Léargas

I have known Inez McCormack for many years. She has been an activist since her days with the People’s Democracy and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. She took part in the Peoples Democracy march from Belfast to Derry at the beginning of January 1969 which was ambushed by unionists at Burntollet. It was an experience which helped shape the young Inez into the committed activist for equality and justice we all came to know. Inez described herself as a young Protestant girl who up to that point didn’t realise the depth of injustice and inequality in the north and the extent of structured discrimination confronting Catholics. Growing consciousness of this injustice spurred Inez to embark on the long march for justice and equality, and in defence of the rights of citizens. Inez was still on that march when she died earlier this week. She remained steadfast and as committed and unswerving to her personal vision throughout those 50 years of activism as she was in 1969. ...

Who would have believed it? Sinn Féin holds a conference in Dublin on Saturday and calls for a border poll in the next term of the Assembly and Oireachtas, and by Tuesday the DUP are supporting it!!! Of course Arlene Foster backs the idea because she’s convinced that it will deliver the answer she wants. According to the DUP Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment its ‘fantasy politics’. Peter Robinson thought I was ‘on medication’ when I did an interview last week arguing for such a poll. The DUP believe that there couldn’t be a worse time for republicans to call for a border poll. Arlene told Mitchel McLaughlin on the Nolan show, “ if you look at all of the polling, indeed the census that has recently been carried out, there is nowhere near a united Ireland coming in the future”. That’s not quite accurate and I’ll come back to that shortly. However one of the major problems facing the unionists is that their economic argument in support of the union is so full of h...

Belfast 2013 is not the City I grew up in. In my youth and for much of my adult life Belfast was a place in which nationalists had no rights; a place where sectarianism and discrimination, injustice and inequality were commonplace and exercised as a matter of institutional and political practice. Tens of thousands of nationalists were denied the vote in local and Stormont elections. They were denied jobs and housing. Any sense of Irishness was prohibited or frowned upon. The Irish language, music and culture were marginalised and the political representatives of northern nationalists had no influence and no power. Elsewhere in the north the gerrymandering or manipulation of electoral boundaries ensured that local councils, even in those areas like Derry which had clear nationalist majorities, were run in unionist interests by unionist controlled councils. And Belfast was among the worst. The northern state was an orange state. The Orange Order was the cement that held the poli...

I hope you all had a peaceful and enjoyable Christmas and New Year. Despite the rain and cold I spent a relaxing and very pleasant few wet days in Donegal generally unwinding from what had been a busy and full 2012. At the beginning of 2013 news of hospital treatment I received in New York last July broke following the filing of my itinerary for 2012 by Friends of Sinn Féin with the Justice Department in the USA. This process is part of our obligations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. So I always knew that news of my treatment would become public. However my health matters are my business. They are personal and private. Just as they are for all citizens. Sinn Féin responded to media inquiries and confirmed that in July I had travelled to New York to meet with the new Board of Friends of Sinn Féin. They are a dedicated group of Irish American activists who oversee the work of Friends of Sinn Féin in the USA. In the course of a normal year they organise and facilitate th...