THE IDES OF MARCH?

This blog has been of a mind to write a frivolous piece for some time now about the citizens who comment on these musings of mine. In particular about the ones who get annoyed for no good reason. For example Anonymous, who is beside himself or herself because I refer to this blog as this blog.
Or the Saint Galls amadán who accuses me of bias against the All-Ireland champions when I have nothing but admiration for them, to the point where I am endeavouring to have our City Council and our Minister of Arts, Culture and Leisure Nelson McCausland host receptions for Naomh Gall.
This blog has already hosted a Stormont reception for this wonderful Gaelic sporting institution. That was a few years ago when a good time was had by all and the bar bill was more than this blog and your man could bear. This time the state and the city burghers should pay. Naomh Gall Gaels deserve it.
But to other matters. An old friend of mine, Brendan Hughes, has been in the news this week. The Irish News actually devoted eight pages on one day and three pages another day to a book containing interviews with Brendan.
This book by Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre appears to be a rerun of an earlier tome by Ed Moloney.
Mr Moloney and Mr McIntyre have written books and countless articles attacking me, and in its time the IRA leadership.
I knew Brendan Hughes well. Better than Ed Moloney or Anthony McIntyre. And I cared more for him and about him than they ever will. Some time I hope to get the space to reflect on my life with Brendan and the separate twists and turns of his life, and mine.
He wasn’t well and hadn’t been for a very long time, including during the time he did these interviews.
He also carried with him an enormous sense of guilt over events surrounding the first hunger strike. This made him very vulnerable even before his health deteriorated.
However, that is no excuse for his involvement in this book.
Brendan also opposed the peace process. That was his right. His assertion that the struggle was not worth it is wrong.
The fact is that the decisions taken collectively by republicans have improved the quality of life for people across this island; have ensured the growth of republican politics and created a new and dynamic context in which there is the potential to achieve reunification and independence.
Brendan could and should have been part of this. For a mixture of reasons he wasn’t. That was his choice. Like everything else he was involved in. Big boys didn’t make him do it.
I reject any suggestion by Ed Moloney, or anyone else for that matter, that I have ever sought to distance myself or to disassociate myself from the IRA.
Anyone who recalls the years of conflict and the countless interviews I gave, and still give, in which this issue is raised, will know that I am the person most frequently interviewed about the IRA and who defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle, which thankfully now has ended.
I am proud of my association with the IRA. It was not a perfect organisation and it made many mistakes. Its business was war and in the madness that is war the IRA did many things which deeply hurt people.
I regret that very much and I have worked with others to ameliorate this. Some victims’ families do not accept this. That is their entitlement. I reject absolutely any accusation that I had any hand or part in the killing and disappearing of Jean McConville or in any of the other allegations that are being promoted by Ed Moloney.
The issue of the disappeared is a terrible legacy of the conflict. A grievous wrong has been done to these families. Republicans are trying to right this wrong and have been trying to do so for some years.
The effort to do this was initiated by me after I was approached by some of the families involved. There are many other initiatives, mostly private, to bring healing to victims of the conflict. Republicans are very centrally involved, in personal as well as more formal elements of this.
Some of the allegations made against me are very serious indeed and, bizarrely, by an accuser who is not here to stand over his claims. I feel sorry for him.
Every other republican I have spoken to has a totally different view. As I have said before on other occasions, there are many people who would be prepared to give an account of their actions during the war and who would have the courage to do this while they are still alive. A process to do this is needed.
They include republicans, loyalists, unionist politicians, British politicians and British state forces. And me.
I have made it clear to both governments and in public remarks that the legacy of the past requires an independent, international truth commission to be established by an acceptable and reputable international body. It is a matter of public record that I personally would be prepared to give evidence and to encourage others to give evidence to such a genuine truth recovery process.

Slipping into Downing Street

Wednesday was British budget day. From early that morning Downing Street was humming with scores of cameras, photographers and journalists eagerly awaiting the British Chancellor’s emergence from Number 11.

Traditionally the Minister holds high his little box of secrets to be snapped and filmed from every possible angle before going off to the British Parliament to reveal all to his peers and the public.

As that event was unfolding this Blog and the Deputy First Minister arrived in London and slipped into Number 10 for a private meeting with Gordon Brown. Our focus was to press him to bring forward new proposals on a Bill of Rights. 12 years after the Good Friday Agreement the draft proposals from the NIO are disgraceful. So, we need new proposals that take account of the advice from both the Bill of Rights Forum and the Human Rights Commission.

Bloody Sunday was high on our agenda for discussion. This Blog was outraged by the decision of the British Secretary of State Shaun Woodward not to give preferential access to the families over his officials and to delay publication of the finished report in order to allow what he described as a ‘very small team of officials and legal advisers’ to examine the report to ensure that it contains nothing which might breach Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. And we told Mr. Brown this.

