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Mise agus Toshi agus Pete November 30th 09 ÓRÓ SÉ DO BHEATHA BHAILE Well done to St. Galls on a wonderful victory over The Loup. This Blog and Belfast Gaels are rooting for them to bring an all-Ireland title back to our city and county. Naomh Gall abú. This Blog gets lucky sometimes. Truth to tell this Blog is lucky all the time but every so often this Blog gets very, very lucky. Take last month for example. Or to be very accurate earlier this month. Regular readers will recall that this Blog was in the USA and Canada on one of those mad a-city-a-day schedule at the beginning of November. What you did not know was that in between all the other bits I got to meet with Pete Seeger and his wonderful wife Toshi. A mutual friend got me Pete’s contact details and I am eternally grateful to him for that. When I was a teenager Pete Seeger was one of my heroes. He still is. He was out there singing his songs and making music for workers and fighters for civil rights, and women and disadvantage...

November 27th 09 Cherishing all the Children Equally The report of the Commission of Investigation in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin has said that clerical child abuse was covered up by the Archdiocese and other Church authorities. The report was published on Thursday. It also indicted senior members of An Garda Siochana who regarded priests as being outside their remit. The report said that there are examples of Gardaí reporting abuse complaints to the Diocese instead of investigating them and asserts that the relationship between some senior Gardaí and some priests and Bishops was inappropriate. The 700 page report details particular priests and the abuse perpetrated by them. It also indicts the State authorities who facilitated the cover up by allowing the Church to be beyond the law. It claims that the welfare of children was not even a consideration by State and Church authorities. This report follows on from the Ryan report which was published earlier in May of this year and ...

November 23rd 09 A New Way of Dealing with the Economy Two weeks ago this Blog visited Dolphins Barn, a working class district of Dublin and met with some residents, including members of the residents committee. The local Sinn Fein Councillor Criona Ní Dhallaigh accompanied me. Dolphin’s Barn is the second largest public housing flats complex in the city. It has almost 400 flats, including 44 senior citizens units, and has an overall population of close to 1,000. The residents briefed us on the many problems confronting them. These include serious issues with the design and maintenance of the accommodation, the lack of play facilities for children, the poor state of the units housing the elderly, debt and rent arrears, as well as community safety concerns, including drug- related issues. This Blog was deeply impressed by their calm dedication and determination to improve the quality of life for residents and especially the young and the elderly. Many of those this Blog spoke to give ho...

November 20th 09 Justice for the Holland family Last week Harry Holland's wife Pauline and family, their legal representative and myself, met with the British Attorney General and the acting Director of the PPS in the north, in the Bar Library in Belfast. It was the first ever meeting of its kind. It arose because of serious concerns by the family – which this Blog shares – about the way in which the PPS handled the murder case that resulted from the arrest and charging of three people for the murder of Harry Holland near his home on Tuesday 11th September 2007. Harry was a very popular local figure. His small greengrocers shop had a collection of boxes for progressive causes scattered throughout the shelves of fruit and vegetables. Posters publicising Irish language events were flanked by anti-Iraq war material. Harry was always good for a bit of debate. There was more politicised sense in his shop than in the British Parliament, or in Government Buildings in Dublin for that matte...

November 16th 09 A Busy Weekend This Blog had a busy weekend. This last few weekends have been like that. Hyper! I started off down in South Armagh doing a wee bit of work for Cú Chulainn Tours. It was a very beautiful day. Bright and dry. South Armagh is a most heavenly place. On Friday it shone like a green emerald in the brittle sunshine, small field upon small field, hill after hill. Your man recalled how the hills used to be defaced by British Army fortifications. ‘The cheek of them’ he said, ‘Describing this as bandit country. Sure they were the only bandits in the place!’ South Armagh was once part of an ancient Irish speaking area called the Oriel. It was made up of parts of South Down, North Louth and South Armagh. There is a very unique song tradition based in that area also. And before that the Red Branch Knights and the Fianna roamed freely through this territory. In more modern times the local people resisted, and defeated, the British Army. Now in peace time a bunch of fo...

November 13th 09 Celebrating 125 years of the GAA Anyone can hold an event in good weather. It takes real endurance to do so in the face of a ‘severe weather warning’ from the Met office including high winds, torrential rain and bitter cold. But that’s exactly what a small group of us did on Thursday afternoon in the grounds of Parliament Buildings. We gathered to dedicate a tree to mark 125 years of great work by An Cumann Luthchleas Gael. There is a good story about how we got the tree that we got but é sin sceal eile. Suffice to say the necessary advance work was done, particularly by Maire from our office. She also plays football for Carrickmore and she and the Stormont Estates managed our event wonderfully well. In attendance were several dozen senior GAA members, including Tom Daly, the Ulster President, Gerry Doherty, President of the Ulster Ladies Football Association, Catherine O Hara, Chairperson of Ulster Camogie; Danny Murphy Ulster GAA Provincial Director and others, along...

November 10th 09 Twenty Years A Growing. Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came down. This blog remembers watching the scenes of jubilation on television in 1989. This evening’s television news revisited those times and the scenes of euphoria and jubilation. The great and the good are gathered at the Brandenburg Gate for tonight’s formal celebrations. It is interesting to see Mikhail Gorbachev, former Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union alongside other world leaders of that period. Until his reign the Kremlin had intervened militarily to stifle dissent, most famously in my memory in Prague in 1968. At that time I was working in the Duke of York public house in downtown Belfast. The Duke’s was the watering hole, and eating house, for Belfast union leaders, Labour Party types, Communist Party leadership and a scattering of Republican leaders. Our own civil rights struggle was starting to assert itself but I have clear recollections of how discussions among ...

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 strap...

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...