhyme, 

and interpreted many’s the time, 

his name bestowed on countless white cats 

and I can’t help but wonder - for what? 

Our cat Twinkle’s living through a plague! 

She’s the real hero, fearless and brave. 

Still ventures out in the darkest night,

 no way did Pangur get it this tight. 

 

 

6000 days - the story of Jaz McCann and the H Blocks: Lá Féile Padráig Faoi Mhaise Daoibhse: agus Seachtain na Gaeilge

 6000 DAYS.

Jaz McCann writes very well. The reader is quickly drawn into his world. From the opening sentences of his Prologue Jaz paints the sights and sounds, the emotions, shocks, excitement, sadness, smells and the savage brutality and amazing horrors of his 6000 Days of incarceration, mostly in the H Blocks of Long Kesh. He also makes us witness to the incredible courage, vision, commitment, solidarity, idealism, generosity, quirkiness, anger, native contrariness, humour, comradeship and stubbornness of the political prisoners.

6000 Days is an important and significant contribution to the history of the Irish penal experience, in line with Jeremiah O Donovan Rossa’s classic Prison Life or Irish Rebels in English Prisons and other historical penal narratives. I have long had a view that we republicans need to write our own histories. Others should do likewise. Including from a Unionist or even in this case a Prison Officer’s point of view. By setting all these narratives together the weave of our collective history – as lived in cities or rural Ireland by women, workers, the poor, by combatants, victims and in this case by our political prisoners becomes a shared history.

Embracing this and learning of the experience of others may not remove our disagreements with them but it will help us to understand and hopefully learn to live with a greater tolerance for difference and maybe an appreciation of how much we have in common. Pat Magee, another former republican combatant, has bravely tackled some of this in his memoir Where Grieving Begins.

But this important factor aside there is still in its own right, an onus on us to tell our own story. Otherwise some will try to write it for us. Jaz McCann has taken up this challenge. In his understated but graphically honest way he has shared his story with us. We should be grateful to him. I defy anyone who portrayed the Blanketmen or the Armagh Women as criminals to read it without being moved by what happened in the H blocks of Long Kesh in the five years leading to the summer of 1981 and the second hungerstrike.

The past of course is never passed. Yes it is gone. But it endures into the present. Until we agree our future it will always be difficult to agree about our past. It is contested because the future is contested.  This is the 40th anniversary of the 1981 Hungerstrikes. Those of us who supported the prisoners, in this case the Armagh Women and the Blanket Men, have our view about what happened at that time and why. Jaz McCann has provided everyone with a highly personal account of what that meant to him and what was done to him and what he did during his seventeen years in prison including five years on the blanket protest. No words of mine can convey the awfulness of life on the blanket. I considered reproducing extracts of Jaz’s words to give a sense of this to you but that may spoil the book or parts of it. To do it justice you have to read 6000 Days. I appeal to anyone remotely interested in this period, whatever your opinion to invest in a copy. And to read it.

Finally, as someone who was close to the hunger strikers and who remains in awe of them I have always been conscious of the fact that ten men died. Every one of them, including Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan who died on hungerstrikes in England, and their families deserve the admiration and respect of everyone who admires courage. Bobby Sands was the leader in every conceivable way and the first to die. For that reason sometimes Bobby may appear to overshadow the others, particularly in the media or the popular mind. Bobby certainly wouldn’t want that. He was first among equals. So I was very moved at how Jaz lovingly describes his relationship with Joe McDonnell who died after 61 days on the stailc. I am sure other prisoners could write in the same way of the other lads who died. And those who survived. It is only right that every hungerstriker and his family are remembered as Jaz remembers Joe and his clann. Go raibh maith agat Jaz. Your stories of him made me cry.

How lucky are we who knew Bobby and Joe, Francie and Martin, Tom and Patsy, Mickey and Kevin, Raymond and Kieran. They were our golden generation of leaders and fighters, poets and patriots. Ordinary but extraordinary human beings. Jaz’s book and the tales he tells reminds me of a line from a Brian Moore song. ‘When all is said and done.

You know freedom is won by those Croppies who would not lie down. By Croppies who would not lie down’.

Thank you Jaz. Thanks also to the McCann family. Especially your parents and Marian.  

The first print run of 6000 Days has already sold out and a second print run will be ready in two to three weeks. It will be available from An Fhuiseog/The Lark which can be contacted on their Facebook page.

 

Lá Féile Padráig Faoi Mhaise Daoibhse.

I like Saint Patricks Day. I always like to raise a glass on this special day to all the Paddies and Patricia’s, the Pádraic’s and Pádráigín’s in my life. Chief among these is my older brother Paddy and our Uncle Paddy.

Uncle Paddy died on Saint Patricks Day in 1984. He had called to see me in The Royal Hospital where I was recovering from gunshot wounds. He left me a few pounds and went off with his shamrock proudly displayed on his lapel only to be back a few hours later in the Emergency Dept, injured after a fall.

Uncle Paddy was a great man. When my brother Paddy was shot and seriously injured by the British Army during the attack on Joe McDonnell’s funeral our Uncle Paddy lay down on his own in front of a British Army vehicle in Saint Agnes Drive to block its passage.

So as usual this Saint Patrick’s Day I will raise a wee glass in his honour and memory.  I am sure my brother Paddy will do likewise even though Covid restrictions prevent us doing it together.  But this too shall pass. So to absent friends and the Irish everywhere; Lá Féile Pádraig Faoi Mhaise Daoibhse. Sláinte. Anios ar theacht an tSamraidh.

 

Seachtain na Gaeilge

Seachtain na Gaeilge is the biggest celebration of Irish language and culture in the world. It is a non-profit organization that was set up by Conradh na Gaeilge with the aim of promoting the use of the Irish language in Ireland and overseas. The festival used to run for one week but became so popular it had to be extended and now runs annually from 1 March to 17 March – St. Patrick’s Day. In 2020 there were over 30,000 events held in Ireland and across the world with an estimated three quarters of a million people participating.

Seachtain na Gaeilge normally embraces language, music, dance and sport, and increasingly events on social media. However, this year the restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic has meant that Seachtain na Gaeilge has had to think outside the box and come up with imaginative ways in which to promote the Irish language and culture primarily online.

Local Councils have played an important role this year. For example, Newry and Mourne Council hosted a series of ten short videos on its YouTube channel highlighting some of the musicians and storytellers who live in their area. These included Niall Comer, Gráinne Holland, and Piaras Ó Lorcáin. Events also included an ‘Accelerated Reading Project’ involving Irish medium primary schools in the Council area. Pupils were given a selection of Irish language books and asked to complete interactive exercises.

