MY ASS.

Henry óg with new arrival

‘It’s impossible to get a donkey to pull a cart these days’

‘Aye. Come to think of it…. when’s the last time you saw a donkey pulling
a cart?’

‘When I was a wee lad that’s all you saw around these parts. Donkeys pulling carts. Carts with creamery cans. Carts with turf. Carts with sea weed. And donkeys pulling them’.

‘The last time I tried to back a donkey into a cart it turned into a
bucking bronco. Remember that wee dark she donkey, Susie? As quiet as a mouse until you tried to back her into a cart….. then … There is nothing worse than a donkey with attitude. But you wud know all about that anyway, wudn’t you? With the work you do.’

‘Don’t talk about work. The holidays is nearly over’.

‘So is the rain. Just in time for the kids going back to school. When’s the last time you saw a donkey cart?’

‘Ah Wee Boots probably knows where to get one. Wee Boots is a great donkey
man. He brought two wee foals up from Galway. One in the back of the car.
That was in the days before seat belts were compulsory. He used to have a donkey cart. He had it out at the Féile parade last year. His family are big donkey people.’

‘Had he a donkey pulling the cart at the Féile Parade?’

‘He had. It was a great success.’

‘I wonder how he got the donkey into the shafts?’

‘It was an old donkey. It must have carted before. I was there when he harnessed it up. When he finished it just backed into the cart itself’.

‘Janey! An old donkey. You wudn’t get a young donkey to do that nowadays. You cudnt teach a new donkey old tricks. Not for a million pounds!’

‘What wud a donkey want with a million pounds?’

‘That’s just a figure of speech’.

‘Maybe it’s the donkeys getting their own back? Remember when there were
heaps of donkeys all over Ireland , more or less abandoned when they fell
out of fashion. Remember their wee hooves wud be all curled up at the front?’

‘I do. They were like those shoes that Aladdin wears in the pantomimes’.

‘Little wonder the donkeys took the needle.’

‘Do you know that a Jennet is a cross between a donkey and a horse? And a
Mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey?’

‘It’s the other way around.’

‘Nawh, it’s not’.

‘Donkeys are originally from North Africa. They were brought to Ireland
after the Napoleonic wars. And the cross appeared on their backs after
Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. There are still lots of
donkeys in Eastern Europe. It’s like Ireland in the fifties and sixties.
The donkeys there probably pull carts without any bother’.

‘I blame the Celtic Tiger. Why all this interest in donkeys all of a sudden?’

‘I was always interested in donkeys’.

‘But you’re actually blogging about donkeys!’

‘Well, I got this photo this morning on my phone from Minnie Mo. Her donkey foaled last week’.

‘Janey. It’s in the kitchen. And its white.’

‘Well it’s only born. Where else wud it be. That’s Henry óg with it?’

‘Minnie Mo is lukin a name for it. That’s why I’m doing this blog. It’s a baby boy’.

‘Call it something biblical? Jacob?’

‘She has a Jacob.’

‘Oh and she says that Naomh Eoghans won the Under 16 Camogie championship
last night.’

‘Great! A big one that! Fair play.’

‘Call it Johnny?’

‘Camogs are girls.’

‘But they’re the Johnnies’

‘Then call it Champion!’

‘That doesn’t sound right. It’s probably indicative of the low esteem in
which we hold donkeys. Champion the wonder donkey doesn’t have the same ring to it as Champion the wonder horse!’

‘Its no wonder they won’t pull carts. Anyway maybe someone out there in the real world will have a name for Minnie Mo’s ass’.

‘Maybe?’

'What about Cheeky?'



Naomh Eoin Camogs are U16 Championship Winners 2010

Naomh Eoin 4gls 11pts Loughgiel 1gl 2pts

First time ever for the Johnnies...

Also, congratulations to Gort na Móna camógs on winning the Antrim Junior Champonship final, and best of luck in Ulster!

BON APPETIT.

