Léargas

The obscenity of Israel's apartheid Wall at Bethlehem I like Christmas. Not the frantic, frenzied stress that possesses some folks at this festive time. Not the Xmas variety. Or the Boxing Day brand. Not the secularisation of a holy day. Nope. I try to opt out of all that. I like the story of Christmas. A homeless pregnant single mother and her older kindly partner looking for a place to stay. They famously end up in a stable. Probably a smelly little cave. That’s where baby Jesus was born. No grand palace, big mansion or fancy castle. Nope. And Jesus was not blue eyed or blond haired. Jesus is a Palestinian. So, he probably was a little swarthy skinned black haired wee lad. Just like three year old Aylan Kurdi lying drowned on a beach in Turkey  or other wee kids we see on television fleeing war and poverty and being rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, or scrambling for food in a refugee camp or playing in a bomb site in Gaza city. I like the simplicity of Christ...

Not since Michael Stone’s abortive ‘performance art’ attack on Parliament Buildings in 2006, in an attempt to kill myself and Martin McGuinness, has the Assembly chamber cleared more quickly. Monday’s session of the Assembly was called to order at 11am by the Speaker. He was met by a barrage of ‘points of order’ as one MLA after another, beginning with Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín, challenged him on the nature of the Assembly meeting; its legitimacy under standing orders; and the right of the DUP leader Arlene Foster to speak at all given that Martin McGuinness had made it clear she was not speaking as First Minister and with the approval of the Executive Office. Carál also warned of the potential damage to the integrity of the Office of First and Deputy First Minister if the joined-up nature of that office was breached in the spirit and the letter by the DUP leader making a statement to the Assembly. The Speaker repeated again and again his mantra that he was acting within ...

‘Count your fingers after you shake their hands’ was what one Dublin comrade advised me when I first broached with him the idea of resigning my west Belfast seat and standing for the Dáil. ‘If you think politics in the North are nasty think again. It is a pale imitation of what you need to prepare for in this state. Partitionism is ingrained – it runs deep within the political establishment, and decades of gombeenism has taken its toll. And be warned the leaderships of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael don’t care about the North – they pretend to but most don’t. It’s up there and that’s where they want to keep it.” He was right. During every negotiation, however big or small, the Irish government were at times more of a hindrance than an ally. And we were more often the enemy as they cosied up to the Brits. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the approach of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour to the issue of the past. Long before I entered the Dáil, but with increasing intensity si...

There is busy and there is BUSY. And the last few weeks have been BUSY. I returned to Ireland on Friday after four days in Cuba attending the funeral of Fidel Castro. The following morning, with my jet lag in full mode, I was in Richmond Barracks in Dublin for our annual Slógadh - Sinn Féin’s Irish language conference.  Later that afternoon I was over in the Red Cow Hotel attending the Sinn Féin Women’s Conference.  Amongst the guests attending the Slógadh were a number of Irish language advocacy and community organisations - from Conradh na Gaeilge, to Gaeloideachas, from Iontabhas na Gaelscolaíochta and to Norman Uprichard from the East Belfast Mission; who spoke in the morning session on the issue of identity. The theme of this year’s Slógadh was “Fíorú na Físe - Realising the Vision”. I told the Slógadh that realising a vision for the language requires increased co-operation amongst Irish language organisations, and for a reinvigorated community driven campaign for ...

Let me begin by saying once again that the shooting of Brian Stack was wrong.   It was a grievous loss for his family and should never have happened. In the absence of the two governments agreeing to a process to deal with the past I sought to try and assist the family of Brian Stack to gain a degree of acknowledgement and closure. I did so at their request. What has happened over the last year points up the challenges of this course of action and the urgent need for a proper legacy process to be established. For the record I will again set out the sequence of events and my efforts to assist the family of Brian Stack.  Austin Stack approached me in 2013 seeking acknowledgment for what happened to his father.  I met Austin a number of times over the course of the following months, mostly on my own. Austin and his brother Oliver made it clear to me personally and said publicly that they were not looking for people to go to gaol. They wanted acknowledgem...

On Tuesday in the Dáil and in my absence, the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin used my efforts to assist the family of Brian Stack in an opportunistic and contemptible way to attack on me. He was joined in this by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny. I was in Cuba attending the funeral of Fidel Castro. The remarks of both men were despicable. Both misrepresented the context of my efforts to help the family of Brian Stack. These efforts were clearly on the public record from that time in 2013. The have also misrepresented my communication with the Garda Commissioner. This week they repeated spurious accusations that were dealt with extensively by me in the media during the election campaign when Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and some elements in the press sought to use this issue to attack Sinn Féin electorally. The proposal by Micheál Martin that the Taoiseach should speak to me about a Garda investigation that is ongoing was dishonest and pure party politicking. I met Austin and Oliver Stack in M...