Léargas

  Nollag Shona Daoibhse. This Christmas will be unlike any other Christmas for most of us. The pandemic is to blame for that. Christmas can be a lonely place for some people. This year will be especially lonely for families who lost loved ones to the Coronavirus. Our thoughts are with them all. I hope everyone who can, enjoys the festive season as best as you can. Nollag shona daoibhse.   There are lots of things to dislike about the modern Christmas. The blatant commercialism of it. That may be a recent trait. Or maybe it was always thus. But nowadays the omnipresent pervasive media, social and otherwise, makes it difficult to escape the relentless advertising of the latest fad that we are persuaded that our children, spouse or friends cannot do without. I hate - if that’s not too strong a word - the distress caused for so many who cannot afford it getting caught up in this madness and getting into debt as a result. My heart goes out to stressed-out parents trying to make ends meet.

Betrayed again!  British policy is dictated by British interests. It has always been so. The fact that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has again betrayed unionists over Brexit should have come as no surprise to anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of how British policy works. The British Prime Minister Palmerston spelt it out most clearly almost 200 years ago when he said:  “We (England) have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow...”  Irish Republicans and others who have had first-hand experience of British duplicity have a name for it – perfidious albion.  The surprise is that so many unionists are surprised by the turn of recent events. Have they no memory of the twists and turns of Theresa May in her relationship with the DUP?  Do they not recall the many warnings given, including by this writer that the deal reached between the DUP and Theresa May in the summer of 2

Are you listening to our voices, Micheál? Micheál Martin’s ‘Shared Island Unit’ is perceived by some as a positive initiative encouraging debate on Irish Unity, even though he fails to even mention unity in any of his utterances. For others it is a distraction. A talking shop that is short on strategy and lacking in vision. A means of pretending to be doing something while in fact doing as little as possible. And a way of avoiding taking the big steps necessary to plan for a referendum on Unity, or mapping out what the shape of that new Ireland will be if the referendum succeeds. My own view is that United Irelanders should engage positively with An Taoiseach’ s Shared Island Unit but in full knowledge that it falls very far short of what Micheál Martin should be doing as part of his constitutional obligations and the imperatives of the Good Friday Agreement. In fact An Taoiseach is wilfully involved in the politics of illusion. But that should not come as a surprise to observers of

  A Session With Bobby Sands. At last! Danny Devenny is doing a book. He will have to finish it now that this column has broken the story. It will be a photographic and literary journey through his very eventful life. In my opinion Danny Dee  deserves a book or twenty books to celebrate his life in struggle and his art.He  has enriched  all our lives with his creativity and brightened Belfast’s streetscape and educated and uplifted its citizens and visitors with his murals. He will tell how art has been a huge help to him through all his decades of activism. That ’ s where this painting THE SESSION comes in.  THE SESSION features John Lennon, Danny’s friend Bobby Sands, Ché G u evara, Chilean activist song writer and poet Víctor Jara and Woody Guthrie the great American song writer and activist. It is available as a limited edition print and a not - for - profit funder for Danny’s book. Check out his Facebook page and private message Danny if you want to buy a copy. Danny has had