Léargas

Walking on the Big Pool in the Bogmeadows December 28th 09 BLIAIN ÚR FAOI MHAISE DAOIBH. The water in the big pool at the Bog Meadows was frozen. So was Your Man. So was I. We watched seagulls kiting down over the MI. They dipped over the big pool and wheeled around gliding down to the water. Or the ice. It was Saint Stephen's Day. ‘Yeeehaa’ Your Man chortled. ‘Luk at that’. Instead of gracefully alighting into the pool the gulls skidded along the icy surface, slipping and sliding into each other. ‘Slip sliding away, slip sliding away’ Your Man hummed. ‘I wonder what they think of the ice?’ ‘They thinks its cold’ I replied, ‘and slippy’. ‘I know that’ he said as we made our way away from the waters edge and up towards Saint Galls. ‘But they wud nivver have any experience of ice. Wud they?’ ‘Unless they came from the Arctic’ I offered. ‘That’s a quare distance’ he mused. ‘Swallows go to South Africa’. I continued. ‘So does big Mick and wee Seamie’. ‘On a plane’ I parried, ‘Swallo...

December 21st 09 Beannacht Over the weekend I had a notion that this blog would be a good place to cogitate over family and life and its burdens and all that goes with that. I thought I might deal with some of the events in the life of my clan and in my own life. Events which are now in the media. But on reflection it’s too near Christmas for all that. Maybe some other time. But not now. For now I want to thank all those people who have been so good to me and my family. Búiochas to the professionals who have been so kind to us. And to friends and comrades who have phoned and texted and sent solidarity greetings. And emails. And others who don’t have my contact details but who sent words of support through third parties. Or cards. Thanks also to others who approached me on the street like the woman who came to me after Mass to say her family were in the same situation. By the time I got home that day four people told me the same thing. And that was before I did the interview with RT...

December 18th 09 The Skibbereen Eagle flies again! Will they, won’t they – agree a deal in Copenhagen on climate change? Like the Skibbereen Eagle this Blog watches these matters. The Heads and representatives of almost 200 states have been locked in discussions for over a week trying to reach agreement on tackling a problem that has global and life and death implications for billions of citizens. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees the last twenty years has witnessed a doubling of natural disasters. That means there has been an increase in floods, tsunamis, cyclones, and earthquakes. They have also been more destructive. Consequently, last year around 36 million people were displaced by these events. While all of this is grievous for those affected, changes in climate has also meant changes in weather patterns leading to serious droughts, and the extension of deserts across the world. The loss of glaciers in the high Himalayas threatens water provision i...

December 14th 09 HAPPY CHRISTMAS TAOISEACH. In ‘A Christmas Carol’ Mr. Scrooge provides a Christmas bonus to Bob Crachit, Tiny Tim and their family; increases Bob’s take home pay, and sets about improving his working conditions. It’s a heart warming story of compassion overcoming greed. In the Irish government version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ the Christmas bonus for the disadvantaged is axed; the take home pay of workers is cut; and there is no compassion for poorer communities. It is the workers who are being forced to bear the burden of an economic crisis made significantly worse for citizens by an incompetent government. There were alternative measures that could have been taken. This Blog set out some of them in recent weeks. They include the need for those who can afford to pay more to do so. They require substantial investment to be directed into job creation and the public services. These are common sense measures, properly costed and affordable, that could begin to turn the econo...

December 11th 09 Comhghairdeas agus Lá Breithe Shona do Mac Bride Principles The MacBride Principles--consisting of nine fair employment, affirmative action principles--are a corporate code of conduct for U.S. Companies doing business in the north of Ireland. The Principles are named after Nobel Laureate Seán Mac Bride, a founding member of Amnesty International and former Chief of Staff of the IRA who launched them in 1984. Their focus was on tackling the generational structured discrimination in the north and they were based loosely on the Sullivan Principles which were aimed at the Apartheid South African government. In the USA the MacBride campaign was well fought by Irish America. The Mac Bride Principles were adopted in many States and Cities as law. Eventually in October 1998 the House and Senate passed the MacBride Principles -- as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1999 -- and President Clinton signed them into law. It was a long hard battle which was resis...