Writers too have brought a focus to the language. In the context of Seachtain na Gaeilge John Daly in an enjoyable and informative piece he wrote for the Independent - ‘Pondering our poetic place names’ - reflected on the “dismal effect” of the Anglicisation of our local place names and its impact on a “debutant postman” trying to deliver mail in Kerry. “Imagine” he said, “the mental dexterity required for correct mail delivery on the byways and boreens of Tooreennahone, Tooreennascarty, Tooreennasliggaun and Tooreennastooka”

Daly gave some examples of this dismal effect. The ancient name for Ballysodare is Beal Easa Dara – the Mouth of the Waterfall of the Oak Grove. Or Donnybrook which was previously Domhnach Broc – the Church of the Badgers. His personal favourite address is Muckanaghederdauhaulia in the Connemara Gaeltacht. In the Irish its Muiceanach idir dhá sháile – ‘a piggery between two expanses of briny water.’

This blog is very enthusiastic about the language. I enjoy being able to speak Irish and to read it and have even written some modest poems in Irish. I am not as fluent as I would like. Like every language or sport or skill the key to mastering it is perseverance - sticking at it. And using it. I use Irish on every occasion I can. And as those I rely on to keep me right with my pronunciation and understanding keep telling me, it can be difficult. But the hard work is worth it when it all comes right.

In recent years the North has seen a renaissance in the use of the Irish language. This is evident in the growth in Irish medium education. According to the Dept of Education there are 29 Irish-medium schools and a further 10 Irish-medium units attached to English-medium host schools. Of the 29 schools, 28 are primary and one is post primary, Coláiste Feirste. Of the 10 Irish-medium units attached to English-medium host schools, 7 are primary and 3 are post-primary. In addition to these, Gaelscoil na Daróige in Derry City is an independent school teaching through the medium of Irish.

All of this points up the need for Acht na Gaeilge in the North. The provisions for this were part of the New Decade, New Approach agreement reached last year. If equality and a shared society is to become real there must be progress on the legislation required for the protection for the Irish language. The First Minister has clearly committed to bring forward the ‘package of identity and cultural pieces agreed as part of the New Decade New Approach Agreement by the end of this mandate’.

Notwithstanding  the challenges presented by the Covid pandemic and the outworkings of Brexit there needs to be progress on this before the current mandate for the Assembly ends in a year’s  time. Over to you Arlene. Na h’abair é. Dean é. Don’t talk about. Do it.

 

Blog: Jesus Wept; the story of the Mother and Baby Homes: A new plan for Moore Street

 JESUS WEPT.

The recently released report of the ‘Mother and Baby Homes Commission’ is a shameful record of the brutality, ill-treatment and abuse inflicted on generations of women and their children in these institutions. This punitive attitude to women and children predates partition but partition led to the creation of two conservative states on the island of Ireland.The new regime in the Free State institutionalised this attitude when it abdicated responsibility for addressing many of the social issues that the state should have been responsible for. It left these to the Catholic Church and the religious orders.

Mother and Bay homes existed in the North also. The Executive has  put in place an Interdepartmental group  to investigate and make recommendations on Mother and Baby Homes, Magdalene Laundries and historical clerical child abuse. This report  is  due in the next short while. It is of crucial importance that this report does not fall foul of the same mistakes that were made about the publication of the Dublin report. In particular I am referring to  the failure to make sure that victims and survivors got the report before it is published. There is also a clear need for an all Ireland approach.

There has been a succession of damning reports over the last three decades. The scandal of the treatment of children in the industrial schools, the reformatory schools and in orphanages was exposed. Thousands of children were subject to sustained systemic physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

Then came revelations about the Magdalene laundries. Scandal after scandal. Tens of thousands of children and women ill-treated. 

The ‘Mother and Baby Homes Commission’ was established after a local historian Catherine Corless in Galway succeeded in highlighting her research which indicated that hundreds of babies had died and been secretly buried in Tuam’s ‘Mother and Baby Home.’  In a sewage or septic tank. Corless identified 798 deaths of children who died at the home. There were no burial records.

Last week’s report by the Commission is shocking in its detail even at almost 3,000 pages - and I am still reading it - some victims and survivors say that it failed to properly deal with their plight. Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who rightly apoligised on behalf of the state, in his response said, “We did this ourselves as a society. We treated women exceptionally badly. We treated children exceptionally badly... All of society was complicit in it.”

While all of us have to accept responsibility for ourselves and our own actions or lack of actions it is wrong to say all society was complicit. The political establishment was. It failed to protect the health and welfare of citizens. That is the responsibility in the first instance of the state. The state is to blame. Of course the churches bear responsibility also. But the state allowed the churches to do what they did. That should never have happened. Women and children were victim of a brutal policy based on misogynistic nonsense and an obscenity that women and their babies should be punished if the women had sex outside marriage; even if this was forced on them, even if they were minors, victims of rape. Sex was a public sin. For women. To be punished publicly. Jesus wept!  There were no ‘Men and Baby Homes’. The women and babies were lesser beings.

Nine thousand children died in the 18 institutions investigated by the Commission. Thousands more bear the physical and mental scars of their experiences. This means that there has to be full redress, including compensation. And it cannot be a repeat of what has happened before. 

Previously the state put in place schemes which were allegedly to help victims but often didn’t.  Many victims of abuse in residential institutions were cross examined when seeking redress, forced to re-live their experiences and were re-traumatised. Many women from the Magdalene Laundries were initially excluded from the redress scheme. Women who had suffered symphysiotomies had only two weeks to apply for redress. Other women, who won their cases in court, had their verdicts appealed by the state.

The report by the ‘Mother and Baby Homes Commission’ or the upcoming Report from the Interdepartmental Group in the North is not the last word on this issue. This work is only beginning.

She Fell Asleep in the Sun 

‘She fell asleep in the sun.’

That’s what they used to say

in South Fermanagh

of a girl who gave birth

unwed.

 

A woman from Kerry told me

what she’d always heard growing up was

Leanbh ón ngréin

a child from the sun.

 

And when a friend of mine from Tiernahilla

admired in North Tipperary

a little lad running round a farmyard

the boy’s granda smiled:

‘garsúinín beag mishtake’.

 

A lyrical ancient kindliness

that could with Christ accord.

Can it outlive technolatry?

or churches?

 

Not to mention that long, leadránach,

latinate, legal, ugly

twelve-letter name not

worthy to be called a name,

that murderous obscenity – to call

 

Any child ever born

that excuse for a name

could quench the sun for ever.

 

Pearse Hutchinson.

 

 

A New Plan for Moore Street

Most nations have buildings and landmarks which are important to them in their struggles for freedom and independence. Robben Island in South Africa held ANC prisoners for decades, including Mandela, Sisulu and others. It is now a World Heritage site. The Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam are a network of interconnecting tunnels that stretch for 75 miles. Imagine someone deciding to abandon Robben Island or fill in the Cu Chi tunnels? Or if the government of India decided to concrete over the Jallianwala Bagh garden in Amritsar? Its the place where in 1919 the British Army massacred at least 379 unarmed civilians in an act of slaughter similar to our Bloody Sunday’s in 1920 and 1972.

