Léargas

The Monstrous Separation Wall that stretches for hundreds of kilometres across stolen Palestinian land, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and water sources Five times in recent years I have visited Palestine and Israel. I have spoken to leaders and to citizens and human rights advocates on both sid es. I have been in Gaza City and the West Bank. I have been in the refugee camps. I have walked along the monstrous separation wall which cuts Palestinian families off from their land and created the biggest ghettoes in the world. All of this is in breach of international law. It is illegal.  Hospital bombed by Israel in Gaza The plan by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to begin annexing up to 30% of the West Bank beginning next week is also illegal. But the Irish Government refuses to challenge this criminal act in any meaningful way.  If we, the Irish, who have experienced the trauma of colonisation and who understand its consequences don’t stand by the Palest...

Wolfe Tone Like the Easter commemorations earlier this year this Sunday’s Bodenstown ceremony will take place online. Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald TD, who has previously spoken at Bodenstown on three occasions, the last in 2018, will give this year’s keynote address. The Coronavirus restrictions make it impossible to hold the normal event with its march and graveside oration. My first trip to Bodenstown was as a teenager in the mid 1960s. Apart from periods of imprisonment I think I have been at Bodenstown almost every year since then. In the 1960s and 70’s, apart from Easter, Bodenstown and Edentubber were the two big commemorations for republicans. Both events were political excursions with a big social content.  Busloads of republicans descended on County Kildare. At a time when republicans got little media coverage the Bodenstown speech was regarded as especially important when the republican leadership of the day set out its position on issues of the day. Thi...

The George Floyd mural on the Falls Road   You don’t get to be racist and Irish You don’t get to be proud of your heritage, plights and fights for freedom while kneeling on the neck of another! These are the first four lines of a new poem by the singer Imelda May. It is a powerful and moving poem which vividly sums up my feeling on this divisive issue. A sad fact of life is that racism exists in most societies. That reality struck home in recent weeks following the killing of George Floyd in the USA by Minneapolis police officers; in the response of President Trump, and the brutality of elements of the police service who have attacked peaceful protesters . In my visits to the USA over a quarter of a century I have met many good people and many good leaders. Leaders in business and commerce, in communities, the Arts, the Labour and Women’s movements and in politics. But I have long believed that race is the big unresolved issue at the heart of US society. It and sect...