Martin McGuinness also pressed him on other demands that the family are making.

Shaun Woodward claims that his decision is to ensure that no information provided to the Inquiry under Public Interest Immunity Certificates is published. The fact that the Tribunal has said that it doesn’t refer to any such material, has not prevented the British Secretary of State from ensuring that British government officials get first sight of the report.

Moreover, the likely announcement of a British general election is now also being used to justify a further delay of publication beyond the election. Mr. Woodward has said that if the British Parliament is dissolved before the report is ready it will have to wait until the next time the Parliament meets.

None of this should be used as an excuse to hold up publication of the Saville report. The families have already faced years of frustration in seeking the truth. After 12 years of the Saville Inquiry there should be no further delays. The report should be published.

In our conversation with Gordon Brown on Wednesday afternoon we also expressed our concerns at the role of British intelligence agencies within so-called dissident republican groups, and in particular the circumstances surrounding the murder of Kieran Doherty.

The pension rights of Visteon workers were also raised by me. This Blog has spoken to Gordon Brown before on Visteon and pressed him again to ensure that the Pensions Regulator carries out an exhaustive probe into Visteon and in particular the transfer of assets by Ford and Visteon out of the pension funds of Visteon workers.

It’s now approaching the first anniversary of the closure of Visteon and the exposure of this scandal. Those who lost their jobs, those with pension rights and other citizens have a right to know the truth about the behaviour of Ford and the Visteon management and to be assured that those responsible for this scandal will be held to account.

Mr. Brown outlined his view of the Presbyterian Mutual Society controversy and listened to Martin’s proposal for alleviating the plight of those most badly affected by this issue.

This Blog also spoke to the British leader about the circumstances surrounding the killings of 11 people shot dead by the British Army in August 1971 in the Ballymurphy area. We have talked about this before and this Blog pressed the British PM to meet the families. They want the truth. They want and deserve an independent international investigation into the deaths of their loved ones and an apology from the British government. It’s important that the British establishment face up to what was done in its name in Ballymurphy 40 years ago.

On a more positive note we gave some attention to the plan to hand over former British Military bases to the northern Executive.

We also spoke at some length about the rights of Irish speakers, Acht na Gaeilge and related matters.

These and other matters are the ongoing substance of discussions between Irish republicans and the British government. Day in and day out these continue.

The ongoing struggle for change truly is a process. Periodically there are breakthroughs, like recently at Hillsborough, but the battle for change is generally incremental and almost inch by inch. It needs persistence and consistency. It is also opposed by devious and lazy bureaucrats, as well as naysayers and bigots.

As we left Downing St we wished Gordon Brown well for the election. "One thing is for certain," I remarked to Martin, "Whoever the next British Prime Minister is he’ll find us here on all these issues. And on the bigger issue of Irish unity!"

People Power Works!

On my way down the Falls Road this morning this Blog noticed a quantity surveyor measuring and doing what quantity surveyors do on the old Andersonstown Barracks site.

That started me thinking about the recent history of this piece of ground. Once it used to be home to a very strategically placed military structure aka the Andersonstown RUC Barracks.

It commanded a controlling point at the junction of the main roads through west Belfast.

For a long time the community around Andersonstown barracks wanted it demilitarised and demolished. With the advent of the peace process and negotiations we demanded that the land on which the barracks had been built be given back to the people of the area to decide how the site should be used.

In 2005, the people prevailed; the barracks was levelled. Since then a space has existed where the barracks once was.



Andersonstown RUC Barracks







But the space and the site are still contested. For the Department of Social Development (DSD) which purchased the site, have shown as much contempt for the local community as the previous occupants of the site.

Even the concept of DSD buying the land is debatable. DSD bought something which was not the RUC’s to sell.

That was under Brit direct-rule. The land should have been gift-aided to the local community to devise and decide a future use for this site. Appointment of local Ministers ought to have seen this happen without further delay.

An early meeting with the SDLP Minister for Social Development Margaret Ritchie provided the opportunity to reiterate that case.

Rather than agree, DSD claimed that Sinn Féin and the local community never asked for the site to be ‘gifted’.

But as the minute of that meeting, and previous meetings on the issue proved, this DSD claim was false.

DSD later declared that they couldn’t gift-aid the barracks site because it would ‘set a dangerous precedent’.

This was another fraud. Sinn Féin MLA Paul Maskey dug up information which proved that DSD had ‘gift-aided’ or transferred at a nil or negligible value 40 other sites.

