Standing up for rights: Terry O’Sullivan – A working class hero: Michelle Gildernew: My memories of the Good Friday Agreement
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Among those who attended the Easter Sunday
commemoration in Belfast two weeks ago was John Montgomery. I haven’t seen John
in many years and it was a delight to meet him again. John is originally from
St. James’ in west Belfast.
Thirty years ago John was the Chairperson of the
Ballyfermot Community Association. Those were different times. Political
censorship and the demonisation of Republicans was entrenched in government
policy North and South. Collusion between British state agencies and their
unionist paramilitary surrogates was widespread. The Irish and British
governments were locked into a strategy aimed at defeating the IRA and smashing
Sinn Féin. There was no thought of peace with justice or of conflict
resolution; of inclusive talks; or of the centrality of dialogue to resolve
differences. The establishment was against that.
The Irish political system and sections of the
media were in the forefront of this campaign. Opposition to Sinn
Fein had reached such a fever pitch in the South that Sinn Féin was refused the
use of our usual venue, the Mansion House in Dublin to hold our annual Ard
Fheis. Other public buildings were denied to us as Fianna Fail, the Labour
Party and Fine Gael abused their authority to bar us. The Special Branch was
leaning on hotel owners to put them off hiring venues to us. In 1992 we had no
place to hold our Ard Fheis.
Eventually the Ballyfermot Community Association,
in the working class area of Ballyfermot, a sprawling Dublin district not
unlike its northern urban cousins in Derry or Belfast, offered us the use of
their community centre. The Irish establishment was outraged and threatened to
deny funding to the community centre but a defiant John Montgomery rejected
this pointing out that the government hadn’t provided any funding in the
previous 20 years.
Turning a community centre into a venue for the Ard
Fheis required a lot of hard work and imagination. Lucilita Bhreatnach who was
then the Ard Runaí – General Secretary of the Party- led our head-office team
to get the logistical and other political back-up in place while a voluntary
team of painters, carpenters and other construction workers moved in. My old
friend from Long Kesh, the mural painter Danny Devenney, transformed the
community building.
The theme of our 1992 Ard Fheis was ‘Towards a
Lasting Peace in Ireland.’ The title was taken from the document of the same
name that we launched in the Ballyfermot Community Centre. At a time when the
idea of a peace process was unimaginable ‘Towards a Lasting Peace in Ireland
said: “An end to conflict is not of itself peace. In the Irish
experience to date it has represented but a pause – a postponement of conflict
for a decade or a generation. And end to conflict must of course be an
objective. But to have any lasting value it must be in the context of a peace
process which eradicates the causes of the conflict.”
In spite of the Irish establishment’s antipathy
toward Sinn Féin the years that followed showed that the Ballyfermot Community
Association was right in opening its centre up to Sinn Féin and Sinn Féin was
right about the need for a peace process. Our efforts along with those of
others created the opportunity for the Good Friday Agreement. Thank you John
Montgomery.
Terry O’Sullivan – A working class hero
Terry O'Sullivan is the General President of
the Laborers' International Union of North American (LIUNA). He has just retired
after a quarter of century as leader of one of the biggest trade unions in
North America. I have known Terry O for many years. He is a proud Irish
American born in San Francisco and with close ties to Kerry where his paternal
grandfather was from. He still has family there.
LiUNA's slogan is Feel the Power. Terry's mantra is
Organize or Die. Anyone who has heard him deliver one of his rousing speeches
knows he means every word of that. He brings that same passion and conviction
to his support for Irish Unity, for an end to the partition of Ireland and a
new future for all the Irish people.
Terry is a committed united Irelander. He has
spoken at several Sinn Féin Ard Fheiseanna over the years. Terry has also
addressed Irish Unity conferences in the USA.
In 2013 he was in Dublin to mark the centenary of
the Dublin Lockout. In 2016 he headed a big union delegation that came to
Ireland for the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising. He attended events in
Dublin and here in Belfast including unveiling the statue to James Connolly
which now stands outside Áras Uí Chonghaile on the Falls Road.
