Léargas

Mise agus Martin on a tiny plane heading to another round of negotiations in 2003 I remember Martin McGuinness, in response to a question, telling a journalist that he expected to be dead before he was twenty five. I told the same journalist the same thing. That’s the way it was in the 1970s when Martin and I first met the British Government in an effort with others to negotiate a way to end the conflict. I was twenty three. Martin was about eighteen months younger than me. As it turned out we both lived well beyond the quarter of a century that both of us thought would be our life span. I assume it might be difficult for anyone who didn’t experience conflict to understand why we thought the way we did. It seems very melodramatic when it’s written down like that. But that’s the way it was. Hunted in our own place. On the run. Living on the edge. If there was not quite a queue of would be assassins - in and out of British uniform - there was certainly enough to justify our c...

  The British named it Operation Demetrius. For those of us who lived through the 9 August 1971 it was internment day. Like many others I was awakened early that morning by the sound of binlids rattling their alarm across the streets of Ballymurphy and Springhill. 342 men and boys from nationalist homes across the North were dragged from their beds in the early hours of the morning by thousands of British soldiers and RUC Many were beaten and 14 – the Hooded Men - were subjected to days of sustained torture.  Thousands fled their homes. 25 people were killed in the following four days. In my home area 11 local citizens, including a priest and mother of eight, were killed by the Paras in the Ballymurphy Massacre.  Five months later the Paras attacked an anti-internment march in Derry and killed 14 people. Bloody Sunday was another of many dark days in the conflict. In July 1972 another five citizens, this time in Springhill, were killed by the British Army. They incl...

The Irish proverb: “ Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine .” translates as:  “We all live in each other’s shadow .” In other words we are all interlinked. In our own lifetime probably no greater example of this connectivity between people and communities – of us living in each other’s shadow - is to be found in the communal response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Frontline health workers, carers, shop workers, lorry drivers and so many others have minded us despite the risk to themselves. Community activists have again and again collected and delivered much needed food parcels and prepared hot food for those in need. While this is a universal response and not uniquely Irish it is also in keeping with one of our traditions. That is the meitheal, when neighbours come together to help with the harvest or turf but also following misfortune. There are many examples of this in recent times and thankfully lots of evidence that the spirit of the meitheal – a sense of communi...

In 1973 just before midnight on Christmas Eve, I was caught along with three other comrades attempting to escape from Long Kesh. We were among a large group of men and women interned without charge or trial. My first bout of internment was on the Maidstone Prison Ship in 1972. Internees-the British later called us detainees as part of their fiction that internment was ended – were held in Armagh Women’s Gaol, Belfast Prison, Magilligan, and Long Kesh. In July 1974 I was caught again in another escape bid. Steve McQueen I was not. The following March 1975 I was taken out to court where I was convicted on the first escape attempt and received an 18 month sentence. A month later I was convicted of the second escape attempt and got another three years. Then as the rest of the internees were being released a small group of us nearly got-aways were moved out of the internee end of Long Kesh to the top end of the camp where the sentenced POWs were held. We were incarcerated in Cage...

There is a lot of speculation about when the lockdown caused by the pandemic will end. As a lay person my own best call is that it will be some time before we should do this. The main factor in any decision to relax confinement measures has to be the health needs of citizens. Without a vaccine the Coronavirus remains a terrible threat to our well being and to the most vulnerable amongst us. The pandemic is far from over, and its significant economic consequences, allied to those of Brexit, are still to be felt. Some commendable and welcome investigative reports by journalists and media platforms have begun to shine a light on the confusion, lack of planning, irresponsible decisions, public utterances, neglect, and disregard for the lives and welfare of their citizens that has marked the response of some governments and government agencies to this global threat. The absence of political leadership in Britain in the early stages of the crisis, including the failure of i...