Afghanistan and Ireland – Same old story!

Last month this blog stood in the Guildhall Square in Derry and watched as the relatives of the 14 innocent victims of the British Parachute Regiment expressed their delight at the Saville report’s conclusion that the 14 were innocent victims.

At the time the dead were labelled as terrorists by the British government. The British system and to its shame much of the British media, accused those who had been shot of being ‘gunmen’ and ‘bombers’. Lies were told and a cover-up concocted and the British establishment closed ranks to defend the actions of its Army. That lie persisted for decades.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for what happened. I am sure the words of regret and remorse he made that day were heartfelt and the people of Derry welcomed them.

However, Mr. Cameron then sought to expunge the violent record of the British Army in the north by claiming that: “Bloody Sunday is not the defining story of the service the British Army gave in Northern Ireland from 1969-2007.”

He was wrong. Bloody Sunday did define the British Army’s role in the north. In Ballymurphy six months earlier the same Regiment – the Paras –shot dead 11 innocent victims; in Springhill five month later they shot dead 5 more. The victims were accused of being ‘gunmen’ or in one case a ‘gunwoman’.

On Friday in a welcome development the Catholioc Bishop of Down and Connor gave the families of the Ballymurphy Massacre archive documents, including eye witness statement from Church records of the time.

They validate the families case.

The Ballymurphy and Springhill killings were par for the course for the British Army.

In countless actions over decades of war the British Army and RUC strategy employed shoot-to-kill operations; plastic bullets; mass raids on homes; torture; curfews and intimidation, and collusion between state forces and unionist death squads, to kill many hundreds of citizens and tried to intimidate a whole community.

The full resources of the British state including legal, judicial, and propaganda were brought to bear. It was claimed that victims were gunmen or women whose weapons were spirited away by hostile crowds; or who made actions which gave the soldiers cause to believe they were armed or a threat; or who ran away from patrols justifying their being shot; while others were accused of attacking patrols or trying to run them down in cars. The truth is still denied to relatives in many of these cases.

It was also often said that the north was the British states training ground for its military and intelligence system.

The truth of that is evident in the revelations contained in some of the 90,000 US military files that have been posted on the Wikileaks website and carried in detail in a number of newspapers, including the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegal.

The files are from a variety of NATO military sources operating in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009 and they reveal a depth of failure to the military strategy of NATO than has heretofore been evident in the media coverage of the war.

The Afghanistan experience and the techniques and strategies and propaganda employed in that war are not exceptional. They fit a pattern which will be familiar to people in Ireland and especially the north.

The Wikileaks documents provide previously unreported actions in which Afghan civilians were killed or wounded. In 144 incidents detailed almost 200 civilians were killed and hundreds more injured. This is almost certainly a serious underestimate of the true scale of civilian casualties.

The Wikileaks files provide a list of actions involving the British Army. These are some.

November 15th 2006: In Helmand the British Army’s Marine Commandos fired warning shots at a vehicle, killed two civilians and wounded two others, including a child.

October/November 2007: a cluster of shootings by British soldiers in Kabul lead to the death of the son of an Afghan general. The British soldiers are unidentified and the US report reveals that; ‘Investigation controlled by the British. We are unable to get [sic] complete story.’

March 12th 2008: Helmand. British troops call in gunships and claim three enemy dead. The bodies of two women and two children are later found.

November 19th 2008: Marine Commandos fire ‘warning shots’ at a vehicle. They kill a child.

January 19th 2009: Marine Commandos use a drone to attack the Taliban. Two children are wounded.

January 27th 2009: Marine Commandos shoot at two people ’watching the patrol’. A man and a child are wounded.

May 19th 2009: Ghurkhas call in air strike and kill 8 civilians and destroy a family compound.

September 30th 2009: Helmand. The Rifles regiment call in an air strike on a compound housing two families. 7 killed.

November 10th 2009: Helmand. Coldstream Guards kill a driver of a vehicle.

When asked to respond to these accusations the British Ministry of Defence said: ‘We are currently examining our records to establish the facts in the alleged casualty incidents raised.’

The British Army is not alone in carrying out these kind of actions. French troops shot at a bus full of children killing 8. A US patrol did the same and killed 15. In another incident US Special Forces dropped six 2,000lb bombs on a compound killing up to 300 people.

Human Rights Watch which reported on the war in the north of Ireland and is now doing similar work in Afghanistan said: ‘These files bring to light what’s been a consistent trend by US and NATO forces: the concealment of civilian deaths.’

Also revealed is the existence of Taskforce 373 – a covert operations unit whose task is to ‘remove’ the enemy.

All of this just scratches the surface of another dirty war that is being fought using modern versions of old strategies and techniques, and is failing.

Will the publication of the battlefield and intelligence documents by Wikileaks make a difference? ‘None’, according to the British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

His retort could just as easily have come from the mouth of Reginald Maudling or William Whitelaw or Roy Mason or Tom King or any of the previous British Ministers who had responsibility for prosecuting the British war in Ireland. And whose policies sustained a conflict that could have ended much earlier.

