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Brendan McFarlane
On Tuesday we buried our friend and comrade Brendan
McFarlane. Bik texted me just over 2 weeks or so ago to say he was back in
hospital. He had been battling cancer for some time. A few days later the
medics stopped his treatment. There was nothing else they could do for him.
Suddenly and unexpectedly he was gone. He died peacefully surrounded by
his loving family.
My solidarity and sympathy to Lene, a mighty woman, and to
their children Emma, Tomás and Tina, his brother Gerard and the wider family
circle. His loss for them is immeasurable. For his countless friends
and comrades his death is a deep blow.
Bik spent almost all of his adult life as a Republican
activist - an Óglach, a political prisoner, a leader, a man of courage,
fiercely proud of and loyal to his community, a resolute advocate
for Irish Unity, a Gaeilgeoir, a friend and a comrade.
A lot has been written about Brendan and his IRA activities
and he surely was a very committed activist but my memories of him are of a
good humoured, thoughtful and steadfast friend. We met in prison fifty years or
so ago. He used to joke that he became the prisoners Press Officer when he
admitted he could type. He was too modest. He could also write. We always
got on well.
Years later Bik was OC of the Blanket Men during the 1981
hunger strike. For almost a year he minded the hunger strikers in the
Blocks. He stood by Bobby, Francis, Raymond, Patsy, Joe, Martin, Kevin, Kieran,
Tom and Mickey and the others who survived it. He met them in the prison
hospital as their bodies slowly failed. He was their voice with the prison
administration and with the visiting delegations whose principal purpose was to
persuade the prisoners to unilaterally end their hunger strike.
Brendan was in daily contact with a small number of us
during that terrible but inspiring summer of 1981. He was the calm steady
leader. A bunch of us inside and outside the H-Blocks and Armagh Women’s Prison
became, and remain, remarkably close as we worked to try and prevent the deaths
of Bobby Sands and his nine comrades.
I still have the tiny little ‘teach’ that Brendan wrote to
me when Bobby died. A “teach” or teachtareacht or a comm was usually written in
tiny letters on cigarette paper and occasionally on pieces of paper from pages
of the Bible and smuggled out to taobh amuigh from the H-Blocks.
Others will remember Bik’s many other talents and
adventures. He was a central figure in the Great Escape when 38 H-Block
prisoners busted their way out of H7 in 1983. They also
recall his time with Gerry Kelly on the run in Europe, back again in the
H-Blocks and then his work following his release as a political and community
activist. He was a singer of note and a writer of fine songs.
In his oration Gerry Kelly told the story of an inspiring
republican – a united Irelander – who never gave up, never bowed the knee – who
remained unyielding and brave to the end. On occasion over these last few days
I have been asked to sum up Brendan; to define the kind of activist he was. For
me he was the man Bobby Sands and his comrades trusted.
Lene was the love of his life. He was a good family man. A
great friend to those of us privileged to know him as well as we did. For that
I am forever grateful.
Taking A Stand.
The decision by Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald and
Leas Uachtarán Michelle O’Neill not to attend the St. Patrick’s Day events in
the White House and the Speakers lunch on Capitol Hill, will undoubtedly upset
some of our friends across Irish America. This is very understandable.
Sinn Féin’s access to successive US administrations was won after decades of
very hard work by many people across North America. Understandably they do not
want to jeopardise or lose that influence. It is worth noting that in the past
Sinn Féin has always attended White House events when invited, including during
President Trump’s first term in office.
So the Sinn Féin decision was taken after much
deliberation. The catalyst for this was the recent statements from
President Trump in which he calls for the expulsion of over two million
Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip, his refusal to countenance their return
and his proposal that the United States of America will take over the
region. The decision would have been the same had a democratic President
called for the expulsion of two million Palestinians.
International law and successive United Nations resolutions
and international agreements have long accepted the need for a two state
solution and the right of the people of Palestine to self-determination.
President Trump has torn these up in the interests of an Israeli apartheid
state engaged in genocide and of those multi-national company’s eager to
exploit the billions available in the off-shore gas and oil fields off the
coast of Gaza.
The Irish peace process, the imperative of defending the
Good Friday Agreement as well as the need for constitutional change and
economic investment have always topped Sinn Féin’s political agenda in all our
visits to the USA. Successive US administrations have played a positive and
important role in building and sustaining the peace. The historic connections
between Ireland and the USA are important to us.
We acknowledge this each time we visit America and Sinn Féin
leaders who will be travelling again to the USA in March will do so again. They
will actively and positively engage with political leaders, Irish America, the
trade union movement and US business. As Mary Lou McDonald says Irish America
and the USA is an “important partner for peace” and “St.
Patrick’s Day, each year, is an important moment to re-enforce all of those
connections.”
Irish republicans are also internationalists. We have a
responsibility to use the opportunities available to us to raise our concerns
about international issues where we believe the US administration is wrong. We
do so with the Irish and British governments and in the EU and other
international forums. We do so respectfully but firmly. Until now our
criticisms have been ignored by former President Joe Biden and now President
Trump.
From the first time I met President Clinton thirty years ago
and thereafter with subsequent US Presidents I always took the opportunity to
raise my concerns about US foreign policy about the embargo on Cuba, the plight
of the people of Palestine, the efforts to advance peace in the Basque country,
freedom for Leonard Peltier and of other issues of concern for Irish people and
others. I travelled to Cuba and also Gaza. Undoubtedly this caused difficulties
at the time for some of our friends in the USA. But like us their commitment to
Ireland allowed us and them to overcome these differences of opinion.
Sometimes a stand has to be taken and friends can agree to
disagree because our main common ground is unity for Ireland as set out in the
Good Friday Agreement. What Mary Lou and Michelle are doing is taking a
stand against what President Trump is proposing for the people of
Palestine. To be silent or to acquiesce to the expulsion of a people from
their homeland is be complicit in it. It demands, as Mary Lou says, “serious
dissent and objection.”
So too does the use of USA armaments in Gaza and the West
Bank and the White House endorsement of multiple breaches of International law
by the Government of Israel.
The stance taken by the Trump administration is tantamount
to throwing petrol on a fire. It is storing up a depth of division and anger
that has never been witnessed before in the Middle East and it makes any
prospect for a peace process problematic for years to come.
Fáilte abhaile Leonard
Leonard Peltier was finally released from prison in Florida
last week. The 80-year-old political prisoner had spent almost the last 50
years in prison protesting his innocence. Leonard is a member of
the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and he now on his
reservation in North Dakota. His family and friends gathered to welcome him
home. After his release he said: “They may have imprisoned me but they never
took my spirit!” and he thanked “all my supporters throughout the world who fought
for my freedom.” Fáilte abhaile Leonard.
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