Thanks to Jude Collins for permission to copy this homily from http://www.judecollins.com A phobal Dé agus a chairde go léir, Tá muid bronach inniú. Tá ár gcara Des imithe ar shlí na Fírinne. It’s a fitting way to describe the death of our friend – a man
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A Shared Home Place – Seamus Mallon Bond Street was a Protestant and Loyalist heartland which celebrated its historical totems with vigour. Growing up in the Waterside area of Derry, I can share and empathise with Seamus Mallon’s memories of his childhood. Our neighbours and the majority
Read more →GENTLE ON MY MIND Ever since I became bionic there’s been a constant need to stare at my feet as I walk; I’ve tripped over invisible cigarette packets, skited inexorably down the shiny paving stones of Alloa High Street praying for a wall to bring me to
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I wrote this a year ago after Sorcha arrived on the fifteenth of June, a few days after her mother, Jen’s birthday. June is a busy month as my elder brother, James, as well as grandchildren, Leo and Lilly Ann were all born in that month. Neill,
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One day towards the end of lunch, a large, noisy party arrived in the dining room. Thankfully, they occupied two tables which were not mine. However, I was pressed into service when their designated waitress came to tell me that they wished to be looked after by a Gaeilge speaker. Their leader was a rough looking, large Dubliner who had clearly had a few aperitifs and was nursing a pint of the black stuff. As they finished lunch and expressed appreciation for my attentiveness, the big fella said to me,
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Moray Place , Headquarters of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) and its West Lothian Local Association disowned me when I went on strike in solidarity with other Irish trade unionists on February 1st , 1972, following the murder two days earlier by British State forces of thirteen Derry civilians ; two of the dead were past pupils of the secondary school where I had worked the previous year.. Nor did I endear myself to the leadership in the 80s, when I successfully defeated the Executive with a motion on class contact time in my first appearance at an AGM . I don’t recall the year but Peter Andrews was President .
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The gerrymander of Derry City by the Unionists , with the support of the Stormont Government, was the prototype for sectarian control of the State; despite being 70% Catholic and Nationalist, through blatant manipulation of ward boundaries, the City remained under Unionist control
Read more →I was a 7 year old revolutionary when I learned my first few French phrases; ca va? je m’appelle; j’habite; je suis. Instantly hooked by the fantooshness, there commenced a lifelong fascination of the foreign and exotic. In P5 at Crieff Primary School I’d a wee notebook
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PUT THE GENERALS IN THE DOCK The buck stops at the top; that is the accepted chain of responsibility and accountability in organisations, institutions and in life. Slobodan Milosevic, David Duckenfield, Ratko Mladic : what links these names is that all were indicted for unlawful killings which
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The ingrained instinct of politicians is to consider how any comment affects their career prospects and so Sajid Javid, an ambitious Home Secretary, immediately responded in Daily Mail speak
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