But then should we be surprised? Should those of us who survived be taken aback by the stupidity of the British military and political mind?

A former Commander of the British Army in Afghanisatan Colonel Richard Kemp recently claimed that the British Army won the war in Ireland.

If Colonel Kemp, who presumably was the British Army’s key strategist in Afghanistan, could get it so wrong in our country why should anyone expect him to get it right in Afghanistan? And if he and William Hague are reflective of British thinking today then the British are destined to make the same mistakes in that part of the world they made here.

Andersonstown Barracks Site - Have your say!

Andersonstown Barracks as a fortified British Army/RUC base

A public meeting which is being jointly hosted by the West Belfast Partnership Board and PLACE - the Architecture & Built Environment Centre which examines issues relating to; Planning, Landscape, Architecture, Community, Environment - will be held in the Glenowen Inn on Monday 2nd August at 6pm.

The public meeting is to conclude consultation about the future development of the Andersonstown Barracks site.

Regular readers will know that this blog supports the call for the Andersonstown Barracks site to be turned over to the local community.

Thus far the Department of Social Development has resisted this. DSD’s failure to deal with this issue properly and in partnership with the community, means that almost 5 years and half a million pounds of public money have been wasted.

In 2005 the Andersonstown Barracks, after a long campaign, was demolished. Since then the DSD has ignored local representations, including from political representatives, and failed to grasp the opportunity this site offers to enhance the local community.

DSD resisted every positive suggestion including the proposal for an effective consultation with local citizens.

Two years ago, when local MLA Paul Maskey and this blog met the former Minister for Social Development Margaret Ritchie, we proposed that her Department should support the West Belfast Partnership Board in carrying out a community consultation about the future use of the barracks site. She refused.

Instead DSD promoted proposals for residential and intensive commercial development on the barracks site. These were strenuously opposed by the local community.

Following intensive lobbying by the residents, community organisations and Sinn Féin a consultation process was eventually begun several months ago under the auspices of the west Belfast Partnership Board and PLACE.

The meeting in the Glenowen will be an opportunity for local citizens to express their opinion on the future development of the site and to influence the report which will be produced. DSD should respect the outcome of this consultation.

This blog is for a sustainable public service centre on the Andersonstown Barracks site. Maybe you have a different idea?

One part of a public service centre could be a new public library for the Andersonstown area . Alongside library services, information and records relating to the nearby cemeteries could be kept in a safe and accessible location for the public. This ought to include the digitalisation of burial records, especially those which relate to the graves of babies and the poor.

Many thousands of people visit the cemeteries each year, and many more visit west Belfast because of our rich cultural and political heritage.

There should also be a space for local residents to gather and hold community events.

These are component parts of a public service centre for the barracks site, a hub, an Ionad an Phobail, which would benefit the local community, provide a useful public service and act as a valuable and attractive gateway into the greater Andersonstown area.

It is vital that there is total transparency about a design brief and a tendering process for this site.

All the submissions should be seen by the local community. Any short-listed options need to be community-proofed in an open way. There is also the important issue of funding for any public service centre on the site.

DSD needs to set aside capital funding for this. So, have your say. Be at the Glenowen at 6pm on August 2nd.



Andersonstown Barracks site today

Resolving contentious Orange Marches

Going Past Ardoyne shops

The street conflict which racked parts of the north over the 12th was largely a result of a small number of so-called dissident groups exploiting the tensions and fears surrounding Orange marches. Sinn Féin’s opposition to these groups is unequivocal and a matter of public record.

However, the fact remains that it is the obstinate insistence by the loyal orders to march through Catholic areas, and their refusal to talk, that is at the heart of the perennial violence that marks the marching season.

Orange marches have been the cause of serious sectarian strife in the 19th century, the 20th and now the 21st century.

The first serious violence around orange marches occurred in Belfast in 1813 and each subsequent year brought more conflict. Besieged catholic neighbourhoods got some respite when the British banned orange marches between 1832-44 and 1950-72.

However, the latter part of the 19th century saw the Unionist business class and landed aristocracy, allied to the British Tories, encourage the growth of the Orange Order in opposition to Home Rule. As a result there were violent pogroms in Belfast in 1857, 1864 and 1872 against Catholic ghettoes.

After partition in the early 20th century the Orange Order and other loyal orders dominated unionism.

Most unionist politicians past and present are or have been active members of the Orange. For much of its existence many of the north’s senior law officers, including its judges, as well as its most influential business leaders, were also members of the Orange.

James Craig, the north’s first Prime Minister after partition, and whose stern faced statue overlooks the Great Hall in Parliament Buildings, once defined the northern state in terms of Orangeism: ‘I have always said that I am an Orangeman first and a politician and a member of the parliament afterwards …All I boast is that we have a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State.’

In more recent decades it was an Orange march in Derry which led to the Battle of the Bogside and the pogroms in Belfast. And in the years since 1920 nationalist ghettoes in Belfast and areas outside the city have been annually besieged by thousands of Orangemen and their bands.