December 7th 09 Branching Out. ‘Everybody should plant a tree they will never sit under,’ said your man. He was in one of his moods. It was Saturday morning. We had dashed from Wicklow to be at Stormont for 10.30 on Saturday morning. The Stormont estate is huge but due to the developing relationship between this Blog and the Minister with responsibility for tree planting on the demesne, another little bit of land was being conceded to subversive native trees. Go raibh maith agat Sammy Wilson. First we take Manhattan. Then we take Berlin. The tree planting project had started as an effort by this Blog and the Ulster Camogie Board to plant Ash trees for hurling sticks, then it moved into a partnership with The Peoples Forest who have a great mission to reforest Ireland and from there into an effort with others to get into the Guinness Book of Records by planting one million trees in one hour simultaneously in different places. So camogs, footballers, hurlers, rugby hulks, the indefa...

December 4th 09 The lesson of history There is understandably enormous curiosity among everyone this Blog meets about the current crisis in the political institutions and the sharp words that have been exchanged between the Shinners and the DUP. At one level it’s about the tranfer of powers of policing and justice but at another deeper level it’s about the principles of equality, and justice and democratic change, underlying the Good Friday Agreement. The reality is that the northern state was created to ensure a unionist majority and unionist domination. And the status of nationalists was institutionalised, in a way not seen in Ireland since the penal laws, into that of inferior and third class citizens. You know the record of discrimination and injustice and repression. This Blog intends to return to this theme next week. So, after decades of one party unionist rule and British direct rule, the political institutions are about delivering equality and partnership into every facet of l...

Mise agus Toshi agus Pete November 30th 09 ÓRÓ SÉ DO BHEATHA BHAILE Well done to St. Galls on a wonderful victory over The Loup. This Blog and Belfast Gaels are rooting for them to bring an all-Ireland title back to our city and county. Naomh Gall abú. This Blog gets lucky sometimes. Truth to tell this Blog is lucky all the time but every so often this Blog gets very, very lucky. Take last month for example. Or to be very accurate earlier this month. Regular readers will recall that this Blog was in the USA and Canada on one of those mad a-city-a-day schedule at the beginning of November. What you did not know was that in between all the other bits I got to meet with Pete Seeger and his wonderful wife Toshi. A mutual friend got me Pete’s contact details and I am eternally grateful to him for that. When I was a teenager Pete Seeger was one of my heroes. He still is. He was out there singing his songs and making music for workers and fighters for civil rights, and women and disadvantage...

November 27th 09 Cherishing all the Children Equally The report of the Commission of Investigation in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin has said that clerical child abuse was covered up by the Archdiocese and other Church authorities. The report was published on Thursday. It also indicted senior members of An Garda Siochana who regarded priests as being outside their remit. The report said that there are examples of Gardaí reporting abuse complaints to the Diocese instead of investigating them and asserts that the relationship between some senior Gardaí and some priests and Bishops was inappropriate. The 700 page report details particular priests and the abuse perpetrated by them. It also indicts the State authorities who facilitated the cover up by allowing the Church to be beyond the law. It claims that the welfare of children was not even a consideration by State and Church authorities. This report follows on from the Ryan report which was published earlier in May of this year and ...

November 23rd 09 A New Way of Dealing with the Economy Two weeks ago this Blog visited Dolphins Barn, a working class district of Dublin and met with some residents, including members of the residents committee. The local Sinn Fein Councillor Criona Ní Dhallaigh accompanied me. Dolphin’s Barn is the second largest public housing flats complex in the city. It has almost 400 flats, including 44 senior citizens units, and has an overall population of close to 1,000. The residents briefed us on the many problems confronting them. These include serious issues with the design and maintenance of the accommodation, the lack of play facilities for children, the poor state of the units housing the elderly, debt and rent arrears, as well as community safety concerns, including drug- related issues. This Blog was deeply impressed by their calm dedication and determination to improve the quality of life for residents and especially the young and the elderly. Many of those this Blog spoke to give ho...

