Léargas

  The SS Al Rawdah For the first time ever the families of many of the 207 Republican internees held on the Al Rawdah prison ship between 1940 and 1941 met in Belfast. 85 years after their loved ones were interned on the prison hulk the families came together for the launch of Tom Hartley’s insightful account of that period. At the beginning of his remarks Tom invited the relatives present to stand. There was spontaneous and sustained applause from the rest of the audience. It was an emotional moment, for the relatives and for those watching, in what was an evening of memory and recollection. Mary McConville whose Uncle ‘Rocky’ Burns was held on the Al Rawdah, introduced the event and Tom Hartley explained to the relatives and audience his motivation for writing the book and the forensic approach he took in collecting information. He also drew attention to the poignant fact that two days earlier was the 85 anniversary of the only prisoner to die on the Al Rawdah, John Gaffney, who ...

  Remembering Friends Philomena Mulvenna Philomena Mulvenna died in the early hours of last Friday morning. I have known Philomena and her husband Paddy for most of my adult life. Paddy and she were 72 years married, they had 7 children, Collette, Treasa, Brenda, Michael, Desmond, Patrick and baby Martin who died in his infancy. Patrick the oldest son, was an IRA volunteer shot dead by the British Army in Ballymurphy along with his friend Jim Bryson in 1973.  Phyilis and Paddy had 18 great grandchildren with a great, great grandchild due in January next year. Mrs Mulvenna was a great woman, she reared her family in war and in peace. Particularly when Paddy was incarcerated in Long Kesh. Like so many other women she became the Crann Taca of her clan. Three of her children also went to prison, so through all this and the long years of conflict, prisons had to be visited and children and grandchildren, had to be guided and protected. Mrs Mulvenna protested with the other women ag...

  Defending British interests Hilary Benn is the 25 th  British Secretary of State since the Conservative government of Ted Heath scrapped the Stormont Parliament in 1972. Whitelaw was the first. I met him during the London talks in July that year. There was then a gap of 23 years before I met another British Secretary of State, Patrick Mayhew. I have met most of the rest since then. The 25 were a mixed bunch both in ability and in temperament. Most we had never heard of before they were given the job. Many we never heard of again after they left here.  A few were friendly. Some, like Roy Mason, were wannabe generals or spymasters who bought enthusiastically into the counter-insurgency strategies of the spooks, Brit military and RUC. Some, like Merlyn Rees, were bumblers who hadn’t a clue about the North and probably didn’t care, and some were or thought they were, clever and devious. Most of them suffered from delusions of grandeur. I used to call it the English dis...