A report by a British government Commission 150 years ago, following the 1857 riots, provides an assessment of the Orange that could have been written this year. The Commission concluded that Orange events are responsible for ‘violence, outrage, religious animosities, hatred between classes and, to often, bloodshed and loss of life.’

That is a view widely shared today by Irish nationalists and republicans and internationally.

It is a view that the Orange disregards at its peril as a seeks a new image.



Orange marches and their cost in human, financial and political terms is too high.
No accurate financial cost has been placed on this years violence but in a reply to an Assembly question from a Shinner a few months ago the PSNI estimated that the cost of policing the parades for the period June to August in 2009 was around £2,899,770.

Five years ago the policing of the Orange parade on the Springfield Road in West Belfast and the subsequent rioting cost £3 million. On that occasion scores were arrested and ninety-three police officers were injured.

This year several police officers were shot, a police woman was severely injured after being hit by a concrete slab, and scores more were hurt during the rioting. Local residents were attacked by rioters and cars and vehicles stolen and destroyed. Some young people were also injured in disputed circumstances by plastic bullets.

The financial cost of the disturbances for 2010 will clearly run into millions and this will be paid for out of the limited resources available to the Executive.

At a time when frontline services are being cut and more cuts are threatened; when schools cannot be built because there is no money; when accident and emergency services are being slashed; jobs are being lost; and the Chief Constable is required to make significant cuts in the policing budget, it is clear that the financial cost of contentious parades for society is too high.

In addition the media reports, photographs and negative television imagery which are reproduced around the world do incalculable damage to our efforts to attract inward investment.

This unresolved problem also has a huge adverse impact on the loyal orders. In recent years they have spent a lot of time and effort and money in trying to rebrand the marching season as ‘Orangefest’. All of that is lost in the confrontations and violence around a very few number of marches.

There are almost 4000 loyal order parades each year. The vast majority pass peacefully. Only a handful result in violence.

Surely it is not beyond the wit and intelligence of all of us to find a resolution which can bring this to end. The proposals brought forward by Sinn Féin and the DUP are a means to do this which respects the rights of the marching orders and the rights of host communities.

In early May I wrote to the leaders of the main loyal orders and asked to meet them to discuss all of these matters. They have not yet replied.

I understand the difficulties that all of this presents for the Orange. But I believe that the vast majority of citizens want us to find a peaceful resolution to the marching issue.

I am appealing again to these leaders to meet with me. I am asking that they set aside past differences and engage in dialogue with Sinn Féin and local host communities affected by marches.

It is time that the issue of contentious marches was finally resolved. I am convinced that with good will and common sense we can succeed. And I believe that a proper dialogue between Sinn Féin and the loyal orders can reduce tensions and create a climate in which greater understanding can be encouraged.

The Poc Fada and the Stormont estate

The legend goes that Setanta as a young boy wanted more than anything else to become a warrior and join the Red Branch Knights of Ulster.

These were renowned warriors who defended Ireland. Their leader was Conor Mac Nessa the High King.

When he was 10 Setanta told his anxious parents that he was going off to Eamhain Macha (near Armagh) to join the Red Branch Knights. They tried to dissuade him but he was determined. And one sunny morning in May he headed off with his sliothar (ball) and his caman (stick).

As he made his way across the Cooley mountains he would strike his sliothar with his caman and then chase after it catching it before it hit the ground.

Eventually he reached Eamhain Macha. He joined in a game of hurley with the Kings son and others much older than himself and impressed everyone with his skill; slayed the hound of Cullan, the Kings blacksmith, by hitting his sliothar down its throat as it attacked him; and earned himself the name by which he is best remembered - Cuchullain – the Hound of Cullan.

50 years ago a Catholic priest Fr. Pól Mac Sheáin and the Naomh Moninne club in the Cooley’s used this story as the basis for the first Poc Fada – long puck. The purpose was simple – to test the mettle of hurlers by mapping out a set distance in which hurlers hit their sliothar as hard and a s far as they could. The winner is the person who covers the course in the least number of pucks.

Some years ago this blog persuaded Féile an Phobail to hold the west Belfast equivalent of the Poc Fada. It is very popular and it has been run every year since then by Rossa GAC.

It has been held in GAA grounds, the Falls Park and on the Black Mountain above the city.

Its great craic and all of the participants enjoy the camaraderie and the competition.

Last November this blog hosted a tree dedication ceremony in the grounds of the Stormont estate to mark 125 years of An Cumann Luthchleas Gael.
That event was to celebrate the positive impact the GAA has had on society in Ireland.

In the course of it I pointed across to the statue of Edward Carson who is identified with militant unionism, but who as a student at Trinity College in Dublin was a member of their hurling team.

In Montgomery Hyde’s biography of Carson it is recorded that ‘on one occasion he was mentioned by a local sporting journal, The Irish Sportsman, as having distinguished himself on the field.’

Many other leading protestant figures were also involved in gaelic games.

