Léargas

Dublin Lacks Ambition Last week Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, supported by the regional independents, published their Programme for Government 2025. This contains the objectives set by the government parties for the next five years. In my ten years in the Oireachtas as the TD for Louth and East Meath I worked through two such Programmes. First in 2011 and then again in 2016. Neither Programme for Government matched the rhetoric or the commitments contained within them. The Programme for Government 2025 is no different. It is as Pearse Doherty aptly described it  “a copy and paste job from five years ago … a tired and stale document that is completely devoid of the ambition and big ideas our people need and deserve.” Nowhere is this more evident than in its abject failure to address the major issue of constitutional change and a united Ireland. The Programme claims that the “ Government of Ireland is committed to the unity of the Irish people and believes that this...

  A Good Start To 2025.    On Saturday last leading trade union activists from across the island of Ireland came together in Newry for a packed Ireland’s Future event in the Thomas Davis Hub. It was a wet winter morning and i was pleasantly uplifted by the turn out.  The panel included ICTU assistant general secretary Gerry Murphy, Unison regional general secretary Patricia McKeown, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, general secretary of the Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Katie Morgan of FORSA, Greg Ennis of SIPTU and Gerry McCormack of the ICTU. It was a lively and informative debate which pointed to a much better future for workers in a united Ireland. Ireland’s Future is for holding the referendums by 2030 and Saturday’s public sectoral meeting is part of a consultation for what it believes is the ‘crucial five-year period’ ahead of us. Niall Murphy, who is the secretary of Ireland’s Future explained that it seeks “to continue to inform, educate and stimulate the con...

Nollaig na mBan Monday 6 January is traditionally the date on which the Christmas decorations are taken down. In the Christian calendar it marks the end of the Christmas season and the visit of the Magi – the three wise men – to Jesus. In Ireland the 6 January is also Nollaig na mBan - Women’s Christmas or Little Christmas. It’s a day set aside to celebrate the role of women who did all the work catering for and making Christmas a success for everyone else.  On 6 January the women rested, although in many rural parts of Ireland it was also an occasion for women to come together and socialise. There are many traditions and superstitions associated with Nollaig na mBan including the belief, still shared by many, that to take the decorations down before that date is unlucky. The lighting of 12 candles in the window on the eve of Nollaig na mBan was also once very popular with different family members lighting each candle. It was claimed that the first candle to go out would ...

ONE FLU OVER? I have the flu. It’s a sign of my loyalty to you dear reader, that I write this column in my sick bed. Bathed in sweat. I’ve changed my T shirt four times since Saint Stephen’s Day. I ran out of paper hankies and turned to kitchen roll for nose cleaning duties. The snatters are tripping me. I’ve changed my sheets as well. Three times. Everyone else is away so I phoned Richard.  ‘I’ve got the flu’ I told him. ‘This could be my last call to you’. ‘I would be so lucky,’ he retorted. ‘Try a hot whisky’.  ‘I still haven’t done my weekly column.’ I told him.  ‘You have until Saturday,’ he consoled me. ‘By the way, be careful you don’t have Covid’.  ‘I got my Covid injection,’ I replied.  ‘And your flu one also,’ he countered.  That was true. Richard is usually the most helpful person I know but he has had a few days off. He seems to have forgotten that we are friends. A friend in need is a friend indeed and all that. Or maybe he was just being ...

  Release Leonard Peltier Last week I posted a Christmas card to Leonard Peltier. I dont know if he will receive it.  Or the numerous other notes and cards I have sent over the years. At 80 years of age Leonard, a native American rights activist and victim of a miscarriage of justice; has been imprisoned for 48 years. This makes him one of the longest serving political prisoners in the world. Like so often before there was a lobby for President Biden to use his Presidential power to include Leonard among those to be pardoned as he leaves office. On 12 December the White House announced that 39 people were to be granted pardons and almost 1500 others had their sentences commuted. Leonard was not on the list. The native American activist was convicted in 1977 of the killing of 2 FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. He has always protested his innocence. A few years ago James H. Reynolds the former US Attorney General whose office prosecuted...

  Protecting our environment Last week the Northern Executive took welcome and decisive action to protect our environment, our health and jobs by committing to a ban on all forms of onshore petroleum exploration and production, including fracking. This decision is part of the Executive’s commitment to tackle our dependence on fossil fuels. Conor Murphy, the Economy Minister announced that, following drafting and consultation, he will be introducing legislation next year to block licensing applications. Ten years ago I travelled through the border counties of Sligo, Cavan, Leitrim and Fermanagh. It was part of a visit culminating in a speaking engagement at an anti- fracking conference in the Lough Erne Hotel in Fermanagh. At the time there were efforts underway to promote fracking in the region. An Australian shale gas exploration company was planning to drive a bore hole over 700 feet into the underground rock. Local people were rightly angry at this threat to thei...