Missing you already

The panel of Speakers for the United Ireland conference in Toronto.

Left to right: Warren Allmand, Former Solicitor General of Canada; Christopher Axworthy Former Attorney General of Saskatchewan; Eleanor McGrath, writer; Charlie Angus MP of New Democratic Party; myself; and Manon Perron, Treasurer of the Montreal Council of the Federation of National Trade Unions (CSN).

November 6th 09

Missing you already

This Blog has been ridiculed in the past because of my outpourings on the issue of flying. I mean flying in a plane of course.

As is well documented humans, unlike birds, angels or fairies, can’t fly unaided.

We need airships, balloons, gliders, helicopters and airplanes. This morning as we arrived at the airport in New Jersey I watched as flocks of birds showed us how easy it is for them. No check in, security procedures or waiting about the place for sparrows, starlings or seagulls. They just spread their wings and head skywards, showing off above us ground bound mortals.

Now strapped in and squeezed into too small a seat this Blog is airborne once again.

As I scribble furiously in long hand the plane containing me and other jet lagged souls is banking to the left above Newark and away to our right New York and the iconic vista of Manhattan falls away from us.

For a second I reflect on other planes heading towards that vista on that fateful day in September 2001. And then we wheel upwards into the clouds and the earth disappears.

We are heading for Canada. For Toronto, the last leg of a quick but successful trip which started in New York at the annual Friends of Sinn Fein dinner. It was a great event. The Friends of Sinn Fein really are friends. They defied the recession and gathered, around 800 or so to pledge their commitment to the Irish cause and to invest in a free and united Ireland.

Not only did they defy the recession – the New York Yankees were playing the Phillies that evening up the road in the Bronx. It’s called the World Series. By the same logic Kerry are the All Ireland World Champions and Kilkenny and the Aontroim Ladies Football team. World Champions all!!!

But our faithful New York constituency gave the big game a by ball and came to our event instead.

Yesterday Drew University in New Jersey was the venue for a series of more very successful and worthwhile engagements.

And in another few hours another round of interviews, another fundraiser and tomorrow another conference. Canada is good to us as well. The Irish here are not as powerful as their American cousins but they do well.

Canada has long featured in the diaspora. From before An Gorta Mor – the Great Hunger. They say ice hockey is a hybrid which came from native people playing lacrosse and Irish settlers playing hurling.

My Canadian cousin Frank – a one time ice hockey jock – tells me there is a hurling stick in the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame to mark this marriage of sporting cultures.

Canada also gave the Irish peace process Judge Cory, a man of integrity who stood up for truth and for the Finucane family’s right to an enquiry into the murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane. John de Chastelain played and continues to play an important role. So did Patten Commission member Clifford Shearing, another Canadian.

In their time the Fenians invaded Canada – the first time the title Irish Republican Army was used. The plan was to hold Canada until the English left Ireland.

Children of An Gorta Mor found a home here and the mass graves of the Irish dead are scattered through this great country.

Brendan Behan was famously deported once. In defence of his intoxicated state he declared ‘when I got to the airport I saw the sign Drink Canada Dry. I did my best to comply with that instruction.’

Brendan was a friend and comrade of my Uncle Dominic. They were in Mountjoy Prison together. Dominic told me that Brendan used to write like a devil in both Irish and English and leave scores of his stories and poems lying in the cell to be lost forever. Is mor an trua.

And with that our plane starts to descend. Two busy days here. I also get to see my favourite Aunt, Rita and her family. And then with the help of God and a good tail wind Belfast beckons on Monday morning. This Blog can’t wait to get back. Missing you already.

Get Up Stand Up

2 Samhain 09

Get Up Stand Up

On Friday the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is holding a series of rallies to protest against planned or likely cuts in public spending arising out of Decembers budget by the Irish government and by the Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey in the north.

The public is being invited to participate and there is a serious effort being made to mobilize mass public support and solidarity for the events.

In the south the National Day of Protest is against the Fianna Fáil/Green Government’s disastrous approach to the economic crisis. The ICTU is arguing for a better and fairer way of tackling this crisis and protecting jobs and public services. It is part of ICTU’s ‘Get Up Stand Up’ Campaign. And the demonstrations come just a month before what is expected to be one of the most savage Budgets ever by a Dublin government.

