Gerry Adams's Blog, page 26

Martin and Varadkar toxic twins of austerity

I hope you are all staying safe and well. My thoughts are with those who are sick and with their relatives, and with those who have suffered bereavement. Welcome back to our leader Mary Lou who was down with Covid-19.Notwithstanding the primacy and priority that the pandemic deserves, not least because of the deaths and distress it is causing I want to return to the need for a Government for Change in Dublin. In fact the pandemic and the recovery from it requires such a government.
In the days before the February General Election I described that election as part of the necessary process of the realignment of politics on the island of Ireland. I also remarked that this process has been slow and hesitant at times but that if republicans do our work well – think strategically, organise, be energetic and rooted, never give up and stay focused on the future, that a tipping point can emerge – a space in which significant and historic change is possible. I said: “This election looks like being such an event.”
It was. Although few - me included - foresaw the strength of the surge in the republican vote.
Sinn Féin won the popular vote and set about trying to put in place a government for change with those like-minded parties and individual TDs who had campaigned for change.  That work is ongoing. The options are limited but it’s a long game and it’s not over until it’s over.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael insist that they will not talk to Sinn Féin about government formation. Just like the Unionist used to do. It is deeply insulting, and totally unacceptable for anyone to disrespect and refuse to accept  all  voters as legitimate citizens whose votes are equal to every other vote. The support for this anti-democratic posture by sections of the media is also reprehensible. Shame on them all.
The establishment were flummoxed when Sinn Fein won the popular vote and emerged, following the election of An Ceann Chomairle, with the same number of elected TDs as Fianna Fáil and more than Fine Gael. For the first time ever, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael took less than 50% of the vote.
Micheál Martin who was behaving like An Taoiseach-In-Waiting, was shell shocked. Large sections of the electorate were clearly opting for change. Mr Martin was not one of them. Like Mr Varadkar his vision is conservative and confined by and large to preserving the status quo in the southern state. A consequence in part, of a hundred years of partition allied to a desire to hold on to power.
Both he and Leo Varadkar repeatedly rubbished any suggestion that they might enter coalition together. Micheál Martin said in January that “any government involving Fine Gael is not change.”  He later said: “we will not be entering into a grand coalition … the people want change … they want Fine Gael out of office … they’ve been there too long … they haven’t delivered on the key issues of housing and health and the impact of the costs living.” He described any u-turn on a coalition with Fine Gael as “Jekyll and Hyde behaviour “.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been election rivals for almost 100 years. The two parties emerged out of the violence and chaos of the Civil War. Cumann na nGaedheal governed the Irish Free State – established under partition - until 1932. It lost the general election that year to Fianna Fáil which had split from Sinn Féin in 1926. In 1933, Cumann na nGaedheal merged with the right wing National Centre Party and the fascist Blueshirts to form Fine Gael. 
Fianna Fáil posed as the anti-Treaty Republican Party. Fine Gael was the pro-Treaty party. Each was and is conservative and their economic record and policies reflect this. Fianna Fáil had a more populist approach which attracted a greater number of working class votes.
From 1932 every government formed in the South had either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael at their heart, often attracting over 70% of the votes. During this time they did very little to tackle the festering sore of discrimination in the North or any of the other evils of partition. Or the inequalities in their own state.
However in the 2016 general election this cosy arrangement of alternating power between these two parties began to falter. Fianna Fáil was the party largely responsible for the economic crash in 2008 and the subsequent horrendous deal with the Troika which handcuffed citizens for decades to come to a €50 billion banking debt.  Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs and many families saw sons and daughters emigrating to find employment. When Fianna Fáil was kicked out of office in 2011 Fine Gael and Labour ruthlessly implemented austerity policies that imposed huge hardship on citizens and cut public services to the bone, especially in the provision of housing and in the health service.  
Little wonder the government had to scramble to shore up these depleted services in the face of the pandemic. As always the people, particularly health workers and other frontline workers, responded with great courage and willingness to help out those most at risk. Solidarity, community, fairness and decency were and remain the core values embraced by most citizens.
The logic of the two conservative parties merging has long been mooted as a logical outcome of the sameness of their policies and politics. Following the 2016 general election, there was intense speculation and debate once again around this possibility. Micheál Martin was explicit: “… the best interests of the Irish people are not served by a government made up of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We made it very clear to the Irish people and those voting for us that we would not go into government with Fine Gael and we’re remaining consistent and true to that commitment.”
They came up with the next best option to serve their selfish self-interest – the confidence and supply agreement. For four years Fianna Fáil kept Fine Gael in power while pretending that they weren’t really in partnership and culpable for the crises in housing, homelessness and health. But this time the electorate were not fooled.
Then the awful pandemic kicked in and understandably the issue of government formation receded in public consciousness as we all came to terms with this dreadful plague.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have now produced their Framework document. Its grandiose title is “A draft documents between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to facilitate negotiations with other parties on a plan to recover, rebuild and renew Ireland after the Covid-19 Emergency.”
As Pearse Doherty has pointed out if Sinn Féin had published this document we would have been ridiculed, quite rightly, by the establishment media. It is dishonest, full of vague generalizations and aspirations, with no specific plans, timetables, targets, costings or policy detail. It’s a wish list with no substance.
Its primary aim is to keep Sinn Fein out of government and put Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government. It cannot deliver the kind of change that the majority of citizens in the South voted for in February. Why should citizens, or the smaller parties and independents being courted by them, trust Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? These parties are responsible for the very crises they now claim they want to end.
Their only firm economic commitment is that a FFFG government will comply with the strict conservative European fiscal rules. That can only mean a further squeeze on public services. Surely one of the big lessons of the pandemic crisis is the need, and the entitlement of citizens, to health care, childcare and eldercare as a right. Surely that’s the least the State should do in the common good. That means challenging the EU rules, not blindly complying with them.
The looming economic crisis resulting from Covid-19 also highlights the common sense need for the island of Ireland to confront these significant economic challenges on an all-Ireland basis. Our ability to co-ordinate and maximise our economic response, transform our healthcare services, protect our agricultural and agri-food sector and produce an effective climate change policy to meet the climate emergency, would all be more effective in an all-island context.
The approach of the British government has been disastrous. Boris Johnson is a disgrace. It makes no sense for anyone in Ireland to follow his policies, such as they are. It makes sense to have an all-Ireland approach to Covid 19 – that is what Mary Lou and Michelle O Neill and Sinn Féin’s Ministerial team have been pushing.  We have had an all island approach for animal health. We need an all island approach for human health. We have a huge advantage as an island nation and as we exit this pandemic this is critical.
In the section of their Agreement entitled ‘Mission: A Shared Island’, Fianna Fáil the so-called ‘Republican Party’ and Fine Gael the so-called ‘United Ireland’ party, couldn’t bring themselves to even use the term ‘United Ireland’. Their ‘Shared Ireland’ section contains nothing new.  The commitment to establish a “Unit within the Department of An Taoiseach to work towards a consensus on a united island” is a lift from Fianna Fáil’s 2020 Election Manifesto in January. It falls short of what is required to plan for the future. What now of Simon Coveney’s assertion: "I would like to see a united Ireland in my lifetime – if possible, in my political lifetime.”
I wonder did he bother putting this forward? Or did Michéal Martin knock him back? Leo Varadkar has similar lines on unity. Did he put forward any of these? 0r the proposals coming from civic society North and South which he received in a letter last November calling for the setting up of a “Citizens Assembly reflecting the views of citizens North and South, or a Forum to discuss the future and achieve maximum consensus on a way forward.” If he didn’t, why not?
And what of Micheál Martin’s promise that FF would ‘soon’ produce a white paper on Unity. That was nine years ago. Three years ago he promised a 12 point plan of ‘concrete proposals’ on unity. No sign of that in the new Agreement. Or anywhere else.
The truth is while acknowledging the importance of the Good Friday Agreement - what other choice have they? - the FFFG Framework document runs away from the need to plan for and win the referendum on unity which is a core commitment of the Agreement.
Its attitude on this important issue reflects its position on all the other primary issues. Rural Ireland barely gets a mention. There is no coherent plan to tackle homelessness. Or Childcare. The cost of living crisis. Eldercare. Climate Justice.
The National Women’s Council says the FFFG document will not provide a recovery for women. “Equality is not included in its values, showing a failure to understand the breadth and depth of inequality that exists in society.”
Inequalities in society are not inherent. They are caused by inequalities of power. It takes political vision and political will to change this. It can be done. But not by a FFFG government.
Building an Ireland of Equals is one of Sinn Féin’s core objectives. In the General Election Sinn Féin set out practical costed measures to tackle inequalities. Our main spokespersons, led by Mary Lou McDonald, were, and are, head and shoulders above their counterparts in the other parties. They were coherent, committed and passionate about can-do measures to resolve the housing and health crisis as well as Irish unity, childcare and the other challenges faced by working families and senior citizens at the hands of bankers, insurance companies, vulture funds and landlords.
Look at the much vaunted ‘takeover’ of private hospitals. I said at that time that it would be good to see the small print of that deal. However, the contractual arrangement that has emerged - insofar as the Minister for Health will reveal - illustrate that this is a very good deal for private hospitals, but potentially a very bad deal for the taxpayer.
As Louise O’Reilly has pointed out: “A minimum cost of at least €345 million has been agreed, but no maximum price has been set. The reality is that we don't know what the final cost of this deal will be, but it will be much higher than the Minister and the HSE have acknowledged publicly at this point. On top of all this, it is not certain what level of capacity is being utilised in these hospitals to the benefit of public patients as no figures have been provided.”
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rubbished Sinn Féin’s manifesto while failing to put forward proposals to rectify these inequalities. Now without a hint of embarrassment they proclaim ‘we know there is no going back to the old way of doing things’.  Whatever could this mean?
And why this apparent change of heart? It’s the voters stoopid!
In the time honoured tradition of self serving and opportunistic politicians the FF and FG leaders have figured out where the voters want to go and they are trying to get to the front so that they can pretend to be leading popular opinion. If it wasn’t so serious it would be funny.
Micheál Martin is certainly not funny. His objective is simple. He just wants to be Taoiseach. Nothing else is important. He cannot be trusted in that office. Neither can Leo Varadkar. They are the toxic twins of austerity. Their record speaks for itself. So it is good for the process of political realignment in Ireland that the sham fight between them is over and that they now have a political agreement. But it is not in the short and longer term best interests of citizens for them to cobble together a government.
So the objective of Sinn Féin and other progressives is clear. Don’t support a FFFG political carve up. Work together for a Government for Change.

