Defend the GPO | Kneecap Abú | Féile an Phobail – A festival extravaganza

 

Defend the GPO

The Dublin GPO and the streets and laneways around it areforever linked with the Easter Rising of 1916. This is a Battlefield site ofmajor historic and international significance which successive Irishgovernments have failed to develop properly. Successive promises of investmentand planning in Moore St have come to nothing. Succesive governments havereduced the National Monument to four houses leaving the rest of the historicarea to be destroyed by a London based developer.

In keeping with this shameful approach the Irish governmentlast week published a 10-year plan which will see the General Post Office (GPO)become a mixed-use development. The spin from Government is that the GPO willbecome a flagship project, including retail and office components with aDesignated Activity Company being established. The reality, as we have seenwith the Moore St. plan, is that time and time again governments haveturned their face against the preservation of our revolutionary past in favourof shopping centres and commercial developments. Private developers are givencarte blanche to maximise profit at the expense of our cultural and historicalheritage.

Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald TD described it wellwhen she said the government’s proposal as “another shameful betrayal ofIreland’s proud revolutionary history.”

At the weekend Mary Lou and Pearse Doherty TD launcheda public petition to “Save the GPO”. The petition calls for the development ofa 1916 Cultural Quarter in the area around the GPO, O’Connell Street and MooreStreet and the implementation of the Moore Street Preservation Trustplan.  Mary Lou said: “It is incredible that they want to turn one of themost iconic sites of Ireland’s struggle for freedom into shops and officespace. This is the building outside which Pádraig Pearse in Easter 1916 readthe Proclamatio of the Irish Republic. These streets in this area are thephysical environs of one of the seminal chapters in Ireland’s long fight forindependence.”

In the course of my travels I have visited many places ofhistoric importance to the people of South Africa, of the USA, of France andelsewhere. Can youimagine the demolition of Robben island prison where Nelson Mandela and thepolitical prisoners resisted the apartheid regime? Or Independence Hall inPhiladelphia where the Declaration of Independence and the United StatesConstitution were debated and adopted. Or the Tower of London? Of course not.Other states and other people take pride in their history. 

Theimportance of the site of the last battle of the 1916 Rising was  underlinedby the High Court in Dublin in 2016 which described Moore Street asunique. The Court described Moore Street as “the place to which the menand women of the GPO fled, where battle was done and surrender was negotiated,and a site where workers, civilian and combatant, lived and died in what was,to a large extent, a workers’ rising.”

In any other city in the world we would see visionary,ambitious plans to develop the site, preserving our history with a nationalmuseum, arts and culture, education, tourism and homes to make it a living,breathing area.

So, join the battle to Save the GPO and Moore St. Sign up tothe petition and support the campaign of the Moore St. Preservation Trust for amodern historical quarter – shaped around the GPO, Moore Street Battlefieldsite and O’Connell Street. The link is: https://outreach.sinnfein.ie/save-the-gpo/

Kneecap Abú

Well done to Kneecap and those other performers atGlastonbury who stood up to the British political and media establishment andcourageously spoke out against the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and thewest Bank. Well done also to the tens of thousands who applauded and cheered asMo chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, demanded ceasefires, an end to themass murder of Palestinian people and stood up to the censorship of the BritishBroadcasting Corporation.

The British political and media establishment, in particularthe BBC, like to promote an image to the world of being progressive,anti-racist, truthful and democratic. The experience of Ireland and of manystates that were once British colonies, is the opposite. British rule hasalways been bad for Ireland. Perfidious Albion’s intrusion into our affairs hasbeen a part of our historical and cultural narrative for almost 900 years.

Censorship and racism and the demonisation of those whoconfront British strategic interests have been a constant from the ape likecaricatures of the Irish in the 19th century to the control ofthe media as part of the state’s counter-insurgency strategies during therecent  years of conflict.

 So too with the  hypocrisy of the Starmersgovernment. He provides material and economic, military and political supportto Netanyahu’s fascist government. And he has the audacity to pick again onKneeCap and others after the success if their Glastonbury guy at theweekend. 

