Léargas

I heard the news of Bronagh Wilson’s death last Wednesday with great sadness. In September 2009, at the age of 22, she was diagnosed with an inoperable grade 4 glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) brain tumour – a particularly aggressive and inoperable form of the disease. Her family and friends launched a fund raising campaign to raise money for additional treatment beyond what she was receiving through the NHS. I met Bronagh the following year and was asked to speak at an event for her in the Hilton Hotel in April 2010. Last week Bronagh lost her battle against her illness but her family and friends are left with the memory of a heroic, gutsy young woman who never gave up and who fought her illness every day with fortitude and determination. I want to extend my deepest condolences to her husband Conor, their two children Conor and Daniel, her parents Gerry and Loretta Wilson and her sister Kristina and brother Conor , along with all of her other family members and friend...

I fist met Rory Staunton when he was a baby. He is the son of Ciaran and Orlaith Staunton. Ciaran is from County Mayo and Orlaith from Louth. Ciaran is the co-founder of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform in the USA and has been active in support of the undocumented and lobbying in the US government to regularise their status. In the early 1990’s he was also a key activist in winning support within Irish America for the peace process. When I first travelled to the USA on my 48 hour Clinton visa to New York in February 1994 Ciaran was there. Later after the IRA cessation he was intimately involved in the planning of the visits by Sinn Féin delegations to the USA. In those first post cessation visits the media interest was enormous and Irish America wanted to hear what we had to say. I remember on one trip in which we did 14 cities coast to coast in 14 days. Ciaran never stopped. He was constantly planning, organising meetings, transport and hotels. He exhausted us. ...

Money lending and loan sharks are not a new phenomenon. They are probably the second oldest profession in the world. Where there is poverty you will always find those who are prepared to exploit the vulnerable and the desperate. The island of Ireland has long borne witness to their activities. There are few working families that haven’t availed of money lenders and loan sharks. The cheque man used to call to our house every week. Between that and the pawn shop my mother reared ten of us. The north was recently described as a ‘personal debt hotspot’ and in its annual report for 2011 the PSNI’s Organised Crime Task Force claimed that loan sharks are targeting citizens on benefits, small business people, those buying drugs and families trying to manage their way through poverty and disadvantage. The report said that because the recession means that it is harder for someone with a ‘less than perfect’ credit rating to secure a loan from financial institutions, more and more people...

Last Sunday I spent a short time, along with scores of other republicans, remembering and celebrating the live and courage of IRA Volunteer Joe McDonnell. It was the anniversary of Joe’s death. He died on hunger strike on July 8th 1981 after 61 days without food. Sinn Féin had organised a white line picket along the Andersonstown Road in west Belfast. Such pickets involve protestors standing along the dividing white line on the road holding a placard or in this instance photo of Joe. It was a method of highlighting the hunger strike frequently used then and since. Big Bobby and the party executive in Belfast thought it was an appropriate way of remembering Joe. I was standing not far from the party’s Connolly House office and close to the junction with St. Agnes’s Drive. In the busyness of my life I don’t often get the opportunity to just reflect. To take a few minutes and allow the mind to relax and wander. To look around and recall events or people connected to wherever I am....

Tonight - Monday - there will be a Special Mass in Memory of the 40th Anniversary of the Springhill Westrock Massacre in Corpus Christi Chapel on Monday 9th July at 6pm. This will be followed by a presentation in the hall at the back of the chapel about the Historical Enquiries Team examinations into Royal Military Police by Dr Patricia Lundy of University of Ulster. There will also be a panel discussion. Afterwards there will be a candle light vigil to the Westrock Garden of Remembrance. There have been many dark days arising out of the conflict. Most families in the north have been touched by these. One such was Bloody Sunday. 14 civilians were killed by the British Paras when they attacked a civil rights march in Derry on January 30th 1972. Two years ago, and following a lengthy public inquiry the Saville Commission, exonerated all of those killed and the British Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for what happened, describing the killing of the marchers as ‘unjustifie...

Drew Nelson, the Grand Secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland today paid an official visit to Seanad Éireann. Last week Martin McGuinness met Elizabeth 11. Yesterday he and Peter publicly shook hands for the first time at the opening of the new visitors centre at the Giants Causeway. And today the first meeting of the North South Parliamentary Association took place at Parliament Buildings in Stormont. The Association was part of the Good Friday Agreement and is jointly chaired by the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil Sean Barrett and the Speaker of the northern Assembly Willie Hay. So all in all it’s been a busy and arguably historic period for the island of Ireland and for the reshaping of relationships between the people of this island and with our nearest neighbour in Britain. The visit by the Orange Order to the Dáil is of particular importance coming as it does at the beginning of the most intense period of marches by the main loyal orders – the Orange Order, the Royal B...

96 years ago it was day two of the Somme offensive. The Battle of the Somme was to last until November 18th and was one of the biggest battles of the first world war. At the end of almost five months the battle lines had shifted by a mere six miles but the cost in lives lost and damaged was enormous. Day one had witnessed the British Army suffer nearly 60,000 casualties – the worst day in its history. 19,240 dead; 35,493 wounded and 2152 missing. Day one had also seen the 36th Ulster Division, largely made up of members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, attack the Schwaben Redoubt. Unlike most other elements of the British Army on that first day the Ulster Division succeeded in capturing its initial objectives. The Redoubt itself did not fall until mid October. By the end of Day two it had lost 5500 men killed, wounded or missing. By the end of the Battle five months later there were over one million casualties on all sides. The impact on local, mainly protestant, communities acro...