Saving Moore Street.

Republicans across the island of Ireland and beyond commemorated the 1916 Easter Rising last weekend.  The online Sinn Féin events were all exceptional and I want to commend everyone involved in producing them. The National Commemoration broadcast in particular - including Mary Lou’s oration - was very uplifting.As we continue to commemorate these events, including in a few weeks the executions of the leaders, let’s look at the disgraceful way in which successive Irish governments have refused to preserve Moore Street and its part in the historic events of 1916.So where is Moore Street? Moore Street runs parallel to O’Connell Street- Sackville Street in 1916- from Parnell Street to Henry Street close to the GPO. It is the location of the final meeting of the Provisional Government following the Easter Rising and the final meeting place of five of the seven signatories of the Proclamation. It is also where the O Rahilly - a leader of the Volunteers- was killed. The O Rahilly did not want the Rising to proceed especially after the confusing cancellation order from Eoin MacNeill. However when it went ahead so did he. “I have helped to wind up the clock. I might as well hear it strike” he said.So 104 years ago the battle around the GPO was raging. In other parts of Dublin republican volunteers were holding off significantly larger British Army forces. On Friday evening, and with the GPO in flames, the embattled republican defenders evacuated the building. The O Rahilly was killed leading the first charge. As he lay dying in a shop doorway he penned a last note to his wife. Under constant fire his comrades later made their way to number 5 Moore Street – Dunne’s Butchers, and began tunnelling from house to house along the terrace.The following morning they wrapped Connolly in blankets and with great difficulty carried him through the holes they had forced in the walls to number 16 – Plunkett’s, a poultry shop. It was an agonising journey for Connolly.In a small room Seán MacDiarmada, Pádraig Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, James Connolly and Tom Clarke discussed the limited options open to them, including the possibility of rushing the British Army barricade on Parnell Street. Tom Clarke, who went to look at the situation, returned to tell the leaders that it could not succeed. The leaders came to the reluctant conclusion that surrender was the only choice open to them to avoid further loss of life.Julia Grenan, Winifred Carney and Elizabeth O’Farrell had stayed throughout Easter week in the GPO. O’Farrell was now tasked with the dangerous responsibility of going to the British lines. According to the book ‘Last Words’; “When Seán MacDiarmada asked Nurse O’Farrell to provide a white flag Clarke turned to the wall and broke down, sobbing. Miss Grenan and Miss Carney went across to him to try and consol him but instead they themselves dissolved into tears and Clarke comforted them.”O’Farrell walked down Moore Street to the British barricade. She was brought by British soldiers to Tom Clarke’s shop in Parnell Street where the British General Lowe insisted that he would only accept unconditional surrender. A short time later Pádraig Pearse, accompanied by Elizabeth O’Farrell, and wearing his military overcoat and hat, left the Moore Street headquarters of the Provisional government to meet General Lowe. This meeting occurred on Parnell St opposite Moore St and close to where the Kingfisher Cafe now is. In the original photograph taken of that meeting only Nurse O’Farrell’s feet can be seen and in many of the reproductions they were airbrushed out.After Pearse had signed the document of surrender O’Farrell was asked to deliver the surrender to the outposts which were still fighting. Shortly after 4.30pm the republican garrison left their Moore Street HQ and marched to the Gresham Hotel where they were searched before being taken to the Green in front of the Rotunda Hospital in Parnell Street. There they were harshly treated by their British captors. Éamonn Dore a member of the GPO garrison afterward wrote:“The night at the Rotunda was a bit of a nightmare and water and food did not trouble us. The officer in charge of the British military was a maniac. I saw Frank Henderson kneel to ‘relieve’ himself about day break and the officer snatched a rifle from a Tommy and struck him on the head, knocking in back on the grass ... About five o’clock on the morning of the Sunday, after the office had stuck Henderson, he took Tom Clarke, Seán MacDiarmada, and Ned Daly into the street near the Rotunda Picture House and stripped them down to their boots to search them... Tom Clarke had been wounded at the elbow joint and his arm was in a sling so that he could not get his coat off quickly. The officer pulled the arm straight, opening the wound and tore of his coat.” This then is Moore Street. It is at the centre of the battlefield site. “The laneways of history” according to former Taoiseach Enda Kenny.In any other state in the world such places are preserved, open to the public and are a place of pilgrimage. Ron Maxwell, a US filmmaker, describes it well. Quoted by the 1916 Relatives he says: “Battlefields are looking glasses into the world of our ancestors. Standing on their earth under their skies, is to be at one with them and to viscerally understand humanity’s connections across time. The generation that won independence lives in the ideas we honour, the architecture we preserve and the battlefields we can yet save.”But not in Dublin.14-17 Moore Street was adopted by the Irish government in 2007. Thirteen years later no work has begun. The four buildings are in a serious state of disrepair and are closed. The government ignored the recommendations from a consultative group several years ago and successfully appealed a landmark court ruling that Moore Street be preserved. It has pursued a short sighted policy which reduces the battlefield site to these four buildings. The rest are to be demolished as part of a redevelopment plan for the district.Last year the Moore Street Advisory Group submitted its ‘Special Report 2’ to the Minister for Culture. That report drew on the recommendations of the 2017 ‘Securing History – the Moore Street report’ which accepted that “there should be appropriate recognition of the history of the street and its part in the Rising”. Last year’s report called on the government to reconstitute the Moore Street Advisory Group with “representation from the Oireachtas, Dublin City Council, representatives of all of the participating groups on the present group, traders and an independent chair.” A year later and this report still sits on the Ministers shelf. In the meantime we now also know that an archaeology report for Courtney Deery Heritage Consultancy revealed that ‘middens’ or refuse dumps going back several hundred years were found behind 15 and 16 Moore Street. The report concludes that; “The houses and the material assemblage are ordinary and commonplace which through happenstance and historic events has elevated their significance to national importance... “ A second report by Kelly Colgan Architects recommends that nos 10 Moore Street “is of Architectural, Cultural and Social ‘Special Interest’” and should be protected. The same report also identifies numbers 20 and 21 as buildings of  “Architectural, Cultural and Social ‘Special Interest.” And finally this report recommends that “O’Brien’s Bottling Stores is of Architectural, Cultural and Social ‘Special Interest” and that it too is protected.Last month there was a fire at number 9 Moore Street which took three fire engines two hours to bring under control. The relatives of the 1916 Leaders are concerned that this will not be the last fire and that without significant and speedy progress there is a real danger to all of these remarkable buildings. Thirteen years after 14-17 Moore Street were designated as a national monument and after years of campaigning the government continues to resist protecting the battlefield site. What the British Army and its shelling of Dublin 104 years ago failed to achieve this government looks likely to succeed in destroying most of what the National Museum has described as “the most important historic site in modern Irish history.”So why does the government refuse to develop this site as a historic quarter which would be of huge educational, economic and social significance to the people of the Inner city, the capital and the nation, as well as a fitting memorial to the heroism of the men and women of 1916?Call me stupid but I don’t think it’s just because the state and the establishment are uncomfortable with the events of 1916 or their refusal to live up to the commitments of the Proclamation. That’s undoubtedly part of it. But it’s also because the vested interests, big business and the developers involved see this battlefield site as a potential source of great wealth for them. It’s all about corporate greed. In many ways the story of Moore Street is a metaphor for the state we are in. If you want to save Moore Street write to An Taoiseach at leo.varadkar @oir.ie or The Dept of An Taoiseach Merrion Street. BAC 2  James Connolly Heron and Patrick Coney speaking to the media in Moore Land

