Léargas

     left to right Michelle O'Neill, Sile Middleton, mise, Pete Middleton, Mary Lou and Michelle Gildernew Progressives and democrats must organise for unity This week’s Andersonstown News, because of Easter, was only looking for 500 words for the column. So I had to edit back a little on what I had written. But there is no word limit on the blog so here is the full version.   Ba mhaith liom go mbeadh Cásca sona, síochánta agus taitneamhach ort, agus féachaint ar an seacláid. Saturday morning started bright and early. A 7.10 flight brought RG and I to Heathrow Airport where a smiling Ray, one of the stalwarts of the Irish community in London over many years, picked us up. Sinn Féin was holding a one day conference on the theme of ‘After Brexit – the prospects for a United Ireland’ . We met up with Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill at a hotel just across from the British Parliament and then headed to the Congress Centre. The conference was e...

Meeting up with friends on Capitol Hill Regular readers of this column will know that I find the engagement with the Irish diaspora in the USA really uplifting and positive. It is also exhausting. A perpetual round of meetings, travel and living out of a suitcase. And the jet lag! But it is the human element of it all that makes it worthwhile. The interaction with our friends, the craic, the real interest in what is happening back in Ireland, the hospitality and willingness to help are what makes these visits worthwhile. Last week’s Saint Patrick’s Day’s trip was very worthwhile indeed. It was Mary Lou’s first visit as Uachtarán Shinn Féin. She was accompanied by Leas Uachtarán Michelle O Neill. I was there, as part of the transition of our party, to appeal to all those we met to give them the same support that they gave me for the last twenty-five years that I travelled there. It was entirely appropriate that our first event was in the home of a Tyrone couple, Rosemary an...

Martin McGuinness - Looking to the Future by Gerry Adams TD The Duke Street civil rights march on October 6 th 1968, the death of Samuel Devenney, after being beaten at his home by the RUC in April 1969, and the Battle of the Bogside later that year, were cumulative and transformative moments in the history of Derry. They also changed the lives of the people of this city and especially of many of its young people. Like many other teenagers that year in Derry, Belfast, Newry and other parts of the north, Martin McGuinness’s life was suddenly upended by a political crisis created by partition 50 years earlier. The apartheid system of injustice and inequality that was the north’s Orange State was being challenged by nationalists fed up with being treated as second class. Three years later as we prepared to travel to London for secret meetings with the British government I met Martin behind the barricades in Derry. Those were different, more difficult days. The conflict was raging...

I arrived back into Ireland this morning after 6 busy days in the USA. Yesterday was a great day to be Irish with millions celebrating St. Patrick’s Day across the globe. My day started early with the traditional St. Patrick’s Day breakfast with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mayor de Blasio presented me with a Proclamation. In turn I presented him with a copy of a book Elizabeth Billups from New Mexico and I produced two years ago – Ireland: One Island, No Borders – which is a mix of photographs from across the island of Ireland mixed with text by both of us. I also presented Mayor de Blasio with a special limited edition of ‘Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass – an American Slave’ which has been published by his direct descendants, Nettie Washington Douglass and her son Kenneth Morris. Only 711 signed and numbered copies have been produced and I am grateful to my friend Todd Allen for his generosity in providing it. I might write more on this later. Lá Féile Pádra...

If you have never visited the Stone Fort of Grianán of Aileach on the Inishowen peninsula you are missing one of the most spectacular locations on the island of Ireland. I have been there many times. Standing on the five-metre-high, four-metre-thick walls you have an amazing panoramic view. On one side you can see Derry City in the distance. Grianán also overlooks Inishowen, Inch Island and there is a dramatic view of Lough Foyle and especially Lough Swilly. It was one of Martin McGuinness’s favourite places in the world. He would walk there, no matter the weather, and whenever the opportunity presented itself. I walked there with him on many occasions. It is a place of quiet beauty. On March 25 th the ‘Chieftains Walk’ (Siúlóid an Taoisigh) in memory of Martin McGuinness will take place. Martin’s family are asking people to join them in this walk as a way of raising awareness about amyloidosis – the genetic disease from which he died. All proceeds will go to the Cancer Cent...

A friend of mine was in prison in France one time. It was admittedly a rather long time. Years later when I bumped into him I asked what it was like. To be in prison? In France? ‘Was there’ I asked ‘any difference between being in prison in France and being in prison in Ireland?’ As you may deduce from the question he had a comprehensive and varied penal CV. He paused for a long pregnant and silent period of cogitation before eventually replying. ‘Nobody talked about the weather’. There you have it. In a sentence. The difference between the French and the Irish. Or indeed between the Irish and everyone else. We are obsessed by the weather. We are also weather pessimists. We anticipate the worst. Many times on a fine sunny day I have remarked to whoever I was with ‘Isn’t it a great day’. ‘Aye’ would come the reply ‘but it’s not gonna last’. Or ‘There’s rain due later.’ Or ‘The forecast is for bad weather’. RG is the worst. Especially during last week’s snownam...

It was the afternoon of St. Valentine’s Day when the DUP declared there was ‘no current prospect of a deal.’ In the two weeks since then the general shape of the draft agreement has become apparent. It is clear that significant work had been done to construct an agreement that would allow the institutions to be restored. A couple of hours later, despite the clear evidence that it was the DUP that had crashed the negotiations, the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin tweeted: “The continued failure of the two dominant political parties in the North to agree restoration of government is bitterly disappointing… “ Neither he nor anyone in his party had bothered to talk to anyone in Sinn Féin about the talks and their outcome. I don’t know if he spoke to anyone in the Irish government. Given the tone of his criticism I suspect not. Micheál Martin did not know the detail. But then as has been evident in his public approach to the North since becoming leader of Fianna Fáil he doesn’t rea...