The Springhill estate in the 1980s The Upper Springfield area of west Belfast suffered many traumatic events during the years of conflict. The area was the target of British military invasion and occupation, pogrom and refugees. Scores of its citizens were killed. Many more were injured. Hundreds spent years in British prison camps and gaols. The British Army used every weapon in its formidable arsenal to try and intimidate and terrorise the people of the Upper Springfield. Brutal beatings, the frequent use of CS gas, the indiscriminate firing of rubber and plastic bullets, arbitrary arrests and torture, were all part of the daily experience of the civilian population. So too were attacks by unionist death squads, working in collusion with, and under the cover of British Army and RUC actions. One legacy of this British government counter-insurgency strategy is currently playing out in a Belfast Coroners Court where 10 of the 11 citizens killed during the Ballymurphy Massa...
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Two weeks ago the British Secretary of State Karen Bradley emerged from the NIO Office in the Stormont Estate to tell us that the conditions for a referendum on unity, as set out in the Good Friday Agreement, have not been met. Three weeks earlier the same Secretary of State was reported in the London Times privately warning a British Cabinet meeting on 8 January that a no deal Brexit would make a referendum on Irish Unity “far more likely.” Last week the BBC reported that several British Cabinet Ministers had told it that a no-deal Brexit could lead to a vote on Irish unification. The BBC report said: “ One senior minister said the prospect is "very real" and very much on the prime minister's mind. A second cabinet minister warned the government risked "sleepwalking into a border poll". And a third cabinet minister said there was an understanding in government that a vote on unification would be a "realistic possibility" if the UK leaves the E...
Back in the day I would be in Derry quite often for meetings, or unfortunately for funerals, and occasionally for social events. A wedding or a christening. Derry was a place apart. It generally didn’t have the omnipresent tension or threatening communal fragility of Belfast. If the British Army or the RUC weren’t on the streets of the West Bank there was a sense of tranquillity in that community. It was far from the beleaguered defensive streets of the Short Strand or the Ormeau Road. On the days like that Derry was not unlike Sligo or Drogheda. A picturesque Irish town nestled on the banks of the wonderful Foyle water. Martin McGuinness was a child of that town. He was Derry to his core. Donegal was at his back above the heights of Creggan. That’s where his family came from. Na hUilli, anglicized to the Illies, north of Buncrana, on the Inis Eoghain peninsula. That’s where Martin spent his childhood summers. Bouncing high on turf stacked trailers along bog roads. Swatting...
Gaza City Two weeks ago a Bill banning the import of goods made on illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land was overwhelming passed in its second reading by the Dáil – 78 votes to 45 votes. It was an important vote. The ‘Control of Economic Activity Occupied Territories Bill’, which was introduced by Seanadóir Frances Black, successfully passed all stages in the Seanad in December. To become law it must now go through a similar process of votes and scrutiny and possible amendment in the Dáil. The Bill, which was debated on Wednesday, and passed its second stage on Thursday, does not specifically reference Israel and its occupation of Palestinian land. If it completes it passage through the Dáil it will be an offence to import or sell goods or services from occupied territories anywhere in the world. Inevitably however, much of the focus in the Seanad and in the Dáil has been on its impact on goods and services originating in illegal Israeli settlements in the West B...
Today marks 25 years since I was first given a visa by President Clinton to visit the USA. The visa was for 48 hours and restricted to New York. The London Telegraph described the President’s decision as having created the “worst rift ” in US-British relations since the Suez crisis in 1956. I was reminded of all of this when the British released classified government papers last December under the 20-30 year rule. The papers confirmed that the British counter-strategy was largely unchanged from the 1970s. Supported by the Irish government,the SDLP, Unionist Parties, the Catholic Hierarchy and unionist paramilitaries, British strategy was about marginalising republicans, minimising political progress and resisting the fundamental change necessary to address the causes of the conflict. It was also about resisting any efforts by international players to get involved in investigating the conflict and its consequences. The British insisted that the war was an internal matte...