An Phoblacht - Issue 1 - 2024

Belfast People’s Assembly

125 Street Name, Belfast BT14 8FP

T: 028 XXXX XXXX

E: email address here

ABAIR LEAT HAVE YOUR SAY HAE YER SPAKE

THE NEW IRELAND IS FOR EVERYONE

Mr John Smith

125 Street Name

Line two of address here

Line three of address here

County Here

BTXX XXX

32nd Octember 2021

Dear Mr Smith,

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Yours Sincerely,

Name Surname Title or Position

AN PHOBLACHT is published by Sinn Féin. The views in An Phoblacht are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sinn Féin. We welcome articles, opinions and photographs from new contributors but contact the Editor first.

EDITOR:

ROBBIE SMYTH

An Phoblacht, Kevin Barry House, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland.

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(+353 1) 872 6 100.

EMAIL: editor@anphoblacht.com

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MARK DAWSON

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EQUALITY

IT I S NEW STRUNG AND SHALLBE DRAEH

Colmán

anphoblacht contents clár

UIMHIR

EISIÚNA 1 - 2024 - ISSUE NUMBER 1

The road to the First Minister 49 14 30

JIM GIBNEY writes from inside Stormont on 3 February when Michelle O’Neill took her place as First Minister. The Sinn Féin offices were “packed with faces old and new, representing the

1798 today Ailt Ghaeilge san eagrán seo

EDITORIAL

anphoblacht

EAGARFHOCAL

ROBBIE SMYTH editor@anphoblacht.com

Our common interests on health, housing, the environment, the daily lives of the people sharing this island are paramount now more than ever

‘Our demands most moderate are, we only want the earth’ – James Connolly

Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald sat down for an interview in this issue of An Phoblacht. Our talk covered everything from the “seismic event” of Michelle O’Neill taking office as First Minster, to leading the opposition in Leinster House, housing, health, a united Ireland, the coming elections and referendums.

During the course of the interview, Mary Lou said, “We are at a moment of change, a pivot moment. Some of that is generational, I think. We are living through change that is much bigger than Sinn Féin.”

She continued to say that “As a political party, we are seen as being at the vanguard of it. People’s expectations of life. People’s experience, people’s world view has evolved, and you have generations of people now saying that they want a politics that’s different.”

Sinn Féin’s elected representatives and activists are daily engaging in, participating with and building the communities that will be cornerstones of the new, better Ireland that is possible for us all.

This issue of An Phoblacht captures aspects of the challenges and potential of this pivot moment that Ireland stands at today. Daithí Doolan writes about the decades of activism republicans have engaged in to tackle the drugs problem in Ireland. Micheál Mac Donncha looks at the importance of the upcoming elections. Jim Gibney gives a sense of the personal journeys and activism that created the conditions for a Sinn Féin First Minister.

There is also an excellent article by Seán Napier that takes us back to the 1790s, another period of fundamental change in Ireland, where he asks what the spirit of 1798 means today. In the article, he quotes the first editorial of the Northern Star newspaper, which said their aim was, “To make the Irish people aware of their common interests so that they might act together with one heart and with one voice to assert their freedom and endeavour by all constitutional means to shake off the badges of slavery which yet disgrace them as a nation.”

If ever there was a time to reflect on our common interests, it is now. Our common interests on health, housing, the environment, the daily lives of the people sharing this island are paramount now more than ever.

Both Mary Lou McDonald in her interview and Michelle O’Neill in her inaugural speech addressed these challenges. Mary Lou spoke on the need for activism and to be on the doorsteps of our communities. Michelle O’Neill framed why this important when she told the Assembly that, “My eyes are firmly fixed on the future. On unifying people and society.” Quoting James Connolly she said – ‘Our demands most moderate are, we only want the earth’. 

2024 was always going to be a challenging year for Sinn Féin. Not just because of the potential of a new era for the island as Michelle O’Neill took office as a First Minister for all, but add in elections for the European Parliament, Westminster, and the 26-County local councils and the agenda is packed. There are also two referendums in the

26 Counties and the possibility of an early Leinster House election. It is a busy time for Sinn Féin as the only all Ireland party. An Phoblacht got the chance to sit down with Sinn Féin Uachtarán Mary Lou McDonald and talked about all of this as well as a United

A YEAR OF ACTIVISM, COHESION, AND UNITY OF PURPOSE

In February 2024, Mary Lou McDonald will have been party leader for six years and leader of the opposition in Leinster House for four. We asked how has the journey been so far?

“They have been very eventful years. My reflection this far in is that we have managed very well to frame the politics of change north and south. We have done incredible things when you think of it; First Minster for all, First Sinn Féin First Minster, First nationalist First Minister. That’s seismic stuff. The largest party in local government in the North. That’s huge.

“Personally, it seems likes six weeks, six months. I don’t have that sense of it being a long time. It has been so busy. It has been so intense at times. I actually can’t believe that it has been six years to be honest. It seems to have gone so quickly. I have enjoyed it.

“It is a unique position like none other. It is a unique privilege as well. But it is a lot of work, a lot of hours. It is a lot of responsibility, and I am loving it.”

Leading the opposition

Focusing on Leinster House as leader of the opposition, we asked how has Mary Lou found this experience? “Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government together” is according to Mary Lou, “an alliance above all else of those who wish to keep change out, and to keep change out, they believe that they have to keep Sinn Féin out.”

This is a year to be having conversations with people. It is a year to be listening very carefully, and listening and talking to each other as political

activists

• Election 2020: 'If there was a case to be made in 2020 for change it is amplified much more strongly now'

“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are maybe different only in tone and tempo” and “If there was a case to be made in 2020 for change” it is said McDonald, “amplified much more strongly now.

“I think they hoped that all of that would go away. That people would have made their point. They said we hear you on housing. You don’t have to keep voting for the Shinners. Stop it.”

The Sinn Féin President believes that being in opposition has specific challenges. She said, “When you think about it. Government holds all the cards. They have the power of

initiative. They make the decisions. For an opposition party to be really effective and sustain itself requires incredible discipline and requires incredible stamina. You have to keep working at it. You have to keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. And I am really proud of how the whole team has managed to keep that sense of purpose, focus and energy.”

Mary Lou has used Taoiseach’s questions to bring Gaeilge to the chamber. She said that “It’s important that we use the Gaeilge. I’m not a fluent Irish speaker. I have a reasonable standard of Irish. I have this opportunity week in week out. Why wouldn’t you use Gaeilge.”

EU and local elections

Friday 7 June is the polling day for EU and local elections in the 26 Counties. An Phoblacht asked about Sinn Féin’s preparations and why the elections are important.

Mary Lou pointed to Sinn Féin’s “a record number of candidates”, and emphasised that “This year is a year I believe about activism, cohesion and unity of purpose” and that, “We need to get these things right.”

“This year is a year to be out in our communities on the doorsteps. This is a year to be having conversations with people. It is a year to be listening very carefully to people and listening and talking to each other as political activists. It is going to be an incredibly busy one.

“We need to be out. We need to be visible, and literally building street by street, community by community, the kind of momentum we are going to need to bring all of this home.”

Turning to the key elections issues, McDonald said that, “At a European level, the issues of Irish foreign policy, Ireland’s position as a neutral, nonaligned state I think will have a particular resonance in this election because of what is happening in Ukraine, because of what’s happening in Palestine, because of the disgraceful way in which Ursula von der Leyen and others intervened on behalf of apartheid Israel, and in their spectacular failure in respect of holding Israel to account and upholding international law.

“I think for those reasons the issue of Irish neutrality will be part of the debate. I have no

doubt Ireland’s position in Europe post Brexit might feature. But look, the issue, the big issue in Irish society is housing. That remains the case irrespective of which election people are coming out to vote in.”

Why Sinn Féin?

So why does Mary Lou think people are drawn to Sinn Féin? “I think it is because we are at a moment, nationally, all across the island, we are at a moment of change, a pivotal moment. Some of that is generational, I think. We are living through change that is much bigger than Sinn Féin.

“As a political party, we are seen as being at the vanguard of it. People’s expectations of life. People’s experience, people’s world view has evolved, and you have generations of people now saying that they want a politics that’s different, a politics that’s responsive to the realities of their lives, but also a politics that’s big picture and ambitious.

If anyone is of the view that we can tolerate racism, exclusion, abuse of people’s rights, they are the most wrong of all

“Our big project is a new Ireland and social justice in real terms, not just rhetoric, but actually a fair chance and opportunity to live in a full republic in an island that’s reunited. I think that really energises people.

“There are other failures that we could talk about. Health being a standout one, disability services, mental health services. The emblematic issue now for whole generations is the issue of housing, affordability and supply.”

Immigration protests

Turning to the question of immigration protests, An Phoblacht asked Mary Lou about her sense of this issue. She believes that, “This is a topic that has to be discussed out. If anyone thought you could just avoid the issue, they were very, very wrong. If anybody thought that you could just

say to people, don’t raise concerns, don’t raise that was also wrong.”

McDonald stressed that, “If anyone is of the view that we can tolerate racism, exclusion, abuse of people’s rights, they are the most wrong of all. So, it is a question of us lining all of that up and just talking to people. I saw in my own area where vulnerable people were brought into a community, in the dead of night, with no notice, no conversation with the community, nothing. And there was a reaction to that.

“We have consistently raised the issue of the need to talk to communities. We are not talking about vetoes. Nobody wants a veto. Reasonable people don’t expect a veto. But if you go to any community across our island, you will find in that community people who run community development, youth services, the local football team, local basketball team, the women’s shed, the men’s shed. There are key stakeholders in any community that you can go and talk to and say ‘This is what is happening. This is who is going to be coming into the community’. We need to talk to people about it. We need to inform people. We need to make them welcome.

• Ireland For

All demonstration

2023. 'If anyone is of the view that we can tolerate racism, they are the most wrong of all' – Mary Lou McDonald

You have generations of people now saying that they want a politics that’s different, a politics that’s responsive to the realities of their lives, but also a politics that’s big picture and ambitious

“Government did none of that and then they got all high and mighty and preachy to people when there was a reaction. By the way, that reaction was weaponised unquestionably by some really, really ugly elements in Irish society. The far right. Call them what you will. A really toxic element.”

McDonald said that, “Most of the people that I hear raising issues are not far right. They are people saying 'the housing thing is chronic' and wondering 'what is government doing to make that better'."

Immigration has been raised with Sinn Féin activists on doorsteps, but most people raise the issue of accommodation. Mary Lou said that, “People have raised mainly the issue of accommodation. Most of this comes down to an

• Emigration figures: 'When I was in Australia, you were meeting people saying I’m here. It’s been a great experience. I would love to go home, and I can’t. We have to be the people to change that'

angst around inability to buy a home or to rent”.

McDonald believes that, “If we get to grips with the housing issue, we will deal with a whole set of other social stresses and strains that are related back to it”. However, she also emphasised that, occasionally, “I have met with a very bigoted, a very narrow view of the world. I think that is really sad. I am also very clear that we give no quarter to that.

“If you are a racist. If you just have an issue with people because of the colour of their skin, Sinn Féin can’t help you with that. We are not the people for you.”

Emigration figures

Emigration is increasingly an issue for young Irish people. We asked Mary Lou about the revelation that in the 12 months to July 2023, 21,000 visas had been issued to Irish citizens to travel to Australia.

Mary Lou told us how when she was in Australia in summer 2022 that she “met exactly people like that”. She said that, “We live on an island. Of course, people are going to travel. Of course, it is a healthy thing to travel. The issue isn’t so much people leaving. The issue is when they can’t find a way back. That’s the problem.

I think we need to rebuild the whole idea of not just investing in communities but development from the ground up

“When I was in Australia, you were meeting people saying I’m here. It’s been a great experience. I would love to go home, and I can’t. We have to be the people to change that. Anybody who has been away and wants to come back home and make their life, raise their family maybe, make their contribution maybe to our economy and our society. You have to have a way to come home. That’s the core issue really.”

Sinn Féin in Government

What would the first 100 days of a Sinn Féin in government look like?

“What I want from day one is that we enter government with a coherent plan for accelerating housing on every level, in terms of procurement, planning, serviced land.

There is a lot of work in that. But in the first 100 days, you would see the new approach of a Sinn Féin government to do with two things; The availability of housing, but also the affordability. Those are the two pillars.

“I think you would see differences in how you do government. I think we need to rebuild the whole idea of not just investing in communities but development from the ground up. All of that has been decimated by Fine Gael in particular over the last decade and more.

“The approach to how you do government really, really matters. It is really important that you are investing in capacity it is the smartest money you will ever spend.

“I don’t think anybody expects a Sinn Féin government of change to do everything. People are realistic. I am realistic. I have made it clear that we are going to build houses. We are going to make preparations for reunification. We will deal with everything else as well.”

United Ireland

We asked about the growing media debate and polls on a United Ireland. Mary Lou believes that, “It is significant that so many publications, commentators, analysts but also stakeholders right across Ireland are now actively taking an interest in this debate and not quietly, saying very loudly that this is a conversation that needs to happen.

“I think that’s a very healthy thing. It’s a very interesting thing. It is a real shame that is not being matched by government attention to this. The government’s Shared Island Unit is not the kind of platform we need to give that conversation a home.

“One of the things that strikes me is that there has been a change, and there needs to be a further evolution in how we talk about reunification, how we talk about a new Ireland, not in the language of threat or loss, but through the prism of opportunity. I think that’s how we all need to come at this and say to put it crudely what’s in it for me, but also what’s in it for us?

“That might sound like a crude political thing. That’s usually used as a pejorative thing. I actually think this is a really healthy way to come at this debate, to see all of the obvious

wins. Energy independence across the island, a net exporter of clean energy, investment opportunities island wide. Research and Development islandwide. Creating scale for ourselves. Creating new capacity for ourselves. Getting health right. Imagining having the opportunity to actually get our health service right across the island.

“The conversation has been interesting. Some of the voices coming from unionism have just been so interesting, and some of them very challenging which is great. We need to be challenged. Nobody should be complacent about this. Nobody has it all figured out. That’s the great beauty of this.

“I notice there is a lot of conversation around symbols and flags. The Irish Times love that conversation, which is fine. It is a conversation

that needs to be had. For me, the tricolour is utterly inclusive as our national flag.

“I know talking to people that’s not their first and most immediate concern. Most people that I talk to about Irish unity want to talk about health.”

Focusing on the Sinn Féin People’s Assemblies, Mary Lou said that, “They have had great success in bringing in speakers from different perspectives that are beyond the republican base. I think it’s important that we build on that. I think that initiatives like Ireland’s future, and our own commissions, all of these things run in parallel, and they are all good conversations.”

