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301222 Bliain Úr faoi Mhaise Daoibhse A very happy new year to all readers of this column and to Belfast Media supporters. Congratulations again to Andersonstown News on your 50 th  Anniversary. A great achievement. None of us know what 2023 will bring but we can be sure it will be interesting. May it also be good to you all and to your families. Beirigí bua.   Mountain treasures on our doorstep When I arrived at Glór Na Móna last week for the launch of The Black Mountain Rewilding Project the place was packed. Tommy Morgan started the evening’s event with a few warm words of thanks and appreciation for the work of Aaron Kelly and his co-workers, particularly film maker Maírtín Keenan. They are all local young people working voluntarily on our wonderful Black Mountain. Like people of my age Aaron spent his childhood playing on the mountain, exploring its wildness and learning about the wildlife which call it home. But Aaron took his mountain rambles to another level. Starting

241222 Nollaigh Shona Daoibh.  Beannachtaí daoibhse go leir. Have a great Christmas dear readers. Thanks and benedictions also to the Belfast Media Group team. Christmas can be a sad and stressful time for some people. Be mindful of them my friends. Reach out to neighbours and others who may not be as lucky as we are. I’m strongly against the commercialism of Christmas. I love the Christmas story and the story of Joseph and Mary and of Jesus’ birth in a stable. The simpleness of it all and the way children relate to Dadaí Na Nollaig appeals to me. So let’s celebrate our humanity, raise a glass to absent friends and give thanks to all who enhance and brighten our lives.    A NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.  Earlier last week I was on my way to Craigavon for a book signing event.  The cold weather had conspired to create a thick fog. As we drove along the M1 we passed what remains of Long Kesh prison and I was reminded of another December, another fog and life in the internment cages.

  Joseph McKelvey The Sinn Féin building on the Falls Road at the corner of Sevastopol St. is internationally famous for its mural of Bobby Sands. Less well known is the fact that the building is dedicated to the memory of another Irish republican, Joe McKelvey. His framed photograph adorns the wall on the first floor. Both men were in the 20s. Bobby was 27. Joe was 24. Both died in prison. Bobby died after 55 days on hunger strike in the prison hospital in Long Kesh. He was incarcerated by the British state. Joe was 24.  He was one of four IRA volunteers shot to death by a Free State firing squad in the prison yard in Mountjoy prison in 1922. Last week – 8 December – was the centenary of his execution.  Joe McKelvey was born in Stewartstown in county Tyrone but moved to Cyprus Street in the Falls area of west Belfast as a teenager. He was a committed  Gael. In 1916 he was a founder member of the O’Donovan Rossa CLG in Beechmount. He also had a keen interest in the Irish language

  A Massacre in Instalments As I write this column the number of Palestinians killed this year by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip is 207. By the time it is published in a few days time that number will have increased. Last Friday I watched online video of the last moments of Ammar Mufleh, aged 23, shot dead in Huwara, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank by an Israeli soldier. He was the tenth Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in 10 days.  Shamefully the mainstream western based international media and many governments chose not to report this or comment on this and other recent events. They have chosen to ignore the daily brutality and excesses of the Israeli apartheid state. Hanan Ashwari, the former Palestinian peace negotiator described the Palestinian deaths this year and the 80,000 that have occurred since 1967 as  “a massacre in instalments.” Last week the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with t