The government has set its face against constructive proposals from the trade union movement, from Sinn Féin and others, and continues to do almost nothing to save jobs and create alternative employment. Its policies are primarily about protecting those within the golden circle in the banks, the developers and political elite who created the current mess in the first place.

People who have lost their jobs or had their working hours reduced, or who face the repossession of their homes, are rightly angry at the amount of public money that is being poured into NAMA while they are being threatened with cuts in dole payments and child benefit.

One issue which has not received the media attention it deserves is the decision last April by the government to cut the Christmas Social Welfare Bonus.

Most recipients are probably still unaware that there will be no bonus this year. This affects the most vulnerable social welfare recipients who depend on it to meet seasonal expenses. It is especially anti-children.

And this is just the most glaring of the cuts introduced so far, with worse to come in the December Budget. These cuts are socially damaging, but they also make no economic sense. Money spent on social welfare goes straight back into the economy because recipients spend it on their daily and weekly needs. They cannot afford to hoard or to invest it. So cutting social welfare will further depress the economy; it will also marginalise working families and the communities they are from.

The Government has clearly decided that the unemployed and other social welfare recipients are an easy target. They are not electorally organised and less well able to defend themselves.



The ICTU National Day of Protest will provide an opportunity in at least eight major locations in the south - Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Sligo, Tullamore, and Dundalk – for people to demonstrate their opposition to the policies of the government and to show that they do care for the most vulnerable in our society.

In the north the rallies are in Belfast, Derry, Magherafelt and Newry and the focus on Friday will very much be on planned cuts to the health service, including job losses, the closure of hospital beds and other proposals to slash health spending. The British Treasury is demanding ‘efficiency savings’ of £700 million over the next three years.

This is likely to mean the loss of an estimated 925 administrative jobs, 450 social services positions and more than 722 nursing jobs by 2011; Ambulance provision across the North may be cut by 70,000 hours; and mental health beds are also coming under pressure, with one of four wards for older people in Knockbracken Hospital in south Belfast being considered for closure.

Other actions that have been proposed include a greater reliance on a “skills mix” within the medical profession – that is, relying on less qualified health-care workers to carry out the work of nurses and midwives in order to cut costs.

The Belfast Trust also plans to ban staff overtime and the use of agency nurses. There is a push to cut patients stay in hospital to the shortest time possible, including those who have undergone surgery. Women's health professionals have expressed dismay at the Belfast Trust's plans that new mothers be released from hospital just six to 12 hours after they give birth.

The reality is that it will be the most disadvantaged, whose life expectancy is already significantly lower than others who will be most adversely affected by cuts.

So, it is time to choose what side you are on. For this blog there is no choice.

The ICTU is right. There is a better fairer way to organise our economy and society.

It is time to mobilise, agitate, educate and politicise for real change. Friday’s rallies are part of this necessary work. But they are not sufficient in themselves to bring about the changes that are required.

They are an important part of the fightback. That fightback has to continue beyond Friday.

Small u-unionists?

30th Deireadh Fómhair 2009.

Small u-unionists?

Your man says that I shouldn’t use the term small u-unionists.

‘How would you like to be called a small r-republican?’ He asks.

I have been called worse than that I think quietly to myself. I say nothing to him. He has been in a funny mood all day. Male menopause?

The thing is I don’t mean to be offensive when I say small u-unionists. Or when I try to analyse the cause of your man’s funny mood.

I’m sure that there are many small u-unionists who understand what I mean because they know that their unionism is more an accident of birth than an ideological position.

These are the unionists who voted for the Good Friday Agreement and who then gave up the ghost on David Trimble and stayed at home during election time.

One presumes that these small u-unionists wouldn’t have a lot of time for the DUP.

They are not for a united Ireland, although they support Ireland in the rugby. Some may go hill walking in Donegal or west Mayo. A weekend in Dublin with Bruce Springsteen or Barbara Streisand may have been part of their pre-recession enjoyment.

Some may even have a sense of pride around Riverdance. These small-u unionists are mainly middle class. There are other small u-unionists who are working people making ends meet in difficult times; and the working poor who struggle with disadvantage and poverty. Just like their counterparts on the nationalist side.

They all want the peace process to work. They want to rear their families and live happily with their neighbours. And if the price for all that is power sharing and equality then they’ll put up with it. And some may even grow to embrace it.