Imagine the outrage if the government of the United States decided to demolish Independence Hall in Philadelphia and replace it with a Shopping  Mall. It is the location of the second Continental Congress which met to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

Every nation has these holy places where freedom was born or won. 

We Irish are no different. Dublin’s GPO, Kilmainham, the H-Blocks and many more places dotted across this island tell the story of Ireland’s century’s long struggle for independence. The 1916 Easter Rising and its Proclamation of equality and justice inspired others to throw off the yoke of British colonialism.

Following six days of heroic resistance, the centre of Dublin lay in ruins. Five of the leaders of the Provisional Government met for the last time in 16 Moore Street and ordered the surrender. In 2005 the late Shane MacTomais – historian - wrote of those events: 

“At eight o clock  on Friday evening  28 April 1916, with the GPO engulfed in flames, the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic and IRA men and women retreated from the building and endeavoured to make their way to the Four Courts’ Garrison. They left the GPO by the side entrance in Henry Street and made their way under constant sniper fire to Moore Lane.

When they reached Moore Street they entered number five, Dunne’s Butchers, and immediately began tunneling from one house to another. The next  morning, Saturday , they quickly realised that the wounded James Connolly, who had been placed on a panel door as a makeshift stretcher would not fit through the openings they had made. The men then placed Connolly in blankets and bundled him in great agony from house to house. When they reached number 16, Plunkets, a poultry shop, they placed him upstairs in the back room.

This small room, in a small house, in a small market street, in the heart of the capital city was to be the last place where the members of Provisional Irish Government held their council of war. Pádraig Mac Piarais, Joseph Plunkett, Tom Clarke and Seán Mac Diarmada all took their places around James Connolly and discussed what to do, while Elizabeth O’Farrell, Winifred Carney and Julie Grenan tended the wounded. The leaders decided that it was necessary to surrender to save further lives.”

This is Moore Street. It is part of the 1916 Battlefield site – the laneways of history. It has been described by the National Museum of Ireland as; ‘The most important site in modern Irish history.’ Today it is again a battlefield site. A major development company – with the support of past Irish governments – seeks to demolish much of these laneways to build a Shopping  Mall. The four houses – 14-17 Moore Street – which are alone designated a national monument have been neglected and are in a poor state of repair.

The battlefield site encompasses the entire Moore St/O’Connell St. area. It stretches from Tom Clarke’s shop on Parnell Street; to the GPO; to Jenny Wyse Power’s home on Henry Street where the 1916 Proclamation was signed; to Moore Lane and Moore Street where the GPO Garrison retreated; to the spot where ‘The O'Rahilly’ died; to 16 Moore Street where five of the seven signatories  of the Proclamation - Seán MacDiarmada, Pádraig Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, James Connolly and Tom Clarke - held their final meeting; to the Rotunda where the garrison was held by the British and where the volunteers had been founded three years earlier.

For over a decade a dedicated band of family members of the signatories - the Save 16 Moore Street Committee and the Families of the Signatories of the 1916 Proclomation - and their supporters have fought to protect Moore Street. 

Last week the relatives published the first images of a regeneration plan for the area. The plan has been commissioned from a team of leading Irish architectural firms, planners and consultants. They believe that their plan “will not only reverse decades of official neglect but also act as a catalyst for the future regeneration of the city’s Northside. The plan also fully meets the recommendations of Minister Darragh O’Briens Advisory Group on the development of the Moore Street Battlefield as a historic cultural quarter.” This will also focus on the needs of local businesses and the Moore Street Traders.

The committee hopes to meet with Heritage Minister Darragh O'Brien in the coming weeks to discuss their proposal.

Blog: Des Wilson, The Peoples Priest; How Mandela and his comrades paid tribute to hunger strikers; A week of high drama in Washington DC

 Des Wilson – A Voice for the Poor and Oppressed by Joe McVeigh

Fr. Joe McVeigh was a close friend and colleague of Des Wilson. It wasn’t just that both were priests. They both shared a passionate believe in justice and were committed to standing up for the rights of citizens against a British state apparatus which was oppressive and violent.

Fr. Des died on the 5th November 2019 aged 94. He lived a full life. A good life. And in the course of his years of service he helped thousands of people. During the dark years of war and violence he lived and worked in Ballymurphy and Springhill. With Joe McVeigh, Fr. Des established the Community for Social Justice. Its role was to highlight the real nature of violence in Ireland and to challenge the leaders of the Church. Fr. Des believed that the Church had a moral responsibility to stand against injustice and repression.

As a tribute to his friend Fr. Joe has just published a thoughtful pamphlet - Des Wilson – A Voice for the Poor and Oppressed by Joe McVeigh - telling the story of Des, his early life, his work as a priest in St. John’s parish and then in Ballymurphy and Springhill, and then setting up of Springhill Community House. Fr. Joe describes its purpose:

“ Des had a deep love and respect for the people in the Ballymurphy/Springhill community in which he lived. He always had time for a conversation and a cuppa tea. The door was always open. There was always a céad mile failte. Conversations at lunch in Springhill were a lively and interesting experience. Springhill Community House became ‘a house of hospitality’ somewhat like the Catholic Worker houses in America which had been set up by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the 1940s and 1950s, and indeed somewhat like the Celtic monasteries in years gone by.”

Fr. Des was deeply affected by the killing of his colleague Father Hugh Mullan and ten local people by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment in August 1971 during internment. The Ballymurphy Massacre left families and a community devastated and Des was always there supporting their efforts for truth.

For over 40 years Fr. Des was at the heart of many of the positive initiatives to emerge from west Belfast, including Springhill Community Centre; Conway Mill and the peace process. He was a leader, a man of great courage and vision, a good neighbour, an honest down to earth decent human being and a priest.

Joe McVeigh’s account of his life is evidence of a man who lived a long and full life and whose contribution to community politics, to education, and to peace in Ireland is immeasurable. I want to commend Fr. Joe for writing this account of Des’s life. If you are interested in buying a copy of Fr. Joe’s book - Des Wilson – A Voice for the Poor and Oppressed – it will be available from Springhill Community House and An Fhuiseog, 55 Falls Road when they reopen following the current lockdown priced £5.

 

The ANC and the 1981 hunger strikers

The African National Congress was founded on 8 January 1912. Last week, it celebrated its 109 birthday. An odd number you might think to celebrate a birthday. However, 30 years ago the ANC leadership was able for the first time in 30 years to publicly mark its 79th birthday following the unbanning of the party by the apartheid South African government.

In its online celebration last Friday the ANC broadcast the archive film footage of the historic press conference from 30 years ago - January 1991. The then ANC President Oliver Tambo – who had just returned home from 30 years of exile - Deputy President Nelson Mandela, who had been freed the year before after 27 years in prison; and Walter Sisulu who had spent 26 years imprisoned on Robben island, all spoke of their hopes for the future and their determination to achieve a free South Africa.