They include Roger Casement, who was executed in 1916 by the British; Douglas Hyde who was the first President of Ireland and a founder of Conradh na Gaeilge and Sam Maguire, a leading GAA figure after whom the all-Ireland Senior Mens football trophy is named.



So, when we came to discuss this years programme for Féile and the arrangements for the Poc Fada, I suggested that this blog would host the Poc Fada in the grounds of the Stormont estate. Hence the Poc ar an Chnoc – the Puck on the Hill.

And from that came the idea of a celebrity Poc Fada and trophy to commemorate the fact that Carson was a hurley player. And that was agreed.

So August 7th will see a full day of events on the grounds of the Stormont estate. A day in which young and old, all stars and first timers can exhibit their sporting prowess.



As well as the Carson competition and trophy the Poc Fada will also include senior men and women's competitions and an under 10 camogie and hurling Blitz which will be held on the top lawn in front of Parliament Buildings.

The senior women's and men's competition will have invited competitors.

What money is raised will be given to the 'The City of the Angels Foundation'.

This Foundation is run by Fr Pat Clarke, originally from Co. Clare. A month ago he visited Parliament Buildings and we talked for an hour about his work. The Foundation does amazing work in very difficult and dangerous conditions. It comprises a Centre for Art and Culture in a major shanty town (favela) in the Brazilian City of Sao Paulo, as well as a Centre for Art, Ecology and Spirituality situated in the Atlantic Forest two hours distant from the City.

Through the medium of the arts, the Foundation tries to prevent children of the shanty towns from falling victim to the drug culture, to violence and organized crime. Their website is www.cityoftheangelsfoundation.org

A worthy cause. So if you want to help good people trying to save children from the scourge of drugs and crime, or if you just want a great day out – then come along to the Stormont estate on August 7th.

Finally, a word of thanks to all of those who have helped make this possible: Maire Grogan, Catherine Murphy, Pat Maginn, Niall Maginn, Gerry McClory, Sean McGuinness, Denis Rocks, , Mary Herald, Bridgeen Heenan, and Martin Donnelly from M Donnelly & Co Ltd Dublin, specialising in Power tools and Accessories who are the main sponsor for the event.

Leo and the Library

Mise, Leo and Paul Maskey in Armagh

This blog knows Leo Wilson a very long time. But then Leo has been around for a very long time. At 87 years Leo Wilson could be mistaken for someone 15 years younger. He’s a spirited and sprightly soul and an enthusiastic Irish language speaker.

Although, in his younger days he was employed part-time in two different pubs, he still wears his Pioneer – total abstinence - pin with pride. Leo quips the small lapel pin is to prevent anyone thinking his occasional loss of balance is alcohol-related. His tentative steps belie his sharp wit and strong resolve.

In October 1964 Leo stood in the Westminster election as one of 12 Republican candidates. Sinn Féin was a banned party. Leo stood in South Antrim where he pulled in almost 4,000 votes.

Last week, he stepped into the High Court in Belfast. Leo was there to apply for leave to judicially review a decision by the Board of Libraries NI to close Leo’s local public library in Andersonstown. The closure proposal met with widespread public anger.

Andersonstown library was built in 1960. At 50 years old the current building is clearly not fit for purpose for a modern library. However, to replace a static branch with a mobile library, as is proposed by the Board, is in this blogs opinion turning the clock back to the 1950’s. It also discriminates against the 30,000 users who visited Andytown last year. What is required is a new 21st century fit for purpose library.

The Andersonstown library is at the centre of a vibrant community, within a short walk of the main Andersonstown Road. It is also a short distance from Leo’s home.

In the vicinity are two post-primary schools, three local primary schools and two nursery schools. Among these is the first Irish medium education school to be formed in the six counties, Bunscoil Phobail Feirste. It shares a site with Naiscoil Bhreandain at the heart of the urban gaeltacht founded on the Shaws Road.

These community traits are reflected in the inclusion of an Irish language collection in the Andersonstown library. Indeed, the Library authority knew all of this when it came to consider the future of Andersonstown Library.

An Equality Impact Assessment carried out on behalf of Libraries NI earlier this year noted that: “Andersonstown library is unique in that it caters for a wide Irish speaking population. It went on to state: “Libraries NI should acknowledge the need to preserve a high level of support for the Irish speaking community in west Belfast”

In the full knowledge that its decision would adversely impact on the people of Andersonstown, especially the Irish language speaking community, Libraries NI decided to proceed with the closure of Andersonstown Library.

That decision contrasted with its decision to retain four libraries which had been similarly earmarked for closure : Ballyhackmore, Cloughfern, Tullycarnet and Woodstock. Three of these are in unionist east Belfast.

The differential treatment of Andersonstown is unfair and discriminatory. In East Belfast, the Woodstock library helps serve the Polish-speaking community. To avoid impacting negatively on the local Polish community, Libraries NI decided against closing the Woodstock Library.

The way Libraries NI treated supporters of the Andytown branch is also revealing. Papers prepared for the Board obliterated any reference to the persistent efforts by Sinn Féin and local MLA Paul Maskey to keep the library open. In contrast, Libraries NI was happy to quote from unionist political representatives in support of Ballyhackamore Library, another facility earmarked for closure but then reinstated by Libraries NI, unlike Andersonstown.