What then are they to make of Peter Robinson’s grandstanding in the British House of Parliament over the orange parading issue?

Last week these small u-unionists, like the media and most others, would have been of a mind that the policing and justice issue was about to be resolved and powers on these matters were soon to be transferred from England to Ireland.

They couldn’t be blamed for that. Peter Robinson had said that if the financial package for policing and justice was resolved then he would support the transfer. The financial package was agreed some weeks ago. There were and are a number of other issues which need to be sorted out among the Executive parties but it was obvious that the big bit of work had been done and that the outstanding matters could be resolved.

The DUP even tried to take credit for securing the financial package, even though it is obvious that Martin McGuinness led the charge on that front. But that to one side small u-unionists probably were a little buoyed up that local politicians would soon have the legislative ability to bring forward measures to make this a safer society, in particular for vulnerable citizens and others at risk from criminal or anti social elements.

Then the DUP mustered at the British Parliament in London last Tuesday and demanded that the issue of Orange Parades be resolved before Policing and Justice powers could be transferred. At this point maybe the small u in small u-unionism shrank a little more? Who knows.

Suffice to say that this latest DUP position is the stuff of nonsense. Such a pre-condition is unacceptable. There are three and a half thousand loyalist parades during the Orange marching season. The rest of us – including small-u unionists - put up with a lotta lotta marches.

There are about six highly contentious parades. The Loyal Orders should sit down and talk to residents who live in the neighbourhoods involved, as well as with the elected representatives of the citizens who live there. That’s the only way to sort these matters out. The DUP know this.

So the grandstanding at Westminster was not a serious initiative or a sincere effort to resolve these issues.

The process to transfer policing and justice powers was brought further into disrepute on Thursday when a letter to Peter Robinson from Gordon Brown was sent, presumably by mistake, to the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister.

In this letter the British PM committed to issue a gratuity payment of £20 million to former members of the RUC reserve.

This issue had been raised by Brown with Martin McGuinness during negotiations. Martin told him that such a payment was wrong and unacceptable and no part of the process to transfer powers on policing and justice.

This payment forms no part of the financial package for Policing and Justice agreed with the British government between Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson.

Moreover, at a time of economic downturn and huge pressures on working families and the disadvantaged this payment is a waste of taxpayers money.

So there you are. These things are sent to try us.

A Blog for all Seasons

October 26th 09


A Blog for all seasons

Autumn has arrived. No bad thing. With all the talk of global warming and
glacial melt down it is reassuring to sense autumnal evenings closing in
and to know that there are certainties yet in the world.

About ten years or so ago I got lost in the seasons. I was planting a lot
of trees at the time. Native species. Ash, holly, blackthorn, beech, oak
and one or two other smaller bushes. I also put in a few apple trees. In
memory of old friends.

As culchies will know, you should plant trees in the months with an ‘R’ in
them. From September to March for those of you who are without a calendar.

By the way the slang word culchie comes from County Maigh Eo, from the very fine town of Coillte Maigh or Kiltimagh.

So for the period of intense planting, maybe about two and a half years, I
lived in the seasons. The way farmers do, I guess. Autumn, Winter, Spring
and Summer became my measurement of the year. Seasons replaced months and weeks.

I also cultivated a lot of seeds. Ash and Sycamore among others. My
favourites were Rowan or Mountain Ash and Chestnuts. I got some Rowan
seeds in Chequers when MI5 weren’t watching. They are grand trees now,
flourishing and producing their own fine Irish berries.

Chestnuts are easy. Crann Cnó Capall, they come originally from Baltic
climates where the soil is much colder than the Irish variety. So the
cheesers take greatly to our slightly warmer mould, pronounced in Ulster
with a silent ‘d’. Chestnuts are very easy to grow. And easy to get.

I have a few secret places which I share only with the small people in my
life. Even your man isn’t in on this sceal. Lesser mortals gather in
parklands and estates to throw sticks or stones at giant Chestnut trees in
annual efforts to dislodge cheesers from lofty branches. We slip to where
we can harvest our own windfall. Snobby people call them conkers.

Snobby people also play a game which they also call conkers. We call it
cheesers. A cord threaded through a chestnut allows you to dangle it from
your hand while your opponent hits it with his man, also threaded with
cord. When I first instructed our first small person on how to play this
game she challenged me for calling the cheeser a man.