This blog knows lots of good cooks. In fact with one very honourable
exception, most of my friends cook. The one who doesn’t cook, doesn’t
cook because he is spoilt. It isn’t that he can’t cook. In emergencies he
has been known to fry a steak or even as winter draws in he can put
together a moderately good Saturday night–Sunday pot of soup. He also used to pickle red cabbage. He is from East Belfast, which might explain that.

When I say this blog knows lots of good cooks I really mean brilliant
cooks. Most are men although one woman friend of continental origin is
exceptional. This blog could be a brilliant cook. Well a moderately
exceptionally good cook. Problem is I don’t have the time. I get the
theory ok but somewhere between larder and pot there is sometimes
something totally unconnected to cooking to do and I have to rush the
process or jump a stage or two to get whatever it is done.

When I am not distracted like this I must say my efforts, by my own
standards, are very appetising. Others including my brilliant cook friends
will smile at that but I can put up with their sly digs and sleekit
asides. Biting the hands that feed me would be a hungry pastime and we
Irish have had enough of hunger. So whatever you say, say nothing is my
maxim. Praise the cook and your plate will never be empty.

Having said that, or not said it, let me also say between you and me
their problem is that they have too much time on their hands. One even
gets up at six o clock in the morning to bake bread or to prepare a
special vegetarian dish for your man and then gets annoyed when your man
lets it go cold or reads or talks on the phone in the middle of the meal.
I would bar your man for any of these offences.

Let me explain. These particular meals are served in our little office on
Mondays and Tuesdays. We have a very select diners club – Cumann Chnoic
Na Anfa - up at Stormont and a large band of hangers on and sly dogs who
arrive at lunch time on the pretext of looking for a meeting or a phone
number or some other obviously shallow excuse to mine sweep at our table.
One particularly cholesterol troubled comrade times his entry to coincide
with the sweet course.

Yes we have a sweet course! And why not? An otherwise unrepentant and
occasionally cranky subversive makes pastries and fancy do-das like
Crème Caramel and Dutch Apple Struddle and Vanilla Custard Tartlets and
manages to get them in through security. Wee buns he says.

All the women love him. It’s sickening the way some of them ingratiate
themselves. Especially you know who. The Tír Éoghan woman who minds us
has a bit of backbone however. She was moved once to bake an Angel Cake
in retaliation but it was lopsided and slightly forenenst itself and
really quite pitiable. Though it tasted grand as your man conceded
graciously, it got no points for presentation.

And presentation is important all my brilliant cooking friends agree. Our
chief best brilliant cook is outstanding. A human encyclopaedia on food.
And a scholar and a fine judge of Irish whiskey to boot. Or rum. Or
brandy. Or fine wine. In moderately respectable quantities of course. Of
course.

Good food simply cooked is his motto. He is also a compulsive shopper
and a great ferreter outer of food bargains. And shoes. He has a soup
season every year and some of us are unworthy but grateful recipients of
his fine fare to see us through the winter months. The humble spud is his
favourite vegetable. Very versatile he asserts. And this from a man who allows for French, Portuguese, Italian and Nordic influences in his kitchen.

Which brings me by circuitous route to the point behind this particular
blog. Many people may think that we Irish have no real ethnic cuisine or
culinary tradition apart from the potato. Not so! Not that this blog is
xenophobic on this matter. Or on any other matter for that matter but if
we don’t fly the flag who else will?

Darina Allen will. That’s who. A very thoughtful woman sent me a copy of
Ms Allen’s IRISH TRADITIONAL COOKING from London and it is a gem. Over
three hundred recipes from Ireland’s heritage. Lamb with wild garlic.
Boxty pancakes. Fish dishes to die for. Fine breads. Great broths. Cakes.
Puddings. Biscuits. And stories about it all. A great read.

And the reason why this blog is spending so much of this holiday in the kitchen. Apart from the rain that is. Ah well if you can’t stand the
heat………

IRISH TRADITIONAL COOKING by DARINA ALLEN is published by KYLE CATHIE LIMITED. www.kylecathie.com

An Phoblacht Abú

‘Do you know that An Phoblacht, the Sinn Féin paper, is the longest
published political newspaper in Ireland?’

