Léargas

As we mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday I remember when native Americans joined us to forge solidarity links and travelled to Derry to participate in the Bloody Sunday events of 1985. Thunder before the Storm in Belfast The drum beat and the chant echoed across the emptiness of Milltown Cemetery. Despite our heavy coats the January cold leeched through to the bone. Margaret and Alfie Doherty, the parents of hunger striker Kieran Doherty; Jim Daly, whose wife Miriam – a member of the National Smash H-Block Armagh Committee - was assassinated by the UDA in 1981; and myself, Alex Maskey and others  were at the Belfast Republican plot. So was Maura, sister of H Block hunger striker Joe McDonnell. It was 1985 and we were accompanying a delegation of Native American Indians from the American Indian Movement (AIM). They were in Ireland to  ‘see the situation – political and cultural …’   The delegation laid a wreath at the graves of our Patriot Dead and chanted the...

  Condolences are not enough I want to extend my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Ashling Murphy. The spontaneous public outpouring of grief at her murder underlines the frustration and anger that exists at the habitual reports of violence against women. Condolences are not enough. Men, and I include myself in this, need to take responsibility for ensuring that every woman has the right to be safe and that there is zero tolerance of male violence against women. Our friend and Sinn Féin MLA Emma Sheerin says this better than I ever could.  The Women of Ireland Are Fed Up by Emma Sheerin.  From our grandmothers, educated in Latin and the catechism, but not about menstruation; locked up whether they fell prey to a neighbour or ‘chose to commit a mortal sin’, as if either were crimes, as if they deserved a life in an institution. Those lucky enough to be ‘good girls’ – what was their reward? A life locked to the kitchen sink. Caring for parents ...

  Sectarianism must be ended!  The narrow vote in the Dáil 100 years ago last week in favour of the Treaty imposed the partitionist institutions demanded by the British under threat of ‘ war – and war within three days’.  The vote led directly to the calamitous Civil War in the South, years of violence in the North and a fractured society. Nationalists in the North were abandoned by the Southern political establishment. The recent comments by Joe Brolly and Bernadette McAliskey which have given expression to this have been sharply criticised by apologists for that establishment. The evidence of a century of lived experience by northern nationalists has been brushed aside as irrelevant. The sectarian apartheid state in the six counties did not emerge by happenstance in 1921. Sectarianism – the deliberate playing off of northern unionists against nationalists as a means of maintaining unionist/British hegemony – was central to the communal, industrial, and political divisio...

  Desmond Tutu I had the honour and pleasure of meeting Desmond Tutu over the years. He was a friend of Ireland and a supporter of the Irish peace process. He was a remarkable, compassionate and inspirational human being. He never compromised on his belief in the essential goodness of people or on the imperative of dialogue as the means of resolving differences. In Irish there is a saying: “ Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine ” which translates as:  “We all live in each other’s shadow .” Few people understood the essence of this connectivity between people better than Archbishop Tutu. It was a fundamental part of his religious faith and of his humanity. He worked for a better South Africa and for a better world. As an internationalist he welcomed the solidarity of others for the people of South Africa in their struggle against apartheid. In 1984 as he travelled to Oslo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize Archbishop Tutu stopped briefly in London where he met Karen G...

  New Year Resolutions. New Year resolutions and I are old friends. Usually I muse at the end of the old year about what I need to commit myself to for new year’s arrival. This year the pandemic cuts down the options. Going to the gym isn't on. Taking up senior hurling or football? Same problem. Stopping the drink? Maybe? But seeing as I am fairly sober most of the time it would be going too far not to have a wee deoch every so often. For medicinal purposes. Being a better person? That’s a daily effort. Staying out of trouble? Impossible? Giving up twitter? Being more serious all the time? Acting my age?  Nawh! To paraphrase Emma Goldman, ‘If I can’t act the eejit I don't want to be part of the revolution.’ So my New Year resolution this year is not to make a new year resolution. I remember once making a new year resolution to stop smoking. I used to smoke a lot. So did most people. How stupid we were. I smoked everything that was legal. Cigarettes. Cigars. The pipe. I used...