Léargas

UP THE FALLS!!! Since the Westminster election this blog and my good friend Fra McCann have spent some time meeting with many of the local community groups in the Lower Falls. The amount of work that is carried out in this area by a wide range of organisations and agencies is quite extraordinary. Some of it is aimed at helping the elderly, some at lone parents, and some at providing facilities and resources for young people. The Falls Youth Providers represents 10 different groups who have come together to co-ordinate their efforts and to ensure that scare resources are spread more evenly across the community. They do a remarkable job under difficult circumstances and you cannot but be impressed by their dedication and commitment to young people. They want to create a safe and secure environment for all the people of the Falls, but especially the young people. The challenges and difficulties facing young people today are enormous. Poverty, drugs, alcohol, physical and mental abuse, bul...

Raising the Flag for the environment Tuesday was a beautiful day. Clear blue skies and a warm sun. I arrived at St. Luke’s Primary school in Twinbrook at 10 am as arranged and the teachers had already arranged for scores of children to be sitting on the grass. There were also some of the school teachers and representatives from local community groups. I was there to raise a flag – or hoist - as I was told by the Deputy Principal Mr. Shannon. In this case a flag demonstrating the schools commitment to a positive environmental agenda, and its success in winning the Eco- Bronze award. St. Luke’s has taken up environmental issues in a big way. The teachers and children are committed to improving their school and local environment. And as part of this St. Luke’s became involved in an innovative and unique project called the Eco Schools Award scheme. This was created after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit on the environment. At that time issues like climate change and pollution were really beginnin...

Bluebells on the Mountain ‘The good weather puts everybody in good form’ your man remarked. We were sitting in the Hatchet Field. Belfast sprawled below us. Its narrow terraced - peace wall bisected ¬- streets, new apartment blocks, church spires, old mills stretched before us, until yellow cranes dominating, it dipped its feet into the Lough. In the distance the coast of Scotland shimmered in the clear warmth of a fine June day. Your man was master of all he surveyed. ‘Thon’s our house’ he said pointing down at the Murph. I ignored him. The mountain slope was loud with bird song. All around us a carpet of late bluebells almost on their last legs, gave way to verdant green young bracken and other ground cover which had replaced the scorched stubble of recent gorse fires. The mountain had healed itself from the hurt inflicted on it by morons. ‘When I was a wee lad we used to pick blue bells and bring them home to my Ma,’ your man continued. ‘So did I. She used to put them in a milk b...

It was like a script out of Monty Python. Fine Gael and Labour propose a vote of no confidence in Brian Cowan and then Fine Gael decides to embark on an internal civil war over its own leader Enda Kenny. The government was laughing all the way to the bank! Or in this case two banking reports into the south’s banking crisis which last week confirmed the key role that Irish government policy played in creating the conditions for the meltdown of the banking system and the catastrophic impact that the global economic crisis has had on the 26 county’s economy. So, instead of the Taoiseach under pressure and being forced to seriously consider an election which would allow the public to finally have a say in the government’s mismanagement of the economy, Cowan was off the hook courtesy of an internal attempt to heave Enda Kenny out. And while Enda has survived this round the questions and concerns over his leadership will not have gone away – you know. Meanwhile the Dublin government has larg...

Martina Anderson, Mise and Pearse Doherty at start of Commemorative March in Derry By 2.30pm the crowd at Free Derry corner had swollen and spread towards the Bloody Sunday memorial. The Bogside nestled below the city walls basking in warm summer sunshine. Stewards shepherded members of the Bloody Sunday families and other victims of state killings, like the Ballymurphy families, to the front of the mass of people. Eleven people - ten men, including a local priest and a mother of eight children - were killed in Ballymurphy in west Belfast by the parachute regiment in the 36 hours following the introduction of internment in August 1971, six months before Bloody Sunday in Derry. There was a good natured sense of expectation as thousands of people fell in behind the families. The names of the 14 victims were read aloud. There was a minute’s silence. Then we set off for the Guild Hall, the destination of the original civil rights march thirty eight years ago. As we passed Pilots Row Commun...

This morning before I travel to Derry for the publication of the Saville report into the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972 I will attend the funeral of my good friend Seando Moore. I have known Seando for a very long time. He was a deeply committed republican activist who joined the struggle in the early 1970s when he was 17. Seando, who was known as 'The Child' by his comrades, was interned on the prison ship Maidstone before being moved to Long Kesh where he spent five years. After his release he returned to the struggle and was subsequently captured in 1977. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and went on the blanket protest. He was a courageous and remarkable man with a great sense of humour which helped get him, and those around him, through the worst of times. This was clearly evident during the many years he battled cancer. After his release from prison he became an indispensable part of Sinn Féin. He worked hard on community issues in the Beechmount area where he live...

It is the eve of the publication of the Saville report into Bloody Sunday. For the families it must be a hugely stressful time. Almost 40 years of campaigning, including 12 years of the Saville Inquiry and waiting for its deliberations, would have taxed the energy and patience and emotions of any group of families. But throughout all of those years the families of the 14 men killed by the British parachute regiment, and the others wounded, have been an inspiration and example of fortitude and courage to us all. Tomorrow I will travel to Derry to avail of the opportunity to read the report before its publication at 3.30pm. It is by all accounts 5,000 pages long with a 60 page executive summary. There has been speculation in some sections of the media about what it will contain and a range of comments by unionist and conservative politicians expressing horror at the length of time it has taken to produce the report; at the cost of Saville, and stating that there should be no more inquiri...