Instead, DSD went down a commercial route. A developer was selected by the Minister. Against the wishes of the local community, a proposal was tabled for a five storey apartment development on the site, and endorsed by the Minister.

When an effective campaign against the apartment block proposal saw the private developer withdraw, the Minister expressed her “disappointment”.

To add insult to injury, on advice from her SDLP party colleagues, the Minister directed that DSD write to the local Partnership Board in 2008 and refuse to support their community consultation on the future of the barracks site.

Subsequently, the Minister announced that the site would become a “commercial hub”. Her Department appointed consultants to fashion what this would mean.

Then the Minister told the Assembly, again under questions from local MLAs, that her favourite idea for the future of the barracks was yet another “police station”.

The latest talk from DSD is of creating an “expo centre”, although the Minister and her officials couldn’t agree whether this means a temporary or permanent structure.

Tenders for this will again be invited. DSD has asked a New York designer to help judge the final proposals. But the Minister has set out no funding or delivery plan.

After four years of dispute, more than half a million pounds of public money spent, and many staff hours, DSD has delivered nothing on site.

All of this was avoidable. The only positive activity on the barracks site has been generated by local people and local community groups. The people of the neighbourhood have already put forward suggestions like a new library; a space for holding records on the nearby graveyards; a bureau for tourists and visitors; and a space to be used by local residents for community and social activities.

Attempts to impose unwanted structures on the local community in west Belfast will always be doomed to fail. The RUC and British Army were taught that lesson. The DSD Minister and her Department must learn it too. The local community has succeeded in preventing the Minister from foisting her apartment block carbuncle upon us. We must continue to campaign to have this piece of land developed in the interests for the local community.

The west Belfast partnership Board is currently carrying out a consultation on the future use of this site. If you have any thoughts log on to www.expowestbelfast.com or contact callie@westbelfastpartnership.org

Long Journey Home.

Gerry Adams; Martin McGuinness and US Vice President Joe Biden




So here we are again. The sun is still shining. The sky is still blue. And the train is just now sliding gently out off Union Station in Washington and beginning its rolling singie-song passage to New York. This blog, your man, Ms O Hare and other wandering republican evangelists are starting the long journey home.

It has been a good visit. No matter how this blog feels when I start these trips I always feel uplifted at the end. The connection between Ireland and Irish America is electric. And contrary to the image of dewy eyed sentimental Americans with an outdated view of Ireland so often depicted by sections of the media those Irish Americans who I meet are clued into what is happening back home. In fact in these internet times people in the USA can get overnight news from Ireland before people living in Ireland.



Gerry Adams with Terry O Sullivan, General President of LIUNA – the Laborers' International Union of North America and his father Terry Snr




So our events in Washington were filled with informed supporters of the Irish peace process and a united Ireland. The Friends of Sinn Féin lunch was a huge success with a very big delegation from the Labour movement. Terry O Sullivan spoke wonderfully well. Given the devastating effect of the recession on working people here the support from the trade unions is clear evidence of the connectiveness between the Irish cause and organised labour in the USA. Jimmy Hoffa, Sean McGarvey, Joyce Flynn, Jack Aherne and Chick O Donahue were among the leaders in attendance. And all the Kellys.

Then the Speakers Lunch. And later the White House Reception. The Taoiseach and the US President made good humoured speeches. This blog noted President Obama’s remarks on immigration. He spoke of … “Fixing our broken immigration system. And that’s why my own commitment to comprehensive immigration reform remains unwavering.”

Sinn Féin supports immigration reform which would provide a visa for the undocumented Irish.

There are many thousands of undocumented Irish living and working in the USA who have built new lives and are contributing positively to that society. This blog meets many people who are in this position. In Boston at the weekend some raised concerns about the length of time spent in prison by Irish citizens who are detained for an overstay of their visa and who have no criminal convictions. This is a huge trauma for these detainees and for their families. It is also a waste of US taxpayers money. In this blog’s opinion those detained should be allowed to return home as quickly as possible after they are arrested.




Gerry Adams meeting Congressional members in Washington DC



In meetings over the last few days this blog put these points to the representatives on Capitol Hill. It is an issue which we will return to again and again. For now time for some shut eye. Your man is already snoring gently. We have many hours of continuous travel before us. A kind of republican movement. I will leave you with a quote from George Washington which President Obama used to close his remarks at the White House last night.

“When our friendless standards were first unfurled, who were the strangers who first mustered around our staff? And when it reeled in the light, who more brilliantly sustained it than Erin’s generous sons? Ireland, thou friend of my country, in my country’s most friendless days, much injured, much enduring land, accept this poor tribute from one who esteems thy worth, and mourns thy desolation. May the God of heaven, in His justice and mercy, grant thee more prosperous fortunes, and in His own time cause the sun of freedom to shed its benign radiance on the Emerald Isle.”