Your man was thumbing his way through the newly launched new look, monthly
edition.

‘In the new media age it is a struggle for print publications to survive
but republicans have always had to do that’ he continued.

‘Peadar O Donnell and Liam Mellowes kept the paper going in their time
during the great counter revolution.’

I looked at him over my glasses. Its not often your man gets preachy at
me. Well not about politics anyway. About every other thing. He is more
sleekit than preachy about politics.Especially my politics. He calls it
the moral high ground.

‘Younger people get their scéal on the internet’ I replied. ‘Nowadays the
internet and worldwide web is commonplace and there’s a new Blackberry,
iPhone or iPad produced almost every few months’.

‘I know’ he said. ‘ But through the seventies, Daithi, Deasún Breatnach,
Eamonn Mc Thomais kept the paper going. Hard work!’

‘Print newspapers have to change to meet new communication modes with this
and An Phoblacht, is no different’ I responded. ‘We have to avail of
advancements in electronic communications. There is now a brand new
website(aprnonline.com) which is still in its early days of development
but provides ‘Breaking News’ items as well as being on Facebook and
Twitter. It will carry videos and is working on other aspects that will
interest readers and web surfers’.

‘Well I prefer to have the paper in my hand’, he snorted. An Phoblacht
is the voice of Irish republicanism and that voice still needs to be
heard. When I think of the work Rita O Hare, Dawn, Bangers, Micheál MacDonnacha and Sean MacBradaigh and all the rest of them did in hard times.’

‘Ach com’n on’ I retorted ‘The new format has more pages (32) and more
colour. It can cover issues in more depth than before. It can attract
new readers.’

Your man put the paper down and listened quietly.

“Things have moved on from the days when An Phoblacht was really the only
outlet in Ireland, North or South, where you could hear the republican
message. Or when the main work of many activists was to sell the paper’.

“I agree,’ he said ‘But we still need our own paper. And we need to sell
it. That’s important work. Our paper needs the ability to delve deeper
into the issues that affect Irish society. Republicans also still want a
platform for ideas, discussions and debate. An Phoblacht has provided such
a platform but we need to build and strengthen that; we need to make it
more widely used and known. While overt state censorship of Sinn Féin is
long gone, there is an incredibly distorted and biased coverage of
republican politics in the establishment media. This means that it is just
as important as it ever was that we have our own means of getting the
republican message out, unmediated and direct.’

He stopped to draw breath.

‘Why are you telling me all this’ I asked. ‘We’re supposed to be on our
holidays’.

“Real activists don’t take holidays. We regroup’ he muttered. I meant to
tell you. I have been asked to promote the paper in our area.’

‘Haha’, I grinned ‘fair play to you.’

‘In its new format, An Phoblacht aims to meet the challenges of the modern
political media environment and not just survive but grow. I believe that
with the active support of republicans throughout Ireland we can do that.”
He exclaimed.

‘And that’s the nub of the issue. An Phoblacht costs just £2 or €2 every
month and that’s an investment in not just maintaining but strengthening
the republican voice, providing the paper with the wherewithal to look
into those nooks and crannies in society from a progressive perspective
and to offer an alternative platform to the Establishment view’.

What do you think of this for a selling point?’ he asked. ‘If you used to
read An Phoblacht, I’m asking you to pick it up again or subscribe to it
online. And if you’re inclined to, offer to write for it too. As the
United Irishmen said: “It is new strung and shall be heard.”

‘Strum,strum strum’ I said. ‘Now can we go for something to eat? The rain
seems to have stopped.’

‘It never rains in the pub,’ he said ‘And I could pick up some customers’.

‘Ok. Whats the website again’

‘aprnonline.com’.

HURLING FOREVER.