Easter and The New Republic; and Songs to be Sung

There probably has not been an Easter week quite like this one in modern Irish history. I have always liked Easter and although I have less connection now with the institution of the Catholic Church, Good Friday always is a special day for me. It is the one afternoon that I try to slip into a church to reflect on the life of Jesus and his execution by crucifixion all those years ago. This Good Friday the churches are closed. In fairness a church is not necessary for reflection. Any quiet place will do. But it will be strange nonetheless.
For those of us who commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising this will be a strange year also. There were Easters when repression and imprisonment, north and south, resulted in only a handful of activists coming together at gravesides and republican memorials to lay a wreath, read the Proclamation and list the names of our Patriot Dead. These were the Easters when successive Irish and Unionist governments banned such remembrances and used brutal tactics to enforce that ban. During the more recent years of conflict some Easter commemorations and republican memorials and graves were also bombed and damaged. 
This Easter we face a different kind of adversary. A silent, deadly enemy - the Coronavirus. So the traditional Easter Commemorations have been cancelled.But that doesn’t mean that republicans will not commemorate our patriot dead. On the contrary this year commemorations will be more personal, more intimate as we as individuals and as families participate in our own little commemorative events or join in the online programme devised by Sinn Féin and others during this unprecedented health emergency. This includes a programme of social media events and posts, videos - some historical, speeches, including the keynote Easter address by Party President Mary Lou McDonald TD, music,  encouraging children to produce art work reflecting on Easter, poetry, the flying of our national flag and the wearing of the Easter Lily.
Many of us have favourite rebel songs and poems of struggle about the many different periods of rebellion in Ireland from 1798, through Robert Emmet, the Young Irelanders, the Fenians, to Easter 1916 and the Tan and Civil Wars, to the more recent decades of conflict. So as more and more people put video messages on social media why not consider posting your favourite rebel song? Or sing it yourself? But only if you’ve the voice for it. That leaves you out RG. Brón orm chara.
Or pick a poem by Pearse or Connolly or Bobby Sands or the last words of republican heroes. If you are a relative or friend or admirer of one of our patriot dead consider putting up a photo and telling their story.
The book ‘Last Words’ by Piaras F. MacLochlainn is a personal favourite. It contains the letters and statements of the leaders who were executed after the 1916 Rising. The poems of Pearse and the defiant statement by James Connolly to his Court Martial are often quoted but I have always had a special grá for Tom Clarke. He spent 15 years in English prisons in the 1880s and 90s and endured long years of solitary confinement during which he was treated appallingly. In 1916 he was the first signatory of the seven who signed the Proclamation. In the early hours of 3 May his wife Kathleen, who was a prisoner in Dublin Castle, was brought to visit him in his cell under military escort. With a candle held by a British soldier for light and just hours before his execution Thomas Clarke gave Kathleen a message for the Irish people. It was brief but poignant.“I and my fellow-signatories believe we have struck the first successful blow for freedom. The next blow, which we have no doubt Ireland will strike, will win through. In this belief we die happy.”
The story of the love of Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford is well known. ‘Last Words’ contains a letter from Plunkett to Grace on 2 May in which he writes:“Listen – if I live it might be possible to get the Church to marry us by proxy – there is such a thing but it is very difficult I am told. Father Sherwin might be able to do it. You know how I love you. That is all I have time to say. I know you love me and so I am very happy.”
At 8pm on the evening of 3 May Grace was brought to the prison chapel. Joseph entered accompanied by a party of soldiers with fixed bayonets. The soldiers remained while Fr. Eugene McCarthy read the marriage service by the light of a candle. After the ceremony they had to separate. A few hours later in the early hours of 4 May Grace was brought back to the prison and met her husband in his cell. They had ten minutes. Plunkett was executed on the morning of 4 May along with Edward Daly, Willie Pearse, and Michael O’Hanrahan.Oh Grace just hold me in your arms and let this moment lingerThey'll take me out at dawn and I will dieWith all my love I place this wedding ring upon your fingerThere won't be time to share our love for we must say goodbye
A century ago this November Kevin Barry was executed in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. The song, which commemorates this young 18 year old, is a firm favourite with many. It has never lost its ability to stir the heart and remind us of the courage of this young man and his comrades. It has been recorded and sung countless times over the years, including by Paul Robeson and Leonard Cohen. Robeson’s version can be found at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjO9rIwn5M
In an earlier generation the essays and poems of Thomas Davis reminded people of the 1798 Rising and of the awful impact of British colonialism on Ireland. RG has an edition of a book – Essays and Poems: Thomas Davis - published by the Gresham Publishing Company sometime around the 1890s. Davis died at the age of 31 from Scarlett Fever in 1845 the first year of An Gorta Mór. One of his enduring works is “A Nation Once Again”.“And then I prayed I yet might seeOur fetters rent in twain,And Ireland, long a province beA Nation Once Again.”
Davis also wrote “The West’s Asleep” which in more recent years has been made famous by the Dubliners  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCT3LwL2Go  and the Clancy Brothers and others as “The West’s Awake.
So, this week and next use social media to post a personal reflection of the events in Dublin and elsewhere in 1916 and of all those periods of struggle in Ireland’s long history of resistance and our demand for freedom. It can be something from youtube or it can be you and those in your home or you and your friends singing, reciting, reading about Ireland’s patriot dead.
These are some of my personal words and poems and lyrics. Enjoy:Óró 'Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwM8pCAynbM Boulavogue, The Flying Column:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv4ifmS7H20 Four Green Fields: The Flying Column: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TuEkwktb9EFor What Died The Sons Of Róisín: Luke Kelly :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C14U7JYGRgA A Song for Ireland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwpEDYXAbJgThe Foggy Dew The Chieftans and Sinead O’Connor :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaS3vaNUYgs Johnston’s Motor Car ;  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GonUTdh7VBI The Boys of Wexford :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmBTjeowz4k Come out ye Black and Tans ; The Wolfe Tones ;  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORifieiZiP4 Henry Joy ; Tommy Makem ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4uu63jSp0k Mise Éire Seán Ó Riada ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbkUTDKZC3sBack Home in Derry; Bobby Sands/Christy Moore ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5_wZmTHfo8Legal Illegal ; Frances Black : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkHwkRfsqBQMná na hÉireann ; Seán Ó Riada ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HBP1ACekwQ
Have a great Easter. Wear An Easter Lily. Sinn Fein will be putting up a link to a site where you can download a Lily.
It is also my intention to start posting a regular podcast based on the blogs.The first went up yesterday. Its available on all platforms.
Remember those we commemorate and the Proclamation of the Republic in 1916, are all about the future. That’s what we struggle for. It’s what we look forward to. The New Republic.