And so say all of us. Slán……And well done to Saint Galls. A worthy victory.

SHOO SHOO!!

Another day, another train. The early one. From New York to Washington. Trains are a great way to travel. Especially here where security at the airports is so intrusive and invasive. Travelling by train is less hassle. And you get to see the countryside.

Also occasionally a train guard sounding and looking like a character out of a Mark Twain novel will pop up to tell this blog and everyone else that ‘dis train is approaching Philadelpia. Have yo tickets ready for inspection. And we kindly, courteously and professionally ask yo all to make space for your fellow passengers. And if yo is leaving de train do so on de platform side. And mind de step.’ And so it goes in a singsong melody and an equally musical shoo shoo shoo from stop to stop.

The ticket inspector on the train down from Boston thanked me for coming. He thanked everyone else as well but that didn’t stop me from feeling that I was really doing him a favour. This morning the rain has disappeared. We are proceeding through rolling countryside. The sun is doing its best to make up for the wetness of recent days. There is a bright golden haze on the meadow. And the corn is as high as an elephants eye. Your man is whistling ‘oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day’. I’m starving. Oh for a cup of Culturlann coffee.

Today we have another busy schedule. A Friends of Sinn Féin fundraiser. A meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, another with Senator Chris Dodd, interviews. And maybe the chance of a walk. Yesterday I walked for an hour between engagements.

Despite the recession there were Irish people everywhere taking their ease and enjoying the build up to Saint Patricks Day. Washington will be no different except in scale. I like Saint Patrick’s Day. Preferably at home but no matter. It is a nice idea to have a national, or international, day. Nothing too stage managed. Just a popular expression of identity and an excuse for a celebration and for drowning the shamrock. My Uncle Paddy was a great man for that. And who could blame him? He was a great Irishman.

If me and your man survive it all, and I have no doubt that we will, I’ll keep you posted. Probably as we make the return train journey. In the meantime onwards and upwards.

I tink Naomh Gall is going to win the Club Championship tomorrow. And I certainly hope they do. Naomh Gall Abú

‘Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day. I’ve got a wonderful feeling. Everythings going my wa..ay. oh what a beautiful day’!

Lá Feile Padraig Faoi Mhaise Daoibh.

This blog is travelling south from Boston on the train to New York. Me and your man are soaked, dripping wet from the incessant rain that greeted our arrival in the USA on Saturday. We were in Boston for a number of Saint Patrick’s Day events. In Ireland we celebrate Paddy’s Day for one day. Here it takes at least a week.

And for that week or most of it there is a great deal of focus on Ireland. So this is always a good time to engage with popular opinion, to inform the public, particularly Irish America, of current developments and to thank friends for their support. It is also an opportune time to make more friends and to ask for support in the upcoming period. This year I almost didn’t make the trip. But because the planning for some events was already well advanced I eventually decided to come ahead. And as always it is very worthwhile. Except for the rain.

However as always, some good always breaks out and my failure to bring a topcoat means I have now inherited a jacket belonging to Kevin Fagin (Fago to his friends) late of Dublin, well known in Derry and Clonard and good friend to rain soddened itinerant preachers of the gospel of Irish freedom. Go raibh maith agat Fago.

In Boston I was guest speaker at a Saint Patricks Day celebration for members of the Clover Club. Some media outlets in Ireland have ran with negative stories about this event. I was there at the invitation of a good friend of Ireland Joe Leary who is President of the Clover Club this year and is also President and CEO of the Irish American Partnership. This organisation does sterling work raising funds to support educational, economic development and cross community projects in Ireland. Its efforts have been widely applauded.

This Boston institution was founded in 1883. John Boyle O Reilly, the Fenian who escaped from exile in Australia, was a founder member. The founding members first called themselves Boeotians in mocking memory to an ancient Greek reference to second class citizens. They like many other similar Irish American organisations were set up to combat discrimination and exclusion of Irish immigrants.

The Clover Club is a fraternal organisation. There are many thousands of others in the USA like it, either exclusively for men or exclusively for women. These fraternal organisations are either social or professionally based. They reflect that country’s particular cultural development.

The Clover Club has many eccentric rules. For example all members of its Publicity Committee are dead. Its President is not allowed to speak at the two first two dinners of his term. He may not speak and has no vote at Executive Committee meetings – if there are any such meetings.

The Club itself meets three or four times a year for dinner, speeches and an evening of political satire. Speakers are not paid a fee.