This blog believes that hurling is one of the best things in life. Of that there can be no doubt. Ever since Gerry Begley and Paddy Elliot introduced me to a hurling stick when I was about five years old and they were young gladiators representing Dwyer’s GAC,the passion for hurley has never left me.

The Christian brothers from Saint Finian’s Primary School on the Falls Road, Munster-born to a man, brought discipline and organisation to our juvenile sporting endeavours. Brother Benignus, elderly already by my time and nicknamed the Bore because of his mantra like shouted instruction from the side line, ‘bore in, bore in’ walked the Falls Road until he was in his nineties. Brothers Andrew, Christopher and Aloysius were our main mentors, Saint Galls our main rivals.

In the back of our class I idled away the time by fantasizing on how I would play for Antrim. I never did. Now I idle away the time fantasizing about how good I used to be. The older you get the better you seem to have been, appears to be a common tendency for sports people in my peer group, spoofers all including this blog.

My biggest claim to fame was playing for Saint Mary's on a team captained by Aidan Hamill, the Antrim and Rossa stalwart. But maybe that was football? My best school boy memory was being singled out for praise by our banisteoir for my performance on a Belfast versus Dublin schools game in Casement. I was injured during that game and I limped back and forth between my granny’s and school for ages afterwards wearing my wound like a badge of honour.

Politics intruded into my life not long afterwards. I was a Saint Galls man for a wee while until Brother Leapold – the Walking Lampost- expelled me wrongly and when he apoligised some weeks later I was too young and churlish to go back. Eire Óg became my club. Then O Connells. But it was all very secondary now to political campaigning and housing agitation and civil rights work.

My Uncle Paddy, a Sarsfields man and Francie, a Davitts stalwart were handy hurlers. So was my Uncle Dominic.

My older brother Paddy was a handy hurler also. Him and Paddy Smith. On the days before internment, in August 1971, I remember a squad of us, including young women from the Seán Treacy’s pucking a sliothar back and forth between us on the old pitch at McCrory Park. A few years later in the cages of Long Kesh when we were refused permission to have hurling sticks sent into us we made our own. Or at least Cleaky and big Duice and the more practically minded Gaels in our ranks did so by removing lengths of timber from the innards of our nissen huts and shaping out hurls for
the rest of us.

The screws were mightly alarmed and impressed when the Cage Eleven hurlers showed off our skills on the playing fields of Long Kesh. Unfortunately our boxwood hurleys were no substitute for the real McCoy. Ash is your only man. Cleaky’s Camans barely lasted ten minutes. But as he said later we made our point.

Antrim's senior hurlers and camogs made their point also this year on the national stage. Mighty stuff. They did us proud. So did Naomh Gall. And juvenile hurling is on the up across the county. Over two hundred young gaels – boys and girls- showed off their skills on the lawns of Stormont just a week or so ago. Well done to everyone involved, mentors, parents and players. They are out there in pitches across the land on Saturday and Sunday morning pulling and pucking and learning stick work and getting good at the best game in the world and there are great people fostering hurling, some for generations, in clubs across Belfast and Antrim. Well
done to them all.

Did any of you watch the Galway Tipperary game recently? What a match! Have you seen the Cats in action? Did you see Waterford and Tipperary? Will you be in Croke Park for the Hurling Final? This blog will. One of the great priviliges and big days in my life. The All Ireland Final.

Will it be five in a row for Kilkenny? Or will Tipp win the day? The Cats are favourite but ……. Nobody knows. That’s the thing about it. It’s all on the day. And what a day it will be. And another thing about it?

The youngster you see with the hurl in his or her hand making their way up the Falls Road or in Dunloy or the Glens? That young man or woman could go on to wear our county’s colours in Croke Park. They could score the winning point that brings the Liam McCarthy cup to Antrim. So encourage them. It's all to play for.

HAIR TODAY - GONE TOMORROW.

‘Do you know how to deal with bushy eyebrows?’ Your man asked, squinting
at me with both eyes half closed.

