Léargas

  Tom with Minister Deirdre Hargey and mise The Collectors Story I have known Tom Hartley for 55 years. During that time he has given decades of service to the republican cause. He has been an organiser, a writer, a propagandist, a leader. During the anti-internment protests of the early 1970s, and then the H-Block/Armagh campaign he was in the front line. He was Chair of Sinn Féin in Belfast and then during the hunger strikes in 1980 and1981 he was responsible for the Sinn Féin Prisoner of War dept ensuring that we had a line of communication with  the prisons. In the 1980s Tom was Ard Runai of the party. With the development of the Sinn Fein peace strategy Tom, along with Jim Gibney, led our effort to engage with political and civic unionism and the Protestant Churches. Later Tom became a popular Belfast City Councillor and Mayor of the City Among Tom’s many talents – a bodhrán maker and player par excellence with a fine taste for good food and...

  Three Books I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate an occasional column to books. We can return to Brexit, the Protocol and other such matters at another time.  So in this column I am reviewing three books. United Nation by Frank Connolly. On The Blanket by Eoghan Mac Cormaic and International Brigade against Apartheid: Secrets of the People’s War that Liberated South Africa’ By Ronnie Kasrils. These are clearly political books which may not surprise any of you. I am also conscious that these three are written by men. So less I give you the wrong impression let me make it clear that my reading activity is not limited to political books or to male authors. I binge read, so Sebastian Barry’s The Sacred Scripture, Billy Connolly’s Windswept and Interesting are also on the go along with Sylvie Simmons I’m Your Man about Leonard Cohen. I dip in and out of them when I get the chance. I also prefer real books to Kindle or other electronic models. Richard is a Kindleman. But ...

Confronting sectarianism The posting online of a vile video showing members of the Orange Order mocking the murder of Michaela McAreavey has been widely condemned. Last week in another video Pastor Barrie Halliday appeared on social media describing Catholics as ‘rats that need to be murdered with rifles and grenades.’ Both of these actions are evidence of an existing underlying sectarianism within northern society that has its roots in English colonialism and in the deliberate fostering by the British state in Ireland of division between Catholics and Protestants. The Loyal Orders have long played a prominent role in promulgating this. That sectarianism still exists is not surprising. Unionist political leaders and their British allies often play the Orange Card as they seek to maximise their electoral vote or secure an advantage in a negotiation. Since partition there are few Catholic families in the North that have not had direct experience of sectarianism, of discrimination...

Last week US Congress member Richie Neal, Chair of the Ways and Means Committee on Capitol Hill, led a Congressional delegation from Washington to Brussels, London, Dublin, the Blasket’s, Derry and Belfast. The delegation met with a very wide range of political representatives including Government representatives as well as civic society.  The Blasket’s you ask?  Why there? Well, in 1953 the last people who lived on the Blasket islands were forced to leave their beautiful islands off the coast of Kerry because of the lack of necessary services. Some of them went to Springfield in Massachusetts in the USA. That’s Richie’s district. So naturally a visit to Ireland had to include a visit to Dunquin and then a short helicopter flight to the Great Blasket. I wonder what Peig would have thought of that?  But I digress!  ‘Aris,’ says you.  So, to the point of this epistle. In the course of his visit to our part of Ireland Congressman Neal spoke...