“All of this is great work, but to reiterate, ultimately the government here needs to put the

'Yes' & 'Yes' votes urged in

Speaking at the launch of Sinn Féin’s campaign on the constitutional referendums to be held on 8 March in the 26 Counties, Mary Lou McDonald said the wording in this referendum “was an opportunity missed by the government whose abysmal track record for families and carers is clear for all to see”.

She said the government have failed to use the carefully considered wording recommended by the Citizen’s Assembly and still have not given any explanation for this, after years of dragging their heels and failing to act on promises to hold this referendum.

“They’ve now suddenly rushed the process. We believe their wording lacks ambition and the ability to deliver the real and meaningful change carers need. So with this in mind, Sinn Féin have carefully considered the referendum. We are calling for a Yes vote on both counts. Yes to equality. Yes to fairness. Because we see in these referendums, small steps in the right direction. However, let me be very, very clear,

this must be followed by concrete changes for families and carers that deliver a change that they can feel and experience in their day to day lives.”

Mary Lou stated that while the government talks about ‘striving’ to support carers, striving isn’t enough. Real change is needed:

“We support bringing our constitution up to date, to reflect the values of modern Ireland, an Ireland in which everyone is valued, cherished and supported. But, this referendum needs to be about much more than that. We believe that this referendum has to be a catalyst and a driver for meaningful change.

“This referendum, therefore, must be only the start of an Ireland in which families and carers’ voices are finally heard and, acted upon. Every day carers across this state, do incredibly important work as they provide care for a loved one. They do this day in, day out. Often without recognition and with little support.

“They feel badly let down by government,

referendums

who fail time and time again to hear their demands for change. Demands for equality, recognition and respect. We are conscious that carers are divided on this referendum. And their reticence is understandable. Carers have been let down time and time again by government and they need more than the state merely stating it will ‘strive’ to support them.

“For too long, families have been marginalised and felt excluded for not meeting outdated and archaic tropes. All families must be recognised and cherished, single parent families, cohabiting couples, parents who are not married.

“The government have chosen to propose very minimal changes and the question for Sinn Féin is to support some change or no change at all. We have come to the decision to support the upcoming proposals on the basis that some change is better than none, but regardless of the outcome of the referendum, Government must do much more.”

• Sinn Féin Uachtarán Mary Lou McDonald, Lynn Boylan, Sinn Féin Campaign Director and David Cullinane at the campaign launch

AN ASSEMBLY FOR ALL –CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT AND DISSENTER

Sinn Féin’s First Minister MICHELLE O’NEILL made her first speech to the Assembly in this role on 3 February 2024. Below we carry her remarks in full.

Is mór an onóir dom seasamh anseo mar príomhaire. Today opens the door to the future – a shared future. I am honoured to stand here as First Minister.

We mark a moment of equality and progress. A new opportunity to work and grow together. Confident that wherever we come from, whatever our aspirations, we can and must build our future together.

I am delighted to see every MLA back in this chamber. I welcome the fact that the DUP has decided to re-enter the democratic institutions and that the outcome of the Assembly election is now being respected.

I look forward to a plenary meeting of the NorthSouth Ministerial Council shortly. The powersharing coalition formed by the parties here today must now dedicate itself to delivering an ambitious Agenda for Change. I wish incoming ministers well and pledge to work and collaborate with each of you.

The public are relying on each of us to act in their best interests and to serve our whole community in good faith. We must make power-sharing work because collectively, we are charged with leading and delivering for all our people, for every community.

In common cause, we must make life better for workers, families, communities. To create hope and opportunity. We must be respectful of each other. The

days of second-class citizenship are long gone. Today confirms that they are never coming back.

As an Irish republican, I pledge cooperation and genuine honest effort with those colleagues who are British, of a unionist tradition and who cherish the Union. This is an Assembly for all – Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter.

In common cause, we must make life better for workers, families, communities. To create hope and opportunity

Despite our different outlooks and views on the future constitutional position, the public rightly demands that we co-operate, deliver and work together.

We must build trust and confidence in our ability to do that. That will require courage and ambition not just from us who are elected, but also from the public. We can all invest in this and the more of us that do, the better the chance it has.

This power-sharing coalition will undoubtedly face great challenges. There are many nettles to grasp. The

rising cost of living has been a heavy burden on many households and businesses. There are people living from hand to mouth, and they need our support. There are too many patients waiting for treatment and support. Our teachers, nurses and all public sector workers are being forced on to the picket line. This demands urgent action.

Tory austerity has badly damaged our public services. They have presided over more than a decade of shame. They have caused real suffering. I wish to lead an Executive which has the freedom to make our own policy and spending choices.

We cannot continue to be hamstrung by Tories in London. Together, we must unite and fight with one voice the corner of every citizen, to ensure that public services are funded properly.

We have many shared priorities, which I know we will all reflect today. We must deliver on more affordable childcare to support workers and families. We must deliver social and affordable homes. Everyone deserves to have a place to call home.

We must transform health and social care. We must ensure that children with additional needs have firstclass support.

Key infrastructure development such as the A5, A29 road schemes, Casement Park, and other signature projects will be delivered so we can enhance connectivity and support communities.

Regional balance and continued investment in Derry and the North-West are essential. We must work to mitigate the climate catastrophe. We must protect Lough Neagh and realise its massive potential.

With new leadership in the Economy Department, we will work in partnership with business, the trade union

movement, education providers, and the community sector to improve economic performance. A reformed Invest NI will be required to promote regional balance - because everyone should share in the benefits of prosperity.

We will now begin to seize the considerable opportunities created by the Windsor Framework, to use dual market access to grow our exports and attract higher-quality FDI.

Together, we must unite and fight with one voice the corner of every citizen, to ensure that public services are funded properly

The Windsor Framework also protects the thriving All-Ireland economy, and we must fully realise its huge potential. We must do more to shape the type of society we live in.

Violence against women and girls is an epidemic and it is an emergency that requires urgent action. That means everyone working collectively to challenge misogyny and sexist attitudes that have led and continue to lead to violence against women.

As political leaders, we need women and girls to know that we have their backs and that we are working to put laws in place to protect them. One of the first actions that this incoming executive must take is to introduce a new strategy to tackle violence against women and girls.

Mr Speaker, our society is becoming increasingly diverse as reflected in the census results. That is

• People watching Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O'Neill's speech in Stormont

something to be respected and celebrated. Everyone, from every section of this society must know they matter, and that we care.

Last year, we marked 25 years of peace and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, a political accommodation that provided a peaceful and democratic alternative to 30 years of conflict. We know the value of peace.

Today, we are heartbroken for the suffering of the Palestinian people. I call for an immediate ceasefire. For dialogue and peace.

I was a 20 year old mother at the time of the Agreement, and I remember vividly the sense of hope and optimism.

I got right in behind politics and have worked since then to build the peace. There is no question that our

society has been fundamentally transformed because of the peace process.

I stand here proud, elected First Minister as someone who represents the Good Friday generation, and someone who will lead us into the next 25 years. I am also an Ulster woman, and a deeply proud Irish and European citizen.

This is an historic day which represents a new dawn. For the first time ever, a nationalist takes up the position of First Minister. That such a day would ever come would have been unimaginable to my parents and grandparents’ generation.

Because of the Good Friday Agreement, that old state that they were born into is gone. A more democratic, more equal society has been created, making this a better place for everyone.

• Michelle O'Neill welcomed that the DUP has decided to re-enter the democratic institutions

• Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald talking to the media outside Stormont Building

This place we call home, this place we love, North of Ireland or Northern Ireland, where you can be British, Irish, both or none is a changing portrait.

Yesterday is gone. My appointment reflects that change. I am a republican. I will serve everyone equally and be a First Minister for all. To all of you who are British and unionist; Your national identity, culture and traditions are important to me.

I will be both inclusive and respectful to you. None of us are being asked or expected to surrender who we are. Our allegiances are equally legitimate.

Let’s walk this two-way street and meet one another halfway. I will be doing so with both an open hand and with heart. Much suffering and trauma persists as a result of the injustices and tragedies of the past.

We must never forget those who have died or were injured, and their families. I am sorry for all the lives lost during the conflict. Without exception.

As First Minister, I am wholeheartedly committed to continuing the work of reconciliation between all of our people. The past cannot be changed or undone. But what we can do is build a better future.

I will never ask anyone to ‘move on’, but I do hope that we can ‘move forward’. I want us to walk in harmony and friendship. My eyes are firmly fixed on the future. On

unifying people and society. Every generation must write its own chapter, define its own legacy.

Scotland’s greatest Irishman, James Connolly, proclaimed what must be our ambitions for our young people – ‘‘Our demands most moderate are, we only want the earth’’.

We must never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families. I am sorry for all the lives lost during the conflict. Without exception

It’s my dream that our children and grandchildren will achieve beyond our wildest ambitions. I believe in our young people; they can change our society and change the world if we give them the chance.

Let our legacy be that chance, that freedom for every young person, for every child. 1998 opened a new horizon of hope and optimism. Now, in 2024, let’s gift today’s generation all that they deserve. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.

• Michelle O'Neill: 'Let’s walk this two-way

THE DAYS OF SECOND-CLASS CITIZENSHIP ARE OVER

JIM GIBNEY takes us through the momentous day that saw Sinn Féin Vice President Michelle O’Neill take office as First Minister. Jim was in Stormont on 3 February with a cast of old and young republican activists. And here he charts the historical journey republicans have made over the past 50 plus years.

In the 36 hours before the historic and momentous election of Michelle O’Neill as First Minister, I spent time texting republican veterans and also phoned some people whose loved ones had been killed or injured during the conflict.

A few weeks before, I had attended the AGM of the much valued and respected Relatives For Justice organisation which is dedicated to helping relatives traumatised by the loss of their loved ones.

It was a hugely significant day, but also a day to reflect on the loss of life and those injured on all sides – in the community of the Ballymacarrett Short Strand area where I grew up for me particularly – a sentiment echoed in Michelle’s acceptance speech in the assembly chamber.

On the morning of the great occasion, I travelled with my friends Danny and Leslie. We were to pick up Tom Hartley, but he was out of the country and would have been kicking himself, for Tom, a historian and archivist, would have been in his element.

Tom once told a packed room in Dublin Castle in the days of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation that it was a dangerous act to be seen on Belfast’s Royal Avenue in the 1960s openly carrying a copy of the Irish News for fear of attack by unionists. Today, people carry Tricolours and hurls and wear GAA and Celtic tops in Royal Avenue without garnering notice.

Danny Morrison was driving and was looking in his rearview mirror. “Is that Edwin Poots behind us?” “It is indeed”, I said, “And Paul Givan is sitting beside him. Two ministers-in-waiting”, I joked. Poots car drove into the inside lane beside us, but there was no eye contact.

Though for a second it looked like we could be in a race.

As we neared Stormont, I recalled that Danny had written for The Guardian on the Friday afternoon nearly 26 years ago when the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

He wrote, “As I drive out of Stormont, past the statue of Lord Edward Carson down Prince of Wales Avenue I feel that something fundamental has shifted. My view of East Belfast is always from the West of the city, my

Unionists often complain about republicans referring to the North as the Six Counties, but it was they who built Stormont with six floors, and they have six pillars at the entrance representing each of the six counties

home. Stormont lies in the Castlereagh Hills, foreign. On this afternoon, I look from the Avenue across Black Mountain above West Belfast, distinct and familiar and realise that it’s not that far away, after all.”

Danny’s observation was laden with history as Stormont was the seat of Orange power and our oppression, and symbolised our position as second-class citizens for 50 years under the Ulster Unionist Party. It was a cold house for Catholics, to pirate a phrase

• Stormont was the seat of Orange power a ‘cold house’ for Catholics. The days of second-class citizenship are over

from former leader of the UUP David Trimble. Going through the security gate, the main guard joked with Danny and said, “Do you not know me?”

It turned out that he was an old friend of Danny’s from Corby Way in Andersonstown. Back in the '50s and '60s, few nationalists, if any, would have got a job at Stormont.

As we left the security hut, Colm Gildernew MLA enthusiastically waved from his car. In 1968. Colm’s mother was pregnant with him, when she, his granny, and godmother were violently evicted from their home in Caledon, an iconic event which gave a huge boost to the Civil Rights Movement.

Approaching Stormont’s front entrance on foot, I noticed the smiling face of Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald. She joked that her job today was as “an usher” directing people into the Great Hall.

But there was a queue for selfies and a queue of journalists looking to interview her. It was during one such interview that she said, “A united Ireland is in touching distance”, which sparked off days of contrived controversy.

After registration at reception, we were met by Eoin Rooney, one of Sinn Féin’s economic advisers and personal assistant to now Economy Minister Conor Murphy, who escorted us to Sinn Féin’s ‘big room’ on the third floor.

Unionists often complain about republicans referring to the North as the Six Counties, but it was they who built Stormont with six floors, and they have six pillars at the entrance representing each of the six counties.

The room and the corridor were packed with faces old and new, representing the past and future progress. Over 50 years of experienced struggle mingled on the corridor. Veterans and young fluent Irish speakers and elected representatives like Pádraig Delargey from Derry, Belfast Councillor Caoimhín McCann, Gaeilgeoir Seán Ó Ceallaigh who is chairperson of the cumann I am in, advisers to Ministers, cumann activists like the highly skilled election strategist Lauren Slane, friends and families, including some loud infants silenced by chocolate biscuits.

A beaming Sinéad Walsh hugged me with a strength that said it all. A former political prisoner and a friend and comrade of Mairéad Farrell, who was shot dead in Gibraltar by the SAS alongside Dan McCann and Seán Savage.

The Baker family has a long history of republican activism going back to the early '70s. Danny Baker MLA, former Mayor of Belfast, represented that history on this occasion.

MPs Francis Molloy and Mickey Brady brought to mind the piv-

otal role the people of their constituencies played in the struggle; Bobby Sands elected in Fermanagh South Tyrone and the IRA in South Armagh whose determination helped bring the British government to negotiate peace.

On a wall in the Sinn Féin room, Bobby Ballagh’s painting of a youthful Martin McGuinness watched over an impressive lineup of TDs, including Rose Conway Walsh, Ruairí Ó Murchú, Martin Browne, Maurice Quinlivan, Darren O’Rourke, as well as Seanadóir Paul Gavan. Their presence is a powerful reminder that Sinn Féin is the only all-Ireland party.