As I watched the five minute video of these three giants of the South African liberation struggle I was reminded of all that has happened in that country and of the four years of difficult and dangerous negotiations that lay ahead of them. An agreement was finally achieved and in 1994 Mandela was elected as President of a free South Africa. But as the three spoke in January 1991 the outcome of the negotiations was uncertain. The political and personal risks they were taking were enormous. Violence was still widespread. Thousands were still in prison. And there was significant opposition within the apartheid system to any negotiated settlement.

The year after the 1994 election I had the honour and pleasure to meet Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. In June 1995 I travelled to South Africa as part of a Sinn Féin delegation to meet with the ANC’s senior negotiators. Our objective was to talk to them about their strategies and tactics and to see what Sinn Féin could learn from their experience for our peace efforts. The IRA cessation was then ten months old and the British were stalling on establishing all-party talks. By the end of our visit we had made many new friends, confounded the British who had tried to block a meeting with President Mandela, and were pleased to discover that our peace strategy was already following the pattern of that used by the ANC.

On our first day in the country we were taken to have lunch with the ANC’s National Executive at their party headquarters in J’Burg. To our great surprise and honour Walter Sisulu, the grand old man of African resistance who had retired from his ANC positions after the 1994 election (he was then aged 82) made a special point of coming to the lunch. The room was packed and all of us sat riveted to Walter Sisulu’s description of his 26 years in prison and his memory of the deep respect and solidarity ANC prisoners had for Bobby Sands and his nine comrades who died on hunger strike 40 years ago this year in the H-Blocks.

ANC prisoners had watched events unfold in our prison struggle. Sisulu recalled hearing of Bobby’s death and of the silent tribute ANC prisoners across South Africa paid to a fellow freedom fighter. Most of our delegation was in tears by the time he was finished. Speaking to him privately later Walter told us that ANC prisoners marked and commemorated each of the hunger strikers who died. Mandela too spoke of the hunger strikers when we met him. On the wall calendar in his cell on Robben island on the 5th May 1981 a simple single line is written: ‘IRA martyr Bobby Sands dies.’

Afterwards I presented Walter Sisulu with a wooden Celtic cross carved by the republican prisoners in Long Kesh. It was one of several gifts made by the prisoners that we had brought with us, some of which were damaged when the British opened our baggage in Heathrow airport. An ANC former prisoner helped repair them. Later another ANC activist who had spent 15 years on Robben island was to tell us that from that point on ANC prisoners rarely spoke of ‘a hunger strike.’ When discussing whether a hunger strike should be employed in any given situation the political prisoners referred toit as ‘a Bobby Sands’.  

This year we in Ireland will mark 40 years from the 1981 hunger strike. It is important that like Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu we remember and honour those who courageously gave their lives for their comrades and whose extraordinary valour set an example for people in struggle around the world.

 

 

 

The storming of the Capitol

The political and constitutional fallout in the USA to the unparalleled events last week in Washington will continue for years to come. I have visited the Capitol Building many times since my first visit to Washington DC in September 1994. I know well many of those Congressional and Senate representatives and their staffers who have regularly met with me to discuss Ireland. It was surreal and deeply troubling to watch as mobs rampaged along corridors and stairwells and offices that I have visited many times. Consequently, my thoughts last Wednesday, as I watched the disturbing scenes in the Capitol Building unfold, were primarily for the women and men who work there and who have worked closely with us in promoting peace and unity.

In recent decades Sinn Féin has developed a strong connection with those on Capitol Hill who are Democrats or Republicans or neither. Sinn Féin does not involve itself in the internal affairs of the USA. It’s not our business. But we long ago understood the importance of encouraging successive US administrations to have a progressive foreign policy position on Ireland. We have worked closely with Irish America to make that happen.

That approach has worked well both in terms of US support for the peace process; opposition to any efforts to dilute or undermine the Good Friday Agreement – especially as a consequence of Brexit - and endorsement of the goal of Irish Unity.  

I want to extend best wishes to all our friends on Capitol Hill. I would also like to thank some of those Congressional members who will no longer be on the Hill and who were steadfast in their support for the peace process. Eliot Engel, Peter King and Joe Kennedy are moving on. Thank you for your solidarity.

Finally, comhgairdheas to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh who has been appointed to President Biden’s cabinet as Secretary of Labor. Secretary Walsh is a son of Irish immigrants from Connemara and has worked closely with Máirtín O’Muilleoir and John Finucane MP in recent years in building up a close relationship between Belfast and Boston. In a video message in November to the opening ceremony of the 2020 Golden Bridges Conference linking Northwest Ireland and Irish America,Marty Walsh said: “Under the leadership of President-elect Biden, the United States is ready to move forward and to once again live up to our highest ideals. And we are committed to supporting peace and unity in Ireland, too."

I have every confidence that the Biden administration and the new Congress and Senate will build on the positive work of recent years. I look forward to an even closer relationship in the time ahead.

 

This weeks Blog: Stay Safe; Brexit Border; Irish govt & UN Security Council; & Solidarity with Catalonia

Stay Safe. 

As the pandemic surges out of control the under investment in health services north and south on this island is obvious for everyone to see. The good news of the vaccine must be tempered with a resolve by all of us to follow the health advice and to minimise contact with others until the vaccine is administered. When we eventually put this horrible pandemic behind us we must also be resolved to ensure that a fully resourced and accessible public health service becomes a reality. 

 

The Brexit Border

An hour before midnight on New Year’s Eve the Brexit deal was finally done – sort of. Four and a half years after the Brexit referendum the little Englanders and the DUP party who campaigned for Brexit got their way. The British state left the EU, including the people of the North and of Scotland who voted to remain.

Of course, it didn’t quite work out the way the DUP wanted. Instead of a ‘United Kingdom’ waving goodbye to Europe they now have a deeply disunited kingdom with Scotland battering at the gates of independence; Welsh nationalism on the rise; and the demand for a referendum on Irish Unity a growing demand across Ireland.

In addition the North remains in the EU’s single market for goods and will apply EU customs rules at its ports under the watchful eye of EU officials. There are now export checks and regulatory differences between the North and Britain. Full responsibility for this rests squarely with the DUP. 

It will take a while for the dust to settle on the mess that has been created by Brexit but a mess it is. Ireland’s interests north or south were never a consideration in the English, or the DUP support for, the decision to leave the EU. Indeed, Ireland only became an issue in the Brexit negotiations when Sinn Fein ensured that the issue of the Good Friday Agreement, and avoiding a hard border, would be a central objective of the EU negotiators. However, there is a way out of the chaos that will unfold in 2021. It is rooted in the Good Friday Agreement – the people of the north have the right to choose which union we want to be a part of: a new union between all the people of the island of Ireland or the old failed unacceptable and imposed union with England. 

