A Good Start To 2025. 

On Saturday last leading trade union activists from across the island of Ireland came together in Newry for a packed Ireland’s Future event in the Thomas Davis Hub. It was a wet winter morning and i was pleasantly uplifted by the turn out. 

The panel included ICTU assistant general secretary Gerry Murphy, Unison regional general secretary Patricia McKeown, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, general secretary of the Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Katie Morgan of FORSA, Greg Ennis of SIPTU and Gerry McCormack of the ICTU. It was a lively and informative debate which pointed to a much better future for workers in a united Ireland.

Ireland’s Future is for holding the referendums by 2030 and Saturday’s public sectoral meeting is part of a consultation for what it believes is the ‘crucial five-year period’ ahead of us.

Niall Murphy, who is the secretary of Ireland’s Future explained that it seeks “to continue to inform, educate and stimulate the conversation on constitutional change in the years preceding a referendum. The pace of change has quickened and we are firmly of a belief that a referendum will take place around the year 2030, therefore it is incumbent upon the political administrations in Dublin, Belfast and London to prepare, and it is also imperative that civil society, including the trade union movement, recognises the constitutional space we are now entering.”


Let the Music Keep Your Spirits High

I am not a big watcher of television. When I have my way – which is usually when everyone else is out – the TV goes on only when there is something I want to watch. Other times it is a constant background noise. An intrusion. Like white noise.

Sometimes I just like the silence. Or some good music.

Alexia and I have become friends. I like to listen to music when I’m writing. So Radio Na Gaeltachta, Radio Fáilte, Lyric, Radio Ulster and RTE Radio1 are my broadcasters of choice. I also have tons of tunes on my phone. And an IPod loaded up with thousands of songs from Seamus Drumm who has the most expansive reservoir of ceol of anyone I know. My ambition is to listen to all Seamie’s collection before I die. Listening to music on these various devices wraps me in a melodious comfort blanket of uplifting sounds. Sometimes I will even join in.

A Ceasefire
The ceasefire in Gaza is only a step in a long process. It is about justice, peace, and the right of the Palestinian people to have self determination.