Léargas

  Janette, Fra, Mary Lou, Alex and Liz Celebrating with Alex and Fra Republicans don’t say thank you often enough to each other. Fra McCann and Alex Maskey are 50 year activists. That is they have both been involved in the struggle for over 50 years. The two of them stepped down from the Assembly two years ago. Fra was replaced by Aisling Reilly and Alex by Danny Baker. Alex still remains the Ceann Comhairle – Speaker of the Assembly – until such times as the DUP agree to elect a new Speaker. Last Friday evening several hundred family, friends and comrades of both men came together to celebrate their lives of activism. They were also interviewed by Joe Austin about their experience of community activism, struggle, imprisonment and elected politics.  There was a big team of McCann’s and Maskey’s – siblings, wives, children and grandchildren - in the hall to hear Jeanette McCann and Liz Maskey  equally honoured for putting up with their husbands. I fondly remembered Fra’s mother

  Moore St belongs to the people The importance of the Moore Street 1916 Battlefield site was best summed up by Uachtarán na hÉireann Michael D Higgins who said: “This area belongs to no one individual, group or party. It belongs to the people”. If you want to protect this hugely important part of our revolutionary history with its many exceptional links to the dramatic events in Dublin at Easter 1916 then support the Urgent Public Meeting being held by the Moore Street Preservation Trust in Liberty Hall, Dublin on the 23 February. Belfast film maker Seán Murray will produce a short documentary with Oscar nominated actor Stephen Rea to be launched in the Urgent Public Meeting. The London based developer Hammerson, whose proposals would destroy much of the terrace and the significant laneways around it, and the government which supports it, believe Moore Street and its environs exist to be exploited and developed in the interests of profit. The Hammerson plans, if they go ahead, w

  Image of Commercial Court given to Gerry by Fr. Des Wilson The  Duke of York   The   recent cold snap and the sniffles of many of my associates reminded me of when I was a young curate in The Duke of York pub in Commercial Court in Belfast in the mid 1960s. In those days a hot whiskey was the cure for colds of all kinds. In the Dukes a ‘Hot Coleraine’ was the much prized preference of hot whiskey drinkers whether they had a cold or not. But in the winter it was regularly utilised to see off the ravages of Belfast chills f or all and sundry . The  Coleraine Distillery was located in the town of Coleraine. Distilling had been going on in Ireland since the seventeenth century. The distillery was converted from an old mill in 1820. In 1845 it was the whiskey of choice of the London House of Commons, so “HC” was put on the labels of its bottles. Coleraine was reputed  to be one of the most meticulous distilleries ever. No  whiskey  was bottled under 10 years old. The distillery was