‘Cut them’ I said brusquely.

‘I had all these wee things sort of flitting across me vision for the last
couple of weeks and I wasn’t able to figure out what they were until just
there now. It’s me eyebrows. They’re like huge hairy caterpillars,
dropping down over me eyes’.

He continued to peer at me short-sightedly.

‘Its funny that. The way hair goes in some parts and comes in others. I
thought about it last Sunday when we were at the big game. Remember we met
wee Seamie? Did you see his comb over? I said to myself I hope I never
end up like that. When the wind blew it lifted the hair up off the top of
his head like it was a flap. Seamie bocht. He has to walk sideways into
the wind and all the time his hair flapping up and down like the wing of a
big black crow’.

‘Its in your genes’ I suggested. ‘Baldness. Or the lack of it. Its in
your genes’.

‘I wudn’t say that’ he replied, ‘Luk at our ones. Bald as coots’.

‘Whats a coot?’ I wondered.

‘There used to be a place downtown for getting your hair restored. It
sold wigs as well. There was a neon light above the door. It flashed off
and on to show a man’s wee baldy head one minute and a hairy head the next
minute. It was called the Hair Restoration and Rejuvenation Emporium. Our
John spent a fortune in there. I often wonder why men are so worried about
losing their hair?’

‘Coots? I repeated

He ignored me.

‘Kojak sorted all that out. Shaved it all off. He was a head , haha, of
his time. Chrome dome. Now everybody does it. Even young fellahs with hair
go shaven headed nowadays.’

‘Who loves ya baby?’ I smiled in recollection.

‘Probably a virility thing’ your man continued.

‘Or vanity?’ I offered. ‘unless you’re a coot’.

‘Grass doesn’t grow on a busy street. That’s what our John wud say in
defence of his shiny cloigeann if he was getting slagged. But that was
after years and years of denial. Comb overs? Our John was an expert. He
cudda won prizes for weaving. His thatch was an intricate and wonderfully
executed work of art. But as obvious as sin.’

‘Like Jackie Healy Rea’s hairdo?’

‘Better than that. That’s just one big strand plastered with Brylcream and
draped over his pate. Our John was more sophisticated. And then he met the
love of his life and that was that. He wised up pretty quick. Now he gets
a number nought all over. Except for his eyebrows. They’re as bad as
mine’.

‘That’s what happens to men of a certain age. Eyebrows. Hairy nostrils.’ I
observed ‘Even hairy ears. Hair everywhere but on your head’.

‘That’s what I was saying,’ he protested ‘ Eyebrows! Bloody nuisance. But
unlike you I’m not doing so bad in the hair department’.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked anxiously, squinting at my reflection in the
mirror behind the bar.

‘Another few years you’ll be like our John. Unless you take the Jackie
Healy Rea option.’

‘No chance!’ I retorted.

‘Never say never’ your man smirked ‘stranger things have happened. As you
should know.’

‘Oh… and’ he raised one of his newly discovered,highly impressive and very
articulate eyebrows ‘ a coot is a wee water hen'.

'A bird' I exclaimed.

'A fowl' he said.

'Birds... or fouls don't have hair. Baldy as a coot! You may as well say
baldy as a sea gull. Or a pigeon.

'And you're my wee duck'. he said.

'You're a geg.' I muttered.

And so he is. Magnificent eyebrows, receding hair line and all.

Eileen

It was this blogs honour to launch a book last Friday about Eileen
Howell, our friend and compatriot in many enterprises.

This commemorative project was sponsored by John and Betty. Lorraine and
Danny M’did the research and writing and Mark Joyce designed and did the
lay out on the book.

Jim Gibney, Sile Darragh and Sal Brennan also made important
contributions and many of Eileen’s friends and family had an input.
Malachy McCann provided the cover photo which is reproduced here. It
catches animpishness, an essence of Eileen.