Bernie McGuinness, her son Fiachra, and his wife brought home Martin’s impact. Without him, there would not have been peace or this very special day. They were relaxed in conversation with Gerry Adams – adorned with a Palestinian scarf – a horrific reminder of Gaza.

Also present was lifelong activist, former minister, MLA, MEP and party peace process negotiator Bairbre de Brún.

Maolíosa McHugh MLA, brother of the late Councillor Charlie McHugh, introduced me to Charlie’s son, Ruairí, himself a local councillor. Charlie gave great service to the struggle.

When I shook the hand of Lurgan republican, former Minister for Education, and one of the party’s most able debaters John O’Dowd MLA, I thought of Sheena Campbell. A Craigavon woman with a meticulous electoral brain who was shot dead by loyalists.

Others in the crowded room were in a reflective mood. Sinn Féin councillor Geraldine McAteer spoke about her late sister Theresa Lunny, also a party councillor and the second woman to be interned in Armagh Women’s Prison. The first was her comrade Liz Maskey, who was also in the room.

Louise Ferguson, a long-time policy adviser and researcher, her late husband Michael was an MLA. My late brother Damien and Pat Rice were the first two Sinn Féin councillors to be elected to Lisburn Council in the days of unrestrained bigotry.

When Michelle said ‘Tá’ to accepting the nomination, the crowd erupted on its feet in a visceral roar that seemed to last forever with prolonged applause

In tribute to him, I collected names on a ‘Thinking of You’ card for his wife May and daughter Sinéad. Thoughts too of close friend John Leonard senior, as well as IRA Volunteers John Leonard and John McComb, who was one of four brothers imprisoned, and former prisoner Mickey Cupples. They would have relished the occasion.

Glowing and genuine tributes from all parties across the chamber for the outgoing speaker Alex Maskey set the scene for the election of Michelle and the other ministers.

Alex was praised for his integrity, impartiality, neutrality, for being friendly, robust, fair, and a speaker for all.

Fermanagh’s Seán Lynch, a former MLA once critically injured in an SAS ambush, was in high spirits as was Ian Milne, another former MLA, who served a life sentence and was a comrade of Francis Hughes who died in the 1981 hunger strike.

I had a chat with Martina Anderson who spent 13 years in En-

• DUP face the media in Stormont

• Gerry Adams and Alex Maskey

• Darren O'Rouke, Rose Conway-Walsh, Gerry Adams, Ruairí Ó Murchú and Mick O'Brien

• Gerry Adams and Bernie McGuinness

• Pearse Doherty, Danny Morrison and Martina Anderson

• Jemma Dolan, Gerry Adams and Áine Murphy

• Sinn Féin is focused on a shared future, an agenda for change, a common cause where no-one would be asked to surrender their allegiance, where you can be Irish, British both or none

glish prisons and was an MEP and MLA and now lobbies support for a United Ireland across the EU.

Seasoned activists like Gerry Kelly MLA, Marty Lynch and Padraic Wilson were enjoying the occasion. I thought of their very close friend and comrade the late Bobby Storey, who said, “A life of struggle is a life well lived”.

Sinn Féin councillor Geraldine McAteer, spoke about her late sister Theresa Lunny, also a party councillor and the second woman to be interned in Armagh Women’s prison - the first, her comrade Liz Maskey, was also in the room

In the early 1980s, Marty Lynch spent time in my cell in the Crum recovering from serious injuries when shot by a British soldier. Padraic Wilson’s father Leo was one of a small group of Belfast republicans who kept the struggle alive during the lean years. So too Aidan McAteer’s parents. Aidan has been one of the party’s key advisers and negotiators for nearly 30 years.

There was complete silence in the room as we watched in disbelief, in the heart of a building which was built to last as a symbol of Partition and exclusion. It had done so for too many years and what was about to happen should never have happened.

Gaeilgeoir and world champion handball player from West Belfast Aisling Reilly nominated Michelle for the post of First Minister. Aisling was subsequently elected a junior minister.

And when Michelle said ‘Tá’ to accepting the nomination the crowd erupted on its feet in a visceral roar that seemed to last forever with prolonged applause.

Broad smiles, tears and hugs greeted the announcement that Michelle O’Neill from Clonoe in west Tyrone was to be the North’s First Minister from a Sinn Féin nationalist background.

Michelle’s speech focused on a shared future, an agenda for change, a common cause where no-one would be asked to surrender their allegiance, where you can be Irish, British, both or none. The days of second-class citizenship were over. The old state was gone. In its place, an assembly for Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter.

Gerry Kelly unintentionally provided the serious occasion with some laughter when he mistakenly proposed former political prisoner and Minister for the Communities, Carál Ní Chuilín as Deputy Chief Constable instead of Deputy Speaker.

I met Mike Nesbitt, the former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, in a corridor. We agreed it was a good day for reconciliation between unionists and nationalists.

I got a lift home with Gerry Adams, his omniscient aide-decamp Richard McAuley, and loyal and patient driver Crickie. Tom Hartley rang in to praise all. Gerry told him how much he was missed on the grand occasion.

I ended the day in the company of the irrepressible Eibhlin Glenholmes, a generous friend of nearly 50 years, whose father and mother Dicky and Lily, like tens of thousands of others, made the unimaginable occasion happen.

It was a day when the past and the present shared a solemn and hopeful space. 

Jim Gibney is a republican activist and former political prisoner

THE LOCAL AND EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 2024 ENSURING CHANGE STARTS HERE

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

In June 2024 voters will go to the polls to elect councillors across the 26 Counties and also to choose members of the European Parliament. These elections are vitally important for the future of all of us on this island. They are particularly important in Sinn Féin’s strategy to bring about progressive political change by strengthening its mandate and preparing for government.

The political cycle which is coming to an end in this year of elections began in 2020 when for the first time Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil entered a formal coalition government. They did so for one reason only - to keep out the party that won most votes in that election - Sinn Féin. Having propped up the Fine Gael-led government for the previous four years, while maintaining the fiction that they were the lead opposition party, Fianna Fáil did the coalition deal they had said they would not do.

Electing more Sinn Féin councillors and MEPs will be a big step to the new approach to politics that people want and need

In that 2020 election more voters than ever before agreed with Sinn Féin that the two parties who had dominated Irish politics for a century were opposite sides of the one coin and constituted a political establishment that must be removed. There was palpable public anger when the dirty deal was

• Turning around the housing crisis, will require a strong Sinn Féin mandate in the councils and in the Dáil

done - facilitated by the Greens - and the electorate was cheated out of the change for which they voted.

This undiminished thirst for political change has persisted for the past four years. It is seen in the consistently high opinion poll ratings for Sinn Féin, that have clearly shown Sinn Féin is the leading party in the 26 Counties. The first electoral test of this will be the local and European elections. They are fixed in law to be held every five years. That much is certain.

• In 2020 voters agreed with Sinn Féin that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were opposite sides of the one coin and constituted a political establishment that must be removed

Very much uncertain is the date of the coming general election in the 26 Counties. It must be held in or before Spring 2025 but could be called at any time at the discretion of the Taoiseach and cabinet. It is possible that they will go early, before the local and European elections. Or they may wait until after another Budget in late autumn. They may also decide to complete their term to the bitter end and dissolve the Dáil in early 2025.

Councils are the form of government closest to the citizen and to the community. They can directly impact – positively or negatively – on where we live and how we live, so we need to get local government right

Whatever the eventual outcome, the run-up to the local and European elections will be dominated by both the consistent desire for change and the uncertainty over when the people will get the opportunity to elect a new government. Sinn Féin is going into the elections with the message that change starts here and electing more Sinn Féin councillors and MEPs will be a big step to the new approach to politics that people want and need.

And these elections are hugely important in their own right too. In October 2023 a report by the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities found that councils in the 26 Counties are among the least empowered in Europe. This State is at the bottom of the table of 46 European states, along with Hungary and Moldova, in terms of powers for local democracy.

There is a power imbalance with too much for central government and too little for local government. Unelected local government executives have too much power compared to elected councillors. Only 8% of public spending is by

• These elections will also be an important step forward for the Irish unity campaign

• Irish foreign policy needs to be courageous and principled, like supporting the South African case against Israeli genocide in Gaza

26-County councils compared to 23.1% EU average. (Source: ‘More Power to You’, Connect/Fórsa/SIPTU, 2019). There is also insufficient staffing in local government today to provide the services required.

Councils are the form of government closest to the citizen and to the community. They can directly impact – positively or negatively – on where we live and how we live, so we need to get local government right.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the housing crisis. The market-driven housing policy of successive FF and FG governments stopped councils from developing and managing housing on the large scale they had done in the past. This led directly to the housing crisis. And even when the government was forced by Sinn Féin and others to commence the development again of social and affordable housing, the government maintained many of the delaying restrictions and red tape which still prevent councils from developing homes on the scale and in the timeframe that is so desperately needed.

Changing all this, turning around the housing crisis, will require a strong Sinn Féin mandate in the councils and in the Dáil. And the same goes for other key issues involving local government such as planning, the environment and community safety.

Equally, it is vital that voices of progressive change are elected to the EU Parliament. The response of the Irish people to the Israeli genocide in Gaza shows the desire for Irish foreign policy to be courageous and principled, as in supporting the South African case against Israel and keeping us out of all NATO and EU military structures. Sinn Féin in the EU Parliament will stand strongly for positive Irish neutrality and non-alignment with military power blocs.

In a rapidly changing world, under the shadow of climate catastrophe, the challenges of energy supply, and the still growing inequality between the wealthy elites and the average citizens, it is vital that workers in Ireland have strong advocates at EU level. Sinn Féin needs to elect the MEPs to fulfil that role and to link up with other progressive voices across the EU.

In both sets of elections a stronger mandate for Sinn Féin will also be an important step forward for the Irish unity campaign. Stronger cross-border links and co-ordination between councils can be put in place. At EU level advocacy for Irish unity can be greatly enhanced.

In the local elections Sinn Féin will be standing nearly 400 candidates across the 26 Counties. In the EU elections the party will be standing six candidates - two in each of the three constituencies - Dublin, Midlands-North-West and South.

The battle-lines are being drawn; at stake is the opportunity to bring about real change; the challenge is to ensure that change starts here and that it is unstoppable. 

Mícheál Mac Donncha is a Dublin City Sinn Féin councillor

TACKLING THE DRUGS CRISIS IN IRELAND

I have been active in tackling the drugs crisis for 27 years. From protesting to policy development and now as a practitioner in a community-based drug project in Dublin’s south inner city. It has provided me an insight into addiction and the complexities of a growing, deepening and expanding drug trade. Over the years, I have witnessed the negative and destructive aspects of drug culture become more embedded in some of our communities.

From my experience, I can honestly say the drugs crisis reflects the very core of how unequal our society has become. Two families from very different backgrounds can both experience drug addiction. The affluent will be able to afford and attend private treatment and resolve the issue and move on. Unfortunately, if you are from a disadvantaged community, you will struggle with many other barriers put in your way because of economic inequalities in our society.

We cannot tackle the causes or consequences of the drugs crisis without also tackling other social injustices. Lack of adequate mental health services, break down in relationships with Gardaí, lack of public services, and the ongoing housing crisis are some of the barriers that need to be urgently dismantled.

Imagine an iceberg. The drugs crisis is the tip of that iceberg. But underneath is where all the causes and complex needs are hidden. As they say in recovery, you only have to change one thing. Everything. In preparation for this article, I googled ‘What is addiction?’ Up popped over 1.53 billion responses. This highlights the many and varied definitions and interpretations of addiction. In most people’s minds, addiction is associated with illegal substances bought and sold on street corners and dark alleys. But it is more complicated that this clichéd image.

According to the Health Service Execu-

BY DAITHÍ DOOLAN

• Daithí Doolan — 'We cannot tackle the causes or consequences of the drugs crisis without also tackling other social injustices'

tive, addiction is most commonly associated with gambling, drugs, alcohol, smoking, but it is possible to be addicted to just about anything, including work, the inter-

net, solvents and shopping.

Bearing this in mind, most families across Ireland will have been touched by addiction. In most cases, it gets resolved.

But for some communities, it becomes a drugs crisis. This is where politics and justice come in to it.

It is a drugs crisis when your playground, park, and open spaces are hijacked by drug dealing. When drug related violence traumatises your whole community. The crisis becomes compounded by a lack of access to mental health services, child psychologists and cuts to youth services.

LESSONS FROM THE PAST AND HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

Community activists have been organising and demanding action for many years. Let us take a step back in time. Many will remember the Concerned Parents Against Drugs (CPAD). The CPAD were a response in the 1980’s to the heroin problem in Dublin’s north and south inner city.

Communities had been demanding action from successive Governments. But action had not been forthcoming. In fact, the then Labour Party Health Minister Barry Desmond had denied there was any drug crisis in Dublin.

State forces were deployed to marginalise and criminalise CPAD rather than going after those who were controlling the heroin trade. The Government and the mainstream media were outraged that ordinary, working-class communities would dare organise themselves and take power back from the big drug dealers in Dublin.

Key activists were arrested and brought before the no-jury Special Criminal Court. This had a very negative effect on the anti-drugs movement. The truth was that official Ireland was content to keep heroin addiction confined to working-class areas. A policy of out of sight and out of mind was the order of the day.

A resurgence in the mid 1990s of the anti-drugs movement led to the establishment of Coalition of Communities Against Drugs (COCAD). This group were similar to CPAD, but their appeal was beyond Dublin’s

inner city and they were more focused on policy and the need for political change.

It was during this time I became actively involved in the anti-drugs movement. Like many others, I was driven by a sense of justice. I believed communities had a right to live without the threat of drug dealers and criminal gangs. I also felt very strongly that

We cannot tackle the causes or consequences of the drugs crisis without also tackling other social injustices

those battling addiction should be given every support to win this life and death battle.

While it is true to say Sinn Féin activists like me were very active, it was not part of some big strategy or plan. It was simply a response to what was going on around us in communities we lived in.

This resurgent anti-drug movement crystalized in a new, broader coalition of forces. Meeting together in Liberty Hall, trade union activists, community activists and youth workers formed the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign.

CityWide as it became known was a very influential network. It focused not just on the immediate crisis of drug dealing but also shone the torch of publicity on the causes of Dublin’s drug crisis. It raised the question, why are so many of our young people in working class communities ending up in addiction. CityWide went on to provide training and support for community reps on the State established drug task forces, while providing evidence-based re-

• CPAD were a response in the 1980s to the heroin problem in Dublin’s north and south inner city

search that influenced Government policy.

Just like the 1980s, the state wanted to keep the problem of drugs contained to certain post codes. But one event changed all that.