A CHANGE HAS GOTTA COME

All of us are adjusting to our new routines and trying to come to terms with the real threat posed by the Corona Virus pandemic. The thousands of deaths in Italy and Spain are grim reminders of what may be coming our way and a deadly incentive for us all to stop close contact with other human beings and to keep to the health directives which now govern how we live. It would be easy to be overwhelmed by all this. We all know someone who has the virus. We know we could be next. So we watch the responses of those in the three governments which rule us as we wait for the next news report or the next instruction.
Don’t make this political some readers may say. Why not? It is political. I don’t want decisions about the well being of my family and friends to be made by a Jack the Lad in London who has vandalised the very health services which we are so dependent on. Neither do I want a caretaker Taoiseach without a mandate who did exactly the same thing when he was in power. Or his partner the Fianna Fáil Leader who did the same thing. I can just about put up with the novel form of governance which we tolerate in the North because of our peculiar circumstances but I want change. Not footery, fiddley cosmetic change. Not spin. No! I want real societal change. That includes a real public health service alongside other public services.
If ever there was a need for decent health services, properly resourced and funded, this pandemic has provided the evidence for it. It has also demonstrated the folly of partition with its two health and economic systems on our small island. Add to this a decade of austerity policies by the Tories in London and by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Greens and Labour in Dublin and you have health systems already unable to meet the normal needs of citizens. Faced with a pandemic virus, which has required an unprecedented societal response, our two health systems have been fighting a desperate battle to provide the necessary health care to the growing numbers of citizens succumbing to Covid-19.
Last week along with millions of others across these islands I applauded the courage and selflessness of health service staff who are putting their lives on the line against an insidious viral enemy. Like most of you I know family members, neighbours, friends who go to work every day within our health system. They don’t see themselves as heroes. But that is who they are. Heroes, who deserve our solidarity and our thanks. They also deserve personal protection equipment that is fit for purpose and intensive care units and ventilators sufficient to meet the needs of their patients.
It is a fact that the Health Service in the North has always been underfunded. This has grown worse in the last decade under British conservative governments, supported by Unionist parties. As a result waiting lists have lengthened, and accident and emergency departments are under resourced.
In the South the two tier health service created and funded by successive Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour governments, and the austerity policies of these parties, created enormous gaps in health care provision. Acute hospital beds were cut, a moratorium on hiring nurses and health staff was imposed, and investment in the health service was slashed. Beds in Intensive Care Units were dramatically cut.
According to the World Health Organisation, the Irish state is “unique among EU countries in not providing universal coverage of primary care ... its system of entitlement to publicly financed healthcare is complex”. WHO concluded that: “This results in not only unmet need but also inequitable and inefficient patterns of use ... These barriers are substantial relative to other EU countries, especially for primary care.”
The OECD has made an equally damning assessment of the British health system.
The decision therefore by the government in Dublin to take control of private hospitals was belated but welcome. It would also be interesting to see the small print of that agreement. But it is only for the duration of this emergency. After the crisis is over the government’s ideological stance will return us to the status quo - a two tier health service in which patients must pay for access to GPs and receive bills for treatment in A&E departments.
It is this same ideological position that caused Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour’s failure to invest in public services. The Director General of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) acknowledged this last November. He cited as evidence the ongoing crises in housing and homelessness, the scandal of a health service, as well as deficiencies in childcare provision, public transport and education.
All of this led to a widespread public desire for change. This became evident in February when Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party in the state in the general election. The Coronavirus crisis has amplified this demand for change. It is now a constant and growing refrain on social media platforms, and in newspaper articles and opinion pieces. How often have you heard or read it said that things can never be the same again. That there must be change. That we can’t simply continue as before. That we have to change the way we do our politics. That this global crisis must lead to fundamental societal change - economic, social, health and political change.
Political decisions needed to protect families, secure jobs for the future, maintain a reasonable level of income have been forced on reluctant governments in Dublin and London.
Note however that the bankers and insurance companies continue to rip off citizens. Note how those most likely to succumb to the virus are the elderly, the vulnerable, the poor, the homeless. citizens in Direct Provision, in nursing homes, in Traveller sites and frontline health workers.
There is a real danger that out of these hard times we will see the old order re-invent itself. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in government is not change. Remember how in the aftermath of the 2016 general election there was much talk of ‘new politics,’ of a new way of doing things. Editorial and opinion writers and many political commentators wrote reams about the transformation heralded by this ‘new politics’. But thankfully citizens saw through this. It was all a scam – it was all a lie. The ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail was coalition by another name.A Fine Gael – Fianna Fáil carve up coalition will just be more of the same. The spin will be different but the core conservative politics will remain unchanged.
So too in the North for as long as we are tied to Britain.
Irish republicans have a different vision of the future from the establishment parties. We are for a national republic – a new Republic. But we dont have to wait until then to make change . We can insist here and NOW on the highest standard of services and protections for all citizens equally. We can demand parity of esteem and equality of treatment, opportunity and outcome. Thats what the Good Friday Agreement sets out.
In the here and now we should all be demanding real change which benefits citizens, protects working families, takes care of the disadvantaged, and invests in public services. That’s what citizens deserve. But that will only happen if we make it happen.
This is not pie in the sky. This is doable. Society on this island is already shifting. Changing demographics and political allegiances, new ideas and concepts, new leaderships are reshaping Ireland today. Let’s not allow the self-interests of the old conservative parties to dictate the limits of our potential or of our future. Let us argue for a real National Health Service across the island of Ireland with seamless and maximum co operation between both parts.
As we face into whatever distress and tragedy the pandemic serves up let us resolve that our health workers and carers will never again have to beg or borrow protective clothing. Let us resolve that our nurses will be properly paid and that there will be enough of them. Let us resolve that our doctors and patients deserve the best facilities. Let us resolve that our elderly and vulnerable citizens will have their rights. Let us resolve that heath service is one of these rights. It is not a business or a privilege.
And let us resolve that the best people to take these decisions for the people of this island are the people of this island. Not some Jack the Lad in London.

UP THE REBELS.

Tomás MacCurtain lying in state 100 years ago
The necessary cancellation of Easter Rising Commemorations does not mean we should not celebrate these events. We can all wear an Easter Lily. Wherever possible wreaths can still be laid, Proclamations read, a moments silence observed. All this can be done by one or two people while keeping social distance. No need for big crowds. No need even to leave our homes. Find a quiet space. Remember fallen comrades. Read a Pearse or MacDonagh poem to yourself. Sing or play a patriotic song. Reflect on the lives, the work, the courage of the men and women of 1916 and those who followed their example since then. Reflect on the past. Plan for the future.