It was daunting to speak at this event. It was chaired by Liz Groves in
the Falls Community Council at a lovely gathering of Eileen’s clann and
comrades. Eileen died suddenly after a short illness in June 2004. It was
a deep shock to us all, especially her husband Ted. He had instructed me
that the book launch was a celebration not a wake. He was wise. There was
always the possibility that we could be sad when we needed to be merry. I
for one, wanted this launch to be therapeutic.



I started my remarks with a poem written by Gerry Kelly in Colombia where
he got the sad news of Eileen’s death.

‘The invasion of whitethorn
Embroidered the summer with hope

Lulled into optimism
A petal, bright as the Sixties
Fluttered, out of season
Through the frantic clasping of love

As the petal settled to earth
Sorrow and joy mingled
New life bloomed
Neither love nor loss is ever simple’.

I then went on to pay tribute to Ted and to recount some of my experiences
of him from our prison days before reciting a few lines of Bertolt
Brecht,

‘There are those who struggle for a day and they are good.

There are those who struggle for a year and they are better.

There are those who struggle many years and they are better still.

But there are those who struggle all their lives:

They are the ones we cannot do without.’

And that’s what women do. They struggle all their lives.

And that is one of the reasons why community, society, Ireland cannot do
without them.

Enlightened women set a compass for humanity. Ireland needs them. We
cannot do without them.

We also cannot do without friendship. Maire na daoine is scath a cheile.
We live in each others shadow.

Tom Hartley once said ‘you don’t have to like your friends for them to be
your friends’. Friendship is at the core of our existence.

All human beings have a basic need for friendship – especially in times of
trouble. All of us need allies we can depend on. Is suile na chara – an
scathan is fearr. A friend’s eye is the best mirror.

We also – all of us – have a need – a very deep need - to know that people
can depend on us. We need that contact – that link – that nasc with other
human beings. Out of that comes community.

Community is an essential part of our humanity. It gives us meaning,
focus, purpose, succour.

It keeps us grounded. It keeps us right. It gives us hope.

Without hope we are diminished.

We come from a community with great hopes. Eileen was part of a whole raft
of women activist which this community has been blessed with. Many of
them were at her event.

Eileen was a woman with great hopes. As Doris Day would say - high hopes –
high, high hopes for her clann and for her three boys – Eamonn, Prionsiass
and of course, her oldest lad, Ted.

She had high hopes for herself and for us.

She was unique – as we all are – one of those unmanageable activists.



Community does not happen by chance. It needs nurtured, developed,
empowered, strengthened, respected, cheered up, cherished, united,
respected uplifted.

It needs music and song and craic.

It needs high hopes and great expectations.

And that’s what our community and voluntary activists are about.

They and Eileen are about freedom.

Maire Comerford dedicated her book on the First Dáil “to those who gave
what they had to give when they had it to give.”

Talented, generous, principled, selfless people.

And that’s what this book is about. It is a tribute in particular to Eileen.

And more generally a tribute to the co-operative enterprise of women
activists who gave so much and continue to give to their community.

So celebrate the life of a good and decent woman in a community of good
and decent women. I finished with a few lines from Lucilita.

Eileen

Anam cara do Ted

Máthair dá mic

Bean I measc pobal na fhFál

Bean Béal Feirsteach

Bean lasta ar son an chirt

Teochroí

Cara I measc comrádaí

Dilseacht

Maitheas

Spraoiúil

Gáiriúil

Ceannúlácht

Dathúlacht

Áilleacht

Banúlacht

Ceiliúrann muid Eileen

And that was that. Eileen would be pleased. So rejoice. Lift your glasses
to her.

Sláinte.

Big Doc; Internment and A Bill of Rights

IRA Volunteer Kieran Doherty TD

Our calendar is full of anniversaries. None is more poignant than those for the 10 hunger strikers who died in the Kesh in the summer of 1981. Last Monday, August 2nd, was the anniversary of the death of Big Doc – Kieran Doherty. He was 25 and had spent 7 years out of his last 10 either interned or imprisoned in the H Blocks.