A campaigning journalist, Veronica Guerin, was challenging the major criminals involved in the drugs trade. She regularly challenged and exposed them in the Sunday Independent. This led to her being assaulted and tragically shot dead in June 1996. The murder of a journalist in broad daylight moved the Government to taking swift action.

A report by the then junior Minister Pat Rabbitte in October 1996 confirmed what many had felt for years. Heroin addiction was strongly linked to areas of high disadvantage and deprivation. The report stated:

“We have no accurate count, but there could be up to eight thousand addicts in the Greater Dublin region. They are concentrated in communities that are also characterised by large-scale social and economic deprivation and marginalisation. The physical/environmental conditions in these neighbourhoods are poor, as are the social and recreational infrastructures.”

It was the first time any Government had acknowledged that problematic drug addiction was a class issue. This was not lost on activists. Feeling ignored or excluded by statutory agencies, communities across Dublin had been marching in their thousands demanding action. As well as march-

ing, we also worked together to establish community-based responses to addiction. Groups in Ballymun, Ballyfermot, Ringsend, Crumlin, Darndale, Killinarden, Clondalkin, Kilbarrack began providing services which the state agencies failed to provide.

Community-based drug rehabilitation projects were born. This was a direct challenge to those who claimed to know best. These were globally unique and have stood

It is a drugs crisis when your playground, park, and open spaces are hijacked by drug dealing. When drug related violence traumatises your whole community

the test of time, with many developing in to modern day multi-faceted services.

As a result of the Rabbitte report, 12 Local Drug Task Forces were established in areas of high opiate addiction. Task forces were a radical community-based, inter-agency response. Budgets were allocated to fund local strategies. Nowhere had this been tried before. They were local task forces including state agencies, community reps, and Gardaí working in partnership to develop strategies to tackle addiction in communities that had been ignored for generations. All this was overseen by a junior Minister with sole responsibility for the National Drug Strategy. This too was globally unique. People power had forced drugs to the top of the political agenda. For the next five years, the main focus was on tackling heroin addiction. In 2002, this would all change.

A CityWide meeting of community reps took place in Ozanam House in Dublin’s Merrion Square. It highlighted that cocaine was now becoming a major problem in working class communities. Up until now, cocaine had been associated with the rich and famous. But this was no longer true.

With the increased prevalence of cocaine, there was also an increase in drug related violence. This new drug was far more lucrative and more drug gangs became involved in the industry.

Once again, the powers that be chose the reliable head-in-the-sand option. Local communities were left on their own

• Dublin's North Inner City memorial to victims of drug addiction

to cope with the many challenges cocaine presented. For local drug projects, new challenges emerged. The threats of violence and ‘poly drug use’, when someone is addicted to more than one drug had to be responded to.

The fear of violence and corrosive nature of a new emerging drugs trade undermined community solidarity. The big anti-drugs marches became a thing of the past. Tackling the drugs crisis began to slip down the list of political priorities.

This has resulted in massive cuts to local drug task forces, youth services and growing waiting lists for mental health care. At a policy level, the once strong voice of the community has been silenced. Power has once again become centralised within the Department of Health.

We are now at a tipping point. Either take action or condemn communities to slip deeper and deeper in to the clutches of criminality

Since my own involvement in 1996, there have been many steps forward in tackling the causes and consequences of the drugs crisis. The establishment of the local drugs task forces, appointment of a Minister with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, the Citizens Assembly to name the three main ones.

Also, worth noting is that community-based drug projects, including where I work, are now firmly established and are seen as resources to the wider community. None of this would have happened had it not been for people organising their communities and ensuring experiences on the ground impacted directly on Government policy.

Governments have returned to a policy of containment. It has become acceptable to contain the violence and trauma of the drugs crisis to certain areas of the larger urban areas.

We are now at a tipping point. Either take action or condemn communities to slip deeper and deeper into the clutches of criminality. We need a Government committed to building strong, safe, welcoming

communities.

This will require the Government taking their heads out of the sand, giving themselves a good shake and once again prioritise tackling the drugs crisis. If any future Government were to take tackling drug addiction seriously, they would have to reappoint a ‘super’ junior Minister with sole responsibility for the National Drug Strategy, reinstate the National Drug Strategy Team chaired by the Minister, put the community back at the centre of these structures, reverse cuts to the task forces and youth services and implement the findings of the Citizen Assembly on Drugs. These would be first steps in winning back the confidence of communities most effected by the drugs crisis.

Another key step is to ensure that mental health services and child psychologists are prioritised for drug task force areas. This will ensure the cycle of trauma and drug addiction is dismantled.

Longer term, the State needs to address addiction solely as a public health issue similar to alcohol and cigarettes. The war on drugs has failed. Criminalisation of addiction has not worked. It only leads to criminals controlling the industry, drug-related violence, stigma, marginalisation, and prison sentences. In no way does it assist the person, their family or their community.

Experience since the 1980s has proven that it is essential that practice on the ground must lead to policy change at Government level.

The time is right to build a community-based model that tackles the causes and consequence of the drugs crisis. That model must have real partnership between communities and the State as its cornerstone. Only a model like this can deliver the change so badly needed at local level.

Daithí Doolan is a Dublin City Sinn Féin councillor.

• The fear of violence and corrosive nature of a new emerging drugs trade undermined community solidarity

Historian Dr Tomás Mac Conmara writes about his time in Palestine in light of Israel's current horrific attack on Gaza

A DOUBLE STANDARD AT THE HEART OF WESTERN POLITICS

Over recent weeks, as events in Gaza unfolded, I listened carefully to the words of many. Words of Israelis. Words of Palestinians. Media words. Words of an American President. Words of European leaders and of course, words of those in political leadership in Ireland. All these words are important. Words matter and words spoken at such times matter intensely. Words form stories and stories form narratives. Narratives form impressions. When unchallenged, they can sometimes become the truth. For much of the western media, events in Gaza commenced on 7 October. This of course is not the case.

In 2011, after many years of instinctive support for the Palestinian cause, I made the decision to travel there. I had read many books and studied the history of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet, I still understood little. I have always lived according to the principle that to know a place, to know its past or understand its present, one must get as close to the ground as possible.

So, to bear witness to Palestinian suffering and to observe for myself, the true reality of occupation, I arranged a journey there, with the help of those involved in Palestinian solidarity.

Officially part of a ‘Holy Land’ tour, I, and others, had arranged to be privately taken to various locations where we would be exposed to the daily reality for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. While it was ten days of intense revelation, three experiences burned their way into my memory. In recent weeks, they have played on my mind.

Four days into my stay there, I found myself in the outskirts of Bethlehem, where I sat with a family of Palestinians, invited by their daughter Rania upon her realization of my interest in oral history and memory. Her father, a calm man with a direct but friendly countenance, was a supporter of Fatah. Her mother, a gentle and del-

icately quiet woman, told how her brother was a member of Hamas and had been in jail for 15 years.

One daughter wore the traditional clothing of her Islamic faith while declaring her socialist political outlook. Rania wore her uncovered brown hair down and spoke of her interest in rock music and bands like Rage Against the Machine. A very different reality to the characterization of the Muslim family presented often in western media. A happy unity of difference, drawn together through the powerful cohesion of family, in addition to the common and resolute desire for their own freedom and that of their people.

Martin was defiant in Kyiv, asserting he would ‘make no apology for speaking the truth about Russia’s immoral and illegal war

When our meal was finished, I was brought to an adjacent small apartment. In there was the true reason for my visit, the 93-year-old grandfather of Rania. Having explained my work in oral history, it was immediately arranged that I would meet her ‘Seedo’ (grandfather).

I first saw his long legs reaching out from the chair where he sat, reading a book. His name was Yousef. He extended a hand as well a broad inviting smile. He could easily have been any of the hundreds of old men I had interviewed since my teenage years in Ireland. But Yousef was born in Palestine. He spoke no English and I no Arabic. Yet for over an hour, through the mediation of his granddaughter, we talked. I listened carefully to his words and although not understanding his language, could easily discern from the way he spoke, the quiet

• Words are important — the western media narratives purport that events in Gaza commenced on 7 October. This of course is not the case

lament, embedded in his voice, words and expression.

He spoke about his childhood when he lived close to his Jewish neighbours. They exchanged gifts, cared for each other’s children, and lived in peace. Then the Zionists came. Then 1948 came. Then the Nakba came. The Zionists, whose radical movement led to the forcible creation of the Israeli state were different to Yousef’s Jewish neighbours.

To create the state of Israel, the Zionists destroyed over 530 Palestinian villages. One of those villages, AlMirr in the Jaffa district, would later be converted into what is now Tel Aviv. No trace of Al-Mirr now exists, except in the memories and tradition of those whose native place it was, like Yousef.

In 1948, approximately 13,000 Palestinians were killed by Zionist forces. Two of those were Yousef’s parents. Two more were his uncles and another, his aunt. More than 750,000 were expelled from their homes during that time. Yousef was just one of those driven from his home. He referred to this time as ‘al Nakba’, the Arabic term for ‘catastrophe’, the word chosen to characterize the moment their history changed. From that moment, until the day I listened to Yousef, he had not seen his home. Yousef’s words matter.

Days later, while moving between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, we arrived at one of innumerable Israeli checkpoints. Buses carrying tourists would not be delayed we were told. Visitors to the public face of Israel would be given a comforting experience. However, those on the bus could easily see that it was different for native Palestinians. They were not waved through.

Palestinians on their way to work, had to move to the right of the road and form a long line through a narrow steel pin, whereupon Israeli soldiers would decide if and when they would continue. Before our bus proceeded quickly past this apartheid spectacle, both a man from Belfast and I decided to alight the bus and joined the train of Palestinians.

There is no symmetry of experience between an occupier and the occupied

Immediately ahead of us, an old woman in traditional Arabic dress made her way glacially towards the military checkpoint. We walked slowly behind her. When she finally made her way to the barrier, she was pushed back by Israeli soldiers, who it seemed to me did not even listen to her request to pass. The old woman began to cry and exclaim words in Arabic, while pointing towards the other side of the barricade.

We were told the woman was over 80 and came to that checkpoint every day. She was a native of a village called Ein Karem near Jerusalem, which had been taken over in 1948 and had since been denied the right of return. Her vigil to a miliary checkpoint was her daily act of defiance. Her words, we were told were simple and repeated, ‘My eyes burn to see my home’. The old woman’s words matter.

The third experience which has remained deeply

• Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar — “unreservedly condemned the Hamas attack”, while they were “deeply concerned” about the Israel bombardment of Gaza

embedded in my memory was a protest I attended in a place called Bil’in, west of Ramallah. There, we joined many others who had come to support Palestinians. There we approached an Israeli settlement. There we were fired on by Israeli soldiers.

There we stood beside brave Israeli Jews who opposed their state’s occupation of Palestine. There, a Brazilian woman was shot in the face with a rubber bullet close to where I stood. There I met Ahmed. He was a 32-yearold Palestinian, who each Friday walked towards that settlement in protest. After the turbulence and violence of the protest was over, Ahmed told me how part of the settlement we had just observed, fortified by Israeli military and filled with Israeli settlers, had once been his father’s farm.

The land had been forcibly taken from his father who was killed during the episode, some 15 years previously. The common bond of farming and that simple and relatable injustice created a connection with Ahmed, which we maintained through email over the years.

In January of this year, I discovered that Ahmed was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in front of his son near his home in Ramallah. He was the 13 Palestinian killed in the first 15 days of 2023.

This was ten months before events on 7 October.

Ahmed was a young man. He was the son of a murdered father. He is now the murdered father of a son. His death joins seamlessly with the countless thousands in Gaza, which result not from any event on 7 October, but from the continuing occupation and the willingness of the global politic to allow and in many ways, enable its perpetuation. Ahmed’s words matter.

In April 2022, I listened to the words of the then Taoiseach and current Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, as he was unequivocal in his support for Ukraine. On behalf of Ireland, he declared to President Vladimir Zelensky, “We stand with Ukraine”.

Later Martin was defiant in Kyiv, asserting he would “make no apology for speaking the truth about Russia’s immoral and illegal war”. Just 18 months later, as the number of Palestinian children in Gaza blown apart by Israeli

bombs reached over 5,000, Micheál Martin was pointedly less strident in his choice of words.

Diplomatic language would be better, we were told. The use of unequivocal rhetoric applied to encourage Ukraine’s resistance of a month-old Russian occupation was markedly absent when it came to Palestine’s right to resist a near eight-decade oppression.

The Tánaiste is of course joined by his Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, and all government Ministers, who “unreservedly condemned the Hamas attack”, while they were “deeply concerned” about the Israel bombardment of Gaza.

The inability of those in power to summon the conviction to confront the reality of a patently brutal and deliberate slaughter will reverberate across time

Words matter. They matter when they are arranged into statements by western political leaders that frame the violence as symmetrical. There is no symmetry of experience between an occupier and the occupied. No symmetry between one of the world most powerful military machines, operating with outright immunity, and those who they have the power to starve at will.

With this explicit double standard echoed by western political leaders, one can only infer that the lives of Palestinians mean less to certain political leaders, including our own. Words matter. The focus of western words on events of 7 October are deliberate and revealing. Such concentration of the events of that day, bely the reality that before the seventh day of October, there was a sixth. Following this inversion of the Gregorian calendar reveals 75 years of days, back to the Nakba, each day an experience of occupation, in the name of Israeli security.

History, the Roman philosopher Cicero declared, is the teacher of life. My experience as a historian has

shown me that very little remains truly lost to the past. Statements made and positions taken by political leaders in 2023 will echo throughout history.

The inability of those in power to summon the conviction to confront the reality of a patently brutal and deliberate slaughter, will reverberate across time. When such cowardice of words is aligned with a hypocrisy that has never been so explicit, the nature of the historic moment becomes even more profound. We have witnessed all forms of masks slip and all arrangements of words fail to conceal the reality of a double standard at the heart of western politics.

That double standard underscores a deep and profound malady and only contributes to Israel’s siege mentality, delaying the inevitable realisation that one day must come. The root cause of the seemingly inexorable violence is, and always has been, the illegal occupation of Palestine territory as reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 2334.

There is but one practical and ethical alternative to the Israeli state’s apparent determination to wipe out Palestine. That is a recognition of their humanity; their essential quality as human beings and their right to self-determination. This will come with a recognition that the same shackles that imprison Palestinians are also the fetters that tie Israel to a future with no peace, if peace is what they want.