Me and your man enjoyed a very long and unique evening. It was a mixture of vaudeville, old style music hall singing or what I imagine that would have been like, and lots of good humoured speech making, much of it political satire. The close harmony singing was terrific. My Wild Irish Rose, When Irish eyes Are Smiling, The Wild Colonial Boy, Relieve Me Of All These Endearing Young Charms vied with many other old time melodies that I haven’t heard in ages. Your man sang along like a nightingale. He was Percy French and John McCormack and Ronan Tynan all at the same time.

Sunday morning was a repeat performance of sorts at the breakfast hosted by Senator Jack Hart in South Boston. At this event, packed to capacity, there was a terrific singalong led by local politicians, including Congress members, State legislators, City Council members and the newly elected US Senator Scott Brown who took Teddy Kennedy’s seat.

All the songs were Irish songs. And then some. It went on for almost four hours. Like a Clancy Brothers Concert interspersed with local political speechmaking, again of a politically barbed but humourous kind by the local politicos. I could never imagine such an event in Ireland.

MacNamara’s Band competed with If You’re Irish Come Into the Parlour, The Fields Of Athenry and The Boys Of The Old Brigade, all belted out by politicians who are usually warring with one and other over domestic and other issues. Ireland is one issue they seem to agree on. Here the real Ronan Tynan turned up and gave a wonderful rendition of Ride On. This blog hummed along. Many thanks to state Senator Steve Toland for his help with this gig and for all his work.

And then the Parade. More a swim than a walk. But somebody had to do it. Brrrrhhhh! Poor Rita O Hare was almost swept away in it all.

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Boston, like that in New York, is attended by the nation’s most senior local and national politicians, by tens of thousands of Irish Americans, hundreds of community organisations, and representatives of the Irish government.

There has been controversy around some of the parades, particularly those in New York and Boston because they refuse to allow gay and lesbian groups to participate. Sinn Féin long ago made clear our opposition to exclusion. Our policy in support of gay and lesbian rights is long standing. However, we are not prepared to exclude ourselves from opportunities to promote the peace process and Sinn Féin’s objective of Irish unity.

And now New York for more events. Then Washington, the White House, our own event. And then home again. No rest for the wicked.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig faoi mhaise daoibh.

The West Awakes

The difference between a good idea and reality is in the doing. ‘The West Awakes’ project, which this Blog was invited to formally launch in An Chultúrlann on Wednesday is an excellent idea but it needed people with determination and commitment to turn it into a positive project, creating jobs and bring alive the history and stories of this part of the city.

It was a packed event for a unique and innovative tourism project which seeks to give the increasing numbers of visitors to west Belfast a sense of the history and experiences of the people living here. ‘The West Awakes’ combines local history and storytelling with theatre.

Essentially it involves actors, dressed in period costume, meeting tour groups at different locations on the Falls Road and for 10-15 minutes recounting their experience of life at a point in our past. The five sites chosen are: St Comgall’s Primary School; Conway Mill; An Chultúrlann; James Connolly’s former residence facing the bottom of the Whiterock Road and Milltown Cemetery.

A new artistic consortium has been established to run the project comprising the West Belfast tourism project Fáilte Feirste Thiar, the professional theatre company Kabosh and local tour operators ‘Taxi-Trax’ and Coiste Irish Political Tours. ‘The West Awakes’ is written by Kieron Magee, Jimmy Mc Aleavey, Laurence Mc Keown and Roseleen Walsh. The Kabosh contribution is directed by Paula McFetridge and designed by Rosie Moore and features Gerard Jordan and Antoinette Morelli

The new initiative will reawaken and bring to life hundreds of years of history and heritage on the existing hugely popular Coiste walking tours and ‘Taxi Trax’ taxi tours.

A long time ago Sinn Féin made the connection between tourism, economic regeneration and the arts, particularly theatre and we argued for investment, particularly by the Tourist Board, to help bring visitors into the west of the city and create jobs.

Féile an Phobail was a successful part of this and plays produced by local writers, involving local actors, have become an intrinsic part of Féile.

They weren’t the first of course. Chirabanc; Dubblejoint; Just Us; and four decades ago the work of Fr. Des Wilson and Eddie Keenan and Theresa Donnelly and the People's Theatre, are just some of the examples of local people striving to write about their experiences.

And then there were the political tours. Every year people would travel here from the USA, Britain, Europe and even further afield to see for themselves the impact of conflict and to express their solidarity with those involved in struggle.

Today thousands of people travel through the west of the city, walking or on the tour buses or in the black taxis, photographing wall murals, visiting the cemeteries, speaking to local people and learning about the decades of conflict and the peace process.

So, ‘The West Awakes’ is a welcome addition to this history of story telling and local theatre. Best wishes to all involved.

In the course of the launch I got word from home that the PSNI had called.