One thing is certain. There will be a referendum on Irish unity. There are no ifs about it, though resistance from the usual suspects, to a referendum will continue. It is now a matter of when that referendum will be held. So those of us who want self government need to increase our efforts, and intensify the sensible call for the Irish government to initiate ways to plan how we will agree our future. Better still we need to start planning that future now. 

  

The Irish government and the UN Security Council

As 2020 came to a close most of the public and media focus was understandably on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations and the increase in the number of people across the island of Ireland testing positive for the Coronavirus.

However one other event also deserves attention. As of 1st January the Irish government holds one of 15 seats on the UN Security Council. In June of last year a secret ballot among the almost 200 member states saw the Norwegian and Irish governments win two non-permanent seats on the Council. They will hold these influential seats for the next two years.

The Irish government campaigned for the seats on the basis that it will defend and promote human rights and peace. Its success in winning the Security Council seat provides a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in world affairs, international relations and in peoples’ lives. There are a significant number of armed conflicts and international disputes which urgently need a positive engagement by the UN, including in the Middle East. The plight of the people of Palestine is crying out for justice.

Poverty, hunger, and water scarcity is also on the increase. Almost one billion people do not have access to clean water and climate change is set to make this dire situation worse.

The government also has a responsibility to use this unique opportunity to defend the Good Friday Agreement – which is an international Treaty lodged with the UN – to defend the peace process and to use this crucial international forum to insist that the British government honour its GFA commitments on human rights, legacy matters, and the role of civic society which it has so far refused to implement.

Most importantly, in a forum which places great emphasis on self-determination and self-government (the UN has grown from to 51 states in 1945 to 193 today) there is an onus on the Irish government to use this forum to articulate the desire for a United Ireland. As the debate for the referendum on Unity continues to grow the government now has within its grasp at the United Nations an unparalleled opportunity to further that objective, democratically, peacefully, and inclusively.

 

Solidarity with Catalonia

Like many other republicans I have spent several Christmas’s in prison. It’s not a nice place to be at any time but especially over Christmas. I was reminded of this a few days before Christmas when I had the opportunity to hold a video conference with two of the imprisoned leaders of 'Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya' (ERC) - the main pro-independence party in Catalan. 

Oriol Junqueras is President of the ERC and Raul Romeva is the former Foreign Minister of the Catalan government. Both are currently serving prison sentences of 13 years and 12 years respectively in Lledoners prison, Catalonia.  Declan Kearney MLA joined me in the conversation and also in attendance was Marta Rovira, the ERC’s General Secretary, who is currently exiled in Switzerland, and Jordi Solé, the ERC's Secretary for International Affairs.

The imprisonment of the two comrades arose from the peaceful and democratic independence referendum that was held by the government of Catalan in October 2017. The Spanish state reacted violently. Our television screens were filled with images of Spanish Civil Guards firing plastic bullets at Catalan citizens trying to vote, and violent scenes of heavily armoured police batoning defenceless and peaceful citizens – some of them lying on the ground, many of them women, some elderly. 

The 2017 referendum was the culmination of almost two decades of Catalan efforts to achieve greater autonomy within Spain. Catalan leaders tried to engage successive Spanish governments in a dialogue but their efforts were rebuffed. They were frustrated at every turn by an intransigent central government and the courts. 

Rather than engage in a process of dialogue to resolve this constitutional crisis the Spanish government choose to arrest and imprison senior Catalan politicians. Oriol Junqueras and Raul Romeva are among those who received lengthy prison sentences. Despite their unjust treatment and imprisonment both men were in good spirits when we spoke to them and clearly determined to continue their struggle for freedom and independence.  

Our conversation lasted an hour. Declan and I expressed Sinn Féin's ongoing solidarity with all of the political prisoners, those leadership figures still in exile, and the right of the Catalan people to independence. We also expressed our support for the Amnesty Bill currently being proposed by Catalan Independent representatives.

The connections between the people of Ireland and of Catalonia go back a long way. In 1920 Máire Ní Bhrian, a member of Cumann na mBan, travelled to Catalonia as part of the republican outreach seeking support for the Irish cause in Europe. Writing after the death on hunger strike of Terence MacSwiney the Lord Mayor of Cork, Ní Bhrian recalled;

‘In Barcelona and in Catalonia generally there was the deepest sympathy for Ireland and when Terence died the papers there were full of articles about him and masses were offered for him in many churches which were crowded to the doo… The Catalans always cherish the desire for separation from Spain and their aspiration for independence is the bond between them and us.’

A doll dressed in traditional Catalan clothing was sent from the people of Catalonia to MacSwiney’s young daughter Máire. Last year the doll was refurbished as part of an exhibition on MacSwiney by Cork public museum.

The Spanish government needs to return to the negotiating table. The international community, especially the European Union, has an obligation to ensure that Catalonia can pursue the course of self-determination without fear of suppression.

In the meantime find below the names and addresses of imprisoned Catalan leaders and political prisoners. Take a few minutes and send them a solidarity card – a letter – a book. Show them they are not alone and not forgotten. 

Dolors Bassa Coll
Centre penitenciari Puig de les Basses

Mòdul de dones
Raval disseminat, 53
17600 Figueres
(Girona)

Jordi Cuixart i Navarro
Centre Penitenciari de Lledoners
Mòdul 2
Carretera C-55, km 37
08250 St Joan de Vilatorrada
(Barcelona)

Carme Forcadell Lluís
Carme Forcadell i Lluís
Centre Penitenciari Wad Ras
Doctor Trueta, 76
08005 Barcelona

Joaquim Forn i Chiarello
Centre Penitenciari de Lledoners
Mòdul 2
Carretera C-55, km 37
08250 St Joan de Vilatorrada
(Barcelona)

Oriol Junqueras i Vies
Centre Penitenciari de Lledoners
Mòdul 2
Carretera C-55, km 37
08250 St Joan de Vilatorrada
(Barcelona)

Raül Romeva Rueda
Centre Penitenciari de Lledoners
Mòdul 2
Carretera C-55, km 37
08250 St Joan de Vilatorrada
(Barcelona)

Josep Rull i Andreu
Centre Penitenciari de Lledoners
Mòdul 2
Carretera C-55, km 37
08250 St Joan de Vilatorrada
(Barcelona)

Jordi Sànchez i Picanyol
Centre Penitenciari de Lledoners
Mòdul 2
Carretera C-55, km 37
08250 St Joan de Vilatorrada
(Barcelona)

Jordi Turull Negre
Centre Penitenciari de Lledoners
Mòdul 2
Carretera C-55, km 37
08250 St Joan de Vilatorrada
(Barcelona)

Bliain Úr Faoi Mhaise Daoibhse.

 Bliain Úr Faoi  Mhaise Daoibhse.

Chairde, a very happy 2021 to you all. Here are ten personal things I want to do in this bright new year. 