Until there is single standard in international relations and until the outrage of western political leaders is applied equally on behalf of Palestinians as it is on behalf of Ukrainians and Israelis, the suffering of all will continue. Until then on every level, moral, political, or diplomatic, his and the words of his fellow leaders only damage. But they will be remembered.

It is a gripping reality that soon there will be no Palestinian on earth who will have ever lived a day of freedom in their lives

Yousef is now dead. Likely, so too is the old woman at the barricade. Their memories of a free Palestine in their youth vanish with them. It is a gripping reality that soon there will be no Palestinian on earth who will have ever lived a day of freedom in their lives.

Not one man or woman, from the age of 75 to the babies now struggling for life in Egyptian hospitals, or those under rubble in Gaza have lived one day of freedom. Not one day. Like every human being, they were born with the right to dignity, the prize we are told is the preserve of every human in the 21st century. Yet, it is denied.

I will never forget my experience in Palestine, where being closer to the ground helped me understand the resolute determination of its people. In that ground today are buried over 28,000 new victims of an old injustice, each burial planting seeds of memory that for generations will endure. The use of words to bury the truth behind their deaths will be remembered. Words matter.

Tomás Mac Conmara is an award-winning oral historian and author from County Clare

BLÚIRÍNÍ BEAGA GAEILGE

LITTLE NUGGETS OF GAEILGE AN PHALAISTÍN | PALESTINE

As part of our ongoing commitment to enhance Irish language use, we are including these Blúiríní Beaga Gaeilge – Little nuggets of Gaeilge. In this issue, we have two articles about

the crisis in Gaza and Palestine. This issue’s nuggets offer some key phrases as Gaeilge that readers could substitute in conversation instead of the usual English. See how you go.

Seasaimis leis an bPalaistín | Let’s stand with Palestine shah-sih-meesh lehsh uhn bah-lish-teen

Saoirse don Phalaistín | Free Palestine sare-sha duhn fah-lish-teen

Sos cogaidh buan anois | A permanent ceasefire now suhs cuh-gig boo-ahn ah-nish

Cuir deireadh leis an bhforghabháil | End the occupation kuhr deh-reh lesh uhn vur-guh-wall Stad an slad | Stop the devastation stahd uhn slahd

Remembering Refaat Alareer

writer, teacher, thinker, intellectual, community worker and leader

Diarmaid Pléimionn gives a personal reflection on the Palestinian writer and activist who was killed by a targeted Israeli missile on 7 December

When Dr Refaat Alareer was assassinated on 7 December, the Israeli war machine took from the people of Gaza a man whose legacy will remain a living inspiration to Palestinians and the oppressed everywhere. The Israeli armed forces savagery that scars humanity rages on, with western funding, bombs, and political complicity. The response far and wide to Refaat’s death shows that it is Israeli barbarism which is losing. The reality of its brutality is now understood by more across the world.

The people who struggle the most have the most to say, their experiences forged through resistance in stories that the powerful don’t want to be heard. Some generations are blessed with those with special talents, who lead and inspire. Refaat was one such shining generational jewel for the Palestinians.

For many, Refaat became the voice of Gaza through his writing and lectures and prolific presence online

The Israelis knew his brilliance too, and so targeted and assassinated him. With their customary arrogant cruelty, they warned him online and by phone several times that they planned to kill him. He had been sheltering in a school, but fearing his presence would endanger others, he took refuge in his sister’s apartment in Shajaiya, a stronghold of Gaza’s resistance and the place where he was born.

The strike killed Refaat, along with his sister, her four children, and another brother. Refaat, 44, leaves a wife and six children, aged 7 to 21. Compare the poet and his killer; the Palestinian writer, teacher, thinker, intellectual, community worker and leader who inspired a generation – and an anonymous

Israeli military moron mass-killer, directing a drone with a computer mouse to destroy life and beauty in a click.

Son of a labourer, Refaat’s academic brilliance shone early. A journey of study took him from Gaza, to London and Malaysia where he gained a PhD in English literature, then back to Gaza where he became Professor of Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza.

English he saw as providing a bridge between his beloved Gaza and its people to the wider world. For many, Refaat became the voice of Gaza through his writing and lectures and prolific presence online.

An intellectual powerhouse with the deep political cultural and understanding of Gaza, his skills could interpret for the world the experience and emotions of the Palestinian people. Refaat, I doubt ever held a gun, but his weapon of choice was the written and spoken word and his ammunition his intellect, eloquence, and beautiful writing. English gave him a much larger stage, helped by the internet.

Gaza produces legions of doctors, engineers, and thinkers. Every one of their academic achievements an expression of resistance in itself, given the obstacles they face from Israeli policies and aggression seeking to destroy them.

For that reason too, universities and schools have

• Refaat was a master of the craft of writing and teaching, his brilliance will live on not only through his lectures and writings, but also how he allowed others to shine

been destroyed by Netanyahu’s barbarians, soldiers cackling like jackals as places of learning and study are felled in controlled explosions by the yobs in uniform. While attacks on education in Afghanistan are condemned in the West, there’s silence about Israel using western-supplied weapons to do the same in Gaza.

Just as Ireland’s culture has been a well of inspiration for us, Gaza boasts its own rich and distinctive traditions too, in storytelling, music, and dance. The Dabke for exam-

ple like a big céilí or set-dancing to jigs, reels and slides. From this rich culture, Refaat empowered many other young Palestinians in a community where education is nurtured and treasured.

A master of the craft of writing and teaching, his brilliance will live on through his lectures and writings, but Refaat’s mission was to empower others. In the book of short stories, ‘Gaza Writes Back’, which he edited in 2014, Refaat contributes some of his own, but allows others to shine from its pages.

Gaza produces legions of doctors, engineers and thinkers. Every one of their academic achievements an expression of resistance in itself

The book brought to the world the inspiring talent that has been forged in the written word by a community where resistance runs everywhere. In a place where simply existing has become in itself an act of defiance in the face of brutal genocidal war, the creative beauty of the stories written by his students is a supreme expression of resilience. Every word and line of each story shows how the Palestinian spirit burns, despite the western-sponsored Israeli brutality.

The book has more by women writers than men. “For the first time in the Palestinian struggle for independence, the young women take the lead in this form of resistance as female writers outnumbered male writers”,

• As one young writer said so powerfully, “When they killed Refaat, they created thousands of new Refaats”

wrote Refaat, “Those young female writers who started as bloggers believed it was time to have their say and contribute to standing by their people against the cruelty of the occupation by any means possible.” Writers can therefore become warriors – harnessing the power of the mind as a weapon against oppression.

Refaat’s articles were published widely, and he was a writer for the Electronic Intifada, the resistance website with a wealth of information, news, and discussion essential for those interested in the Palestinian people and their struggle.

A commemorative online session it hosted for Refaat days after his death ran for hours. Tributes of wonderful eloquence in the English language flowed. The words of his many former students a living testament of Refaat’s life’s work. As one young writer said so powerfully, “When they killed Refaat, they created thousands of new Refaats”. People like him inspired by Refaat to write, the soul and spirit of Gaza speaking to the world with a voice heard above the language of Israeli government aggression, which speaks with missiles and 2,000 pound bombs.

My own contact with Refaat began via a friend in Gaza after reading a stunning piece he wrote for the New York Times on Israel’s war in 2021. I needed that day an essay of around 1000 words to describe the situation there for a radio programme. Telling me he’d never done a piece for radio, I was nervous with the deadline later that day. I need not have worried, an email came back just a few hours later with an essay of the most beautiful, exquisite writing, a master at work. He recorded his piece into an iPhone and sent it by email.

“It’s the Blitz all over again. It’s a tsunami. This is Gaza. After 11 days of Israeli nonstop bombardment, it is quiet now in Gaza. We can hear the sparrows. The stray dogs, the street vendors, and the Israeli drones ploughing their way into our nights and thoughts,” his

piece began, his voice heard across Ireland and beyond.

I read it back just this week. That war provoked serious international concern, but the casualties then for that entire war – 256 –are now often exceeded in just a single day, a measure of the barbaric racist violence Israel is inflicting on the people of Gaza. When we spoke, he had deep knowledge of Ireland, saying Irish history and solidarity from Ireland for Palestine gives strength and inspiration to his people. He told me that he was inspired by Ireland’s “rebel songs” and the defiance they express. During air raids back then, his family played the songs at home as Israeli bombs and missiles fell nearby. I asked him his favourite, “Go on home, British soldiers. Go on home”, he replied. “The Brits are replaced with Israelis in the Gaza version,” he laughed.

We kept in touch, and I’d send him links or photos of Irish-Palestinian solidarity. But when the present war began, there could be long silences before he’d respond, an experience I have had with other friends there too, not least due to Israel shutting off internet communications to Gaza.

He told me that he was inspired by Ireland’s “rebel songs” and the defiance they express. During air raids back then, his family played the songs at home as Israeli bombs and missiles fell nearby

At times I feared the worst, particularly after online rumours early in the war that he’d died when a relative’s house was targeted. But then he reappeared, like the spirit of Palestinian resistance which cannot be extinguished. So, when more reports swirled online in early December, I hoped it would be the same, but this time, the dreadful rumours were true. “They have taken Refaat from us,” wrote one, as the tributes began to pour in online.

Refaat was a volunteer at the Gaza Zoohis final appearance on television was in an Al Jazeera report about the animals there, in which he described how many had died or had become demented or were starving due to Israel’s war.

My last message to him – a fine piece in the Clare Champion by Dr Tomas Mac Conmara about the Palestinian cause – was sent on the day he died and was unopened (This article is also carried in this issue of An Phoblacht see page 26).

The dream of one day bringing him to Ireland will not now happen, but his spirit lives with us. He knew his writing put him in the crosshairs of murderers, and penned a poem about what we should do if he died. ‘If I Must Die’, recorded online by Scottish actor Brian Cox, says it all. Let it be a story. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis. 

'If I Must Die' by Refaat Alareer

If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze — and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself — sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above, and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love. If I must die let it bring hope, let it be a story.

HAVING YOUR SAY ON THE FUTURE IRELAND

THE COMMISSION ON THE FUTURE OF IRELAND

A YEAR OF LISTENING, DISCUSSING AND LETTING PEOPLE HAVE THEIR SAY

BY EMMA McARDLE

The past year has seen Sinn Féin’s Commission on the Future of Ireland initiate a mammoth grassroots consultation with the people of Ireland.

I have been ‘on the road’ with the Commission and want to share what’s been learned through the People’s Assemblies and other public events, and where the discussions on constitutional change currently sit in the public discourse.

I have attended almost all of the events organised under the auspices of the Commission. Each event is unique and has its own local flavour, but every event has presented an impressive panel of guest speakers and been attended by people from a broad range of backgrounds.

Our People’s Assemblies are characterised by the huge level of interaction between the panel, chairperson, and audience.

These are not intended to be meetings where the audience sits passively listening to what the panel says. The theme of these meetings is ‘Have Your Say’ and right from the outset the audience is encouraged by the chairperson play an active part in the meeting. Often, more time is devoted to hearing contributions from the floor than what the panel might have to say.

What’s the point of being a great place to do business when children are waiting five years to fix a scoliosis?

The result is a free flowing, interesting, and genuine exercise in participatory democracy. Through these fluid meetings, I have listened to deeply personal contributions from speakers who have been empowered to articulate fears, hopes, vulnerabilities and frailties.

Many times, I felt the white heat fury at how people are being treated. In the Ireland of 2024, your life experience will be largely determined by the economic circumstances you’re born into.

Disability rights activist Mo Farah attended the Donegal People’s Assembly. He addressed the meeting saying, “I recommend the future united Ireland will remove the barriers for people with disabilities and make it inclusive for all people within the country.

“I am a migrant person and I come from Somalia, we are war torn and there is fighting and conflict and everyone who is coming to this country are not coming to relax.

“I left when my life was threatened. I had a good life in my country, I had a car, I was leading a big organisation which advocates for people with disabilities and elderly people.

“The reason I come here to Ireland, to join the people of Ireland is to survive myself. So, I think we need the future of United Ireland to make sure that every person has a right to make a better life in this country.

“I know you are already assured of some kind of equality because I am here. I am a migrant, I’m black and I’m also disabled using a wheelchair. So, what I have seen so far is positive because I was invited here to speak in front of you, to listen, to contribute and that’s what you want Ireland to be in the future. Thank you so much.”

I don’t know any more about Mo

'I equate going to the parades with going to a GAA match, we meet up and speak to other families' — Catherine Cooke, Foyle Women’s Information Coordinator

People’s Assembly, Matthew Carville had a different way of looking at things, saying, “Growth for growth’s sake is not a suitable instrument to measure quality of life. In a united Ireland we must look at some of the other crises around us including the climate and ecological crises. It’s biophysically impossible to sustain an economic growth system based on a finite eco system. We can’t sustain a united Ireland on a dead planet.”

It put me in mind of comments made by the then Taoiseach Enda Kenny around 2012, that Ireland was ‘the best small country in the world to do business’.

These words may well have been accurate, but what’s the point of being a great place to do business when children are waiting five years to fix a scoliosis? Shouldn’t a buoyant economy make things

The new united Ireland has to be about much more than a flourishing economy. Of course, that’s important, vital even, but the gains made have to be used to make life better for everybody. That will be the measure of our new national democracy – that it delivers for the vulnerable and leaves nobody behind.

In October 2023, the Commission hosted an event in Derry entitled ‘Exploring Northern Protestant Culture and Identity’. This was a more intimate meeting and the first Commission event in which the Chairperson and panellists were all from the Protestant section of our people.

It was a unique event because it was an all-female top table, neither of the two panellists were in favour of Irish unity and they openly challenged some of the decisions made by Sinn Féin councillors locally.

I found it exciting that these women, all community workers, felt comfortable and confident enough to do ‘a bit of giving out’, albeit in a wholly respectful way, at a Sinn Féin meeting.

And I listened intently to what they had to say, because, in the North, it’s rare to get the opportunity to hear a viewpoint that’s the opposite of your own, delivered in a calm, coherent, dignified and sensible manner. The Twitterati might shout the loudest, but they haven’t got the most to say.

Catherine Cooke stated that she loves the 12th July events and

If Sinn Féin is about building a new republic, then the Orange tradition has to have a place in it. The identity of British people from the North has to be respected

watching the parades saying, “I equate going to the parades with going to a GAA match, we meet up and speak to other families.”

She said parades and bands are a big part of her life, with her husband, grandson and daughters all taking part. She said her mum used to knit Union Jack cardigans for the parades, “Like you do for St Patrick’s Day”.

Allison Wallace said that “Irishness is seen as a threat to Britishness and I’m sorry that this has happened. The main challenge is positive leadership; I am fed up with men shouting ‘No’.”