‘How do you know its not a girl?’ she asked, not unreasonably.

Funnily her sister made exactly the same point years later. Anna will
probably say the same thing when her turn comes.

When I was at school cheesers were all the rage at this time of the year.
I once had a twenty fiver. Your man says he had a fifty two-er but I
doubt that. Some boys used to put their cheesers up the chimney to harden.
I don’t play cheesers any more. Not seriously the way I used to. It isn’t
that I wouldn’t have another go but unless the small people in my life
take it more seriously I’ll stick to growing them.

Every cheeser is a potential tree. I have forty six cheesers waiting for
planting. So I’m glad its the season of Autumn again. Autumn is a short
season of mellow fruitfulness. Then before we know it the days begin to
turn again and winter gives way to Spring when everything with any
ambition at all screams ‘Yahooo.’

I hope this Autumn’s cheesers are very ambitious. I can’t wait for them
to scream ‘Yahoo’.

Supporting Gaelscoil Bharra



And finally, Comhghairdeas to the pupils, staff and parents of Gaelscoil Bharra in Cabra, who along with Dublin based Rhythm and Roots Band Tupelo, have reached number 7 in the Irish charts with ‘Cá bhfuil ár Scoil’.

Gaelscoil Bharra is an Irish language school which was founded 14 years ago and today has over 220 pupils. This Blog has visited Scoil Bharra a number of times and can testify to the great efforts by the school management and parents and local representatives, to get successive Ministers of Education to deliver permanent buildings for the children.

What value the Celtic Tiger when this fine school is still housed in prefabs which are overcrowded, poorly heated and where sanitation is second-rate.

Support the pupils – support the school and make Cá Bhfuil ar Scoil number 1.

This can be done by:

• Downloading from iTunes for 99c
• Texting “music 4075,” to 57501
• Buying special limited edition CD for €3 from Tower records, Wicklow Street in Dublin.

Ghaelscoil Bharra sa Chabrach

Agus, mar chríoch, comhghairdeas do na daltaí, foireann agus tuismitheoirí de Ghaelscoil Bharra sa Chabrach , atá i ndiaidh Uimhir 7 sna cairteacha a bhaint amach in éineacht le banna cheoil ‘rhythm and roots’ – Tupelo agus an CD ‘Cá bhfuil ár scoil’.

Bunaíodh Gaelscoil Bharra 14 bliana ó shin agus inniu tá níos mó ná 220 dalta ann. Thug an Blag seo roinnt cuairteanna ar Scoil Bharra agus chonaic mé an dian-iarracht atá déanta ag bainistíocht na scoile, ag tuismitheoirí agus ag ionadaithe áitiúla chun buanfhoirgnimh úra a thógáil le cead ó Airí Oideachais leanúnacha.

Cén fiúntas an Tíogar Ceilteach nuair a lonnaítear an scoil bhreá seo sna seomraí ranga réamhdhéanta atá plódaithe, gan teas cuí agus le sláintíocht dara grád.
Tacaigh leis na daltaí – tacaigh leis an scoil agus déan cinnte go bhfeicfidh muid ‘Cá bhfuil ár scoil?’ Uimhir 1 a bhaint amach.

Is féidir é seo a dhéanamh mar:
• Íoslódáil ó iTunes ar 99c
• Téacs “MUSIC 4075” a chur chuig 5701
• CD – Eagrán Teoranta a cheannacht ar € 3 ó Tower Records, Sráid Chill Mhantáin i mBaile Átha Cliath.

Thank God We’re Surrounded By Water

The Mairead Farrell Ladies Football Team Philadelphia

Oct 23rd 2009

Thank God We’re Surrounded By Water.

To Wales this week for a meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Swansea. This blog was never in Wales before.

My jetlag had jetlag as we journeyed forth in the rain from Belfast International Airport. My body clock was still on Philadelphia time. But this blog does not complain. That’s your man's prerogative. One gurner is enough in any entourage. In fairness he was in surprisingly good form. He likes Tír Eoghain women. So he was extremely pleased with my photos of the very successful Mairead Farrell Women’s Football team.