So it was that last Thursday this blog journeyed to Armagh – with Leo Wilson and Paul Maskey. It was the day before the library was due to close. Our aim was to address the Board and persuade it to rescind the closure.

This was not the first effort to stop the closure. From the beginning of the year Paul Maskey has led a campaign to save it. Written submissions were made by Sinn Féin, local community groups, local schools and others in opposition to the proposed closure. At a public meeting held in the nearby leisure centre, an official account of the response by Libraries NI recorded “very strong” objections to the proposal to close the library.

When we arrived in Armagh, only two of us were allowed to address the Board. We shared the information previously withheld from the Board; highlighted the need for equality of treatment; and reminded them that more than 2,000 people had signed a petition against the closure of Andersonstown Library. After Paul Maskey and I had spoken, Leo Wilson raised his hand and asked the chairperson if he could address the Board. His request was granted and he spoke eloquently about his experience, the importance of the library for him and for the community. But when all was said and done we later learned that a majority of the Board was sticking to the closure plan.



Leo and Jennifer McCann at the High Court

That’s why the following afternoon Leo Wilson was in the High Court. With hours to go before the Andersonstown Library would finally be closed, Leo sought a court injunction against closure and to have the inequality and unfairness of the decision fully examined and overturned.

This may not have been a John Grisham courtroom classic. But a double-cross was exposed. Despite having said that the library would not close until 5.30pm a stroke was pulled and the Board ordered that the library be closed at lunchtime.

The judge said it would be “unprecedented” for the courts to give a direction to re-open a public facility which had already been closed. So, the affect of the Library Boards manoeuvre was to stall the court case. It will now be heard in September.

However, Leo did succeed in securing an undertaking that the Irish language books would be kept intact and made accessible

What is required is a new 21st century fit for purpose library.

Leo values his library. He returned to third level education in his later life, and in his early 70s graduated with a degree in political science. Access to books was vital to the successful completion of his studies. Nowadays, for Leo as for many others the library is not only a source of reading but also of social contact.

Not that Leo’s quality of life or the rights of the thousands who used Andersonstown Library last year seem to matter to some in Libraries NI. So, when the summer is past, Leo will be back in court. And we will be with him.



Andersonstown Library

The Twelfth

The Orange marching season always provides its fair share of problems.

Some of it is the mundane business of charting a course through the inevitable traffic chaos which on this ‘Twelfth’ will result from 18 major demonstrations across all parts of the north.

But most focus will be on the small number of contentious parades. In past years they have resulted in chaos of a different and more violent kind.

41 years ago it was an Orange march in Derry which led to the Battle of the Bogside and the pogroms in Belfast. And the following year, 1970, it was another orange march on the Springfield Road in west Belfast which led to the first serious confrontation between nationalists and the British Army. It marked the beginning of the British Army’s military offensive against the nationalist people.

More recently in 2005 the policing of the controversial Orange parade to the Whiterock Loyal Orange Lodge on the Springfield Road in
West Belfast and the subsequent rioting cost £3 million sterling.

The rioting by members of the “loyal” orders lasted for days after an
Orange Order parade was barred from going through security gates into an area of the Springfield Road which is almost entirely Catholic. Not surprisingly these residents resent the sectarian abuse heaped on them by some elements associated with these parades. They also resent the virtual siege and the military and police curfew imposed on them.

Eighty-two people were arrested, twelve weapons were recovered and ninety-three police officers were injured. Statistics on civilian injuries, as is usual in these cases, are not available, but without doubt scores of people were hurt. “Loyal” rioters fired 150 live rounds. They threw 167 blast bombs at police lines, hijacked 167 vehicles and threw over 1,000 petrol bombs. The police fired 216 plastic bullets.

Last year there was the awful sectarian murder of Kevin McDaid in Coleraine and rioting in Ardoyne.

All evident of the underlying sectarianism that is an intrinsic part of Orangeism.

So, host communities feel besieged and are understandably fearful when the marching orders insist that they have the right, without regard to those communities, to parade through areas where they are not wanted.

There are now almost 4,000 parades annually by the various marching orders and most of these pass off peacefully.

For its part, the Orange Order refuses to talk directly to the host communities or the Parades Commission which was established by the British government to deal with these issues.

Earlier this year at negotiations in Hillsborough the DUP and Shinners came to an agreement on a new way forward for resolving the issue of contentious parades. This common sense approach is based on equality and the right of everyone to live free from sectarian harassment.

It is a serious and genuine attempt to provide a legal framework within which this matter can be resolved and which seeks to protect the rights of the marching orders and the rights of host communities.

It is also about improving on what is currently there and will include the transfer of parading powers from London to the political institutions in Belfast. It will also require legislation passed in the Assembly.

Last week the Grand Lodge of the Orange Order narrowly rejected the draft proposals on parades. The charge against the legislation at the meeting in Tyrone was led in the main by Tom Elliot who hopes to be the next leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and his party colleague David McNarry.

