Léargas

  The Re-interment of Frank Stagg.  Last week we remembered Frank Stagg who died on hunger strike in an English prison in February 1976.  Frank began his fourth and final hunger strike in December 1975. He died 62 days later. He last request was  "to be buried next to my republican colleagues and my comrade, Michael Gaughan"  who died on hunger strike two years earlier. Michael had been buried in Ballina with republican honours. Faced with the prospect of another high-profile funeral of a republican hunger striker the plane carrying Frank Stagg’s coffin was diverted by the Irish Government from Dublin, where the Stagg family and friends were waiting, to Shannon. Frank’s body was hijacked and taken by helicopter to Ballina, where it was buried. A 24-hour guard was put in place and concrete was poured over it to prevent the family from exhuming the coffin. Frank’s brother George later described how, when  he took his mother to visit the grav...

  The World Stands at a Tipping Point In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq by American and British forces and others in March 2003 Martin McGuinness and I warned Tony Blair and President Bush not to invade. We pointed out that it would be a breach of international law. At one particular meeting in Mr. Blair’s office in Downing Street Martin and I urged the British PM to learn the lessons of British involvement in Ireland and in other conflicts. We told him and his officials they were living in cloud cuckoo land;  “if you go into Iraq it will be another Vietnam and it will be a huge mistake.” One British official told us that it would all be over in a matter of months. Martin told him  “... given the previous history of successive British military expeditions to Ireland, that certainly would not be my view of how the situation in Iraq is going to move in the next short while."   We raised our concerns regularly with Tony Blair in the run into the Ang...

  Partitionism Rules.  Simon Harris has said that Irish unity is not a priority for him.  That is self-evident. But for him to say so is at odds with the stated position of most senior Irish politicians including An Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Their position is one of verbalised adherence to the constitutional objective of unity. In other words, they are verbalised republicans. Rhetorical United Irelanders. Mr Harris doesn't even pay lip service to this. Some may think this clarity from him is good for the unity debate. And they have a point. Simon Harris words reflect the reality of the position of successive governments. Thus far no Irish government has a strategy or a plan for unity. So unity is not only not a priority for Simon Harris. It is clearly not a government priority either.     The truth is he reflects a deep-rooted view within the southern establishment which sees partition as acceptable. For 100 years Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have run ...

  Starmer Waiving The Rules.   According to the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer his government is looking at "every conceivable way" to prevent me and at least 300 other people from receiving compensation for wrongful arrest and imprisonment in the 1970s. This issue of compensation arises from the decision by the British Supreme Court in May 2020 that the Interim Custody Order (ICO) or internment order issued against me was unlawful.  Internment was demanded by the Unionist government in 1971 and imposed by the British on 9 August that year. It had been used in every decade since partition in 1920. Internment saw thousands of armed troops smash their way into nationalist homes to arrest 342 men and boys. They were dragged from their beds and many were beaten. Fourteen – the Hooded Men - were subjected to days of sustained torture. 25 people were killed in the following four days. In Ballymurphy in west Belfast eleven local citizens, including a priest and mo...