They were there to warn us that my life was in imminent danger.

“Intelligence”, Collette was told, “has received information that Mr. Adams is to be executed by the ‘Real UFF, C Company’ ”.

Regular readers will know that the UFF is a pseudonym for the UDA. As part of the fiction employed during the conflict the UDA, an armed loyalist paramilitary group – a legal entity for most of its existence – invented the title Ulster Freedom Fighters to claim many of its actions. C Company was the gang run by Johnny Adair a notorious drugs pusher and extortionist and sectarian thug.

As is now well known the UDA has decommissioned and more sensible elements are showing leadership and making a real effort to engage with the peace process and political process.

This Blog has no special intelligence on the status of the group calling itself the Real UFF C Company but the threat level against Sinn Féin representatives and our families has heightened considerably in recent months.

Ironically the threat comes from so-called dissident on the fringes of nationalism as well as their blood brothers on the fringes of unionism.

Like Adair’s group many of these are more interested in their own self gain and vanity than in any political cause.

Anyway it has been a mark of the peace process that some irreconcilable elements, including reprobates within the British system, prefer instability to progress. So we have to take these threats seriously. Former Belfast Mayor Alex Maskey, himself a victim of a number of murder attempts, put it well when he was told his life was once again in danger; “We will not” he said, “be intimidated. We have work to do and we will do it”.

So say all of us.


Note:‘

The West Awake’ Tours will take place twice daily from 7th – 12th April. 220 places available overall. AM tour in black taxi. PM tour walking. £10 per tour.

For further information contact Fáilte Feirste Thiar at 02890241100: glen@visitwestbelfast.com

Or Coiste Tours 02890200770: www.coiste.ie

Seachtain na Gaeilge

On Saturday evening as dusk was falling and as I made my way into the RDS to make my speech at the Ard Fheis what do you think I spied dandering out of the Lansdowne Road Cricket Grounds? A fox. An madadh rua.

Although the fox is the bane of the poultry farmer and seen by many farmers as a pest, I have always been excited by the sight of this wild animal.

Until now my acquaintance with an madadh rua have been on mountainy slopes or green pasturelands.

Ar oíche Shathairn nuair a bhí an ghrian ag dul a luí agus mar a rinne mé mo bhealach isteach san RDS le mo chaint a dhéanamh ag an Ard Fheis cad is dóigh leat go bhfaca mé ag spaisteoireacht amach as Forais Chruicéid Bhóthar Lansdún ? An sionnach. An madadh rua.

Cé go bhfuil an sionnach mar chrá chroí an fheirmeora éanlaith chlóis agus go bhfeictear orthu mar pheist, bhí mé i gcónaí iontach tógtha as an radharc seo den ainmhí fiáin.

Go dtí seo b’é an t-aon chaidreamh a bhí agam le madadh rua, nuair a bhí sé amuigh ar fhánaí sléibhtiúla nó ar fhéaraigh glasa.

Now Reynard strolled with a cocky nonchalant air down on our main streets as casual as any city slicker taking a stroll before bedtime. We drove alongside him for fifty yards or so before he vanished as magically as he had appeared, leaving us to marvel at the wonder of it all.

Now it's Tuesday. This Blog is sprawling on the bench of the Seomra mór ag Stormont listening to the debate on policing and justice.

Funny how the Landsdowne Fox is still meandering through my imagination.

This is also Seachtain na Gaeilge – the week of Irish – which quite properly lasts longer than a week. Appropriately enough this Blog and Séanna mór commenced Seachtain na Gaeilge by meeting the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure, Nelson McCausland for a discussion on the upcoming Irish language strategy promised by the Minister. More of that as it emerges.

Today also sees the commencement of Rith 2010 – a 1600 km relay-run across Ireland which will raise money for Irish Language projects throughout Ireland. The relay-run begins in Belfast and will last 9 days, finishing in Galway on St. Patrick’s Day March 17th.

The Sinn Féin Assembly team did our bit from outside Parliament Buildings at lunchtime today. Several thousand participants are expected to join in along the route which will see the runners pass through 250 towns and villages.

Ócáid ar leith atá ann agus is bealach nuálach é chun feasacht agus tacaíocht a thabhairt don Ghaeilge, chomh maith le hairgead a thiomsú do thionscadail na Gaeilge.

This is a unique event and innovative way to increase awareness and support for the Irish language as well as to raise money for Irish language projects.

A specially carved baton, made from Irish bog oak and containing a message of support from President Mary McAleese will be carried on the journey. It will be opened and read at the end of the run.

People taking part will secure sponsorship and it is possible, like this Blog, to buy a kilometer as part of the fund raising effort. This Blog purchased a kilometer.

