Courageous Alice never once flinched | Dublin’s Douglass plaque a fitting tribute | A moving song for Palestine
ALICE Toner lived in Ballymurphy Drive, not far from our house in Divismore Park. I was deeply saddened by her death. I knew Alice and her husband Fra all of my adult life. Like my own family, they moved into Ballymurphy shortly after it was built. She and Fra were long-standing republicans. Alice was born Alice Scullion in 1929. She was from Varna Street in the Falls area. Varna Street is now gone – a victim of redevelopment, but it was situated around where Osman Street is now. ...
31 Okt 202118min
Christy Moore returns to Belfast to salute H-Block heroes | WHO WILL SPEAK UP FOR LEFT-BEHIND LOYALISTS?
Christy returns to Belfast to salute H-Block heroes: THE first time Christy Moore sang ‘Ninety Miles from Dublin’ in West Belfast – his song about the obscenity of the H-Blocks – was in the old Ballymurphy Tenants Association building on the Whiterock Road in the summer of 1980. Tom Cahill had asked Christy to come to the city and play a set. Still not sure of the words, Christy had a piece of paper on which the words were written taped to the microphone. WHO WILL SPEAK UP FOR LEFT-BEHIND LO...
24 Okt 202118min
Michael Davitt GAC | The Future of Moore Street | Tony McMahon
Michael Davitt GAC In October 2006 and again in August 2021 I was asked to give a talk on Michael Davitt to the members of Davitts GAC on the Falls Road as part of the Davitts Culture, Sport and History Weekend. I enjoyed the craic. My thanks to Chairperson Tommy Shaw, Terry Park and others for a good evening. The Future of Moore Street Last Thursday the relatives of the Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic and the Moore Street Preservation Trust launched their d...
17 Okt 202115min
Jeffrey at the Crossroads | A game of chicken | Seán Ó Riada
Jeffrey at the Crossroads Is the Union the only reason why some working class unionist voters persist in voting for parties like the DUP when that party clearly doesn’t represent them on social and economic issues? In fact the DUP often acts against the class interests of working class Protestants, Unionists and Loyalists especially those from deprived communities, suffering from the effects of Tory policies. The failure, thus far, of parties like the PUP and other smaller parties to or...
10 Okt 202115min
Biden tells Johnson a few home truths | Remembering Big Bob in the PD | 40 years on and their sacrifice remains a massive inspiration
Biden tells Johnson a few home truths While sitting beside Johnson at a press conference in the White House President Biden told the media that neither he, “nor I might add would many of my Republican colleagues like to see a change in the Irish accords, the end result having a closed border in Ireland.” Many other US leaders were equally resolute in their rejection of any suggestion that there could be a US – British trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement was threatened. Remembering Big B...
3 Okt 202118min
Stories from the heart of the Blocks
NEXT week will mark 40 years from the end of the 1981 hunger strike. Much has been written this year and many events have taken place to remember those who died. For me Ten Men Dead by David Beresford and Nor Meekly Serve My Time, compiled by Brian Campbell, remain two of the outstanding books of that period. Jim McCann’s 6000 Days is a very welcome and amazing recent addition to these publications. A must read book. So too with another new book – The Comrades – just published by...
26 Sep 202119min
Sam so special for for Northern Gaels | Jailbreaks always a big morale boost | Moore Street appeal
ACCORDING to media reports there was great elation among Palestinians when the news broke that six political prisoners had succeeded in tunnelling their way to freedom from the high security Gilboa prison in northern Israel. The six were Zakaria Zubeidi; brothers Muhammad and Mahmoud al-Arida; Eham Kamamji,;Yacoub Kadiri; and Munadil Nafayat. Photographs after the escape show a hole in the floor of their communal shower cubicle and an exit hole outside the wall of the prison in full vie...
19 Sep 202115min
Are you listening Jeffrey? | Reclaiming the Enlightenment
Are you listening Jeffrey? Unionism, especially its DUP component, has been talking up unionist and loyalist resistance to the Irish Protocol since before Boris Johnson dirty-joed them, broke his commitments to them, negotiated and then signed up to the Protocol. There is some evidence of this in the loyalist street disturbances earlier this year and the sacking of Arlene Foster and of Edwin Poots. The dramatic decline in the polling fortunes of the DUP, as it flounders about trying to assert...
12 Sep 202119min
