Mid Ulster MP Francie Molloy at Lough Neagh Lough Neagh facing an ecological disaster Up the Shore i The lough will claim a victim every year. It has virtue that hardens wood to stone. There is a town sunk beneath its water. It is the scar left by the Isle of Man. ii At Toomebridge where it sluices towards the sea They’ve set new gates and tanks against the flow. From time to time they break the eels’ journey And lift five hundred stones in one go. iii But up the shore in Antrim and Tyrone There is a sense of fair play in the game. The fishermen confront them one by one And sail miles out and never learn to swim. Iv ‘We’ll be the quicker going down,’ they say. And when you argue there are no storms here, That one hour floating’s sure to land them safely – ‘The lough will claim a victim every year.’ Seamus Heaney’s poem, published in 1969, captures much of what makes Lough Neagh unique. It has long been a place of myth and fable, where
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Time to say Yes to Palestinian State Last week the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin visited Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. It was an opportunity for the Irish government to take a firm stand against Israeli aggression and its apartheid system of governance. Instead Mr. Martin became little more than a commentator on the ongoing and worsening crisis in that region. While Mr. Martin was occasionally critical in his public remarks of the expansion of Israeli settlements into Palestinian land and concerned at the daily attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian homes and families there was little of substance to his visit. With Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu making clear there would be no change in Israeli policy and his government’s veto over any possibility of viable negotiations toward a peace agreement, it needs more than meaningless rhetoric from An Tánaiste. It needs action from the Irish government to give peace a chance. Three months ag
Unique Robert Ballagh Moore Street Print As regular readers of this column know I have been involved for a very long time in the campaign to protect and develop as a historic and cultural quarter the Moore St. Terrace and its environs in Dublin. The entire terrace 10-25 Moore Street was occupied by the evacuated GPO garrison at the end of Easter Week 1916. The developer - Hammerson - wants to demolish much of the terrace. The Moore St. Preservation Trust, with the support of relatives of the 1916 leaders, is working with a legal team to prepare a legal challenge should An Bord Pleanála decide to grant Hammerson permission to knock down any part of this historic terrace. All of this will involve significant costs. As part of the Trust’s campaign to raise awareness, and to raise funding for any legal challenge, the Moore Street Preservation Trust will tonight be launching a new image of the last meeting of the Provisional Government following the Easter Rising in 1916 by the renown