Back in the day Easter Commemorations were banned by the old order in Belfast and Dublin. But intrepid republicans usually found a way to break the ban. Some even went to gaol for doing so. Back in the day in punishment cells or lockup, as political prisoners, separated from other incarcerated comrades, we would pay our own individual homage to the past and the future. On our ownie-ohs in a bare prison cell. Alone. But together. Separated. But united.In the last eight years of the ‘Decade of Centenaries’ there have been many innovative, emotional, often inspiring, frequently exuberant, and poignant commemorations across the island of Ireland and beyond. For me one of the most memorable and goosebump moments occurred on a crisp Easter Sunday morning in 2016. Thousands came to the Sinn Féin commemoration outside the GPO in Dublin. In one unforgettable moment they spontaneously raised their voices acappella. It started like a whisper and grew in defiant harmony as the echo of the song swelled up to fill O’Connell Street as proud rebels joyously sang ...“A Nation once again, A Nation once again, And Ireland, long a province, be A Nation once again!”A Nation once again, A Nation once again, And Ireland, long a province, be A Nation once again!”All of these commemorations marked events that took place in the upheaval that shook Ireland a century ago. The signing of the Ulster Covenant; the Dublin Lock-out; the formation of the Irish Citizen’s Army, the Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBán; gun-running by the UVF and Irish Volunteers; the 1916 Easter Rising, The Proclamation and the execution of the leaders; the 1918 election; the establishment of the First Dáil in January 1919 and more.Many of these were organised by local communities proud of their history.1920 - a century ago- was an especially important year. For many it was the tipping point for much that has occurred since. It was a year in which the IRA demonstrated to the British government that resistance to British rule was no short term aberration but a popular struggle for change that could not be militarily defeated. Most of Trim in County Meath was destroyed by the RIC and Black and Tans; so was Balbriggan and Cork city. Little wonder patriotic citizens were outraged by the Irish governments intention recently to honour these forces.In December 1920 the British passed the Government of Ireland Act which imposed partition and established two states on our island.Two of Corks Lord Mayors died in the cause. Last Friday - March 20 - was the anniversary of one of these - the murder of the Rebel City’s first Sinn Féin Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain. He had been elected to the position of Mayor after the local government elections on 15 January 1920. That election, following on from the 1918 election, saw significant gains for Sinn Féin. The January elections were for urban and district Councils. Sinn Féin and Labour candidates and other nationalists won 172 of the island’s 206 Councils. Later in June Sinn Féin won 338 out of 393 local government bodies, including 36 rural districts out of 55 in Ulster. One consequence of this was that unionists moved quickly to introduce a major gerrymandering of council boundaries in the six counties. They ended the PR system of election, and introduced property qualifications for the vote which left tens of thousands of nationalists with no franchise in local government elections.At his election as Lord Mayor of Cork on January 31, Tomás MacCurtain pledged that he would stand by the principles of the Republic declared at Easter 1916 and to promote Irish freedom. He proposed that the Council give its allegiance to Dáil Éireann. He believed that local authorities were key to the success of the First Dáil. He said: “it was up to local bodies now to pledge their allegiance to the government set up by the representatives of the people – to pledge their allegiance to Dáil Éireann.” He then raised the tricolour over Cork City Hall. MacCurtain’s election was greeted with loud applause and a rendition of Amhrán na bhFiann – A Soldier’s Song - which at that time was generally referred to by the public as the Sinn Féin song.As well as being Lord Mayor MacCurtain was also Commanding Officer of the Cork No 1 Brigade of the IRA. He was very popular, a teacher of Irish, an advocate of the Gaelic League, and a diligent public representative.As a young man MacCurtain had travelled the roads and lanes of rural Munster promoting the Gaelic League and teaching classes in Irish. Later he travelled the same roads promoting and organising the Irish Volunteers in Cork. After the 1916 Rising he was interned. On his release and following the commencement of the Tan War MacCurtain emerged as a popular leader in the IRA.In the early hours of March 20th 1920 – MacCurtain’s 36th birthday – armed RIC men with blackened faces led by Inspector Oswald Swanzy forced their way into his home. It had been raided over 20 times in previous months. His wife Eilís later said that “they seemed to know the house better than I did.” Two men ran upstairs to his bedroom. As Tomás MacCurtain opened the bedroom door he was shot twice in the chest. A third shot was also fired. He fell to the floor in front of his family. An hour later, as the family were kneeling by his bed, British soldiers arrived and searched the house, including the bed on which MacCurtain’s body lay.His murder sparked outrage and was widely condemned. Tomás MacCurtain’s body, dressed in his Irish Volunteer uniform, was brought to Cork to lie in state in Cork Cathedral. The funeral cortege was said to have been the biggest ever seen in the city.On 17 April 1920, a coroner’s inquest was held into the death of Mac Curtain. The jury returned a verdict of murder against RIC DI Oswald Swanzy, British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland John French, Viscount French, and the Inspector General of The Royal Irish Constabulary T.J. Smith.The British, in an effort to protect Swanzy from IRA reprisals, transferred Swanzy from Cork to Lisburn.Volunteers of the First Battalion, Cork No. 1 Brigade went there to kill him. They did so on 22 August, as Swanzy was leaving Christ Church Cathedral, Market Square, Lisburn.It is widely believed that Mac Curtain’s personal handgun was used to kill Swanzy.Catholic residential areas of Lisburn were burned in revenge by loyalists. Several people were later prosecuted for the burnings. Loyalists attacked Catholic areas of Belfast. A total of 33 people died over the next ten days in sectarian rioting and shooting in the city.Tomás MacCurtain was the first of two Cork Lord Mayor’s to die that year. Seven months later, in October 1920, MacCurtain’s friend and comrade Terence MacSwiney died in Brixton prison after 73 days on hunger strike. MacSwiney, who replaced Tomás MacCurtain as Lord Mayor after his murder, gave the oration at his funeral. He said that although MacCurtain’s life’s work had been interrupted the fight for freedom would carry on.


This year as part of a programme of events to mark the 1920 centenary in Cork the GAA produced special commemorative jerseys for its senior footballers and hurlers. This is an innovative way to honour our history. Fair play to those involved. The gansaí front has an image of Tomás MacCurtain on the left and Terence MacSwiney on the right, with Cork burning as the backdrop. The back of the jersey has an image of the commemorative stone at Kilmichael which marks the ambush in November 1920 of a force of British auxiliaries. It was the biggest engagement of the Tan War and saw 16 auxiliaries killed and three IRA volunteers die.Thankfully those days of conflict, including in our own time, are over. But we should not be reticent about remembering them. We should do so respectfully and in a tolerant way. Revisionists should be challenged intelligently and robustly. There is now a peaceful way to win freedom. But it was not always the case. So whatever freedom we have or will have in the time ahead we should never forget the pivotal role of rebels in that cause.Easter is now only two weeks away. The Coronavirus crisis means that this year there will be none of the big public displays of Republican solidarity with our fallen comrades and their families.So lets find innovative and imaginative ways to remember them, even on our own. Let’s post our contributions on social media. Let’s celebrate the 1916 Rising and the struggle for freedom. Let’s honour our past and plan for the future. Alone if need be. But together. Separate. But United.

SOLIDARITY

There is only one issue to write about this week. The Coronavirus is dominating the news agenda and conversations in homes, among those at work, on social media and in every other way human beings communicate. It’s all about Covid-19 – Coronavirus. So what can I write about it that hasn’t already been written? Not a lot probably. But that never stopped me before.To begin let me say that we need to follow the science. We need to take the advice of the experts and ignore all rumours and unverified information. We can stop the virus from spreading or minimise the spread by washing our hands properly and often and by minimising our close contact with other human beings. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get into the fresh air or take a good walk. It doesn’t mean we cut ourselves off completely from everyone else. Unless we have the virus of course or unless we have had contact with someone who has it.We also need to stay calm. It’s easy to get stressed especially because of the wall to wall coverage. So try to avoid any news coverage or conversations which make us anxious. Don’t spread the anxiety. Try to help neighbours and friends. Show solidarity.All this will pass. If we take proper and appropriate precautions we will minimise its effects. We as a species will survive it. Of that there is no doubt.Decisive leadership will enhance and maximise our ability to do this.How governments in Europe, in London, Dublin and the USA are responding to this health crisis has become a source of great controversy. In the North the decision of the First Minister and of the Ministers of Health and Education not to close schools, colleges, universities and public buildings in line with the South caused considerable outrage. Their stance mirrored that of the Johnson government in London. It’s so-called ‘herd immunity’ strategy has been widely criticised The British approach is at odds with that taken by the Irish government, by Italy, France, Spain, Germany and others. They have taken initiatives to restrict movement, increase testing, while encouraging citizens to stay at home and adopt a more rigorous hygiene regime. It makes sense for the two governments on the island of Ireland with responsibility for the health and welfare of citizens to co-operate in erecting barriers to the spread of the virus, including a lock-down of institutions and public places; facilitate testing; co-ordinate medical resources and so on. This is not, as some have spuriously claimed, about the promotion of a uniting Ireland agenda – it is about recognising the interconnected nature of our two jurisdictions, the overlap between communities and the fact that we live together on a small island.All of this is very important and necessary. So is positivity. Social media images of citizens in Italy and Spain standing on their balconies singing and applauding each other is evidence that in the midst of a human crisis people have the courage and spirit to rise above the fear and uncertainty. We also should appreciate our health workers. They are the heroes and heroines of this time, of all time. Compassion, caring, a willingness to help others is a fundamental part of who we are as human beings. It takes real courage who risk contamination by working closely with those who are afflicted with this virus. We have a lot to be thankful for. If we learn anything at all it must be the need for a properly funded and fully resourced public health service. We should also be grateful that we are not as badly off as others who are confronted by disease in other parts of the world.Every year hundreds of thousands of men, women and children die from treatable and preventable diseases. In 2017 one and a half million people died from diarrheal diseases globally. One third – over half a million – were children. In our own place at this time a huge emphasis is being placed on the simple act of handwashing. The World Health Organisation says that handwashing with soap and decent water would have led to a significant risk reduction of 65%. Hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved by soap and clean water. But for these human beings there is no soap. There is no water of a decent quality. Why not?Every day over twenty thousand people die from hunger and three thousand die from preventable malaria. Why?Last week a shipwreck off the coast of Libya brought the known death toll among migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to twenty thousand since 2014. It is likely that many more have drowned without their deaths being known. According to the International Organisation on Migration, “two-thirds of the fatalities we have recorded are people lost at sea without a trace”. These are just some of the human crises, along with climate change and war and natural disasters which continue to take the lives of people every day across the world. These global crises demand a global response. So, it is important as we meet the challenge of Covid-19 that we do not forget those others who are less fortunate that us.

Chieftain's Walk Postponed

Martin and Buttons on Derry's Walls
Chieftain’s Walk postponed 

I wrote this blog and it was published by the Andersonstown News on Wednesday. However, the crisis created by the Coronavirus led Martin’s family to postpone it.
This is their statement and below is my blog.“The family of Martin Mc Guinness have taken the ‘difficult but necessary’ decision to postpone this year’s 2020 Chieftain’s Walk amid the concerns over Coronavirus, it has been confirmed.