·        Survive the pandemic. Stay alive and stay healthy. That means following the health advice and getting the vaccine as soon as I can.

·        Climb Errigal again. I used to do that regularly but the pandemic and travel restrictions intruded. Ewan McColl wrote ‘The Joy Of Living’, a very fine song when he realised that he could not hill walk or climb as he used to because of his age. I never really knew what he meant until my last ascent up Errigal. But as I panted slowly heavenwards I discovered the secret. Take your time. It’s not a race. So I will keep going upwards for as long and as slowly as I can. And as soon as possible in 2021.

·        Publish my new book of short stories. The Witness Tree has also fallen foul of the pandemic but hopefully mid summer will see O’Brien Press launching this collection.

·        Keep producing the Léargas series, in partnership with the incredible R G McAuley. This not for profit project is aboutwomen and men I came to know, or know of, alonglifesjourney. Kathleen Thompson, nee Largey,nee McCready, the singer and activist, is the subject of our next tribute. Hopefully to be published before Easter. Then we intend to do one about The Armagh Women in time for the Hungerstrike Anniversary.

·        Get to more games. The standard of hurling, camogie and football at underage, and all other levels, is rising in Belfast as a result of the work of many dedicated local GAA volunteers, parents and mentors and club stalwarts. Spectating is a great way to support Gaelic games. Commenting on the state of play and shouting loudly about the referee’s shortcomings from the safety of the ditch, is a great way to entertain those around you. And to get rid of stress. And self-respect.

·        Learn an entire song. It is a little known fact that I gave up a promising singing career in order to concentrate on  the cause of Irish freedom. I have recently realised that I know a few lines of hundreds of songs but if I was called on to sing I could not sing an entire song. I hope to rectify that by learning all the words of I Wish I Had Someone To Love Me and Mo Ghille Mear.

·        Get called to sing.

·        Improve my knowledge and use of the Irish language. 

·        Give up Twitter.

·        Have a few very pleasant ordinary social outings with family and/or friends.

·        Intensify my involvement in the cause of Irish freedom so that I can enjoy being a citizen in a free Ireland as soon as possible.

·        Relaunch my singing career.

A DOGS LIFE!

We have two dogs. Truth to tell we have had two dogs for a very long time. Once we had three. Three times or four times when puppies arrived we had a dozen or so. But that was only for a wee while. I wouldnt be without a dog. Since I was about six or so, when my uncle went to Canada and left his dog with me, there has always been a mutt in my life.

Our two dogs are Fionn and Fiadh. They are labadors, a good breed, especially tolerant of  children. Fionn is a large male, beautifully gingerishly gold in colour and  very handsome. The problem is he won’t let another dog pass him without challenging it to a fair dig. He is also very strong and hard to contain when he engages in this belligerent behaviour. Apart from the stress and sheer annoyance involved I am very embarrassed by these outbursts. As a dog owner of the old school I believe that the human must always be in control of the canine. I tut tut to myself when other dogs ignore the commands of their humans. So when my dog does that to me I am scundered.

Incidentally Fionn’s belligerent behaviour can be traced to a mauling  he endured when he was a pup. A particularly obnoxious terrier seized him one day in the Falls Park and left him bloodied and wounded and in need of medical attention. This trauma is at the root of Fionn’s anti social attitude to other dogs. This tendency increased when Fiadh arrived. Fiadh is from Tipperary. She is a smaller, more intelligent and a much more biddable hound. With a very fetching smile. She is also a bitch. She made Fionn a father. Twice. That added a jealous macho element to his behaviour around other dogs, especially if he is in Fiadh’s company.

Controlling him on his own in these circumstances is challenging. Controlling the two of them is a herucüalean task.  It takes the joy out of a good walk. Unless in a lonely wild place which is devoid of other mutts. And that’s not always easy to get to. Especially with big dogs. Transporting them can be problematic.

Why am I telling you all this? I suppose I have to tell someone. I am coming slowly to terms with the reality that big dogs and I have had our day. I think I have a way forward. I could leave the dog walking to more enabled,younger,anonymous family members. And I could get a smaller dog for myself. A wee Cairn terrier, a Glen of Imaal madadh, or a good old fashioned mongrel? A wee house dog. That would be the solution. If my good wife and Fionn would let him or her in. That seems unlikely at the moment but I think it is the only feasible solution.In the longer term.So I intend to work on that. Slowly.

In the meantime I won't give up entirely on walking Fiadh or Fionn. Dogs love walks. Even more than they like their dinner. And I’m contrary. So if you spot me being dragged by two, or even one, large good looking canine, along the highways and byways of West Belfast be warned. Especially if  you are walking your dog. Take pity on me. As much as I hate to admit it I’m not entirely in control. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.  Stay clear. And don’t blame me. Big dogs make me  do it.

 

FINALLY.

While Brexit and the Coronavirus dominated the political agenda for much of 2020 nonetheless the debate on the proposal in the Good Friday Agreement for a unity referendum and the value, form and nature of such a referendum, have all gathered momentum. Several initiatives on this by academics have recently taken place; two weeks ago Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher held an interesting and informative online debate on this issue; and Sinn Féin, Ireland’s Future and others have also held similar online events.

The constitutional status of the North has long been the determining factor in northern politics. I believe the opportunity now exists for this generation to finally end this by achieving a United Ireland.

From an Irish republican perspective 2020 was a good year. It saw the restoration of the power sharing institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, the continuing electoral erosion of political unionism, and the emergence of Sinn Féin as the largest party in the 26 counties. Sinn Féin is now the largest party on the island of Ireland.

A continuation of the hard work that achieved these gains means that the opportunities in 2021 for continued growth and for the advancement of Irish Unity are enormous. The positive arguments in favour of self-government and for Irish Unity are common sense and winning more and more converts. So, if you believe in a new Ireland – a shared Ireland – based on fairness, equality and mutual respect join the conversation in 2021 for a United Ireland.

Nollag Shona Daoibhse. A Visit to Bethlehem

 Nollag Shona Daoibhse.

This Christmas will be unlike any other Christmas for most of us. The pandemic is to blame for that. Christmas can be a lonely place for some people. This year will be especially lonely for families who lost loved ones to the Coronavirus. Our thoughts are with them all. I hope everyone who can, enjoys the festive season as best as you can. Nollag shona daoibhse.  

There are lots of things to dislike about the modern Christmas. The blatant commercialism of it. That may be a recent trait. Or maybe it was always thus. But nowadays the omnipresent pervasive media, social and otherwise, makes it difficult to escape the relentless advertising of the latest fad that we are persuaded that our children, spouse or friends cannot do without. I hate - if that’s not too strong a word - the distress caused for so many who cannot afford it getting caught up in this madness and getting into debt as a result. My heart goes out to stressed-out parents trying to make ends meet. I also greatly resent ‘Xmas’ replacing ‘Christmas’. 

