Léargas

Against the backdrop of a crisp beautiful Sunday morning in Dublin the raised voices of thousands echoed in song along O’Connell Street. “When boyhood's fire was in my blood I read of ancient freemen, For  Greece  and  Rome  who bravely stood, Three hundred men  and  three men ; And then I prayed I yet might see Our  fetters  rent in twain, And Ireland, long a province, be. A Nation once again! A Nation once again, A Nation once again, And Ireland, long a province, be A Nation once again!” A Nation once again, A Nation once again, And Ireland, long a province, be A Nation once again!” Thomas Davis was one of the founding leaders of the Young Ireland Movement in the 1840s and was responsible for some of the best nationalist ballads of that period. He published them in The Nation newspaper. A ‘Nation once again’ is among his best known works and Davis published it in July 1844. Sinn Féin had organised the event to...

Micheál Martin is a man with a mission. To trample on the politics of those whose roots are in the radical republican tradition of Tone and Emmet and Pearse and Connolly and to rewrite Irish history in the image of a so-called constitutionalist revisionist republican narrative. In this narrative republican history ended in the GPO in Dublin and Fianna Fáil are the inheritors of the vision of 1916. The rest of us are upstarts, or worse. So, a Micheál Martin speech at Bodenstown or in the Dáil or at Arbour Hill, where the leaders are buried, would not be complete without an attack on Sinn Féin. I suppose we should take some comfort from this. Teachta Martin does it because he fears the growth of Sinn Féin and the message of radical republicanism that we espouse. This has been especially evident in recent months when during and after the general election the one thing that all Fianna Fáil spokespersons agreed on was their hostility to Sinn Féin emerging as the official opposition in th...

Easter Sunday on the Falls Road in west Belfast last weekend had the four seasons in the space of a few hours. As we gathered in Conway St. the sun was shining. It was cold but the air had the feel of a sharp, crisp spring day. The clouds rolled in and for a time it was overcast and autumn-like. The clouds rolled on and the sun shone. The sky was a sharp blue and the temperature rose. Summer had arrived. But as we entered Milltown cemetery the clouds returned, low and ominous. They swept in. A cold piercing wind preceded the hailstones that pounded our heads and the ground. The umbrellas mushroomed throughout the crowds. One in front of me almost immediately blew inside out. The coats were pulled up. And the heads went down. None of this deterred the thousands who had come to take part in, or to watch the centenary Easter march of the Rising of 1916. My morning began in Conway Mill were I met with the families of our Belfast patriot dead. Their courage and resilience in the face...

In 1966 Nelson’s Pillar was blown up in O’Connell Street in Dublin. It was a hugely symbolic and largely popular act which took place four weeks before the 50 th anniversary celebrations of the 1916 Rising. A group of Belfast teachers responded by producing one of the most popular songs of the period - ‘Up went Nelson’ - which stayed at number one in the Irish charts for eight weeks. “ One early mornin' in the year of '66 A band of Irish laddies were knockin' up some tricks They thought Horatio Nelson had overstayed a mite So they helped him on his way with some sticks of gelignite” Four weeks later I was one of thousands in Belfast who took part in the Easter 50 th anniversary of the Rising. It was one of the biggest commemorations ever held in the city. The Falls Road was packed with marching men and women and thousands more lined the route to the republican plot in Milltown cemetery. It was a formidable expression of solidarity with those who had participated...

Tuesday was the 35 th  anniversary of the first day of Bobby Sands’s hunger strike. Much has been written about the traumatic events of that time; of the death of the hunger strikers, and the political and historical importance of the hunger strike. For many it was our 1916 – a watershed moment that changed the course of politics on this island. It is worth recalling that in 1981 Sinn Féin had one lone MP. Bobby had been elected as a prisoner candidate MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone and on his death he was replaced by Owen Carron. Ciaran Doherty and Paddy Agnew had been elected as two prisoner TDs. Today, Sinn Féin receives the largest vote of any party on the island of Ireland. In the north there are 29 Sinn Féin MLAs, including five Ministers in the Executive, and four MPs. Across the island we have four MEPs, and over 260 local government councillors and three Senators. Following last week’s election, and at the time of writing with the Longford–Westmeath still in pla...

By the time you read this column/blog the election will be all but over bar the most important bit – the peoples vote on Friday. Today it’s over to the electorate in the 26 counties to decide which parties will make up the next government in Dublin. We will know their decision at the weekend. For readers in the north it will come as no surprise that the entirely negative and partitionist attitude of the Irish establishment toward the people of this part of the island disappointingly emerged frequently in recent weeks. First, it was an opinion piece in the Sunday Independent two weeks ago from the Labour leader Joan Burton in which she unsurprisingly took 600 words to reveal her deeply partitionist, ‘little Irelander’ side. According to Joan, and because I come from the north, I don’t understand ‘the Republic’. I suspect the elections results will show that she understands it even less. More disturbing was a studio discussion I had with Meath Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty whose a...

On Sunday February 14 th the Sunday Independent carried an article from Labour Leader Joan Burton in which she claimed that I didn’t understand this state. I wrote a response. The Sunday Independent refused to carry it yesterday. So, for those who are interested in what I said this is the response the Independent refused to publish. Hope over fear by Gerry Adams TD I was disappointed but not surprised by Joan Burton’s opinion piece in last week’s Sunday Independent, which highlighted a deeply partitionist, ‘little Irelander’ attitude on the part of the Tánaiste. Despite what Joan Burton claims I never used the phrase ‘'them others' during last week’s TV3 Leaders Debate or at any other time for that matter. However, she is correct when she says that I differentiate Sinn Féin from the establishment parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour. She is also correct in stating that those parties have a shared history and experience in Government. But it is not a ...