Léargas

To leave or not to leave - that is the question - facing millions of voters in Britain and in the north on June 23 rd when they decide whether to stay in or leave the EU.  The referendum on EU membership was proposed just over three years ago by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron. He  had warned that unprecedented levels of immigration were: ‘ undermining support for the European Union’  within Britain. And for the Tories there were issues around welfare payments to immigrants, closer EU co-operation and increasing political union among EU states. It was and is a high risk strategy for Cameron given the deep divisions around Europe than lie within his own party. At least six Cabinet members, including the Secretary of State for the north, Theresa Villiers, are now part of the ‘leave’ campaign. And Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and a rival for leadership of the Conservative party, has become the effective leader of the leave campaign. Several months ag...

There was nothing to show that the land adjacent to the car park had housed seven traveller families. New concrete bollards had just been laid. They blocked  the entrance to the piece of waste land, behind the KFC outlet at the Dundalk Retail Park. Until a few hours earlier that had been their temporary home. I arrived a short time after An Garda Síochána had carried out the eviction. Some of the families, who are among 23 evicted from the Woodland Park halting site in January by Louth County Council, had already moved around the corner onto land in the nearby IDA (Industrial Development Authority) complex. Others were on the road – slowly driving around Dundalk searching for somewhere to park. All know that wherever they park it is only for a short time until they are told to move on again. For the parents and for their children this is a confusing, enormously stressful and difficult time. At Woodland Park I met Rebecca Quinn, who is the spokesperson for all of the families...

Last Friday was one of those days. It started in Dublin with the election of a Taoiseach and finished at the Assembly count centre in the Titanic quarter in east Belfast with four Sinn Féin MLAs returned for west Belfast. The Dáil met at noon to decide the fate of Enda Kenny and his government. It was 70 days to the day that the electorate had passed their judgement on the Fine Gael and Labour government. They were stripped of their mandate to govern. In the intervening months Fianna Fáil wasted weeks in a cynical charade to form the next government. This little sham process was really about Fianna Fáil trying to inflate their status as the main opposition party and the alternative government in waiting. After more weeks of interminable negotiations Fianna Fáil finally abstained from the vote for Taoiseach while a number of former independents – who had sought votes in the general election on the basis that they wanted to get rid of Fine Gael – u-turned on that commitment. They mo...

Last week I had a moment to myself and settled down for the evening to watch Django Unchained. It’s a Quentin Tarantino movie. It is very violent. But it is also a powerful anti-racist movie in which the main character challenges slavery and the injustices inflicted on African Americans. When it was over I posted a tweet which included the n-word. My purpose was to draw the parallels between the courage and defiance of Django and the people of my own district during the recent years of conflict. Within minutes I deleted it. I later apologised for using it. However there were those who then spent the next few days telling me, and anyone else who would listen, that there is no comparison between the plight of African Americans and the Irish. I was accused of misrepresenting the parallels between the campaigns for justice, equality and civil rights for the people of Ireland under colonialism, and in particular of the north post partition, and that of the generations of African Americ...

35 years ago this Thursday, May 5 th 1981, Bobby Sands died on hunger strike after 66 days without food.  He was the first of 10 men to die in the H Blocks of Long Kesh that terrible summer of 1981. For those republican political prisoners in the H-Blocks, in Armagh Women’s prison and in other prisons in Ireland and England there was a shared sense of grief and anger. For the families of those who died and for the rest of us and the tens of thousands of ordinary citizens in Ireland and around the world who campaigned on their behalf, this was our Easter 1916. It was a transformative, watershed moment in our lives but also in the struggle for Irish freedom. To their families and comrades and supporters the hunger strikers are heroes. They were courageous comrades who selflessly gave their lives that others might not experience the brutality and savagery of a vicious prison regime. And in their painful deaths, watched daily by families and friends, and reported by a ge...