Allison went on to say that she is not bothered about the Windsor Framework as she is more concerned that her daughter is waiting on an autism ASD assessment for the past two years, due to the stalemate and no functioning government department.

If Sinn Féin is about building a new republic, then the Orange tradition has to have a place in it. The identity of British people from the North has to be respected and those customs, language, and heritage of the Ulster Scots should be celebrated and respected.

For me, the decision by the Commission to give space to alternative voices is one of its greatest strengths and is a true measure of confident political leadership.

In 2024, against a backdrop of relentless elections across two jurisdictions, the Commission will continue to do its work.

There are People’s Assemblies planned to take place in this country and also in Canada and North America.

There is no end date for the Commission. These conversations need to keep happening and I hope that as long as people are talking, Sinn Féin will continue to provide this space for them to do so.

Emma McArdle is a Campaign and Policy Manager on Sinn Féin’s United Ireland Project

BRITISH ‘LEGACY LAW’

BURIES FAMILIES’ HOPE

FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE

An Phoblacht’s PEADAR WHELAN looks at the British Government’s agenda in passing the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, whose purpose is to conceal the role of not only Britain’s armed forces in the conflict in Ireland, but also the brutal and deadly counter-insurgency war waged against the nationalist community during those years.

In an Orwellian twist that only a cynical arrogant British government could conjure up, they titled their legislation dealing with the past conflict in the Six Counties the ‘Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill’. It is none of these of these things.

Passed into law in the British Parliament in early September 2023, the only reconciliation the legislation managed to bring about was to unite all strands of political thought in Ireland in opposition to the bill, albeit from different political standpoints.

The British ‘legacy bill’ proposes to halt criminal investigations, civil proceedings, inquests, investigations by the Police Ombudsman and any other investigation or inquiry into the Northern conflict.

That the legislation is being used to ‘bury the truth’ has stirred anger across the country and forced the Dublin government, under pressure from Sinn Féin and rights bodies, to take an interstate case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The court revealed, on Friday 19 January, that the case has been formally launched.

The Legacy Bill originated when Boris Johnston was Prime Minister. The British Government published its “Legacy Proposals” in July 2021, outlining plans for an ‘amnesty bill’. At the time, it was coming under pressure from a British military establishment enraged that the North’s Director of Public Prosecutions had the temerity to charge a number of British soldiers with conflict related killings.

Speaking in Westminster in July 2021, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed: “The sad fact remains that there are many members of the armed services who continue to face the threat of vexatious prosecutions well into their 70s and 80s”. Johnson added that, “We are finally bringing forward a solution to this problem, to enable the people of Northern Ireland to draw a line under the Troubles and to enable the people of Northern Ireland to move forward.”

Much of the focus at the time was on the trial of former Life Guard regiment soldier Dennis Hutchings, who had been charged with shooting Tyrone man John Pat Cunningham in 1974. The 27-year-old, who had learning difficulties, was shot in the back and died of his wounds.

Hutchings, who would die in October 2021 while his trial was underway, was the cause celebre of a coalition of British military figures and veterans’ organisations, the British right, Northern Unionists and, needless to say, voices in the English news media who would decry the idea of ‘veterans being dragged from their beds to face vexatious charges, while republicans were given immunity’.

This victim complex was reinforced as members of the Parachute Regiment were also facing charges in relation to two killings on Bloody Sunday in Derry and the shooting of 'Official IRA' Volunteer Joe McCann in Belfast, also in 1972.

Kitson’s legacy of murder and collusion

The recent death of former British Army officer General Frank Kitson prompted a series of obituaries, and in some cases eulogies. Two words cross these accounts of Kitson’s life – ‘controversial’ and ‘notorious’.

Kitson was both these things and much more. He was also rewarded and promoted because of them. Innocent nationalists across the Six Counties died

• BLOODY SUNDAY – Kitson used British troops to terrorise nationalist and republican communities

because of them in three decades of the conflict. Kitson was given medals and a knighthood because of actions such as the massacres of Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy. Kitson received a CBE in 1972 for his ‘gallantry’ in Six Counties.

In 1982, he was promoted to Commander-in-Chief Land Forces, another reward from the British state that had no issues with his controversial and no-

Ironically, in early May 2023, as the bill was being fast-tracked, the trial of the paratroopers charged with the McCann killing collapsed. Subsequently, charges against two paratroopers over the killings of Patrick Doherty and William McKinney on Bloody Sunday were dropped. However, the Public Prosecution Service later reinstated charges against Soldier F after an appeal and a court ruled in December 2023 that he will face trial with a date to be set.

The British ‘legacy bill’ proposes to halt criminal investigations, civil proceedings, inquests, investigations by the Police Ombudsman and any other investigation or inquiry into the Northern conflict

The furore over these ‘vexatious’ investigations and the ‘persecution of veterans’ needless to say created more heat than light. It was the classical conjurors trick, get you to look the other way as he pulls your card from his top pocket!

At the time the legislation was being promoted in 2021, the British government was being challenged in Belfast’s High Court over

its refusal to implement the 2014 Stormont House Agreement (SHA). The abandoned agreement, endorsed by all the North’s political parties, the Dublin and British governments, and underwritten by the United States was seen as the mechanism that would, finally, provide victims and survivors with a way of dealing with legacy issues.

Unsurprisingly, the Tories stalled, refusing to enact the necessary legislation and effectively mothballed the Agreement.

That inaction was at the heart of a legal challenge taken by Thomas Braniff, whose father David was shot dead by loyalists in 1989. Despite commitments to enact the SHA legislation, the British refused to do so.

The court heard that despite promises made by then British Secretary of State Julian Smith in the New Decade New Approach deal of January 2020 to legislate for the SHA within 100 days the British government reneged once again.

Smith was subsequently sacked by Boris Johnson to be replaced by Brandon Lewis and the SHA was unilaterally dumped.

As well as the opposition from the parties in the North and groups advocating on behalf of victims and survivors, the British government is also facing international criticism.

In September 2021, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic told then British Secretary of State Brandon Lewis that, “Rather than upending previously agreed approaches

“There will be no sadness at the passing of Frank Kitson in Derry, Ballymurphy or in any other community where he plied his evil trade, leaving a trail of devastation behind”

Tony Doherty, chairperson of the Bloody Sunday Trust.

torious tactics, that accepted state-sanctioned murder as an operational norm in Ireland.

Kitson’s strategies and tactics became central to Britain’s military operations in Ireland from 1969 when British soldiers were first redeployed on the streets.

Kitson was central to Britain’s counterinsurgency, using regiments like the Paratroopers to terrorise the nationalist and republican communities of the Six Counties.

Alongside this, Kitson’s covert counterinsurgency strategies earned him more

• 27-year-old Tyrone man John Pat Cunningham, who had learning difficulties, was shot in the back and died of his wounds in 1974

notoriety. He established the Military Reaction Force (MRF) as a prototype counterinsurgency gang, incorporated the loyalist death squads into the British military framework, and employed Britain’s intelligence services in the fight to defeat republican resistance.

At the time of his death, Kitson was being sued by the family of Patrick Heenan, killed in 1973 by a UDA gang led by Albert ‘Ginger’ Baker. A British soldier, Baker received specialist training in covert warfare by both US Special

[i.e. the SHA], I urge [you] to focus on concrete action to remove barriers to a human rights compliant approach”.

Previously a 36-member group of US Congress members signed a letter telling then Prime Minster Boris Johnston “not to renege on commitments to the Stormont House Agreement”. However, the decision by the Dublin government to file its interstate case seems to have rattled the British most.

When Dublin issued proceedings against the British legacy plans in December 2023, it received the backing of campaigners and rights organisations such as Amnesty International. The interstate case according to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is based on the “Attorney General’s very strong advice that the UK Legacy Act is in breach of the UN Convention on Human Rights”.

The Dublin challenge also argues that the legislation is “incompatible with the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights”.

The challenge has provoked anger among both the British government and Northern Unionists. British Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris said it was “unnecessary” and “misguided” before accusing Dublin of double standards, saying “We believe the Irish government’s stated position on dealing with legacy issues is inconsistent and hard to reconcile with its own record”.

The issue was raised again in a recent phone call between current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. According to a British statement on the 30 January call, Sunak “ex-

forces and the SAS and was operating as part of Kitson’s doctrine, the 'pacification' of Ireland.

From the Falls Curfew of 1970, the introduction of interment in ‘71, McGurk’s Bar Bombing in December ‘71, Bloody Sunday, and the Springhill Massacre of July ’72, through to the undercover operations of the Force Research Unit and ongoing collusion, the sinews of Kitson’s Low-Intensity Operations are the strategic framework within which British political policy was formed.

• Boris Johnson

• Rishi Sunak

• Chris Heaton-Harris

• Julian Smith

• The scene after the Sean Graham’s Bookies killings on the Lower Ormeau Road, Belfast, February 1992

pressed his disappointment at the timing and course of action in December, coming at such a sensitive time”.

While British military figures and Tories argue that the legislation is the best way to ‘put the past behind us’, the real driver behind it is to stop all and any investigations into the culpability of the British state and its dirty war in the North, as well as the role the state played in covering up incidents such as the Ballymurphy killings.

The Operation Achilles report revealed the extent to which the British Army and intelligence agencies aided loyalist death squads in carrying out multiple killings of nationalists and republicans

In May 2002, just weeks before Boris Johnson’s July 2021 legacy proposals were tabled the North’s coroner Mrs Justice Keegan declared that 10 people killed by the Parachute Regiment in August 1971 in Ballymurphy were unjustifiably killed, exposing the lengths to which the British military and political authorities went in covering up the actions of the killers.

Added to this are Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson’s 2022 reports into multiple killings carried out by loyalist gangs in South Belfast. Focusing on the Sean Graham’s Bookies killings

of 1992 and 18 killings in the County Derry/South West Antrim area, the reports found “collusion behaviours” between British forces and loyalist groups, a tolerance of “serious criminality and murder’ by informants”. The concerns of the survivors and bereaved families were “legitimate and justified”.

The Operation Achilles report revealed the extent to which the British Army and intelligence agencies aided loyalist death squads in carrying out multiple killings of nationalists and republicans across the North.

By coincidence, two of the men whose names are most associated with Britain’s military repression died at the end of November 2023.

Colonel Derek Wilford commanded the Paras who carried out the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry, while General Frank Kitson died in early January 2024.

Notoriously, Wilford, who was decorated by the British state, refused to accept the reality that troops under his command gunned down unarmed civilians and is on record as saying “We were under attack”.

The death of Kitson saw the passing of one of the main British military counter-insurgency strategists. He famously wrote: “The law should be used as just another weapon in the government's arsenal, in which case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public." In the case of the Tory legacy bill the law is being used as a weapon to suppress the truth about how the British state ‘disposed of’ people in Ireland. 

• Victims groups protest against the British secretary of states failure to deal with legacy issues, January 2018

General Mike Jackson, also involved in Bloody Sunday wrote of Kitson that he “was the sun around which the planets revolved and very much set the tone for the operational style” in the North. Jackson was revealing the centrality of Britain’s ‘dirty war’ in the North.

Kitson’s tactics in Ireland had been also used by him in Kenya, during the Mau Mau uprising, and in Malaya and Cyprus.

• General Mike Jackson

Final words here go to Tony Doherty, Chair of the Bloody Sunday Trust. In a widely reported statement, he said, “There will be no sadness at the passing of Frank Kitson in Derry, Ballymurphy or in any other community where he plied his evil trade, leaving a trail of devastation behind. Kitson, in his blind pursuit of defending the crown’s interests, made no distinction between civilian and combatant as he honed his skills in applying torture, internment and death from Kenya to Aden and then to Ireland”. 

Ní féidir an phleanáil d’Aontacht na hÉireann a sheachaint a thuilleadh

LE COLMÁN MAC AN CHROSÁIN

Ní bheidh smacht iomlán ag muintir an tuaiscirt ar ár dtodhchaí socheacnamaíoch féin agus muid fós faoi thoil pé rialtas atá i gcumhacht i Westminster.

Fiú dá mbeadh an Tionól agus an feidhmeannas athbhunaithe, bheadh sé i gcoinne chúlra pholasaithe anás Westminster le deich mbliana anuas agus easpa infheistíochta inár seirbhísí poiblí agus inár n-infreastruchtúr dá bharr. Ní féidir leis an phacáiste airgeadais a d’fhógair rialtas na Breataine a chinntiú go ndéanfar na hinstitiúidí a athbhunú ar bhonn inbhuanaithe. Ní leor é chun an ghéarchéim sna hearnálacha sláinte, oideachais agus seirbhísí poiblí eile a shárú. Ní leor é chun comhaontuithe pá oibrithe na hearnála poiblí a chomhlíonadh.

Agus na príomhluamháin fhioscacha coimeádta ag Westminster, is léir gur teoranta iad na féidearthachtaí atá ag an Tionól ó thuaidh athruithe dearfacha socheacnamaíocha a chur i bhfeidhm.

Cé go soláthraíonn An Prótocal - lena rochtain ar an dá mhargadh - roinnt buntáistí uathúla eacnamaíochta do gheilleagar an tuaiscirt agus an oileáin go léir, is beag iad i gcomparáid leis an mhéid a d’fhéadfaí a bhaint amach i ngeilleagar comhtháite uile-Éireann laistigh den AE.

San am a chuaigh thart ba é an NHS, saor ag an phointe seachadta, a luadh mar phríomhbhuntáiste mór chun an

Aontas leis an Bhreatain a choinneáil. Níl an t-údar bróid seo á dhéanamh a thuilleadh!

Cruthaíonn Aontacht na hÉireann an deis córas sláinte uile-oileáin a fhorbairt saor in aisce ag an phointe seachadta mar gheall ar bharainneachtaí scála agus de bharr coigiltis a bheadh ann de bharr nach mbeadh sainseirbhísí á ndúbláil gan ghá a thuilleadh. I gcásanna gur baineadh triail as cúram sláinte a sholáthar ar bhonn trasteorann/uile-Éireann - ar nós cúram péidiatrach, nó cúram ailse - tá feabhas mór tagtha ar sheirbhísí agus ar thorthaí.

Argóint rílárnach eile a dhéantar i gcoinne Aontacht na hÉireann ná go gcaillfí an fóirdheontas ó Londain dá bharr. Mar sin féin, níl an t-easnamh idir an fóirdheontas seo agus an méid a thuilleann rialtas na Breataine anseo trí chánacha agus fáltais VAT chomh leathan agus a mhaíonn Aontachtaithe.