Announcing the decision, Fiachra Mc Guinness said: “As a family we want to thank everyone who has already registered for this year’s Chieftains Walk which had been scheduled to take place on March 29th.

“As ever, we gratefully appreciate your support and it has been a difficult decision for us to take to postpone the event.

“However, in light of the ongoing situation regarding Coronavirus, we also feel it is a necessary decision in order to play our part in helping to prevent the spread of this virus.

“It is our firm intention to reorganise the Chieftains Walk as soon as practically possible, registration remains open, and further details will be announced when they are confirmed.

“For now though, we would reiterate our thanks to all those who have registered and supported the Chieftains Walk over the past two years. It remains a great source of comfort to us as a family.” 
The Chieftain’s Walk.Martin McGuinness died on 21 March 2017 from amyloidosis – a genetic disease. The following year his family and friends came together and organised the first Chieftain’s Walk to raise money for the Cancer Centre at Altnagelvin Hospital. This year’s Chieftain’s Walk will be on March 29th.I joined with thousands of others in that first walk. We started at Glenowen in Derry and walked the five and a half miles to the Stone Fort of Grianán of Aileach on the Inishowen peninsula. If you have never visited Grianán put it on your to-do list. It’s a five-metre-high, four-metre-thick circular wall which gives an amazing view of Lough Foyle, and especially of Inch Island and Lough Swilly.It was one of Martin’s favourite places. He went there many times. He was especially fond of the skyscape when on a clear night billions of stars and galaxies shine down on Donegal. Many a time he and I walked out the Groarty Road to Grianán. Whatever the weather. It is a dramatic and spiritual space. A place of quiet beauty. So, for me Grianán is forever tied up with Martin McGuinness.Martin’s family have their roots in Donegal. Na hUilli, anglicized to the Illies, north of Buncrana, on the Inis Eoghain peninsula. Inis Eoghain and Derry are on opposite flanks of that same broad finger of high ground between Lough Swilly and Lough Foyle. The British border winds its invasive unwelcome way through this beautiful landscape creating two separate jurisdictions and separating County Derry from County Donegal.It was on Inis Eoghain that Martin spent his childhood summers. When Martin and Bernie got married it was in Cockhill chapel, outside Buncrana. It was there that Martin got Colette and I the use of a caravan for me to recuperate in after I was shot and wounded in 1984. So I also got to know the magic of the Inis Eoghain peninsula.Martin was also very much a child of Derry. He loved the City, its places and people. He was born in 1950. As a young person growing up in Derry in the 1950s and 60s Martin was no more interested in politics that everyone else his age. He had the same interests as everyone else his age. But politics intruded on his life. He was part of a nationalist community that lived in a unionist dominated apartheid state. A state that did not want Martin or his family or his community. In a City that had become a byword for electoral gerrymandering and discrimination.  The civil rights movement was born out of this injustice. Derry was in the vanguard of the campaign for justice. Like many other young people Martin took part in the civil rights marches. He witnessed at first hand the violent response of the unionist regime and its paramilitary forces. It was into this maelstrom that a young Martin McGuinness and many other Derry wans bravely stepped. It was this Martin McGuinness - young, idealistic, courageous, a leader – who I met for the first time behind the barricades in Derry. His politics were shaped by the Derry experience, by his love of Derry and by his mother Peggy’s homeplace in Inishowen.There was a ready warmth in his smile. A genuine openness and a pleasant, unpretentious personality. In the years that followed Martin and I shared many adventures and memorable times. Some funny, some not.During the battle of the funerals I remember him in Milltown Cemetery - when we were surrounded by lines of battle wielding, riot clad RUC men –telling everyone to turn round and face them. To look them in the eye. Not to be afraid. To remember that they were the oppressors and that it was we who desired freedom and justice.When Michael Stone attacked the Gibraltar funerals 32 years ago this month Martin was there helping the wounded, bringing calm to a dangerous situation. He was fearless. He was a leader.It was he who was our representative in the secret talks with the British government in the early 90’s. He led the first Sinn Féin delegation to the British at Parliament Buildings in December 1994. He was in the first republican delegation to hold talks in Downing Street in December 1997. He was our Chief negotiator – the man who sat across the table from British Prime Ministers and Ministers and Unionist representatives and argued for change.On one occasion in 2002 during a meeting in Tony Blair’s inner office in Downing Street Martin forcefully told him not to invade Iraq. Martin told him that if he thought the war in Ireland was bad invading Iraq would be so much more. We both urged Blair to turn back from what would be a disastrous course for the people of that region and for Britain. Blair ignored us.In March 2007, after several years of difficult negotiations, Ian Paisley joined Martin and I in a press conference at Parliament Buildings to announce we had a deal. Two months later Martin and Ian Paisley and became joint First Ministers. In the years that followed Martin made a remarkable personal and political journey, first with Paisley, then with Peter Robinson and then with Arlene Foster.He remained a steadfast republican, unbowed and unbroken throughout his life of activism. He never deviated from his republican principles; his belief in the unity of the Irish people in a free, independent, united Ireland; or in his humanity. He always did his best – he gave it one hundred percent.So join us and Bernie and the McGuinness clann on The Chieftain’s Walk on March 29th.The funds raised will go to the Martin McGuinness Peace Foundation which was established in his memory. The Foundation will celebrate Martin’s life, work and achievements by promoting his aims of reconciliation; unity and peace; social and economic change; rights; equality; inclusivity and diversity and community empowerment through an inclusive program of education, sport, debate, art and culture which will be open to all.This year’s Chieftain’s Walk will have a new route from previous years. Martin was very fond of walking along Derry’s Walls. It wouldn’t have been unusual to see him walking along the walls with his dog Buttons. The Chieftain’s Walk will begin at 1.30pm at Westland Street, walking along the Derry Walls and finishing at the Long Tower Centre.Bígí linn.