You dear reader may respond to these remarks by declaring; ‘That’s not Christmas’. You may characterise my comments as Scrooge-like. You may even mutter; ‘He has turned into The Grinch’. All this may or may not be true. But it misses the point. The point is Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of a little baby. Some believe this baby was the son of God, sent to save humanity. If he was it is edifying that he was born in a stable, in poverty, the boy child of a refugee couple, Joseph and Mary, fleeing from occupation forces. 

If God was trying to teach us a lesson there is a lifetime of lessons in that. Jesus wasn’t born in a palace. Or a grand big mansion. He was not born in a castle surrounded by riches and wealth. The baby Jesus was surrounded by farm animals. The stable was a cave. His bed was a manger. He grew up to become a working man, like Joseph the carpenter. His daddy. He grew up to teach love and fairness. His teachings are generally non-judgemental. Except when he addressed the great and the good. The wealthy powerful one. In the end he was executed, done to death by crucifixion, by the great and the good. The wealthy powerful ones.

I greatly appreciate those who work over Christmas. In hospitals and hospices. Nursing homes and orphanages. On the streets with the homeless and helpless. The Emergency Services. The ones who mind us. 

So it is good that we, believers or sceptics, should celebrate Christmas. And all humanity’s other great feast days. And that we should celebrate our own joyousness and good heartedness. Whether Christian or Jew, Muslim, Buddist or Pagan. Believer or Non Believer. We should celebrate and give thanks for the great benevolent givingness of decent hopeful people.

I have lost most of my faith in the institutional Christian church. I know great churchmen and women who I respect. I still like Mass, the sociability and assurances of it. But any institution which refuses to accord women full rights or which is more concerned about controlling instead of empowering, or with rules and obscure doctrinal matters has lost its way. Institutions tend to do that unless they are democratic and empowering. They forget their founding purpose. Or origins. In this case a baby born in a stable who grew up to mix with all the ‘wrong’ people.

I like the   crib. The baby Jesus. I remember there was a stuffed camel in the crib in Clonard. It was a childish treat to visit it. Or the Moving Crib in Parnell Square in Dublin. The simplicity of it. That’s the Christmas I like. I like Dadaí na Nhollag. Daddy Christmas. 

I like giving and receiving presents. There is nothing I need but I like not to be forgotten. I try not to open my presents until Christmas Day. 

I love that children are at the centre of it all. I like nice surprises. I love mince pies and good Christmas pudding. I love my Christmas dinner, especially when others cook and serve it and you get a wee drink as well.

And pre-pandemic and post-pandemic when extended family and friends break bread together. When we give silent thanks for the roof over our heads and the warm fire and family and friendship, the good food and company. 

And think fondly of absent friends. And others not as well off as we are. Lonely, impoverished isolated pilgrims. In this time of pandemic Christmas will be a strange occasion for many people. 

I dislike Boxing Day. I’m a Saint Stephen’s Day man. A day for the outdoors, for walks and Christmas Day left overs and lazing about. An old crocks match. And a decent film. Or a good book. Another wee drink or two. Peace and quiet. Celebrating life and the goodness of it.

So Christmas is about us minding each other. Trying to be kind. Making the effort. Like the Inn keeper who relented and gave Joseph and the very pregnant Mary shelter from the cold. 

Happy Christmas to you all.  That’s  the preaching over for this year. Mind yourselves. Be kind. And tolerant. And thankful. Nollag shona daoibh. 

 

A Visit to Bethlehem.

In December 2009 I visited Bethlehem as part of a week-long visit to Israel and Palestine for a documentary on Jesus. It was one episode of a Channel 4 series, The Bible: A History. My role in the episode was to discover the real Jesus – Jesus the man; the historical Jesus. We know only about one year of his life. Was it possible to look at what came before this? What type of person was he? Did he have siblings? Sisters? Brothers? Girl friends? Children? I was very taken by this challenge. I was intrigued by the opportunity to visit what many call ‘The Holy Land’ to reflect on the life of this singular figure.

As a strong supporter of the people of Palestine I also wanted to set this unusual opportunity in the context of today’s Israel and Palestine. I had visited the Palestinian territories before. Eight months earlier in April 2009 a delegation of us were there. At that time we met a huge number of NGOs, Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, women's groups, refugees, community organisations, all of the main Palestinian political parties and a Kadima member of the Israeli Parliament. We visited Ramallah and Bethlehem and spent two days in the Gaza Strip.

In December 2009 my visit was non-political. It was the run in to Christmas Day. Bethlehem was aglow with Christmas lights and colourful Christmas trees were evident everywhere. There were crowds of tourists visiting the Church of the Nativity. It is a World Heritage site and holds the grotto which is believed to be the birthplace of Jesus.

But Bethlehem is also an occupied city. The tragic irony of this was sharpened for me by my new and growing knowledge of the ancient history of the place gleaned from the conversations I was having about Jesus and the Palestine of 2000 years ago. At that time Bethlehem was an occupied town under Roman rule. Roman soldiers patrolled its streets and Roman policies dictated the economic and much of the social life of the region. Most importantly the Jewish people were denied their freedom – a denial which led to several failed and bloody rebellions.

In 2009 and still today the people of Bethlehem live under Israeli military occupation. The Israeli separation wall – a monstrous construction which stretches for hundreds of kilometres – and separates Palestinian families; separates farmers from their farming land and their water – overshadows Bethlehem. It surrounds the town. The Wall, the military fences and gates through which Palestinian workers must go each day to and from work and the armed Israeli soldiers are a constant reminder of military occupation. So too are the frequent reports of Israeli brutality, house demolition and killings.

Christmas is a time is for everyone and especially children, but if you are a Palestinian child living under Israeli military occupation then you face constant threat and danger. A report last week from ‘Defense for Children International – Palestine’ (DCIP) entitled - “Isolated and Alone: Palestinian children held in solitary confinement by Israeli authorities for interrogation” – reveals the detail of arrests, the conditions of detention, and interrogation practices against children by Israeli authorities. The report concludes that the Israeli practices amount to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international law norms. If you would like to read it google: https://www.dci-palestine.org/israels_isolation_of_palestinian_child_prisoners_amounts_to_torture

The report documents 108 cases in which Palestinian children arrested by the Israeli military were held in isolation for two or more days. The average duration of isolation was 14.3 days and 43 of the children endured a prolonged period of isolation of 16 or more days. The report states that, “The interrogation techniques used by Israeli forces are mentally and physically coercive...They combine intimidation, threats, verbal abuse and physical violence with the clear intention of obtaining a confession.”

I have now visited Israel and Palestine four times. I always leave feeling deeply saddened at the plight of the Palestinian people and the failure of the international community to do what it should to encourage a peace settlement.

2020 has been especially difficult for the Palestinian people.  The Coronavirus has made life much more difficult. Bethlehem is devoid of tourists. The hotels and the tourist shops are closed. 2021 is just days away. I wish the people of Palestine and of Israel a peaceful Christmas and I want to extend solidarity to the Palestinian people and to assure than that the people of Ireland continue to support their just demands for national sovereignty and independence.