Formal and informal political censorship often creates aclimate of fear in which many good people turn away from the truth.Fortunately, there are always those who will dare to speak out. People likethe late Mary Holland who interviewed me in April 1990 when the voices ofSinn Féin activists were banned. Mary so perfectly lip-synched my words usingOscar winning actor Stephen Rea that the British demanded that lip-synchingitself be banned. Or Helen from Wales, a vegan chef and yoga teacher, whoon Saturday live streamed Kneecap’s set on Tik Tok while the BBC banned them.Or those who use their social media platforms to expose the lies, inhumanityand excesses of states, even at the risk of their own lives.

Censorship is the enemy of truth. It reinforces theconditions for division and conflict. It is an obstacle to dialogue. Dialogueis essential for understanding and agreement and reconciliation.

 

Féile an Phobail – A festival extravaganza

This week I was given a copy of the minutes of a meetingheld on the 22nd June 1902 in the Catholic Boys Hall on theFalls Road to establish a league for junior hurlers. The venue was the CatholicBoys Hall. So far I have three locations for this hall. One is off DunleweyStreet not far from the Sinn Féin office and the Bobby Sands mural. The otheris in Cavendish Square and the last one is up one of the Rock Streets. My guessis that all these venues were used at different times. The Clubs involved inthe 1902 meeting were Michael Dwyer; Geraldines; Éire Óg; Sarsfield; Brian Boru;Oissin; Fianna Éireann; and Red Branch.  Bulmer Hobson was electedChairman of the League. Hobson was a well-known republican figure. Two yearsafter this meeting he was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood and alongwith CountessConstance Markievicz, he founded Na Fianna Éireann in Belfast in 1909. 

The minute records that following his election Bulmer Hobsongave a “neat little speech bringing before their minds the necessity offorming such a league and that it will bind them closer together and be a meansof spreading the game and doing a little towards the revival of this old Irishsport.”

One hundred and twenty-three years Hobson’s vision of arevival “of this old Irish sport” means that An Chumann Lúthchleas Gael (CLG)in Belfast will play a prominent role during this year’s Féile an Phobail. Itspresence permeates the programme for 2025 which was launched last week. Onceagain Féile has surpassed itself with over 600 events at over 50 venues. Thesewill cover everything from the visual arts, culture, discussions anddebates, exhibitions, tours, films, ceol and sports. 

On Monday 28 July Naomh Eoin CLG will host an eventorganised by Gaels le Chéile. Jane Adams, one of its founding members willprovide an update on the work of the campaign. It will be followed by aconversation with sports journalist Brendan Crossan and Tyrone football legendPeter Canavan.

On Thursday 31 July in the Ulster Museum the influentialrole of the GAA will be evoked through objects: medals passed down fromgeneration to generation. Siobhan Doyle who wrote A History of the GAA in 100Objects will be on hand to talk about the exhibition.

On 2 August there will be the annual Joe Cahill Gaelic U12.

On the same day at Corrigan Park there will be twofriendship matches between Ireland and Scotland using composite Shinty &Hurling/Camogie rules.

In his book Lost Gaels, Peadar Thompson provides acomprehensive account of the lives of ninety-two of the estimated 150women, men and children who had connections to the GAA and who were killedduring the years of conflict. His talk will be on 4 August in St. Mary’sUniversity College.

On Saturday the 9 August at 9am the famous Féile an PhobailPoc Fada will take place n the Divis and Black Mountain. I retired recently asthe undefeated Féile Póc Fada champion beating Brian McFaul in theprocess. 

Also on that same day a half pace social hurlingfestival will take place on Rossa and Sarsfield’s pitches with 16 teams fromall over Ireland playing in a blitz. And the Naomh Gall Siobhan O’Hanlon Gaelicfor Mothers and Others blitz will also take place in De La Salle Park,Milltown. The blitz is named in honour of our friend and founding member ofFéile – Siobhán O’Hanlon. 

Those who gathered in June 1902 would be pleased. 

Check the Féile clár. If you haven’t got a hard copy thenyou can access it at https://feilebelfast.com