Terry and LiUNA continue to play a leadership role
in making the vision of Áras Uí Chonghaile a reality. He was one of the
speakers at its formal opening in April 2019 along with President Michael
D Higgins. Last year Áras Uí Chonghaile dedicated its conference space on
the top floor of the building to Terry renaming it: “The Terry O’Sullivan
LiUNA! Conference and Event Space.”
As well as being a trade union leader Terry is also
a dear friend and a comrade. Over the years I had the pleasure of meeting
Terry’s father, Terry Sr. and his mother Leona. They too were strong Irish
Americans and were enormously proud of their son’s many achievements. So also
is the rest of his family and his wife Yvette.
Most recently Terry O travelled to Dublin to attend
the funeral of Rita O’Hare who he had come to know over many years and to
respect. He was one of those who acted as guard of honour.
Terry has dedicated his life to advancing the cause
of labour and improving the conditions of working people in the USA and around
the world. Terry totally understands and embraces Connolly’s analysis that
the “Cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour and the Cause of Labour is
the cause of Ireland.”
He may live thousands of miles away but Terry lives
that cause every day and we are forever grateful for it. He may be stepping
down from his leadership role in LiUNA but I know we will continue to advocate
for Irish Unity and in defence of the Good Friday Agreement.
Michelle Gildernew: My memories of the Good Friday
Agreement
My memories of the Good Friday Agreement are
interspersed with countless trips across the Irish Sea. I was the Sinn Féin
representative in London and on the day the Agreement was reached I was in
London, where Jimmy and I were staying with Mary Mason, a brilliant London
based activist.
In the years preceding that I had been asked by the
party to work in the International Dept, based in Conway Mill and headed up by
Bairbre de Brún. I learned a lot there and really enjoyed it, and when the Sinn
Féin rep in London decided he was ready to come home I was asked to consider
replacing him.
After talking it over with my family and Jimmy, I
decided to relocate, knowing that it was a lot of responsibility but also a
great opportunity. As a result, I had been over in London a few times before
the first visit to Downing St, and was included in that delegation along with
Gerry, Richard, Martin, Lucilita, Siobhan and Martin Ferris in December 1997.
When Gerry posted that photo on Instagram lately it
sparked all sort of conversations with a new generation of Republicans asking
“How come you were asked to go?”, “why were you in that delegation?”, quickly
followed by “…and what age were you?!”
One of my best memories of that day was being in a
taxi en route to the airport the day before and hearing on the news that Liam
Averill had escaped out of Long Kesh. The bus nearly left the road with the
cheer from everyone inside, yet parts of the media portrayed it as “an
embarrassment to the delegation”. We had been joined by the then political
editor of the Irish News who can testify that there was no embarrassment, only
delight!
Looking back now it was a huge honour to be
included. I remember as we sat in the Cabinet room Tony Blair saying in his
opening remarks that there wouldn’t be a United Ireland in the lifetime of the
young person in the room, and that was me. Gerry’s response in his opening
remarks was “If someone had told us ten years ago that we would be in 10
Downing St. sitting with a British Prime Minister and leader of the
Labour Party with your majority we would have said “not in our lifetime too.”
To which Tony Blair replied “Touché.”
There is all sorts of possibilities if the will is
there. And then we got down to what turned out to be a very good meeting.
During those times it was extremely busy and we
felt like we were always rushing, to catch planes or to meet deadlines and the
frenetic pace didn’t stop after 10th April 1998.
When others felt their work was done, the Sinn Féin
leadership brought the ANC over and organised hundreds of meetings, including
in the jails in order to bring people with us. We had a special Ard Fheis for
the party to take the final decision on the Agreement.
Thinking back the risks taken by Gerry and Martin
are in stark contrast to the leadership of other party’s today. We owe Gerry
Adams and Martin McGuinness a debt of gratitude for the personal and political
risks that they took for unity and peace.
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