Seachtain na Seachtain na Gaeilge is the annual international festival organised by Conradh na Gaeilge to promote interest in and support for the Irish Language. It’s about celebrating and enjoying everything Irish – from the language and music, to culture, food and drinks and sport. All across the island there will be events held, including street céilís.



This Blog is especially keen on the Irish language. There is a great joy in being able to speak Irish. My conversational Irish is getting better. And I consciously try to learn a little bit every day. Rosie McCorley sends me an ‘Irish word a day’ by email.

Perseverance is the key. Use what Irish you have. I’m still not proficient, but I get great satisfaction in the number of people who will now speak Irish to me.

This Blog is especially proud of the fact that in West Belfast, which has its own thriving Gaeltacht quarter, that it is possible to do all my local business through the medium of Irish, from buying papers, getting a haircut, shopping, having a pint or a cup of coffee.

Is blag bródúil é seo go háirithe ar an bhfíric go dtig leat, in Iarthar Bhéal Feirste, a bhfuil a chuid rathúil féin den Cheathrú Gaeltachta, agus go bhfuil sé indéanta domh, mo chuid gnó iomlán a dhéanamh go háitiúil trí mheán na Gaeilge, ó pháipéir a cheannach, bearradh gruaige a fháil, dul ag siopadóireacht, nó fiú pionta nó cupán caife a ól.

My grandchildren and many of my nephews and nieces speak to me in Irish and some of the children in the street have never spoken to me except in Irish.

Language is not a spectator sport. Language requires learning, whether it is done as a child, in school or as an adult. The almost complete destruction of the Irish language took place as part of a policy decision by the British to eliminate the Gaelic way of life in their first colony. The belief that “as the tongue speaketh so the heart thinketh” decreed that any social or political discourse in Ireland must be in English.

Despite this, elements of the Gaelic way of life persisted in many parts of Ireland up to the nineteenth century in one form or another, but by then the language had become the language of the poor, mainly rural and marginal regions.

Today interest in the Irish language is growing and many young people
North and South want to speak Irish. The census figures published in 2004 record that there are 1.5 million Irish-speakers in the Twenty-Six Counties, an increase on the 1.43 million Irish-speakers identified in 1996. The last census in the Six Counties recorded Irish-language-speakers at 23 per cent in West Belfast and 16 per cent in Derry – and it has grown since then.

Much of this is down to the work of Irish language activists. However, Caitriona Ruane in her time as Minister of Education has put significantly more funding into the Irish medium sector and most recently this Blog successfully negotiated a package of money for the Irish Language Broadcast Fund and for other infrastructure projects. But the reality is that there are still major factors which work against the language, including the absence of a coherent government strategy for its promotion and the 1737 Act which prohibits the use of Irish in the courts.

So there is still a lot of work to be done. Seachtain na Gaeilge is a part of this. Well done to everyone taking part over the next few weeks.

Mar sin, tá fós a lán oibre le déanamh. Is é Seachtain na Gaeilge mar chuid de seo. Maith thú le gach duine a ghlacann páirt sna seachtainí atá amach romhainn.

Irish Word of the Day: This can be found on info@transparent.com
Details on Seachtain na Gaeilge can be found at www.snag.ie.

A Few words from the Ard Fheis

This Blog has taken a few quick minutes from the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in Dublin to scríobh a few words on the conference thus far. I have found a quiet corner in the back of the stage and borrowed a laptop.

The Ard Fheis started last night and ran on until nearly 9.30pm before breaking until this morning. It will run until 9pm tonight when this Blog wraps up with the Presidential speech.

For the first time Sinn Féin opted to take the later live slot on RTÉ television so the speech begins at 8.30pm and will last for half an hour.

It’s been a packed hall all day and people are in great form. In the background, as this Blog pounds away on these keyboards, there are delegates addressing the Ard Fheis. The clár ranges across a multiplicity of issues, from job creation and the economy, through education, the environment, to rural and coastal communities; equality and Irish language rights; to internal party issues.

In the international section guests from the African National Congress in South Africa; the PLO; and the Basque country all addressed us and received a great welcome. Someone else who got a loud and long applause was Councillor Maurice Quinlivan whose determination to clear his name after he was smeared by former Minister of Defence Willie O'Dea led to that Minister's departure.

At lunchtime I joined colleagues in attending the launch of a book on the life of Sinn Féin activist Sheena Campbell which was written and compiled by Ella O'Dwyer.

Sheena was killed by a unionist death squad, working in collusion with British state agencies, in October 1992. She was attending Queens University at the time of her murder where she was studying law. It was a moving event with many of Sheena’s friends and her partner Brendan Curran speaking about her, her family, about her commitment to republican politics and her role as a mother and comrade.