Like his friend and comrade Bobby Sands Big Doc stood for election – in his case in the Cavan Monaghan constituency in the general election for the Dáil in June 1981. And like Bobby he was elected.

He began his hunger strike on May 22nd and after 71 days he died on August 2nd.

On Wednesday July 29th 1981 I visited the prison hospital in Long Kesh to meet the hunger strikers. By that point Bobby, Francie, Raymond, Patsy, Joe and Martin were dead. Kevin, Tom and Micky died later

Among those I spoke to was Kieran. He died three days later.

I was awed by his dignity and courage, as he lay propped up on one elbow, in his prison hospital bed, blind as a result of the hunger strike.

Doc had a word for us all also. ‘Lean ar aghaidh’ he said. Advance.

‘They think they can break us. Well they can’t. Lean ar aghaidh’, he said. ‘Tiocfaidh ár lá’.



Big Doc's brother Michael lays a wreath last weekend at the memorial close to Kieran's home

This Monday, August 9th, there is another anniversary. It will be 39 years since the introduction of internment. A policy demanded by the Unionist regime at Stormont of a British Tory government.

On that morning hundreds of nationalists were dragged from their homes, many were beaten and some taken to the special interrogation centre in Holywood Barracks and tortured.

Both of these events –Big Doc’s death and internment – remind us of the inhumanity of the British system, its willingness to make concessions to unionism, irrespective of the cost, and the injustice that was an integral part of its strategy to defeat Irish republicans and nationalists.

For these reasons and many others republicans are confirmed in our belief that Irish reunification and self-determination can best deliver long term stability democracy and freedom.

But we also need a Bill of Rights now. North and south.

A Bill of Rights was part of the Good Friday negotiations.



The Good Friday Agreement

In the section under ‘Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity’ the agreement states very clearly that: “The new Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (see paragraph 5 below) will be invited to consult and to advise on the scope for defining, in Westminster legislation, rights supplementary to those in the European Convention on Human Rights, to reflect the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, drawing as appropriate on international instruments and experience. These additional rights to reflect the principles of mutual respect for the identity and ethos of both communities and parity of esteem, and - taken together with the ECHR - to constitute a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.”

You would think that this means the issue of a Bill of Rights would be very straightforward. Not so.

Instead of looking at best practice around the world and using that to quickly produce a Bill of Rights the British government’s colonial office, the ‘Northern Ireland Office,’ prevaricated, waffled, and delayed the publication of a consultation paper. It took 11 years to get that done!

And the paper the NIO produced ignored much of the advice of the Bill of Rights Forum, which was established under the St. Andrew’s Agreement and tasked with reporting to the Human Rights Commission.

The NIO paper also ignores the need to include economic and social protections or to address the structural inequalities that reflect our particular social circumstances.

Structural socio-economic discriminations and inequalities were contributing factors to the conflict, not least on issues such as employment and housing.

The routine violation of civil, political, economic and social rights – gerrymandering, right to housing, right to a job, internment and the long term suspension of many rights under emergency provisions helped exacerbate and prolong the conflict.

Successive British government have systematically failed to eradicate these structural inequalities. We still see it in the institutional resistance over the last decade to the equality and human rights elements of the Good Friday Agreement.

However, it is precisely that past which compels this blog and others who are intent on building a better future, to continue to demand that legally enforceable economic and social rights – which go above and beyond the current inadequate protections - are enshrined in any new Bill of Rights.

A Bill of Rights should set the floor, and not the ceiling for guaranteeing rights in our society for generations to come. It should be an expression of hope for a positive future. It should promote reconciliation, tolerance, mutual trust, and the protection of the human rights, as well as the values of partnership, equality and mutual respect

The NIO consultation paper is an insult to the hard work of many sectors of society that have taken part in the Bill of Rights process for over a decade. It also proposes changes to existing equality duties. This provocative proposal has the potential to undermine the hard won equality gains that we have seen over recent years.

