Léargas

  Best International Documentary I spent the weekend in Galway and Mayo. The weather was amazing. The countryside with its miles of stone walls separating plots of land and the lush colours of green and rocky inclines was a joy to travel through. I was in Galway on Saturday to attend the Galway Film Festival/Fleadh where Trisha Ziff’s film – A Ballymurphy Man - was receiving its world premiere. The cinema in the old Town Hall where the Festival is centred was packed to capacity for the screening. The audience was hugely attentive and very welcoming when Trisha and I went on the stage at the end of the screening to talk about the making of the documentary. The next day I was in Mayo when Trisha text me to say that ‘A Ballymurphy Man’ had taken the Festival award for Best International Documentary. So well done Trisha and her team who worked hard over five years, with very limited funding to produce this film. In Mayo I met Martin Neary, who has bequeathed his 40-acre homeste...

No Economic Block on Irish Unity In recent years there have been encouraging signs of growing support for Irish unity in successive electoral results, demographic changes, contributions from civic society, in opinion polling and in public commentary. Unsurprisingly, any debate on unity quickly focuses on practical issues like the economic viability of a united Ireland as well as on the future of a health and care system, governance structures, education, the environment and other matters. Sinn Féin’s Commission on the Future of Ireland recently held a successful conference examining the issue of health in a new Ireland and the party produced a widely welcomed health and care document looking to a future all-island model. It is available at   https://sinnfein.ie/the-case-for-an-irish-national-health-and-care-service/ And now we have the report by Professor John Doyle of Dublin City Univeristy – ‘The Projected Public Finances of the Early Years of a United Ireland, an...