November 20th 09 Justice for the Holland family Last week Harry Holland's wife Pauline and family, their legal representative and myself, met with the British Attorney General and the acting Director of the PPS in the north, in the Bar Library in Belfast. It was the first ever meeting of its kind. It arose because of serious concerns by the family – which this Blog shares – about the way in which the PPS handled the murder case that resulted from the arrest and charging of three people for the murder of Harry Holland near his home on Tuesday 11th September 2007. Harry was a very popular local figure. His small greengrocers shop had a collection of boxes for progressive causes scattered throughout the shelves of fruit and vegetables. Posters publicising Irish language events were flanked by anti-Iraq war material. Harry was always good for a bit of debate. There was more politicised sense in his shop than in the British Parliament, or in Government Buildings in Dublin for that matte...

November 16th 09 A Busy Weekend This Blog had a busy weekend. This last few weekends have been like that. Hyper! I started off down in South Armagh doing a wee bit of work for Cú Chulainn Tours. It was a very beautiful day. Bright and dry. South Armagh is a most heavenly place. On Friday it shone like a green emerald in the brittle sunshine, small field upon small field, hill after hill. Your man recalled how the hills used to be defaced by British Army fortifications. ‘The cheek of them’ he said, ‘Describing this as bandit country. Sure they were the only bandits in the place!’ South Armagh was once part of an ancient Irish speaking area called the Oriel. It was made up of parts of South Down, North Louth and South Armagh. There is a very unique song tradition based in that area also. And before that the Red Branch Knights and the Fianna roamed freely through this territory. In more modern times the local people resisted, and defeated, the British Army. Now in peace time a bunch of fo...

November 13th 09 Celebrating 125 years of the GAA Anyone can hold an event in good weather. It takes real endurance to do so in the face of a ‘severe weather warning’ from the Met office including high winds, torrential rain and bitter cold. But that’s exactly what a small group of us did on Thursday afternoon in the grounds of Parliament Buildings. We gathered to dedicate a tree to mark 125 years of great work by An Cumann Luthchleas Gael. There is a good story about how we got the tree that we got but é sin sceal eile. Suffice to say the necessary advance work was done, particularly by Maire from our office. She also plays football for Carrickmore and she and the Stormont Estates managed our event wonderfully well. In attendance were several dozen senior GAA members, including Tom Daly, the Ulster President, Gerry Doherty, President of the Ulster Ladies Football Association, Catherine O Hara, Chairperson of Ulster Camogie; Danny Murphy Ulster GAA Provincial Director and others, along...

November 10th 09 Twenty Years A Growing. Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came down. This blog remembers watching the scenes of jubilation on television in 1989. This evening’s television news revisited those times and the scenes of euphoria and jubilation. The great and the good are gathered at the Brandenburg Gate for tonight’s formal celebrations. It is interesting to see Mikhail Gorbachev, former Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union alongside other world leaders of that period. Until his reign the Kremlin had intervened militarily to stifle dissent, most famously in my memory in Prague in 1968. At that time I was working in the Duke of York public house in downtown Belfast. The Duke’s was the watering hole, and eating house, for Belfast union leaders, Labour Party types, Communist Party leadership and a scattering of Republican leaders. Our own civil rights struggle was starting to assert itself but I have clear recollections of how discussions among ...