I don’t know Tom Elliot very well. He always seems a bit standoffish. He was one of the main movers behind the orange sponsored efforts to foist a Tory MP on the people of Fermanagh South Tyrone. David McNarry is wee but bumptious but a civil enough being for all that. So, if the truth be told their rejection of the Hillsborough proposition is about squalid party politicking and about the battle for the hearts and minds of unionists between the UUP and the DUP.

The move at the Grand Lodge was not about what is best for the community and the future peaceful resolution of contentious parades. It isn’t even about what is best for the Orange. It’s about the UUP making life difficult for the DUP.

I have written again this year to the leaderships of the various marching orders asking to meet with them to receive a briefing on the issue of parades and to discuss with them the role and place of orangeism in modern Irish society.

Thus far the Orange leaderships still refuse to talk to Sinn Féin even though their political leaders, including the UUP, are in government with us and there are many informal contacts between republicans, incouding this blog, and the orange.

Why do they refuse? Tens of thousands of words have been written over the years trying to explain the motivation and thinking of the Orange. Some dismiss it as pure and simple sectarianism and hatred of anything ‘Catholic’.

But that’s to let them off the hook. It’s all about power. For over a century the Orange Order was the glue which meshed the political and economic interests of the unionist political and business establishment and its urban and rural working class.

The northern state was their state. It didn’t matter that most unionists lived in appalling housing conditions or worked for big house unionists for buttons or suffered ill health or … The northern state was theirs; they had the jobs; they got first preference for the housing; the RUC was theirs; they had the vote and the unionist party exercised power on their behalf – well not really. It exercised it on its own behalf.

But Orangeism gave unionists a sense of belonging, of cohesion and superiority.

And now all of that is changing. The sectarian certainties of the past have gone. Political unionism has compromised and Executive and Assembly power is conditional on equality. And the Orange finds it difficult, and some find it impossible, to come to terms with the new realities.

So, there is no easy solution to the issue of contentious parades or to breaking down the prejudices that exist within unionism and Orangeism. It is one of the big challenges facing republicans.

But the starting point must be that there has to be dialogue. This is particularly important in light of the efforts by some on the fringes of unionism and nationalism who seek to provoke conflict and street disorder around the 12th – some of which we witnessed on the 11th night in north and west Belfast.

This must be strenuously opposed. I would appeal to everyone to behave in a dignified manner in the next few days.

I believe that it is in the interest of the Orange to engage properly and fully with their neighbours.

Some within the Orange have clearly, if slowly, come to this view. All sensible people will support those elements who have moved or are moving in this direction. They certainly have my best wishes.

A Heroic Leader – Joe McDonnell

Memorial to the Hunger Strikers in the grounds of the Roddy McCorley Club

Joe McDonnell was great craic. He loved life and had a great sense of fun. He was optimistic, charismatic, a natural leader, and a practical joker. And he was a dedicated and committed IRA Volunteer who 29 years ago on July 8th 1981 died on hunger strike.

I first met Joe during internment. We were being held on the Maidstone Prison ship in Belfast Lough. The conditions were punitive and primitive. After protests by us and following the imposition of British Direct Rule it was closed. We were moved to the cages in Long Kesh. Joe was one of hundreds of men and women incarcerated without trial. And although conditions were harsh in the cages he was always cheerful.

Later when he commenced his hunger strike, four days after the death of his friend and comrade Bobby Sands, Joe sent me out from the H Blocks a King Edward cigar. Don’t ask me how he got it.

Joe was the fifth man to join the hunger-strike. He was 29 years old, married to Goretti and with two children Bernadette and Joseph.

He was born in the Lower Falls but grew up in the Greater Andersonstown area and came to live in Lenadoon Avenue where he was a well-known and very popular man.

From the day he was sentenced Joe refused to put on the prison uniform to take a visit, so adamant was he that he would not be criminalised. He kept in touch instead, with his wife and family, by means of smuggled communications –comms - written with smuggled-in biro refills on prison issue toilet paper and smuggled out via other blanket men who were taking visits.

Incarcerated in H5-Block, Joe acted as 'scarcher' (an anglicised form of the Irish word, scairt - to shout) shouting the scéal, or news from his block to the adjoining one about a hundred yards away. This was the only way that news from outside could be communicated from one H-Block to the blanket men in another H-Block.

Joe had been arrested at the same time as Bobby Sands and the two were very close. It was predictable, inevitable almost, that when Bobby died on May 5th after 66 days on hunger strike that Joe would take his place a few days later.



Mise speaking at the commemoration for Joe last Thursday evening

Like Bobby, Joe also stood for election. On June 11th there was a general election in the south. 9 prisoners, four of them hunger strikers, stood. It was a time of severe economic difficulties and there were many pressing issues bearing down on citizens in that part of the island. Despite that, and the fact that the political platform of the prisoners was for support for their five demands, thousands of people used their votes to back the prisoners.

Paddy Agnew and Kieran Doherty were elected and Joe came within 300 votes of becoming a TD for Sligo.