Ina theannta sin, léirigh tuarascáil acadúil an tOllamh Kurt Huebner ó Ollscoil Vancouver go n-éireodh níos fearr le comhgheilleagar iomlán na hÉireann ná an dá gheilleagar ar leith scartha, thuaidh agus theas, agus go bhféadfadh sé suas le €35 billiún de thorthaí eacnamaíocha a ghiniúint d’Éirinn bunaithe ar mhúnlaí an staidéir.

Léiríonn tuarascálacha breise ó Gunther Thurmann - a d’oibrigh sa Deasc Gearmánach don Chiste Airgeadaíochta Idirnáisiúnta (IMF) le linn athaontú na Gearmáine, in

éineacht leis an Seanadóir Mark Daly (de Choiste Feidhmithe Aoine an Chéasta san Oireachtas) - gur dócha go dtiocfadh borradh mór faoi aontacht na hÉireann i dtorthaí eacnamaíocha agus ioncaim thuaidh agus theas.

Ó Bhreatimeacht ar aghaidh, tá an bhearna i gcaighdeáin mhaireachtála sa RA i gcomparáid le hÉirinn ag laghdú i gcónaí. Dar leis an Innéacs Forbartha Daonna, a fhéachann ar leibhéil shaibhris, sláinte agus oideachais chun rangú náisiún a oibriú amach, tá Éire anois san 8ú háit sa domhan i gcomparáid leis an RA atá san 18ú háit.

Is mar thoradh ar athruithe eacnamaíocha agus sochaíocha mar seo a bhfuil méadú seasta tagtha ar líon na ndaoine atá oscailte d’aontacht na hÉireann anois agus go leor ó chúlra aontachtach san áireamh. De réir mar a thagann buntáistí Aontacht na hÉireann chun solais, is amhlaidh a bhfuil suim agus plé ar an cheist ag éirí níos príomhshruthaithe.

Bunaíodh an stát críochdheighilte ó thuaidh ar an bhonn go mbeadh tromlach Aontachtach ionsuite aige go buan. Chaill an tAontachtas polaitiúil a thromlach i dtoghchán an Tionóil in 2017 agus tá an treocht sin treisithe arís sna toghcháin is déanaí inar tháinig Sinn Féin chun cinn mar an páirtí is mó.

Agus Sinn Féin ar an pháirtí is mó sna 26 contae anois chomh maith, tá cúrsaí polaitíochta ar fud an oileáin athraithe ó bhonn agus ní aisling bhréige í Éire Aontaithe a thuilleadh.

Tá an t-athrú polaitiúil seo ag cur brú ar pháirtithe eile a n-iarrachtaí a dhíriú ar bhonn uile-Éireann den chéad uair. Tá tionscnamh “Éire Chomhroinnte, Oileán Comhroinnte” a sheol Rialtas na hÉireann i mí Dheireadh Fómhair 2020 mar thoradh ar an athrú seo. Os a choinne sin, tá comhrialtas FF/FG/na nGlasach ag diúltú go fóill Tionól Saoránach a reáchtáil agus páipéar bán a choimisiúnú ar cheist aontacht na hÉireann. Is céimeanna riachtanacha iad seo chun díriú

isteach ar na saincheisteanna go léir a bhainfeadh le hathrú bunreachtúil ar an oileán seo. Tá an obair ullmhúcháin seo de dhíth chun cás dearfach a leagan amach ar son Eireann Aontaithe i dtoghchán na teorann dá bhforáiltear i gcomhaontú Aoine an Chéasta.

Is léir go bhfuil muid ar threocht pholaitiúil agus eacnamaíochta do-athraithe ar an oileán seo a éileofar go gcuirfí tús leis an phleanáil d’Éirinn Aontaithe gan mhoill!

Is cuma cén fáth a bhfuil an comhrialtas ó dheas ag diúltú na gcéimeanna seo a ghlacadh, bíodh sé ag iarraidh an status quo a choinneáil nó mar gheall ar eagla roimh an anaithnid, is léir go bhfuil muid ar threocht pholaitiúil agus eacnamaíochta do-athraithe ar an oileán seo a éileofar go gcuirfí tús leis an phleanáil d’Éirinn Aontaithe gan mhoill!

Idir an dá linn, tá tionóil phobail ar cheist thodhchaí na hÉireann á reáchtáil ag Sinn Féin ar fud na tíre agus tá painéil neamhspleácha ó earnálacha éagsúla na sochaí ag plé na ceiste seo leis an phobal. Go deimhin tá dhá thionól de chuid an Choimisiúin um Thodhchaí an hÉireann ag teannadh linn: Tionól Pobail Thír Eoghain Thiar ar an 27 Feabhra san óstán ‘Fir Trees’, an Srath Bán. Bí páirteach sa díospóireacht chinniúnach seo! 

Colmán Mac an Chrosáin, Ball de Chumann Sinn Féin

Jim McGinn, An Srath Bán, Co. Thír Eoghain

• Bratach ar son Éireann Aontaithe á nochtadh thar dhroichead na Moirne ar an tSrath Bán

MINDING OURSELVES IN 2024

POLITICAL ACTIVISM CAN BE GOOD FOR MENTAL HEALTH

Looking after your mental health is challenging at any time. In this coming year, it might seem more difficult against a backdrop of intensifying international conflicts, increasingly severe climate events, along with an Irish society coping with a range of serious challenges. ANNA CARROLL offers a range of mental help tips including going out election canvassing, leaflet drops, and going to that meeting.

It’s February and we’ve gotten past Blue Monday. It’s now time to think of minding ourselves in 2024. Mental health is not just for January. It is essential to prioritise our wellbeing. Given everything that is going on in the world right now, it’s difficult not to get down. We feel like helpless spectators as ultimately the evils that are occurring in places such as Palestine, Sudan, Yemen, can feel very much out of our control. It doesn’t help that we’re living in an era of non-stop broadcasting from every source. Not just from our televisions and print media, but social media too. We have the most intensive round the clock coverage of war, violence, and human suffering at the touch of our finger. This has the potential to significantly harm our mental

wellbeing. There has to be boundaries and we need to be the ones to set them.

In this age of constant connectivity and information overload, instead of falling into the trap of doom scrolling, (when you binge on news or social media content about negative things) engage in activities that ground you in the present moment, such as breathing exercises, stretches, going for a walk, for a swim, trying out a guided meditation video on YouTube.

While staying informed is important, we know that constant exposure to negative news can take a toll on our mental health. Consider scheduling regular digital detox sessions to disconnect from social media and news updates. You can install apps like AppBlock, Flipd, Freedom or StayFree to limit your time on social media or news sites.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Habits and muscle memory often lead us back to social media even when we’ve decided to take a break. A digital detox can refresh your mind and provide a much-needed break from the relentless stream of information. Use this time to engage in activities that bring you joy, whether it’s reading a book, playing music, being more present with your friends.

As we head into a busy election year, another activity worth

considering is going out on the canvass or maybe a leaflet drop. It’s an opportunity to meet like-minded people and foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie. So, consider joining that march, going to that meeting, catching up with other political activists. Trying to make Ireland and the wider world a better place might just help your own peace of mind too!

If you’re working in an office, it’s also another way to get out of the house and get some steps in. Engaging in political activism can be good for mental health, providing you with a sense of purpose, empowerment, and community connection.

Incorporate positive habits into your daily routine. Maintaining a regular sleep pattern is key. I shut off my phone every night to take away the temptation. I even put an alarm on to remind me it’s time to

turn the phone off! Cooking homemade meals can be therapeutic and a great way to unwind.

Reaching out to others is one of the most powerful things we can do. Isolation can exacerbate our feelings of anxiety and stress and by sharing your thoughts and feelings with others it can make you feel less alone but also strengthen your emotional resilience. Make sure to celebrate small victories along the way and be kind to yourself when faced with setbacks.

If you find yourself struggling to cope with the challenges of the world, seeking professional support is a sign of strength, not weakness. Organisations like Aware, Pieta House, and Samaritans provide helplines, support groups, instant messaging, and counselling services for those struggling. There’s been an increase in people accessing online counselling from providers such as betterhelp.com, which is a more affordable private option and it also offers more accessibility for those with busy schedules as the sessions are done over zoom. The HSE also provides support and your GP can refer you for more specialised services.

So, as we start the new year, prioritise your mental wellbeing. Use mindful practices, adopt positive habits, and connect with others. Remember, taking care of yourself isn’t selfish; it’s a vital investment in your overall happiness and success. So be kind to yourself. 

Anna Carroll is a Digital Media Officer for Sinn Féin.

É Ú Í Óá é ó Á úí

TÁBHACHT AN FADAIMPORTANCE OF FADA

The Government promised that protection of ‘síneadh fada’ in people’s names would become law in Ireland in October, but this still hasn’t come to pass.

As the struggle continues, Sinn Féin TD AENGUS Ó SNODAIGH looks at why the fada is important, especially if you are eating cake, and asks us all to give this a little more attention.

Imagine getting these mixed up in English, some embarrassing moments when you call your ‘Little Princess’ ‘Little Vomit’ and on her birthday you stick the candles on a lump of shite instead of a cake. Your friends would think you odd when you wrote about the liquidizer when you meant the man who gave the lecture.

Just as it doesn’t make sense in English, missing fadas and additional random fadas change the meaning of what is written and therefore read. I will let you figure out which version is correct.

Chaith mé oiche i bhFíonnlann sular fuair mé coiste chuig an ruis, áit mar cóisí bhí mé prás ar an luán ag trialadh na sineach agus na Briotánaigh fainne a thabhairt i dTomás do cait a bhí

Caife (Coffee)

Caifé (Café)

✦

Leachtóir (Liquidizer)

Léachtóir (Lecturer)

Fear (Man)

Féar (Grass)

Caca (Shit)

Cáca (Cake)

Coiste (Committee)

Cóiste (Coach)

Oiche (Armpit)

Coisí (Walker)

Cóisí (Accused)

Fionnlann (Finland)

Fíonnlann (Winery)

Eire (Burden)

Éire (Ireland)

conaí ortha i caife in eire i gcathair Dóire. Bhí sé mar eacht ag orla teacht amach as an riocht leis an caca i dTomás don leachtoir cait. Tá grain tuillte againn ar fad tar éis sin.

I spent an armpit in the winery before getting the committee to the Elder Tree, where as the accused I was very bronze on lamb trying to get the teats and the Bretons to give a faintness Thomas to cats who lived in a coffee in burden in the city of Burner. It was a doubt for vomit to get out of the shape with the shite in Thomas of the liquidizer cats. We all deserve grain after that.

Chaith mé óiche i bhFionnlann sular fuair mé cóiste chuig an Rúis, áit mar coisí bhí mé pras ar an Luan ag iarraidh ar na Síneach agus na Briotanaigh fáinne a thabhairt i dtómas do Cáit a bhí ina chónaí i caifé in Éire i gcathair Dhoire. Bhí sé mar éacht ag Órla teacht amach as an ríocht leis an cáca i dtómas don leachtóir Cáit. Tá gráín tuillte againn ar fad tar éis sin.

I spent a night in Finland before getting a coach to Russia where as a walker I was fast on Monday trying to get the Chinese and the British to give a ring in her honour to Kate who lived in a café in Ireland in the city of Derry. It was a feat for Órla to get out of the kingdom with the cake in honour of the lecturer Kate. We all deserve a cuddle after that.

Be careful where you place your fadas. 

Briotanaigh (Brits)

Briotánaigh (Bretons)

Síneach (Chinese)

Sineach (Teats)

Ruis (Elder tree)

Rúis (Russia)

Cáit (Kate)

Cait (Cats)

✦

Fainne (Faintness)

Fáinne (Ring)

Pras (Fast)

Prás (Bronze)

Doire (Oak)

Dóire (Burner)

Tomás (Thomas)

Tómas (In honour)

Orla (Vomit)

Órla (Princess)

Seán (Seán)

Sean (Old) ✦

Gráín (cuddle)

Gráin (Grain)

Riocht (Form)

Ríocht (Kingdom)

Luan (Monday)

Luán (Lamb)

Eacht (Doubt)

Éacht (Feat)

CLEACHT DO PRACTICE YOUR GAEILGE CHUID GAEILGE

READ THE FOLLOWING TEXT USING THE GLOSSARY BELOW TO ADD TO YOUR CÚPLA FOCAL

Bliain eile ar an mbóthar chun na Poblachta

Tá bliain eile buailte linn agus is le flosc agus le fonn a thabharfaidh poblachtánaigh na hÉireann fúithi. Beidh toghcháin áitiúla agus Eorpacha ar siúl ó dheas agus tá seans maith go mbeidh toghcháin Westminister ar siúl roimh dheireadh na bliana freisin. Tabharfaidh na toghcháin chéanna an deis dúinn an cás ar son Éireann Aontaithe a dhéanamh. Tá dualgas orainn na deiseanna seo a thapú lenár bhfís don tír a chur chun cinn agus leis an bPoblacht a fhíorú.

GLUAIS/GLOSSARY:

Tá bliain eile buailte linn – another year has arrived

Le flosc agus le fonn – with zest and gusto

Beidh X ar siúl – X will take place

Toghcháin áitiúla agus Eorpacha – local and European elections

An deis – the opportunity

An cás ar son Éireann Aontaithe – the case for a United Ireland

Dualgas – obligation

Ár bhfís don tír - our vision for the country

X a chur chun cinn – to promote X

An Phoblacht a fhíorú – to deliver the Republic

Léirímis – let’s demonstrate

Todhchaí – future

Todhchaí níos fearr – a better future

I ndán dúinn – in store for us

Labhraímis faoi X – let’s speak about X

Léirímis don saol mór go bhfuil todhchaí níos fearr i ndán dúinn le hÉirinn Aontaithe. Labhraímis faoin tithíocht, faoin gcóras sláinte, faoin athmhuintearas, faoin nGaeilge agus faoin nGaeltacht, faoin timpeallacht, faoin gcóras oideachais agus eile. Tógaimis tír níos fearr, níos cothroime le chéile, mar a mbeidh fáilte roimh chách. Cuimhnímis ar Éirinn Wolfe Tone, Éire an Chonghailigh is an Phiarsaigh, Éire ghlúin ’81 agus tapaímis an deis an Phoblacht a fhíorú. 

