Léargas

I have been lucky in my life to have met many brave people. Ordinary men and women who in exceptional times in Ireland or Palestine, in South Africa or Cuba, in the Basque country or Colombia, and in so many other places, have taken a stand against injustice. In the face of great brutality they have stood for freedom and independence and an end to inequality and cruelty. Some have been exceptional leaders in the Irish struggle or in other parts of the world. Today we mourn the death of one of the great revolutionary leaders – a hero and friend of Ireland - Fidel Castro. On my own behalf and of Sinn Féin I extend my solidarity and condolences to President Raul Castro, to Fidel Castro’s family and to the Cuban people. In December 2001, along with Gerry Kelly, and other comrades, I travelled to Cuba to unveil a memorial to mark the twentieth anniversary of the hunger strikes in the H-Blocks and in Armagh Women’s prison. The hunger strike memorial is in Parque Victor Hugo - a...

If you believe the new President of the United States then global warming is a hoax. If you believe the mountain of hard data coming from countless scientific agencies then global change presents the gravest threat to the future of humanity. Sea levels in the Irish Sea are now rising by three centimetres per decade. That’s seven centimetres since the early 1990s. For those of you like me who grew up on inches, feet and yards seven centimetres is almost three inches. It doesn’t sound a lot but that means we could see another half a metre rise in sea levels in the next fifty years. With most of our major cities and towns on this island, and around the world, sitting on the coast the environmental, economic and human cost associated with rising sea levels and the climatic changes that are giving rise to it, present huge life changing challenges to humanity. Dr  Conor Murphy  of Maynooth University’s Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (Icarus) also said: “The big...

Light was fading over New York when I managed to escape for a brief period to stretch my legs and go for a walk through its streets and avenues. It was a crisp Friday evening and my second in the Big Apple. The previous night we had held our annual Friends of Sinn Féin fund raising dinner. It was a packed event and Seanadóir Rose Conway Walsh, Rita O Hare and I spoke to the 800 guests setting out our concerns around Brexit, the opportunities for progressing our goal of Irish unity, and the crucial role of Irish America in helping to ensure that the new incoming Trump administration adopts the same supportive role toward the Irish peace process that previous democratic and republican administrations have done. As I walked up 6 th Avenue several hundred, mainly young people, jogged passed me. Some were carrying crudely made placards while all were chanting. It took me only a few moments to realise that I was in the middle of a protest against President Trump. ‘Not my Pr...

The British political establishment and media like to describe Westminster as the  ‘mother of Parliaments’.  They ignore the cruel exploitation of scores of colonies during centuries of Empire and the widespread use of violence to suppress democratic demands. All of this is regularly brushed aside as the British system endlessly praises itself and inflates its sense of self-importance. Earlier this year an opinion poll found that  44 per cent of people in Britain were proud of its history of colonialism while only 21 per cent regretted that it happened. The same poll also asked about whether the British Empire was a good thing or a bad thing: 43 per cent said it was good, while only 19 per cent said it was bad. 25 per cent responded that it was “neither”. I would be confident that a similar poll in any of Britain’s colonies would paint a starkly different picture. The British are especially proud of their judicial system. This is despite the many miscarriages of ...

Last month the British government revealed plans to opt out of European convention on human rights. Prime Minister May set it in the context of trying to end what she called the ‘industry of vexatious claims’ against British soldiers in Iraq and in Afghanistan – those she described as the “finest armed forces known to man.” The real purpose is to protect British soldiers from the legal consequences of breaking international human rights law. But there is a deeper more self-centred motive for the actions of the British political establishment – it is about protecting itself. If we have learned anything in the decades of conflict in the North and since it is that the security apparatus of the British state, its soldiers, police and intelligence agencies operate according to rules and regulations laid down by the government. In order to defend these and those political leaders who create the legal and strategic framework within which they operate, the state has to ensure that ...