So, there were difficult times ahead on the Bill of Right’s issue even before the last Westminster election returned a Tory/ Liberal Coalition government in London.

But things have now taken a decided turn for the worst. In recent conversations with Owen Patterson the British Secretary of State he has said that the British government is under no obligation to produce a Bill of Rights for the north and that the British government will simply include a sub section in a proposed British Bill of Rights dealing with issues affecting this part of Ireland.

This is not acceptable. It is a breach of the Good Friday Agreement and of the commitment by both the Liberals and the Conservatives to uphold it. Should we be surprised?

The north needs a Bill of Rights that is able to address the many issues that are a part of our British legacy, of partition and decades of conflict. That is a battle that will continue to be fought.

FÉILE – ARIS.

This blog is being compiled in the back of the car on the way to Lissadell in Sligo and a Leonard Cohen concert. What a busy life we lead. Especially during Féile week. Usually this blog doesn’t venture anywhere outside West Belfast during Féile but this year there are two exceptions. Yesterday a gang of us went to the All Ireland Poc Fada in the Cooley Mountains and tonight there is Mr Cohen. Your man reckons the Cooley excursion was a dummy run for the Poc Ar An Chnoc at Stormont next Saturday so it counts as work and tonight’s Sligo adventure is his effort to get Leonard for Féile next year so that counts as work as well. Such a yarn!

Leonard got honourable mention during Danny Morrison’s intro to Seamus Heaney’s wonderful tribute to Michael McLaverty last Friday. It was great to see Seamus and Marie Heaney in such good form. I have a little piece half written about that days events and will post it eventually. I am sure everyone was as mesmerised as me at the nation’s foremost poet’s presentation. Bhí sé go h’iontach.

Féile an Phobail is now part of the social fabric of Belfast city. Craic, ceol, drama, debate, book events, the arts in all their many forms, sport and good fun as well. Something for everyone. A great job has been done again this year by Sean Paul and the Féile team. The clár is mighty. And so is the talent which is on show everywhere. On Saturday morning in the Westwood Shopping Centre our young singers and dancers regaled a very appreciative audience. Fair play to Margaret McKeiran and her crew and to big Ivan who turns up every year to compere the show. But a special well done to the young performers. Sometimes our young people don’t get a chance. When they do – and Féile is the proof of this – they seize it with both hands.


The Cooley Poc Fada certainly was a great day out. We were blessed with great weather. Strange thing was, it was raining all around us. When we were on the southern slope of the mountain we could see the rain beating down on Dundalk Bay and across Louth and Meath. And when we were on the northern flank Carlingford Lough and the Mournes were shrouded in rain. But us? We was dry. And the countryside was absolutely beautiful. The going was tough for our clique. The Tír Éoghan representative, anxious about the rumours from Croke Park, collapsed on the heather and had to be revived by a passing Turf Lodge reprobate.

The competition was fierce. Mighty strokes by modern day Cuchullains. Graham Clarke, the Dún keeper was a worthy winner of the senior event. Two big victories in one day for An Dún. I missed the Camógs but by all accounts that also was brilliant. Patrica Jackman from Port Lairge triumphed. Bernard Dunne did the presentations. He was delighted with Dublin’s victory at Croker. Everyone involved in this Póc Fada competition is to be commended. There is something uniquely Irish and primitive and rugged and rooted about it. And fair play to Martin Donnelly who sponsors this event. He is also the main sponsor for our Stormont poc.

Martin would have enjoyed the Feile Carnival Parade on Sunday. Great craic. And again our young people excelled. There is a whole week of all this. If you get a chance join us. You will be very welcome.

There was other big developments. The Ballymurphy Massacre campaign got a boost when it won the support of Catholic bishop Noel Treanor. Remains found in County Monaghan may bring closure to the family of Charlie Armstrong. Alex Higgins – snooker legend and world champion died. Huge events for all these families.

That’s why we need music and sport and craic in our lives. So enjoy yourselves.

The Féile programme can be accessed at www.feilebelfast.com