Despite this public backing the Irish government proved inept, was hostile to the prisoners and refused to stand up to the Thatcher government.

Joe died in the early hours of July 8th after 61 days on hunger strike. A few hours later Nora McCabe was shot with a plastic bullet and murdered by the RUC at the corner of Linden Street and the Falls Road.

Two days later I arrived late for Joe’s funeral having attended the earlier funeral of 16 year old John Dempsey, a member of Na Fianna Éireann who had been shot dead by the British Army.

On the Andersonstown Road, outside the building that later became Connolly House, an IRA firing party gave its last salute to a fallen comrade. As they withdrew from the funeral the British Army and RUC raided a house in St. Agnes Drive a short distance away. There was the thud and crack of gunfire and then of plastic bullets as the house and then the funeral was attacked by British forces.

The scenes were chaotic. There was a running battle between mourners and the British Army and RUC in St. Agnes Drive which spilled out onto the Andersonstown Road. Other mourners, with children, huddled in groups wherever they could to get protection from the scores of plastic bullets that were being fired. As Martin McGuinness and I pushed our way through the crowd from the front of the funeral procession the plastic bullets flew like deadly flocks of birds from the RUC land Rovers towards the mourners.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I heard that my brother Paddy had been shot. Somebody else told me he was in a Saracen which was sitting in the street. An elderly man lay on the ground in front of the Saracen refusing to let it move. It was my uncle Paddy. And then an ambulance with siren screaming flew past me. I was later told that Paddy was in that.

But despite all that was happening Joe’s funeral still had to proceed and the thousands who were there did so with the greatest dignity.

Much has been written since then about the hunger strikers, the hunger strike, and its impact. I believe it was a watershed event in Irish history. It changed the course of Irish history.

I also believe that for those today who want to know what it means to be a republican you need look no further than the men and women in Armagh and the Blocks and to the hunger strikers.

They are today’s role models. They were noble, selfless, decent men and women who demonstrated enormous heroism in the face of great hardship. They were totally committed to opposing oppression and injustice and to building a new society based on equality and freedom.

Through their efforts and those of thousands of others Irish republicanism has grown in political strength to a level unimaginable in 1981.

Two weeks ago I spoke at the Short Strand commemoration to mark the 40th anniversary of the Battle of St. Mathews. As part of those events Danny Devenny, mural painter extraordinaire, who was in the Cages with Bobby Sands, painted a new mural.

In bold words it says: ‘Understand the Past – And build a Better Future’.That’s where our focus must be. That’s what motivated Joe and Bobby and Big Doc and their comrades. And there is a role for everyone in building that new future.

St. James Says No!!

Briege agus mise in Rodney

St James is a closely knit west Belfast neighbourhood bordered by the Falls Road, the M1 and the Bog Meadows. James Connolly lived in a house on the Falls Road, along the front of the area for several years. He left there to join the Rising in Dublin in April 1916.

Other parts of the district were built later in the 1920’s and perhaps 30’s. Much of the housing is made up of small terraced two or three bedroom homes. Once it boasted Celtic Park in its midst but that is now long gone, replaced by the Park Centre, a huge shopping Mall.

Like many other parts of the city St. James has suffered as a result of the conflict. It is disadvantaged with high levels of unemployment.

It is an interface area. The loyalist Village is just across the Broadway Roundabout and over the decades the lower end of the district has witnessed sectarian confrontations.

Last Friday night a large mob of young loyalists came across from the Village sparking a confrontation. Briege Brownlee, a local community activist and Sinn Féin Councillor and other residents rushed to the scene and their calm intervention avoided a potential major confrontation.

There is a part of St. James’s known as the ‘pitches’ which is a gathering place for anti-social elements, many from outside of the area. It is on the fringe of the neighbourhood and adjacent to the Bog Meadows and St. Louise’s School. It has been identified as a ‘hotspot’ and in recent months this blog and other Shinners have been meeting with the PSNI and local stakeholders about this site.

It was those from this ‘hotspot’ and others from outside of the district, who were responsible for the serious violence of Saturday and Sunday nights which terrorised local residents, many of them elderly.

There was drink and drugs involved and a small number of people belonging to so-called dissident groups tried to encourage the violence and were involved in bringing outsiders into the St. James area on Saturday and Sunday nights.

They attacked the PSNI and attempted to set up barriers across the Donegal Road. They also smashed their way into two local businesses and onto a building site.

In Rodney Parade many residents were outraged at strangers coming into their street and engaging in totally unacceptable behaviour, stealing and purporting to represent republicanism. Those actions do not represent republicanism.

Sinn Féin activists removed the barriers from the road and returned cash tills that had been stolen from the KFC outlet. They also confronted and challenged the orchestrators of the violence and will continue to do so.

I went into the area on Monday with Briege and spoke to some of the residents. They were very angry. One said to me: “It wasn’t anyone from the Village who broke into the KFC or the car wash business in the Park Centre, or looted or tried to erect barriers on the road.”