Tithíocht – housing

An córas sláinte – the health system

An t-athmhuintearas – reconciliation

An timpeallacht – the environment

An córas oideachais – the education system

Tógaimis X – let’s build X

Tír níos fearr, níos cothroime – a better, more equal country

Fáilte roimh chách – everybody is welcome

Cuimhnímis ar X – let’s reflect on X

Éire Wolfe Tone – the Ireland of Wolfe Tone

An Conghaileach – James Connolly

An Piarsach – Pádraig Mac Piarais

Éire an Chonghailigh is an Phiarsaigh – the Ireland of Connolly and Mac Piarais

Éire ghlúin ’81 – the Ireland of the generation of ’81.

Tapaímis an deis – Let’s seize the day

Breaking the chains

BY MARTINA ANDERSON

At the heart of a global struggle for women’s rights and justice, a Kurdish Free Women’s Movement (TJA) Conference held in the Kurdish city of Amed, titled ‘Breaking the Chains of Silence’, emerged as a beacon, shedding light on the plight of women political prisoners in jails worldwide.

The conference, a platform for solidarity and advocacy, brought together remarkable voices and I was honoured to represent my Republican female comrades who have experienced incarceration.

Given the patriarchal societies we women were born into, we were not seen to have a role in a struggle that was the sole terrain of men.

Defying societal norms meant that we women, whom society placed in the home cooking, cleaning, and having babies, were punished more severely for having the audacity to be warriors, for standing up and fighting back. And the prison regimes we entered adopted a more punitive approach towards republican women.

Among the attendees were Kurdish women, former political prisoners, two of whom had served 30 years each in jail, alongside representatives from Basque, Palestinian, and Iranian communities. The narratives of women from all over the world was inspiring.

Also discussed were a demand for freedom for Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned for 25 years and is kept under isolation in İmralı, as well as the prospects for a solution to the Kurdish question, and the hunger strike launched by Iranian political prisoners on 27 November 2023.

The conference aimed to expose practices designed to break the will of the women political prisoners with details of sexual violence recounted – rape, electrocution, strip searching and solidarity confinement that persists in the harrowing experiences of women detained for their political beliefs.

The broad range of women who outlined their experiences underscored the interconnectedness of struggles, weaving together the narratives of women from various regions facing political persecution.

• Kurdish Free Women’s Movement (TJA) Conference attendees, (right) Martina Anderson

I brought a perspective that resonated with the challenges of navigating political landscapes where women’s voices are often marginalised. I emphasised the need for global solidarity, for an international women network to confront the systemic injustices faced by women political prisoners in custody which allowed such abuses to persist unchecked.

My comrade Ella O’Dwyer and I were held in Brixton, a

• Martina with some of the Kurdish conference delegates • Breaking the Chains of Silence conference launch

of silence Shedding light on the plight of women political prisoners

men’s jail with 600 men and only us two women. We were mainly locked up for 23 hours a day. We were legally entitled to one hour’s exercise, and we needed to get out of the cells.

We walked daily around an enclosed area bordered by three male prison wings. We adapted by focusing solely on each other, tuning out the disturbing sexual remarks hurled our way. Some of the male inmates resorted to appalling behaviour, shouting explicit obscenities, and engaging in indecent acts of sexual exposure from their cell windows.

The Kurdish women in attendance, some having endured 30 years of imprisonment, provided firsthand accounts of the egregious conditions within jails. Their stories wove a tapestry of resilience and resistance against oppressive regimes.

These women had become symbols of endurance, inspiring others to break their silence and challenge the injustices perpetuated by authoritarian regimes.

Among the attendees were Kurdish women, former political prisoners, two of whom had served 30 years each in jail, alongside representatives from Basque, Palestinian, and Iranian communities

For many women political prisoners serving long years in jail, we pass our childbearing age, which is one of the many unspoken truths which stands in stark contrast to men. A male prisoner, political or otherwise, could be released in his 60s and older - and still father a child. However, that is not the case for us women.

I recounted my personal experience. Ella and I used to say that the gynaecologist in Durham Prison was on commission because of the number of women prisoners he performed hysterectomies on was alarming. He told me I needed a hysterectomy for dysmenorrhea. I refused. He took me to an outside hospital to have polyps removed from my womb. I was supposed to be held overnight after general anaesthetic surgery.

Instead, I was dragged out of theatre after 30 minutes, unconscious and only momentarily semi-conscious and bundled into the back of a prison van with a hospital gown

• Delegates listen to speakers at the Breaking the Chains of Silence conference

My comrade Ella O’Dwyer and I were held in Brixton, a male jail with 600 men and only us two women

lying open revealing my naked body. With blood running down my legs, I was carried back into the jail semiconscious.

I haemorrhaged during the night and refused to go back to that hospital after the earlier ordeal. They brought in medics. Apparently ‘Dr Death’ as Ella and I called the gynaecologist ‘accidentally’, I say on purpose, damaged my uterus. I was told it was no big deal because by the time I would be released from prison, I would be well passed my childbearing years.

The conference amplified the voices of Basque, Palestinian, Syrian, and Iranian women who shared similar experiences of abuse and degradation.

The threat of sexual violence became a stark reminder of the universal challenges faced by women political prisoners. One harrowing tale that emerged involved a woman political prisoner who was raped while in custody. Shockingly, her husband left her, branding her as “unclean”.

This heart-wrenching revelation highlighted not only the physical and emotional toll of sexual abuse, but also the societal stigma that further victimises survivors.

The woman’s story underscored the urgent need for systemic change and support mechanisms to protect survivors of sexual

violence, both within and outside the confines of prison walls.

The conference concluded with a resounding call for solidarity among women worldwide. It was recognized that breaking the chains of silence required a collective effort to challenge the systemic structures that perpetuate the abuse of women political prisoners.

The stories shared at the conference became a catalyst for change, sparking renewed energy and determination to advocate for the rights and dignity of women facing political persecution across the globe.

Breaking the chains of silence was not just an event. It marked the beginning of a united front against the injustices that women endure in their pursuit of human rights, social justice, and equality. 

Martina Anderson is the Sinn Féin representative in Europe

• Martina with former Kurdish and Palestinian political prisoners

• Ella O’Dwyer and Martina

WHAT DOES MEAN TODAY?

THE SPIRIT OF 1798

“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark”

TOM PAINE 1781

BY SEÁN NAPIER

‘Who fears to speak of ’98’ has been the mantra down the years, spoken softly with republican passion of days gone by. A distant memory lost somewhere in time, but never really forgotten. A cry of unfinished business, a desire that burns deep into the very soul of those who believe in the unity of ‘Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter’ across our island as it did in that hot summer of 1798.

What does it all mean to us now, what relevance does it have today in these times of seismic political change some 230 years later? Some sense a feeling of a quiet renaissance rumbling in the undergrowth about these ideas of republicanism, first spoken in whispered breath in the narrow dark alleyways of Belfast and Dublin all those years ago. Ideas just as relevant today as they were then.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, Ireland experienced a transformative intellectual and cultural movement—its very own Enlightenment. It had spread like

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, Ireland experienced a transformative intellectual and cultural movement – its very own Enlightenment

wildfire from Europe to Belfast and beyond. The Americans had driven the British out of the colonies and declared independence in 1776.

Then came the French Revolution of 1789, and in 1791-92 Thomas Paine’s pamphlet ‘Rights of Man’. It was so widely read locally that, according to Wolfe Tone, it was known as the ‘Koran of Belfast’. The chatter in the smoke-filled taverns was thick with anticipation and excitement of embryonic radical change, influenced by European ideals of reason, science, and individual right. Irish thinkers, and particularly northern Presbyterians, had found their political calling, Republicanism, which challenged traditional norms and questioned societal structures. Its message was that tyranny not only persecuted them, but also their Catholic neighbours. Under the Penal Laws, Presbyterians had also suffered discrimination by the Anglican Ascendancy which controlled much of Ireland’s political and economic power.

Young Dublin barrister, Wolfe Tone, and his close confidant and friend from Cork, Thomas Russell, a commissioned officer in the British Army came to Belfast. It was Tone who had declared England "the never-failing source of all our political evils." Along with the Belfast radicals, they would change the course of Irish history with the founding of the first ‘Society of United Irishmen’ in October 1791. Nothing would be the same again.

They fostered a climate of intellectual curiosity and progressive thought. The ideas of the United Irish movement disseminated throughout Irish society; democracy, religious tolerance, human rights, and abolitionism.

Their newly founded republican newspaper, The Northern Star, set out their mission in their first editorial in January 1792, they wanted “To make the Irish people aware of their common interests so that they might act together with one heart and with one voice to assert their freedom and endeavour by all constitutional means to shake off the badges of slavery which yet disgrace them as a nation.” It would lead for demand for change and when this was denied it led to rebellion in 1798.

The cost of that rebellion would be savage reprisal and the destruction of the homes and communities of the poor tenant farmers across Ireland. Today, it is hard to visualize the generational trauma, particularly among Presbyterians, which left in its wake ‘the fear to speak of ‘98’. It was of such magnitude that it would lead, incredibly, not to resistance but to many Presbyterians switching to and embracing Orangeism as a demonstration of their loyalty.

However, as a result of the peace process, as a fallout of Brexit and our future being undemocratically determined by English nationalists, people from unionist backgrounds are exploring the past and their role in being the founders of Irish republicanism.

It is also part of my own history. A Presbyterian antecedent of mine was hanged after the Battle of Ballynahinch as a rebel leader against King and Country. Ironically, his great grandson, my great grandfather, would die for King and Country in rat-infested trench of the Pas-de-Calais, France during the First World War. His name is on the war cenotaph in Ballynahinch, but there is no monument to 1798.

I feel an almost spiritual resonance and connection the more I delve into this history. It was the reason why I started the ‘1798 Walking Tour’ in Belfast. I give the dead their voice back and their rightful place in history.

I build and weave a picture of bravado and hope of a youthful Henry Joy McCracken along with Wolfe Tone, Russell, and Neilson as they go

Today, it is hard to visualize the generational trauma, particularly among Presbyterians, which left in its wake ‘the fear to speak of ‘98’

on a boozing session with Edward Bunting during the Belfast Assembly of Harpists in July 1792 in the Washington Tavern or Peggy Barclays Inn down Sugar House Entry.

There is the curse of all struggles—the stories of informers and spies that sold and betrayed their friends for silver and gold to Dublin Castle, the real seat of British rule in Ireland and not the pseudo-parliament at College Green.

I was brought up the son of a happy, mixed marriage of Orange and Green, in a Protestant working-class housing estate in Newtownards. My Dad, a working-class Protestant, married my Mum, a Catholic farmer’s daughter. I joke to people on the tours that, like Wolfe Tone, I’m from a religiously mixed marriage with a French-sounding Huguenot surname out to cause dissention in Belfast.

Our estate had a sprinkling of Catholics, mainly from mixed marriages. There was none of this ‘us and them’. Nobody bothered, nobody cared. We were all equally poor, borrowing cups of sugar and loose tea from each other before pay day or the bru on Fridays.

I lived amongst the descendants of the United Irish who had proclaimed a Republic for three days in June 1798 in Newtownards. I was lucky to have a primary school teacher who captivated me by the story of Ulster’s own Joan of Arc—the local rebel Betsy Gray. What fascinates me most and a question I’m constantly asked is what happened to all those Presbyterian republicans. It’s as if they just vanished. Their republicanism was a Belfast-born Protestant invention. Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell came to Ulster and Belfast to meet the likes of Samuel Neilson, perhaps one of the greatest republicans of them all. Belfast-born Dr William Drennan’s pamphlets also greatly influenced republican politics.

Yet, at the end of the rebellion, the tables had turned and somehow it was labelled a Catholic insurrection, a Popish plot hell bent on treason and destruction.

Earlier, in 1782, the British government to counter political restlessness had conceded a measure of restricted devolved power in what is referred to as Grattan’s Parliament. But real power effectively rested under the control of the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle. Britain exploited the Rebellion to ‘abolish’ this parliament, establishing the United Kingdom under the 1800 Act of Union. Through bribery and corruption, Britain had actually persuaded the parliament to abolish itself.

After 1798, the record of history would be written by the victors. The truth about the rebellion in Ulster against the crown would be buried with their dead, their graves unmarked and dates changed as not to

create suspicion as to the reason of their demise. The radical Presbyterianism of the meeting house, the engine of republicanism in Ireland would vanish into the ether, the memory lost.

In the words of historian Professor Thomas Bartlett, "The rebellion cast a long shadow before it … it determined Catholic and Protestant relationships for the remainder of the 19th century and beyond."

So far as Antrim and Down were concerned, the Presbyterians and Anglicans who had fought each other at Saintfield, Ballynahinch, and Antrim buried their differences, to some extent superficially, but the old Protestant consensus was once again established. In a sense, they shed themselves from their rebel past and any whiff of republicanism.

Nothing would ever be the same again. The united movement was vanquished. Protestant involvement in 1798 was written out of the history books, as Catholic atrocities were exaggerated as tribal warfare, petty and obtuse.

Post Union from 1800 onwards, the birth

The radical Presbyterianism of the meeting house, the engine of republicanism in Ireland would vanish into the ether, the memory lost

of the revisionist school of thinking would reinforce old dogmas and suspicions burying deeper the memory of ’98, a new narrative of ‘us and them’ was amplified. Gone was the memory of Henry Joy McCracken and his army of 10,000 men at Donegore Hill in Antrim.

Gone was the pride in the small Frenchstyle revolutionary committees set up across Antrim and Down declaring for independent Republics from Larne to Ballymena and to Newtownards, where the Rev. David Baillie Warden led the ‘Hearts of Down’ to battle at Ballynahinch.

England would spend the next two centuries cementing the victor’s myth, until eventually democracy, insurrection, and modernity would rise once again and weaken Britain’s stranglehold on this island, it would move the dial in the direction of Irish self-determination and independence. We are nearing there. Dá fhada an lá tagann an tráthnóna. 

Seán Napier is a Belfast republican who runs 1798 walking tours in Belfast and Dublin.

• Wolfe Tone

• Thomas Russell

• Henry Joy McCracken

• Samuel Neilson

• Betsy Gray

• Edward Bunting

• Dr William Drennan

• Rev. David Baillie Warden

REMEMBERING JOHN DAVEY

It was 35 years ago this month that South Derry Sinn Féin councillor John Davey was murdered by loyalists in part of an intensified campaign aiming to terrorise the nationalist population. In this, they were supported by the British Army, police, and

secret services. Now, the British Government’s ‘Legacy Bill’ seeks to ensure the truth behind this campaign of collusion is never fully revealed.

Speaking at Davey’s funeral, then Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said the campaign was “aimed at the leadership – legal, political or social – of the nationalist people. It is aimed at terrorising us. It is aimed at demoralising us. It will not succeed”. It did not. 