Admiring the trophies with Coach Angela Mohan

Based in Philly these young athletes have had a very successful season. We met last Friday. A Doire woman, a clatter of American ladies and a formidable line out – I nearly said line up – of Tír Eoghain women brought silverware, twice, to a very worthy team. Mairead would be delighted. Well done to everyone involved and to Orla who made a very fine speech. Thanks for the geansaí.

It’s great to see Gaelic games prospering throughout the diaspora. I told our friends about the Aontroim ladies success. They send comhghairdeas to their sisters. Mná na hÉireann abú.



Being presented with a geansai from Orla Treacy

In Wales meantime it rained and rained and rained. I like rain. It’s part of what we are. I also like Harry Secombe. He is Welsh. He is dead now, God rest him. Your man has one of his CDs. He used to do a religious programme on British television on a Sunday - Harry Secombe not your man - and I really liked the singing bits. He was also in the Goons.

Spike Milligan was my favourite from that line up. He was Irish. He was also a comic genius. So was Harry Secombe. But he got religion your man says. And who could not laugh at Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther? I would liked to have met Spike Milligan.

Your man also reminded me of another Welsh singer. The rugby guy. He told jokes and sang and carried a giant leek with him on stage as he sang rugby songs. I liked him as well. But I can’t remember his name.

And when I was a teenager I was very taken by How Green is My Valley a very fine novel, later a decent film, by Richard Llewellyn. I was reminded of that as we made our way from Bristol into Wales. The bilingual signage along the motorways was a treat.

So too was the bilingual nature of the Assembly. Tri-lingual when we arrived. It’s great to hear native languages without the usual chorus of negativity and bad manners.

We and the Welsh have a lot in common. Welsh or Breathnach – the Irish for Welsh – is one of the most popular surnames in Ireland. So that tells of the human traffic between our nations. Your man says Saint Patrick was a Welshman.

Of course we also had the Welsh Guards. I reminded the Assembly that this British army regiment guarded us when me and your man were poor internees in Long Kesh. They also killed Hugh Coney, a friend of mine and a fellow prisoner, when a group of unarmed internees tried to escape. So our shared history has a jagged edge to it.

Our shared future is a different matter entirely. Based on respect, independence and freedom, the future can only mean a better relationship and mutually beneficial connectiveness for all the people of these islands. Speed the day.

Achieving Irish Reunification

October 19th 09

Achieving Irish reunification

This blog travels to Wales on Tuesday – to Swansea – to speak to the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly. I will tell that forum that while Irish republicans want our rights, we do not seek to deny the rights of anyone else. We want justice for all and privilege for none.

I will go on to point out that the Irish question, as it has been described by some over the years, is not simply one for the Irish.

There is not only a democratic requirement on the part of the peoples of Britain to adopt a positive stance on how the Irish question should be finally settled, there is a moral imperative.

The peoples of Britain have a duty to themselves, to unionists in particular, to the Irish in general, and even to the world, to stand up and speak their opinion on the issue of the reunification of Ireland.

I believe that the economic and political dynamics in Ireland today make Irish reunification a realistic and realisable goal in a reasonable period of time.

We have to persuade the British government to change its policy from one of upholding the union to one of becoming a persuader for Irish unity.

This also involves persuading the other political representatives of the peoples of these islands – whether in Scotland or Wales or the North of England or London or the Isle of Man or Guernsey, that their interests are also served by helping the people of Ireland achieve reunification.

There are also common sense economic and social and environmental and health and many other reasons why Irish reunification makes sense over partition.
In reality the border is more than just an inconvenience.

It is an obstacle to progress and while its adverse affects are most clearly felt in the communities that straddle the border, it also impacts negatively throughout the island.

The reality is that the economy of the North is too small to exist in isolation.
The economies of both parts of the island are interlinked and interdependent.
The delivery of public services is restricted and inefficient.

There are two competing industrial development bodies seeking inward investment, with no coordination in supporting local industries.

We have two arts councils and two sports councils and three tourists’ bodies.
This is not efficient.

There are some who suggest that because we live in a period of severe economic difficulty that Irish reunification should be put off for the foreseeable future.
In fact the opposite is the case.

There is now a need, more than ever, for the island economy to be brought into being in the fullest sense, and for the political and administrative structures to be instituted with that in mind.

Many in the business community, north and south, already recognise this fact.
And all the indications are that the European Union also understands how the needs of Ireland can best be met by treating it as an island rather than as two entities on an island.