Micheál Martin fails the Coca Cola test

There have been some surreal moments on the back of the recent election results as the political and media establishment in the South tries to come to terms with Sinn Fein emerging as the largest party. Acting Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tried to portray the series of Townhall meetings that the Sinn Fein leadership has been holding as the next stage of a “campaign of intimidation and bullying”. One after another acting Fine Gael Ministers took to Twitter to tell citizens that Sinn Féin shouldn’t be holding meetings. Whoever is advising Fine Gael is doing a great job for Sinn Féin.The accompanying extensive media coverage following Varadkar's accusation and the criticism by his Acting Ministers did more to advertise our events than anything we could have possibly done. As a result all of the meetings were standing room only. The Liberty Hall meeting was especially memorable as Pearse Doherty – in fine voice and form – stood outside on a cold February evening and delivered a riveting speech to the overflow crowd.Micheál Martin predictably lost the run of himself in the Dáil when it met to elect the Taoiseach. Having already lost the popular vote to Sinn Féin and been pushed into second place in the vote for Taoiseach by Mary Lou, Martin’s diatribe against Sinn Féin reflected his obsession with us. It was a regurgitation of all the bile he has spouted over recent years. Eoghan Harris, who could have written the speech, extolled Martin’s verbosity in his Sunday Independent column. Martin’s speech was he said; “a magisterial speech whose historic important was missed by most of our craven media.” I was definitely listening to a different speech! Harris and the Sunday Independent are renowned for their vitriolic attacks on John Hume during our efforts to construct a peace process in the 1990’s. Last week Micheál Martin said: “If you listen to the dishonest narrative from Sinn Fein you would imagine we have had Ministerial positions for the last nine years. Between 2011 and 2016 we had 20 seats. Hardly the establishment party of that period ... In 2016 until now we weren’t in government. These are the facts.” But everyone knew that in partnership with Fine Gael, Micheál Martin had agreed a Programme for Government; negotiated and agreed four budgets, which punished workers and their families; elected two Fine Gael Taoisigh (Enda Kenny and then Leo Varadkar); and despite public outrage over the crisis in homelessness, housing and health Martin ensured that no-confidence motions in the Dáil against the two responsible Minister’s failed. He also opposed discussions in the Dáil to plan for Irish Unity.  In this election the electorate saw through all of this. Consequently, instead of the 50 plus seats he confidently expected Micheál Martin lost seats and returned 37 TDs.In addition, during the course of the election Micheál Martin pledged that Fianna Fáil would not go into government with Sinn Féin or Fine Gael. He now claims he has a mandate from the electorate not to speak to Sinn Féin about government. However, last week he met Acting Taoiseach Varadkar and appears willing to ignore his equally strong mandate not to go into government with Fine Gael! Clearly, it’s not about change. It’s about holding on to power.Micheál Martin’s attacks on Sinn Féin are not new. Since 2002 when Nicky Kehoe almost won a seat in Bertie Ahern’s - then Taoiseach – constituency in Dublin Central, Fianna Fáil leaders have been worried about the potential electoral threat posed by Sinn Fein. Their claim to be ‘ The Republican Party’ doesn’t sit well because Mr. Martin fails the Coca Cola test. When faced with the choice between Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil citizens are increasingly going for the real thing.For example, three years ago Micheál Martin announced that Fianna Fáil was going to produce a 12 point plan on Unity. Like the promise to contest seats in the North it has yet to happen. Their general election manifesto did not contain any meaningful unity proposals. In the almost ten years I was in the Dáil Micheál Martin used every opportunity to attack Sinn Féin. Facts are irrelevant. The crisis in the North was shamefully exploited time and time again. At Arbour Hill in 2015 he claimed that Sinn Féin was not fit for government. In September of that year he called on the Irish and British governments to suspend the Good Friday institutions. When the institutions did collapse in 2017, because of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal and the actions of the DUP, he repeatedly claimed, despite knowing where the blame really lay, that he couldn’t “comprehend” why there was no Executive and Assembly. This from a political leader whose long tenure in various Ministerial roles saw Fianna Fáil Ministers accused and some convicted of corruption. He did nothing about this.Instead of constructively engaging as the leader of Fianna Fáil to find solutions he has spent his time demonising Sinn Féin. His accusations around so-called ‘Shadowy Figures’, despite his relationship with some of these, is one example of this. Nor can we separate this Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael demonization strategy against republicans from the recent threats against Mary Lou McDonald, Michelle O’Neill, and Gerry Kelly and the two attacks in Belfast.The real reason for Micheál Martin’s hostility to Sinn Féin was given by him many years ago in an argument he had with Martin McGuinness during negotiations at Hillsborough Castle. An angry Micheál Martin said: “You won’t do to us what you did to the SDLP.”The Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael objective is to persuade public opinion that Sinn Féin cannot be trusted in government. If they fail to agree on a coalition – a carve up of political power - and a second election is called their negative campaigning will intensify. In fact the establishment is fighting that election now.Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar are not about change. They are not about tackling the needs of the growing numbers of homeless, or those on trollies or the increasing hospital waiting lists, or a United Ireland. They are about trying to sustain decades of power and influence. They are about defending a status quo that many want to change. As Mary Lou expressed it in her speech in the Dáil which has now been viewed over two million times: “If you keep reaching desperately for the past, it means you are not up for the future.”So Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are content to confront Sinn Féin about the past. Their refusal to talk about the future with us, or to acknowledge the right of our voters to be represented at such discussions, is shameful.Now the Fianna Fáil leader is telling Unionists that it’s ok for them to be in government with Sinn Fein in the North but that Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael are too good to do that in the South.You can fool some of the people some of the time but ...

IF YOU WANT TO GET AHEAD GET A HAT.

Bairbre de Brún, Mise, Lucilita Breathnach and Martin at the centenary celebrations in Dublin 2016
I like hats. And caps. I have quite a nice collection of headwear, worn and aged, like myself, dispersed between Dublin and Belfast, Donegal, the car boot and all the places in between. It used to be customary for men to wear headware. Look at any old photos. Dunchers and flatcaps galore. Peaky blinders in multitudes outside factories, mills, shipyards, farmyards, public houses, marts, markets, country fairs. Hats were also popular. Paddy hats, trilbys, bowlers. Though bowlers were more for Orangemen on parade or English civil servants on The Mall. Country men were hat and cap people. Christy Ring even played hurling in a cap. So my grá for head gear used to be widespread. And now its coming back into vogue. Especially the omnipresent baseball cap. It is the preferred head covering for rappers, golfers, other sports people, urban youth.

Mise agus Cleaky
I have a couple of baseball caps. And a few hand knitted wooly hats. Síle Darragh knitted me a dark blue Tea Cosy type one. Lucilita a white one. Both were too big. But very warm all the same. Wooly ear warmers. There are really fine knitted yokes for sale in expensive shops in the west of Ireland. But they are very dear. I covet one of those. Hint hint. Extra Large.
I also have a Stetson. It was presented to me in Texas. It has an enormous brim. I only wear it indoors, usually while watching Westerns on TV. I haven’t the nerve to wear it outdoors. Before the presentation our man in America, Larry Downes, was very concerned that the Stetson should not be a black one. Apparently the bad guys wore black ones. So he insisted that my Stetson would be white. So it is. I never told Larry but I preferred a black one. I favour Jesse James or Billy the Kid over Hopalong Cassidy or The Lone Ranger. But Larry had his way.
I have another hat which I’m also shy about wearing outdoors although I like it very much. It’s not unlike the one Martin McGuinness wore during the Easter Centenary events. I wore mine as well. I would like to have the nerve to wear it more often the way Martin started to do. Martins hat now features in many posters and pictures of him. I think the hat darkens his face too much and he looks too stern. He was stern sometimes but my best memories of Martin are when he was hatless and happy.
One day he and I were going to see Brit Secretary of State Peter Mandelson. On the coat stand outside his office a hat was perched. To Martin’s chagrin I put the hat on my head and we breezed in to talk to Peter.
“I have a hat like that” Peter told me cheerfully. “I wear it in the grounds of Hillsborough House”.
“If you want to get ahead get a hat” I replied, removing it and placing it on my knee. “You have very good taste in headware. That’s something we have in common.”
When we finished our meeting I put Peter’s hat back on my head and Martin and I left.
“You can’t take his hat” Martin hissed at me “That’s stealing”.
“Stealing! They stole our country” I said. “In the gospel according to Cleaky, I’m liberating it. This is appropriating the Imperialist Misappropriators”. Cleaky was a great liberator. An outstanding appropriator.
One time in Australia John Little gave RG and me some fine head covers. We picked up two Koalas as well. Ach is é sín sceal eile. But that’s another story. No Koalas were harmed in the telling of this tale.
I like tweed caps. I have one which belonged to my friend the late Kevin McKenna. We swapped caps one time. I wear Kevin’s cap regularly. I also have a cap belonging to another friend, the late Stan Corrigan. His lovely wife Kathleen gave me it. It is that cap which triggered this column. I lost it last week after the recent Ard Chomairle meeting in Dublin which mandated Mary Lou to explore the possibilty of agreeing a Programme for A Government For Change.
I was distraught about the loss of Stan’s cap. I realised very quickly after the meeting that it was missing. But where? I enlisted the help of Saint Anthony. Again.
Was it in Dawn Doyle’s car? No she told me when I phoned her. Or out the back of Ard Oifig where RG picked me up? No. There was no sight of it when Keith searched the back lane in the dark in the midst of Storm Ciara.
Next morning the search continued. I prowled the back lane of Ard Oifig before being summoned heartbroken into a meeting. While I was so engaged, that darling man Mick O Brien drove back to the CWU building where the Ard Chomairle met.
He returned triumphantly.“I have your hat” he declared and handed me a Russian Cossack type piece of hairy millinery.
“That’s not my hat” I told him as I tried it on.
“It’s lovely on you” Mick told me. And so it was.
But I was still fretting for big Stan’s cap. Negotiations for Government? The Sinn Féin surge? The posturing by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s leaders? Shadowy friggers running Sinn Féin? I focussed with my comrades on all this but beneath my new, well nearly new, Cossack hat my wee mind refused to give up on big Stan’s missing cap. Apart from the sense of loss how could I face Kathleen? She’s a Tyrone woman. Hell hath no fury like a Tyrone woman chastising a man, particularly a Belfast man. My nerves were wrecked.
“An bhfuil cead agam dul amach?” I asked Mary Lou. “May I go out?”
“Tá” she said “Yes, but please take off that Russian hat.... and get your hair cut.”
I exited despondently stage left, as sheepishly as Micheál Martin after Mary Lou scalped his arse. Out the back of Ard Oifig the old Dominic Street flats, now demolished, are a building site. I made my way gingerly through the muck. A burly workman greeted me.
“A great election result” he said.
“Yup” I replied, “Did you find a cap?”
“Is it a Bugatti?” He asked.
I wondered if he had a selection of caps. A Malloy. A Hanna. A Magee. But no he only had one. Stan’s Bugatti. He pulled it out - a grey wet crumpled item - from beneath his yellow High Vis Vest.
“That’s it” I cried as I resisted the urge to hug him. Instead I told him about big Stan. His eyes welled up with tears.
“I’m glad I found it” he told me.
“You look very like a painting my Granny had of Saint Anthony” I told him.
He looked at me warily.
“Thank you” I gushed.
“No problem. Tell me one thing” he asked.
“Anything” I replied.
“When are you getting your hair cut?” He asked.
“Soon” I told him. After all he did find big Stan’s cap.
He smiled at me and as he turned away I really could see that he looked remarkably like my Granny’s picture of Saint Anthony. I felt an urge to fall on my knees in the muck to offer a prayer of thanks to him but I suppressed this. So instead I just thanked him again. He smiled beatifically.
Now I’ve Mick’s Russian hat as well as big Stan’s cap. It’s great. No need to worry about the wrath of Kathleen. Or Mary Lou. Unlike Micheál Martin. If I had two heads I’d be landed. 