The panel of Speakers for the United Ireland conference in Toronto. Left to right: Warren Allmand, Former Solicitor General of Canada; Christopher Axworthy Former Attorney General of Saskatchewan; Eleanor McGrath, writer; Charlie Angus MP of New Democratic Party; myself; and Manon Perron, Treasurer of the Montreal Council of the Federation of National Trade Unions (CSN). November 6th 09 Missing you already This Blog has been ridiculed in the past because of my outpourings on the issue of flying. I mean flying in a plane of course. As is well documented humans, unlike birds, angels or fairies, can’t fly unaided. We need airships, balloons, gliders, helicopters and airplanes. This morning as we arrived at the airport in New Jersey I watched as flocks of birds showed us how easy it is for them. No check in, security procedures or waiting about the place for sparrows, starlings or seagulls. They just spread their wings and head skywards, showing off above us ground bound mortals. Now strap...

2 Samhain 09 Get Up Stand Up On Friday the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is holding a series of rallies to protest against planned or likely cuts in public spending arising out of Decembers budget by the Irish government and by the Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey in the north. The public is being invited to participate and there is a serious effort being made to mobilize mass public support and solidarity for the events. In the south the National Day of Protest is against the Fianna Fáil/Green Government’s disastrous approach to the economic crisis. The ICTU is arguing for a better and fairer way of tackling this crisis and protecting jobs and public services. It is part of ICTU’s ‘Get Up Stand Up’ Campaign. And the demonstrations come just a month before what is expected to be one of the most savage Budgets ever by a Dublin government. The government has set its face against constructive proposals from the trade union movement, from Sinn Féin and others, and continues to do almost...

30th Deireadh Fómhair 2009. Small u-unionists? Your man says that I shouldn’t use the term small u-unionists. ‘How would you like to be called a small r-republican?’ He asks. I have been called worse than that I think quietly to myself. I say nothing to him. He has been in a funny mood all day. Male menopause? The thing is I don’t mean to be offensive when I say small u-unionists. Or when I try to analyse the cause of your man’s funny mood. I’m sure that there are many small u-unionists who understand what I mean because they know that their unionism is more an accident of birth than an ideological position. These are the unionists who voted for the Good Friday Agreement and who then gave up the ghost on David Trimble and stayed at home during election time. One presumes that these small u-unionists wouldn’t have a lot of time for the DUP. They are not for a united Ireland, although they support Ireland in the rugby. Some may go hill walking in Donegal or west Mayo. A weekend in Dubli...

October 26th 09 A Blog for all seasons Autumn has arrived. No bad thing. With all the talk of global warming and glacial melt down it is reassuring to sense autumnal evenings closing in and to know that there are certainties yet in the world. About ten years or so ago I got lost in the seasons. I was planting a lot of trees at the time. Native species. Ash, holly, blackthorn, beech, oak and one or two other smaller bushes. I also put in a few apple trees. In memory of old friends. As culchies will know, you should plant trees in the months with an ‘R’ in them. From September to March for those of you who are without a calendar. By the way the slang word culchie comes from County Maigh Eo, from the very fine town of Coillte Maigh or Kiltimagh. So for the period of intense planting, maybe about two and a half years, I lived in the seasons. The way farmers do, I guess. Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer became my measurement of the year. Seasons replaced months and weeks. I also cultivate...

The Mairead Farrell Ladies Football Team Philadelphia Oct 23rd 2009 Thank God We’re Surrounded By Water. To Wales this week for a meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Swansea. This blog was never in Wales before. My jetlag had jetlag as we journeyed forth in the rain from Belfast International Airport. My body clock was still on Philadelphia time. But this blog does not complain. That’s your man's prerogative. One gurner is enough in any entourage. In fairness he was in surprisingly good form. He likes Tír Eoghain women. So he was extremely pleased with my photos of the very successful Mairead Farrell Women’s Football team. Admiring the trophies with Coach Angela Mohan Based in Philly these young athletes have had a very successful season. We met last Friday. A Doire woman, a clatter of American ladies and a formidable line out – I nearly said line up – of Tír Eoghain women brought silverware, twice, to a very worthy team. Mairead would be delighted. Well done...