Léargas

Last Thursday’s visit to London for a meeting with the British Prime Minister Theresa May was my first without Martin McGuinness. I was very mindful of that as Mary Lou, RG and I boarded the Aer Lingus flight in Dublin that morning. I was equally conscious of this because Thursday was the day that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was in Derry to officially open the Bloody Sunday museum with Martin’s son Fiachra, and to visit Martin’s grave. Bernie McGuinness with Jesse Jackson and her son Fiachra Despite the recent attacks in London and Manchester the streets around Westminster were packed with people, including many who were obviously tourists, enjoying the bright sunshine and the sights. The attacks have added a new edge to the area around Britain’s Parliament Buildings and Whitehall. There are many more visible and heavily armed police officers and police vehicles. There are also a formidable series of heavy metal barriers at major road junctions that can be moved into place wi...

Following on from the very successful Assembly election in March last week’s Westminster election produced another historic result for Sinn Féin. We achieved our largest vote ever of 238,915 or 29.1%, and won seven seats – an increase of three. The Tory party lost seats and lost its majority in the British Parliament. It almost immediately turned to the DUP for a ‘confidence and supply arrangement’ to prop it up as Theresa May scrambles to survive. She promised ‘strong and stable’ government and has instead delivered chaos and uncertainty. We will see the outworking of this new Tory/DUP coalition over the next few days. As the results emerged in the early hours of last Friday morning Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Irish Labour Party, looking to their own narrow self-interests, cynically turned their attention to attacking our abstentionist approach to Westminster. It was as if they were hearing about this for the first time. In fact they know our policy will not change. The real...

In the post count excitement of the election RG forgot to post this article which was published in this weeks Andersonstown News. Given the outcome and the emerging DUP/Tory arrangement/coalition it's still worth a read. At the Count Centre on Thursday night your vote counts. By the time you get to read this the Westminster election could be over. You may know the result. But as I write this column that's all before us. It’s Wednesday morning. The sun is shining as Bill and I cross the Glenshane Pass on the way to the Foyle constituency. It’s the last day of the election campaign. Later today, after spending the morning with Elisha McCallion, I will join Michelle Gildernew in Fermanagh South Tyrone. So far, for Sinn Féin, it’s been a good election campaign. Having spent time in many of the constituencies the mood is very positive. The activists are in great form. The mass canvasses in north Belfast and south Down involving scores of people have been hugely uplifting...

At the start of most weeks in Dublin I drive through the Port Tunnel for Leinster House. As we make our way up the Quays toward the Customs House on my left stand a group of bronze figures. There are few more haunting memorials anywhere in the world than this group of six tall, bronze figures of emaciated men and women, and one dog, which stand on Quays. They are permanently caught in the act of walking toward a ship that will take them to the USA or to Canada or England or some other far off distant shore. Their clothes are in tatters. Their faces are etched in despair and pain. The figures are a stark testimony to the dreadful human cost of An Gorta Mór - the Great Hunger - on Ireland in the middle of the 19 th century. Entitled, ‘Famine’, the sculpture was created by Rowan Gillespie and was unveiled on the 150 th anniversary of An Gorta Mór in 1997. It hauntingly represents the ordeal of those who suffered through five years of hell between 1845 and 1850 as a million died ...