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Slán Irish Voice
Two weeks ago Niall O’Dowd, founder of the Irish American newspaper The Irish Voice announced that it was to close after 36 years. The New York based Irish Voice and the Irish Echo were the principle sources of news for decades of Irish Americans and new Irish immigrants moving to the USA. Now the Irish Voice is gone. But a far sighted Niall O’Dowd realised some years ago the direction of travel for newspapers competing against the huge growth in online media services and founded the online Irish Central. Today IrishCentral.com gets over two million visitors monthly.
I first met Niall in Belfast in
1983. He was interviewing me for an Irish newspaper in San Francisco which he
then edited. I had been elected as the MP for west Belfast and Niall was
interested in the political developments taking place in the aftermath of the
1981 hunger strike. Sinn Féin had won five seats to the Assembly in 1982 and
received over 100,000 votes in the June 1983 Westminster general election. I
had only recently been unbanned from travelling to Britain – it was re-imposed
some years later – and Section 31 in the South, which prevented Sinn Féin
representatives from appearing on radio or television, was deeply embedded in
the political and media establishment. It still is in some quarters,
particularly the old guard at RTE.
Later when Sinn Féin established
our peace strategy and my meetings with John Hume became public Niall was among
the first to recognise their significance. He played a central role in creating
the opportunity for Presidential hopeful Bill Clinton to state publicly his
support for a visa for me and for a special envoy to be appointed and he was
key to the engagement with the group of Irish Americans – the Connolly House
Group – who helped create the conditions for the IRA cessation in 1994.
A measure of the importance of the
role of Niall O’Dowd and of the Connolly House group was recalled later by
Conor O’Cleary, the Irish Times journalist based at that time in the USA. He
provides a sense of the secret machinations that were part of the process:
“One foggy summer evening in Dublin, around the middle of August 1994, a
man stood waiting outside the Irish Independent office in Middle Abbey Street.
Out of the mist, an attractive woman appeared and approached him. She asked,
"Do you think Dublin will win on Sunday?" Recognising the code words,
he handed her a document and they both walked off in different directions.
The woman was from Sinn Fein, and
the document she was given was one drafted by Niall O'Dowd … In the document
the Irish-American "peacemakers" committed themselves to a campaign
to achieve certain goals if an unarmed strategy was pursued by the republican
movement. The list of attainable goals included: unrestricted access to the US
for Gerry Adams and other Sinn Fein members; parity of treatment with other
Northern Ireland leaders in Washington; the opening of a nationalist office in
Washington; US government support for the peace process with the aim of getting
Washington to act as a guarantor of any agreements in Northern Ireland; and the
promotion of Irish-American business and investment in the North of Ireland.”
As part of the follow-up the Irish
American group returned to Ireland on 25 August. The group included Niall
O'Dowd, Bruce Morrison, Bill Flynn, Chuck Feeney, Joe Jamison and Bill Lenihan.
They were a crucial part in creating the right atmosphere for the IRA cessation
that was announced on 31 August 1994.
My personal connection with the
Irish Voice began in 1993 when I suggested to Niall that I write a column for
the Voice. He promptly agreed. It became an important means by which the Sinn
Féin analysis and political initiatives could be explained to Irish America.
The weekly articles included comment on President Mary Robinson’s visit to west
Belfast and the brouhaha that was created around us shaking hands; the
craziness of my 48 hour visa to New York; the IRA cessation; the joint meeting
with Albert Reynolds and John Hume; my regular visits to the USA; the visit by
President Clinton to Belfast and the many ups and downs of the peace
process. The columns and the two books that were published from them – An
Irish Voice; The Quest for Peace and An Irish Journal – are a diary of those
days.
The articles were not all serious.
Like this column they meandered all over the place – but always trying to
provide the reader with an insight into the political events of the time.
But one thing is clear throughout
it all and that is the power and the solidarity of Irish America with peace in Ireland
and with the aim of Irish Unity. Niall O’Dowd made this latter objective
absolutely clear in his first editorial written in November 1987.
He made it clear again in his final
editorial. He recalled that first issue; “We stated right away that a united
Ireland was the only long term solution to the failed partition of Ireland in
1922 and our stance has not changed. In fact, there are very few impartial
observers who would quibble with the notion that in the intervening 36 years,
prospects have never looked brighter than now for Ireland to finally unite.”
Niall O’Dowd and Voice editor
Debbie McGoldrick built a crusading paper. “We are indeed an activist paper; we
don’t believe in journalism that uses phrases like, ‘On the one hand and the
other.’ Have an opinion and defend it.”
And for almost four decades that’s
what the Irish Voice did.
So, go raibh maith agaibh to Niall,
and Debbie and all of the staff of the Irish Voice for your powerful
contribution to Irish America and the USA and to the Irish peace process and
Ireland. And thanks also for your support and forbearance through what were
often difficult and challenging times. Adh mór. See you soon
Every Brilliant Thing
Listening, as
I usually do on Sunday mornings, to Sunday with Miriam on RTE Radio after
Sunday Miscellany I really enjoyed Altan’s tunes and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh’s
craic. I was also very taken by the preview of Every Brilliant Thing which is
being staged at The Galway Arts Festival.
Theatre
Director Andrew Flynn gave us an insight into this play by Duncan Macmillan.
Essentially this is about a young man who starts, at the age of seven, to
compile a list of those things which make his life worth living. This is while
he is battling with the challenges of the different stages of his life,
including his mother’s attempt at suicide.
Andrew Flynn
then went on to invite all of us to compile our own list of Every Brilliant
Thing in our lives. I think this is a very good idea. If you agree make out
your own list of the Ten Brilliant Things in your life. You can also email your
list to everybrilliantthinggalway@gmail.com
You can do
this anonamionusly. Here’s my list.
Family.
Friends.
Good
Health.
Peace.
Nature.
Books.
Music.
Dogs.
The Gaeldom.
Féile An
Phobail.
War
Crimes in Jenin
The
Israeli Government’s assault on Jenin, the Palestinian refugee camp, in the
occupied west Bank left 12 people dead and scores more injured. Using bombs,
Apache helicopters, drones, bulldozers and hundreds of troops Israel’s
apartheid regime imposed a reign of terror on the 14,000 people who live in
Jenin. More than 3,000 civilians were displaced from their homes.
Human
rights organisations have described the attack as a war crime with Israeli
forces deliberately attacking civilians and medical personnel. The UN special
rapporteur Francesca Albanese said that the Israeli actions “amount to
egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force …”
Shamefully
the international community refuses to challenge Israel in its abhorrent
treatment of the Palestinian people. Some are going out of their way to defend
Israel. Not surprisingly the British government is to the fore in this.
Recently it introduced new legislation – the Economic
Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill.
The
stated objective of this legislation is “prevent public bodies from being
influenced by political or moral disapproval of foreign states when taking
certain economic decisions …". In other words the British government is
outlawing public bodies, including local authorities, pension funds and
universities, from boycotting, refusing to invest in, or disinvesting from “(a)
Israel, (b) the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or (c) the Occupied Golan
Heights." No other state is mentioned in the legislation.
If you want to support the Palestinian people one
way is to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in its
work to “end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and
pressure Israel to comply with international law.”
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