The Myth Of “Shadowy Figures”

Mise agus Martin and Ted in Stormont Castle 2018The demonising of republicans has long been an integral part of politics on this island, and especially in the lead into and during electoral campaigns. Through the decades of conflict Unionist leaders and British governments regularly posed as democrats while supporting anti-democratic laws, censorship and the denial of the rights of citizens who voted for Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin Councillors, party activists and family members were killed by unionist death squads, often in collusion with British state forces.Successive Irish governments embraced this demonization strategy through Section 31 and state censorship. Sinn Féin was portrayed as undemocratic and dangerous. We were denied municipal or other public buildings to hold events including Ard Fheiseanna. In the years since the Good Friday Agreement these same elements have sought to sustain this narrative. The leaderships of Fianna Fáil, the Irish Labour Party, the SDLP and unionists, have been at one on this. Self-interest has shaped their approach.Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin regularly uses the Dáil to attack Sinn Féin. At one point in September 2015 he called on the two governments to suspend the institutions in the North! When the institutions did collapse in 2017, over the Renewable Heating Incentive scheme and the denial of rights, he changed his tack to one of “not comprehending” why there is no Executive and Assembly in the North.In January Micheál Martin kicked off the current negative campaigning with a claim that Sinn Féin is not a “normal” democratic party. Decisions he said were being made by “shadowy figures”, by an unaccountable Ard Comhairle and by people in the Felons Club and Connolly House in west Belfast. Stupid, yes, but recent loyalist threats and death threats against Michelle O’Neill and Gerry Kelly mean that vacuous claims of “shadowy figures” feeds into a context in which people can be targeted. Previously in the Dáil Micheál Martin identified two of these as Ted Howell and Padraic Wilson. In more recent days Marty Lynch, Sean Murray, and Bobby Storey have all been named. Teachta Martin knows all this to be rubbish.
Some of the Sinn Féin negotiation team at Stormont: Michelle O'Neill, Seán MagYidhir, Mary Lou McDonald, Conor Murphy, Pádraic Wilson, Carál Ní Cuilín, Gerry Kelly, Declan Kearney, red Howell and Stephen McGlade The reality is that Ted, Padraic, Big Bob, Sean, and Marty have been part of the Sinn Fein negotiating team for a very long time. Mr. Martin knows some of them. Ted was part of the team which produced the two seminal documents Scenario for Peace in 1987 and Towards a Lasting Peace in Ireland in 1992. At different times he has been part of delegations which met with John Bruton, Dick Spring, Pronnsias de Rossa, Leo Varadkar, Charlie Flanagan, Simon Coveney, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Theresa May. He has also met Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowan and Micheál Martin and the DUP and UUP. Ted worked closely with Tony Blair’s former Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell and attended meetings in Downing Street and Hillsborough Castle with Micheál Martin. Pádraic and Marty too were often part of these delegations and often held meetings outside of the negotiating events with senior Irish government officials. Ted and Pádraic also have deserved reputations for the provision of first class meals and pastries during negotiations. We have shared these with some of those above, including with Simon Coveney. Just before Christmas 2018 I published ‘The Negotiators Cookbook” co-authored with Ted and Pádraic and with recipes in the main from both. The Negotiators Cookbook was very well publicised. Ted and Pádraic were widely credited for their culinary skills. Hardly “shadowy figures”.The single most important aspect of the Stormont House negotiation in 2014 was the effort to address the legacy issues. The Sinn Fein working group handling this important issue included Gerry Kelly MLA, Sean Murray, Caral ni Chuilin MLA and Bobby Storey. All former political prisoners. The then British PM David Cameron was present in Stormont House for some of the last hours of that negotiation. So too was Charlie Flanagan. When a roundtable meeting was held to conclude on this issue, Sean Murray represented Sinn Fein. He played a pivotal and constructive role in this as he has in resolving many of the contentious Orange marches which used to create serious difficulties in Belfast. Gerry Kelly, Martin McGuinness and Ted Howell in Weston Park in 2001Irish governments quite rightly celebrate advances in the North. They like to claim some of the credit for advances when they are made. In its Election 2020 manifesto Fine Gael has a whole section boasting of its intensive work in supporting the political parties in North in achieving the recent ‘New Decade, New Approach’ agreement. Apart from Bobby Storey who is unwell, all of those named as “shadowy figures” played key roles in that agreement.All of these activists are well known. They have held senior public and elected positions in the party. Many have had long and fruitful relationships with senior Irish and British government Ministers and officials as we have charted a course from conflict, through a peace process, to an end to conflict and peace.The role of sections of the media is also reprehensible.The Pat Kenny’s, Sean O Rourke’s and Miriam O Callaghan’s interrogate Sinn Fein spokespersons ad nuseaum about these claims. They dominate many interviews. Surely they could have checked the names out. All of the facts set out above about these decent highly respected and hard working republicans is readily available.  Some of the media heads involved are old enough to have known the goings on in the Fianna Fail leaderships or the terrible treatment of sections of Irish society, particularly women in the past. With some honourable exceptions the record of the Irish media, and particularly RTE is tawdry on these scandals. So too is their historical coverage of the north. The truth is sections of the Irish media are part of the Establishments cosy consensus. They are against challenging the status quo because they are part of the status quo. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have selective memories. Both parties emerged out of conflict and a close relationship to the IRA. Many of their leaders, including Michael Collins, De Valera, Sean Lemass and others, all served time in prison. Some were responsible for acts of violence that mirrored those of more recent decades. Fine Gael’s relationship with the pro-fascist blueshirts is well documented. In the 1990s Fine Gael was in coalition with Democratic Left shortly after that party was formed following a split in the Workers Party. The history of the Workers Party and the so-called Official IRA is well known.During the conflict republicans were challenged and it was demanded of us that we embrace unarmed politics. Protestations by me and other Sinn Fein representatives that this was exactly what Sinn Fein was about were dismissed as was our growing electoral support. Now that some who were political prisoners or former combatants have fully embraced the new dispensation we are being told that this is not good enough. Not only is this stupid, unfair and self serving it also ignores the positive influence that activists from this background have with other republicans. The reason the anti peace process armed groups have so little support in republican heartlands is because  men and women of integrity with long records of hard struggle have stood up against them. Incidentally, the two governments accept and work with Sinn Fein elected representative with exactly the same history as those named as “shadowy figures”. I am certain if Pádraic Wilson, Ted, Big Bob or Marty Lynch, Seán Murray or others like them stood for election in their communities they would be elected.   As for the role of the Ard Comhairle and elected representatives ? Sinn Féin agrees policy at our Ard Fheis which is entirely open to the media and is widely covered by it. Our Ard Comhairle and party leader are elected at the Ard Fheis. Very democratic. Very public, very open. One Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness rebutted his own leaders claims. He said that the decision making process in Fianna Fáil is similar to that of Sinn Féin and he said: “I find it strange that they would say that [Fianna Fáil] TDs are consulted – sometimes we are not consulted at all.”That’s probably true of all these parties. But there is no media scrutiny of the small group of advisers who aid Micheál Martin. Who is Deirdre Gillane or Pat Mc Parland or Sean Dorgan?  I’m sure they are decent people doing their best by their own lights.  I might not agree with them but I have no reason or desire to cast aspersions upon them. Ditto with Leo Varadkar’s team. So thank you Ted, Pádraic, Marty, Séan and Big Bob and all the other “shadowy friggers”. Onwards and upwards.