Léargas

Many fine words, songs and poems have been written about the Easter Rising of 1916. Some were written by those who waited in the prisons to be executed. Others were personal recollections of that period written by those outside of the prisons, in the weeks, months and years after the Rising. They were moved by the courage and tenacity of the 1916 Leaders and by the individual stories of bravery of those who participated in that great event. In 1966 the Merry Ploughboy by Dermot O’Brien was number 1 for six weeks in the Irish charts. It was hugely popular and remains so today: And we're all off to Dublin in the green, in the green Where the helmets glisten in the sun Where the bay'nets flash and the riffles crash To the rattle of a Thompson gun. Kevin Barry has been a perennial favourite which has been recorded many times over the years, including by Paul Robson and Leonard Cohen. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem sang Freedom’s Sons: They were the men with a ...

                                               Wouldn’t it be better if the British government, the Irish government and the DUP upheld the Brexit referendum vote in the North to remain in the EU? Yes                              No Wouldn’t it be better if there was no hard border? Yes                              No Wouldn’t it be better if there was no border at all? Yes                              No Wouldn’t it be better if the rights ...

Four years ago a horrific fire at a so-called ‘ temporary halting site’ at Carrickmines in Dublin claimed the lives of ten people – five adults and five children. Thomas and Sylvia O’Connor and their three children Jimmy aged 5, Christy aged 2 and Mary aged five months; Willy Lynch, his partner Tara Gilbert, their daughters Jodie aged 9 and Kelsey aged 4, and Willy’s brother Jimmy, were all killed. Tara was also pregnant at the time. It was the state’s biggest fatal fire since the Stardust night club disaster in 1981 which killed 48 people. There was an outpouring of grief and solidarity in the weeks after the Carrickmines tragedy. Books of condolences were opened, public vigils were held, and flags were flown at half-mast. I attended the funerals in Bray and Sandyford. At Sandyford I arrived as the haunting lament from a lone Uilleann piper echoed around the Church. The funerals were desperately sad. At the inquest in January it emerged that a chip-pan was the source of the f...

Last November, a few days after the Withdrawal Treaty was published, and on the eve of British Prime Minister Theresa May travelling to Brussels to sign it, Boris Johnson arrived in the North. He was in Belfast to address the DUP’s annual party conference; the night after the British Chancellor Philip Hammond attended it. Johnson entered the Crowne Plaza amid great fanfare. The visits were a show of solidarity and plamas by English Tories to keep the DUP on board the partnership arrangements. There was a standing ovation and lots of photos of a beaming Boris hugging Arlene. Smiles all around. Johnson told an enraptured DUP audience that the British government was “on the verge of making a historic mistake.” He told them: “We need to junk the backstop.” Johnson told the DUP conference exactly what it wanted to hear. Just like Jacob Rees Mogg. In recent weeks as the debacle of a succession of failed Westminster votes and defeats for the May government unfolded, the Tory backbe...