 

 

DUP betrayed again by a British government and the British threaten the EU with gunboats

Betrayed again! 

British policy is dictated by British interests. It has always been so. The fact that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has again betrayed unionists over Brexit should have come as no surprise to anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of how British policy works. The British Prime Minister Palmerston spelt it out most clearly almost 200 years ago when he said: “We (England) have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow...” Irish Republicans and others who have had first-hand experience of British duplicity have a name for it – perfidious albion. 

The surprise is that so many unionists are surprised by the turn of recent events. Have they no memory of the twists and turns of Theresa May in her relationship with the DUP?  Do they not recall the many warnings given, including by this writer that the deal reached between the DUP and Theresa May in the summer of 2017 would end in tears? The DUP thought they had it made. They believed that the confidence and supply arrangement which would see them keep May in power would ensure them enhanced influence at the heart of Westminster.

Less than a year later it was starting to fall apart. As the British negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement in October 2018 Arlene Foster warned: “There cannot be a border down the Irish Sea, a differential between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.  The red line is blood red.” 

With the British and the EU close to a Withdrawal Agreement Theresa May employed the bureaucratic gobbledegook language of the Sir Humphrey Appelby character in Yes Minister and wrote to Arlene Foster talking about “specific alignment solutions in some scenarios.” Arlene Foster interpreted this as preparedness on the part of the British government to embrace “the idea of a border down the Irish Sea.” Foster wrote a letter back to Theresa May in which she said that “The Prime Minister’s letter “raises alarm bells for those who value the integrity of our precious union.”

When the announcement of the Withdrawal Agreement was made some days later Sammy Wilson went into verbal overdrive. He described it as “a punishment beating for the UK because they dared to vote to leave the EU.”

The DUP stopped voting with May. It even voted with Labour. The DUP turned its back on May and embraced Boris Johnson as the saviour of the union. Two months after Foster’s “blood red” comments Boris Johnson was given a rousing welcome at the DUP party conference in Belfast. He warned against the North being left behind as “an economic semi-colony of the EU”; attacked any suggestion of regulatory or customs checks between the North and Britain describing them as; “damaging the fabric of the Union”; called on the British government to “junk the backstop”; and in a bizarre reference to the Titanic warned against the EU being allowed to set the rules for the North. Johnson said: “The Titanic springs to mind and now is the time to point out the iceberg ahead.”

Two years later and the Johnson government has driven the ship right smack into the iceberg and the DUP is facing mounting criticism as more and more people come to realise the failure of its strategy and the disastrous impact Brexit is going to have on the North’s economy and their lives. Under Johnson’s leadership all of the commitments he gave two years ago to the DUP have been abandoned. Worse, from their perspective, there will be a border down the Irish Sea; customs posts will exist in northern ports and airports checking goods coming from Britain; and the North will remain within the EU single market. 

One consequence of all of this is that the words “betrayed” and “betrayal” have again been dusted off by political commentators and unionist politicians. The former UUP press officer and commentator Alex Kane was scathing of Boris Johnson last week. He wrote that the “sheer scale of this betrayal is unprecedented”.

The trouble is it’s not. In March 1972 the British government scrapped the Unionist regime at Stormont. In November 1985 they signed the Anglo Irish Agreement with Dublin. Hundreds of thousands marched in protest. Remember, ‘Never, Never Never!’ In December 1993 John Major signed the Downing Street Declaration with Albert Reynolds. In September 1997 the DUP walked away from the talks process because Sinn Fein joined it and stayed outside the process until 2007.

But then unionist political leaders since the Home Rule Bills of the 19thcentury, and especially the DUP in the last 50 years, have frequently relied on claims that unionists are being sold out or betrayed to mobilise support in opposition to any meaningful reforms. This tactic facilitated the creation of paramilitary groups like the UDA, UVF and Ulster Resistance. 

Last week the Belfast Newsletter wrote in an editorial: “The Prime Minister will always do what is right for him personally, then for his party, and then for England.” That same comment is true for every British Prime Minister. 

Remember the old adage? ‘Fool me once shame on you – fool me twice shame on me’. How should it go if you have been fooled so often and so shamelessly over so many decades? DUP-ed again?

So, if you are a unionist and are fed up with British politicians and unionist politicians, playing you for a fool, and betraying and using you in their own interests, consider a different future – a different approach. Consider engaging in the growing conversation about a new Ireland – a shared Ireland – in which new constitutional arrangements will protect and promote your interests. Remember, for Boris Johnson and others like him there is no precious union there is just eternal and perpetual English interests. 

 

Gunboat diplomacy

Brexit is the outworking of a little Englander mentality that harks back to the days of Empire. It believes that by cutting itself off from its ties with the European Union a ‘sovereign’ Britain can attain the power and prestige it once enjoyed as the Empire on which ‘the sun never sets’.

A key tactic of British imperial strategy for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and part of the 20th century, was the use of gunboat diplomacy. This was used when the British Empire wished to extend its economic and political influence and power, or curb the desire for independence by others, without the necessity of a full scale military intervention. British gunboats would be sent in to blockade ports and threaten governments. It was the brazen use of intimidation and the threat of greater violence to achieve its objective. 

Of course the British were not alone in using this tactic. All of the European colonial powers used similar tactics. However, as the largest Empire ever in the history of humanity, and with a navy providing it with unrivaled power, the use of gunboat diplomacy allowed the British to hold hundreds of millions of people across the world in thrall to its demands and exploitation.

Last week gunboat diplomacy was resurrected by the British government. The weekend headlines in the British tabloids spelt it out “We’ll send in gunboats.” Four military vessels are on standby to take to the seas around Britain to defend its fish.  One headline spoke of “Royal Marines abseiling from helicopters on to French vessels” and “arrest fishermen.”

Will the EU or indeed any of its member states feel moved to change their stance by a threat to use gunboats? Unlikely. What this does signify is that the narrow minded little Englander mentality that narrowly won the Brexit referendum in 2016 continues to be a potent force within the British political system. A further reason for Scotland and Wales to increase their efforts to achieve independence and a potent reminder to United Irelanders of the importance of achieving the unity referendum contained in the Good Friday Agreement and of winning that referendum. 

 

Hail The Antrim Hurlers.

Well done Antrim. Well done the legions of hurling enthusiasts who kept the faith in lean times and passed on the skills and love for hurling to new generations. Well done Darren Gleeson and the management and backroom team. Well done all their predecessors and our county board. But especially well done to our warriors who battled tenaciously against a stubborn Kerry side; who never gave up until the ref finally brought Sunday’s game to a close and with it an All Ireland win for our glorious county. Aontroim Abú. Thank you Antrim Hurling Champions. Fáilte abhaile Joe Mac Donagh.