Geography does not necessarily determine politics, but neither can it be ignored in assessing what is the most effective approach to meeting the challenges of economic development and satisfying the needs of communities.

The Good Friday agreement is an opportunity to develop understanding and to advocate rationally, the benefits of Irish reunification.

The institutional elements of the Good Friday Agreement and of St. Andrews are therefore important mechanisms to be built upon.

Remembering Mike Doyle

With Mike's Wife Bernadette and their daughters.

From left to right: Erin, Loretta, Mary, Bernadette, Denise, and Kathleen


October 17th 09

Remembering Mike Doyle

This Blog comes to you from Philadelphia. I am here to speak at an event to honour my friend Mike Doyle. I was to come to the USA earlier this week for a round of engagements in Washington but I postponed those because the current effort to get policing and justice powers devolved takes primacy at this time.

But I couldn’t cancel Mike’s event or think of not turning up. He always turned up for us. So here I am for one night – travel all day Friday; speak Friday night – travel all day back to Ireland Saturday.

Mike died last Christmas Eve. I couldn’t believe it when I was told.

My thoughts were immediately with his family, with his wife Bernadette and daughters Mary, Denise, Loretta, Kathleen and Erin and their son Michael, his grandchildren and family circle.

But they were also with his friends and colleagues here.

With those who served with him in the police service; those who worked with him as one of Philly’s best known and most loved Irish publicans; those who laboured with him over many years in support of the cause of freedom and justice in Ireland; and all of those who were touched by his great humanity and kindness.

Philly was for me always one of the high points of any visit to the USA. I remember, like it was yesterday, arriving in Philly on our first big tour of the USA in the autumn of 1994. We were wrecked. It was a long and exhausting tour from one side of the USA to the other and back again.

Mike put us in the flat above the pub. He made us comfortable and at home. And as we relaxed, fed and watered and tired, we lay around the tv and watched a video of Shawshank Redemption. It was a restful, secure evening of camaraderie among friends made possible by Mike’s generosity.

After that Mike and his close knit group of activists always had the Irish tea and homemade scones ready for us when we arrived. The good humoured banter between them belied great friendships that had endured for decades. The stories of their adventures in Ireland were the stuff of legend and hilariously funny – as much as because Mike told them with a straight face.

When news broke of Mike’s death last Christmas Eve there was profound shock in Ireland among his many friends in the republican struggle. It was difficult to comprehend his passing. He was one of those stalwarts of the struggle.

Mike believed fervently and passionately in a United Ireland and was vocal and active in his opposition to injustice and partition.

He was a figure of great strength and commitment who always seemed to have been there through the grim and dark days of conflict and the better days of the peace process.

Mike worked away unselfishly in support of embattled communities occupied by British troops; in support of prisoners and their families and children; in support of justice campaigns; he raised money; and opened his door and home to strangers.

Among those strangers was my friend Joe Cahill with whom Mike worked very closely over the years through Noraid and with whom he developed a close and enduring friendship.

For all of this he never looked for thanks or praise. He did what he did because it was the right thing to do. In fact he would get very embarrassed when I would single him out at events to thank him for his efforts.

Mike’s death has left a great void in all our lives and in the lives of his many, many friends in Philadelphia and in Ireland. He epitomised the best of Irish America. Through hard work and business acumen he did well in Philadelphia.

He never forgot where he came from; visiting his home place of Castlerea, County Roscommon regularly. He helped people arriving in the Philly area to find jobs and was a friend to more recent immigrants. He never faltered on a commitment, no matter how large or small.

Alex Maskey remembers Mike’s support for his efforts when Alex became the first Sinn Féin Mayor of Belfast and his success in bringing former world heavyweight champion Joe Frazier to Belfast.



With Joe Frazier at the Philadelphia event for Mike

On Monday of this week the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Belfast spelling out the US administrations support for the peace process and for the transfer of powers on policing and justice.

Her presence and the engagement by this and past administrations, and the positive contribution they have made to the peace process, is very much down to the hard work and tenacity of Mike Doyle and the thousands of others like him who have kept faith with the cause of peace and justice in Ireland.

We will miss him.

Mike Doyle made a difference.

Go ndeanfaidh Dia trocaire ar a anam.