It was a reminder of the importance of republicans writing our own history; telling our own stories of personal experience in struggle. And in this centenary year of International Women’s Day, this very fine book of Sheena’s life, is also a timely reminder of the need to rewrite women into history.

As usual the media is in attendance. Their primary interest appears to be in what the Ulster Unionists might do on Tuesday when the vote is taken in the Assembly on the transfer of powers on policing and justice.

Most aren’t sure what the UUP is at. I’m not sure the UUP knows what it is doing but Sinn Féin will be voting yes and this Blog expects that the vote will go through.

But at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis the focus is very much on the failures of the Fianna Fáil/Green Party government.

This Blog is now off to a small room in another building to spend a little time practising for this evening's live event. I’ll let you know how it went later.



The Book on Sheena Campbell is part of the Irish Republican Legends series and is entitled 'Dancing to the Revolution - Sheena Campbell: A lost Leader'.

It can be bought online at www.sinnfeinbookshop.com or at the Sinn Féin bookshops in Belfast or Dublin.

Defending a Bill of Rights

The proposal to establish in law a Bill of Rights was agreed in the negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. There are a number of such examples around the world. It should have been a relatively easy matter of looking at international best practice and applying it to the north.

Not so. It has proven to be a torturous process. In part, because unionism is deeply uncomfortable with the idea of equality and of citizens having ‘rights. The British government shares this view.

After 11 years, the British Government several months ago finally published a Consultation Paper on a Bill of Rights which is currently out to public consultation.

This consultative paper ignores the advice of Sinn Féin, but more importantly it ignores the views of the Bill of Rights Forum and the Human Rights Commission.

The Human Rights Commission described the British government documents as not a ‘genuine effort’. The Commission said it ‘demonstrates a lack of understanding of the purpose and function of a Bill of Rights’ and ‘fails to take appropriate account of international human rights standards’.

Worse – the Commission accused the Consultation paper of appearing to suggest the ‘lowering of existing human rights standards.’

Others including leading human rights academic Professor Chris McCrudden warned that the British proposals could do more harm than good and risked blunting existing equality law. He described them as ‘positively dangerous in some of its implications.’

The British also disregarded the clear majority view of the Bill of Rights Forum, which was set up under the St. Andrews Agreement.

They ignored the consensus view expressed by the Human Rights Consortium representing 140 civil society groups across the north.

The reality is the northern state was based on routine violations of civil, political, economic and social rights – the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, the denial of housing to Catholics, discrimination in employment, the use of internment and the long term suspension of many rights under so-called emergency provisions.

All of these helped exacerbate and prolong the conflict.

Despite the progress of recent times and the high sounding rhetoric of British politicians, there is still institutional resistance to the equality and human rights elements of the Good Friday Agreement.

In many instances the NIO negotiates on behalf of this tendancy.

And it is precisely because of all of this that those who are intent on building a better future must continue to demand that legally enforceable economic and social rights – which go above and beyond the current inadequate protections - are enshrined in any new Bill of Rights.

A Bill of Rights should set the floor, and not the ceiling for guaranteeing rights in our society for generations to come.

A Bill of Rights should be an expression of hope for a positive future. It should promote reconciliation, tolerance, mutual trust, and the protection of the human rights of all the people living here, as well as the values of partnership, equality and mutual respect.

The NIO consultation is an insult to the hard work of many sectors of society that have taken part in the Bill of Rights process over the last 11 years.

The NIO consultation also proposes changes to existing equality duties. This provocative proposal has the potential to undermine the hard won equality gains of recent years.

Sinn Féin will not tolerate - under any circumstances – any move which undermines the existing provisions on the promotion of equality.

The Equality duty placed on the public authority was an integral part of the Good Friday Agreement, and should not be undermined.

The section 75 duty on the public sector should not be weakened under any proposed Bill of Rights.

Sinn Féin will not allow the Good Friday Agreement to be renegotiated downwards through the mechanism of a Bill of Rights. The promise and purpose of this Bill must be to build on existing protections not undermine them.

The deadline for submissions to the NIO consultation has been extended to 31st March 2010.

The north needs a Bill of Rights that is worthy of the aspiration of all in our communities for a rights based society, that offers protections for the most vulnerable, that respects the diversity of our community and has equality at its very core.

In addition to the necessary work in the north there is a need for a Bill of Rights for citizens across this island.

The resistance to this will come from obvious quarters. It isn’t just the unionist political class which is against a rights based society. The political establishment in the south is also against legally based citizens rights.

But that is work for another day.

This Blog would encourage all sections of the community to respond to the consultation paper and reject the approach the NIO has taken.