My Podcast this week deals with the demolition of Herbert Park in Dublin, the home of the only leader of the 1916 Rising to be killed in action, and the report of the Independent Panel of Inquiry into the Circumstances of the H-Block and Armagh Prison Protests 1976-1981.’ 

40 Herbert Park was demolished two weeks ago in a shameful act of political and corporate vandalism and greed. 

Its demolition again raises serious concerns at the refusal of successive Irish governments to protect Moore Street, part of the “laneways of history” linked to 1916 and where the leaders of the 1916 Rising held their last meeting. 

Dublin City Council has now said that legal proceedings will be issued and is calling for the home to be restored.

James Connolly Heron, the grandson of James Connolly described it as; “a flagrant breach of the law and a direct challenge to each and every elected representative holding office on behalf of citizens.” He called for the house to be “rebuilt brick by brick, stone by stone, garden by garden.” 

If you agree with James Connolly Heron and if you believe that the Irish government must protect Moore Street why not write and tell them that. 

Write to An Taoiseach Micheál Martin - Government Buildings, Merrion Street Upper , Dublin 2 or email him at [email protected]:  and the Minister for Heritage Darragh O’Brien at The Customs House, Dublin D01 W6X0.

Like characters from the Gulag

Last week saw the publication of the report of the Independent Panel of Inquiry into the Circumstances of the H-Block and Armagh Prison Protests 1976-1981’ 

The years from 1976, when the British government ended special category status and sought to impose its criminalisation strategy, to August 1981 when the second hunger strike ended after the deaths of 10 republican POWs, were hard and challenging and difficult. 

For those of us who lived through those traumatic years much of what is in the report; ‘I am Sir, you are a number: Report of the Independent Panel of Inquiry into the Circumstances of the H-Block and Armagh Prison Protests 1976-1981’ confirms what we already knew. 

However, the strength of the report is in its detail, in the confidential British government documents it accessed and in the eyewitness accounts of the prisoners and two prison governors. 

I spent a short time in the H-Blocks on remand awaiting trial on an IRA membership charge. 

I wrote about it in my book ‘Before the Dawn.’

I wrote; “I was struck by the spirit of the prisoners. 

In my other jail experiences, we had been cushioned by our numbers and by the prisoners’ own command structure from dealing directly with the screws; it had been possible for prisoners in the cages to serve long terms with little or no contact with the administration. 

Here in our individual cells, in the Blocks, it was different. If you wanted to resist a search, you had to face the screws on your own... 

They were like characters from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag, shuffling along in big boots without laces, wearing, for their visits, ill-fitting jackets and trousers. 

Most of the trousers had their backsides slit open, and all of the blanket men had long, unwashed hair and unkempt beards.”