The message from these residents was very clear. They want an end to this behaviour. And they are demanding that those from outside of the district, including those representing so-called dissident groups, stay out of the neighbourhood.

Those involved are sectarian and include career criminals who have no interest in politics.

I would appeal to parents to ensure that young people do not get caught up in this unacceptable anti-social behaviour.

The PSNI used plastic bullets in the course of the weekends events. These are lethal force weapons which risk causing serious injury or death. The PSNI should not use them.

One positive in all of this is that there is now ongoing contact between community representatives from the Village and people from St. James. These efforts are replicated all across the city where community workers and others in loyalist and unionist working class areas are dealing directly with groups in nationalist areas. These efforts are about seeking to ensure that sectarian tensions are calmed. Briege tells me that these arrangements are working well in St. James.

Where you live affects how you live

Where you live affects how you live. I say this because the challenge for any of us, this blog included , who are committed to equality is to ensure that wherever citizens live, they have the same rights and entitlements as everyone else.

Over many decades, sectors of the city in which I live have been colour-coded by statutory agencies. They glibly refer to ‘green’ areas and ‘orange’ areas. Maps in the offices of public bodies demonstrate the institutionalised thinking which divides Belfast.

This was not merely a symptom of sectarianism. It follows the practice initiated by the British military. Since the British army used colour-codes, especially to define what they regarded as hostile nationalist districts, other public bodies followed suit.

It went so far that, the concept of ‘defensive planning’ permeated all facets of public life, from road networks to social housing developments. Counter-insurgency architecture was a facade of British rule.

Not surprisingly, the areas worst affected by the conflict over many decades, are also the areas which are most impoverished and deprived.

For example, a boy born in the west Belfast has a life expectancy 6 years shorter than one in affluent south Belfast. That fact was highlighted by the Minister for Health.

This blog recently received two papers to our Office which relate to different facets of this problem.

Firstly, the latest results of the Multiple Deprivation Index were published by the Department of Finance and Personnel. These are current up to May 2010.

In the latest results, 6 out of the top 10 most deprived neighbourhoods (so-called Super Output Areas) are in west Belfast. These are in the Falls, Shankill, Upper Springfield and Whiterock. When the analysis is extended to take in a larger geographical area, such as Assembly constituency boundaries, West Belfast is the most deprived community.

About one third of the population of Belfast live in west Belfast. A disproportionately high number of these residents are under the age of 18.

Measures of deprivation across the six counties, consistently record the fact that west Belfast experiences disproportionately high levels of disadvantage and social need.

In studies from several different sources (academic and the Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency) and therefore employing different methodologies, west Belfast electoral wards have repeatedly appeared amongst the most disadvantaged in the north. (Townsend 1991; Robson 1991; Noble 2001; Noble 2005)

All of this underlines the hardened nature of the poverty and disadvantage in Belfast and the concentration of this in certain areas.

As the Health & Social Care Inequalities Monitoring system found, “a substantially higher proportion of the population in deprived areas” are from a Catholic / nationalist background. However, in Belfast working class unionist communities are being left behind as well and need our representation.

Despite these recent revelations on deprivation, there has been no clamour from the media or the usual quarters for action from the government.

Au contraire. According to the naysayers, it’s the advocates for economic change and the people they advocate change for who are at fault. This twisted logic barely disguises the disdain in certain quarters for those who have been dispossessed and denied their right to enjoy prosperity and peace in equal measure to all others.

On the other hand, there is evidence that change can be made when we are given the tools to achieve it. This was evidenced in the news release from the Health Employment Partnership about creation of nearly 150 jobs in its first three years. The project was inspired and informed by people in the Bronx, an impoverished part of New York city.

This is precisely the kind of collaborative practice and linkage between New York and Belfast which we need to foster to ensure that no-one gets left behind.

The Belfast project is the first of its kind and enables long-term unemployed people in the poorest communities of Belfast to access employment in nearby health employers. It has also enabled lower-paid hospital workers to re-skill and train for job progression, creating new vacancies for others to uptake. All of this has been achieved at a cost-per-job no existing government agency or programme can equal.

The ingenuity of this programme is that it turns the economic challenges facing people in the poorest communities upside down. The location of employment remains a strong factor in determining access to jobs, especially for those who experience long-term unemployment.

The Health Employment Partnership has taken the areas in Belfast where most poor people live and turned that into an advantage by creating employment opportunities in some of the largest local employers : the Royal and the Mater Hospitals.

Twenty five years after the MacBride Principles campaign commenced, a renewed and concerted effort is required to uplift the poorest communities.

As Sean MacBride said in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974 :
“The fundamental relationship between peace and human rights is now recognized. Structures which deprive persons of their human rights and dignity prevent justice from being realized; and systems which condemn people to starvation or to substandard conditions are a denial both of human rights and human dignity. It is these conditions which compel people to resort to violence.”

This blog remembers being asked by a visitor how we would know the peace process is working. We were walking in Turf Lodge in a deprived area in Belfast. “We will know the peace process is working when the people here are working”, I replied.

And so we will.