Léargas

  Andy Burnham is a Unionist Should we have been surprised by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s crass assertion last week that the issue of the unity referendum promised in the Good Friday Agreement, “is one issue that will be off the table.”? Two months ago as I watched Burnham address the media outside10 Downing St, on the day he replaced Keir Starmer, I wrote that he; “like every British Prime Minister governs in the interests of the English establishment. He like his predecessors is a Unionist.” For as far back as England’s involvement in Ireland its policies have always been determined by British national interests. Not the interests of the Irish people. In the 28 years since the Good Friday Agreement successive British governments have prevaricated and stalled and refused to accept the imperative of its commitments.  Regrettably, they have been aided in this by Irish governments and in particular by the current Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who has refused to countenance...

Ballina Commemoration will remember the Hunger Strikers This Sunday the national hunger strike commemoration will commence at 2.30pm in Ballina, County Mayo. The starting point is at Bunree Road Industrial Estate F26V243. The event will mark 45 years since the 1981 hunger strike in which ten men died. It will also remember all of those Irish republicans who died on hunger strike and especially the resolve and courage of three Mayo hunger strikers Michael Gaughan (1974), Frank Stagg (1976), and Jack McNeela (1940). Looking back five decades after the commencement of the blanket protest in September 1976 and the two hunger strikes that took place in 1980 and 1981, I remain awed by the tenacity and determination of those who endured five years of brutality, violence, deprivation and abuse in the H-Blocks and Armagh Women’s prison before embarking on that most challenging of all personal undertakings – the hunger strike. I remember the lengthy discussions, via smuggled comms, about the pro...