Stand-Up to Racism In 1972 Catholic families – who had endured three years of sustained sectarian attacks on their homes – fled Annalee St in North Belfast. Last month - fifty-three years later - Catholic homes in Annalee St. were again the target of sectarian attack and families were forced to flee. In the last fortnight we have also witnessed the firebombing of homes in Ballymena, the Larne Leisure Centre and racist attacks in other parts of the North. The images of homes in flames in Ballymena reminded me of similar scenes I first witnessed in Belfast in August 1969. The film footage of that period is of streets ablaze, frightened families hurriedly stacking furniture on lorries or carrying their most precious possessions on their backs. Then it was the racism and sectarianism of the apartheid unionist state attacking nationalist and republican families, killing residents, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing thousands to become refugees in our...
Jim Fitzpatrick signed Limited Print of Elizabeth O’Farrell. | Health and Care in a New Ireland | An Act of International Piracy
Jim Fitzpatrick signed Limited Print of Elizabeth O’Farrell. Regular readers of this column will know that I wholeheartedly support the efforts of the Moore St. Preservation Trust to preserve the 1916 Moore St. Battlefield site in Dublin that is under threat from the developers wrecking ball. This week the Trust - a not for profit organisation led by Relatives of the Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation – will launch a new limited edition signed print of Elizabeth O’Farrell by the renowned Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick. One hundred prints will be available from Thursday evening at €150 as part of the fundraising efforts of the Trust to raise much needed funds in support of its alternative plan for a cultural and historical quarter in the Moore Street battlefield site. Link Elizabeth O’Farrell, a member of the Cumann na mBan, was one of three women who were present in the GPO throughout Easter week 1916 and who were evacuated to Number 16 Moore St. as the GPO was in...