I took this portrait of Brian Friel in the study of his Moville home in July 2010, shortly before he would be honoured with a season of his plays at that year’s prestigiously World Famous, Edinburgh Festival. It was a singular honour, traditionally afforded to writers such
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Age gradually corrupts our sense of time and environment. Asked to recall my memories of Craobh Sheáin Uí Dhubhlain, I have struggled to re-assemble the people and the place, some sixty years or so later. In mentioning names here, I risk omitting some and unintentionally causing offence
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I went to see ‘Red Ellen’, at the Lyceum yesterday; it told some of the story of Ellen Wilkinson, working class MP for Jarrow and main organiser of ‘The March for Jobs’, the North East Crusade for Work. Wilkinson operated on many fronts, trying to liberate
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However, Lord Saville was selective in his apportioning of responsibility; he evaded pointing a finger at the UK’s highest military officer, despite the evidence of his involvement in the cover-up; he did not cite those who had discussed and planned the security arrangements for the event at the highest levels of Government but rather he blamed the massacre exclusively on those who had fired the fatal shots, the squaddies, the lower orders, the deplorables.
It was both a class and a political decision.
The Nationalist population was meticulously marginalised in daily life and prevented from functioning as citizens of the State. Those changes for the better that have occurred in the last fifty years, result not from political change of direction by Unionism but are the product leverage by Westminster in response to the demands of the Civil Rights Movement. Legislative change was happening in all these areas before a shot was fired .
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In the first couple of weeks after training, McCann managed to mislay his ticket machine, clippers, uniform jacket and money bag. For the most part, these were dismissed by his supervisors , the inspectors as youthful carelessness. The regular driving force were often dismissive of the students’ mistakes with a shrug about the waste of education.
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There are some similarities in their early childhood and school days in Derry but the differences are much more remarkable. A policeman’s son, Coulter grew up in the modest comfort of a terraced house on the perimeter of what became Bogside in the late sixties ; Cassidy’s father was a successful publican who bought an elegant mansion , complete with tennis court, landscaped gardens and stables on the outskirts of the City. The purchase was controversial since the area was designated a Unionist fiefdom but crafty, old Cassidy bought it in a sealed auction.
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The illegal movement of cattle (to benefit from the different agricultural subsidies) was common practice. We lived a hundred yards from the actual border and a Derry man called Miah often arrived at our house in a highly agitated state having had a close a shave with the Excise man from St. Johnston who patrolled what was known as the back road between Derry and Carrigans.
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L.Alex Wilson (pictured) was a 6’3” newspaper reporter who covered the admission of nine black students into the segregated Little Rock Central High School ; attacked and beaten by a brutal, white mob he walked on, picking up his sombrero whenever he fell, intent on doing his job as a newsman; the following morning , his report of the ‘Little Rock Nine’ appeared in the Tri-State Defender ;
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It was established Unionist policy to deprive Derry and the North West of economic development since it might possibly provide employment for people opposed to their rule and population growth would imperil the gerrymander operating with impunity in Derry. Unfortunately, and the denial of expansion of Magee University is a notable case, there are still clear signs that the old, Unionist protocols are intact and embedded in the thinking of those with power.
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