In March 1984 I was shot as I and four friends drove from Belfast Court. We were driving up May St. at the back of the City Hall when our car was fired on from a passing vehicle. Four of us – myself, Sean Keenan, Joe Keenan, and Kevin Rooney - were hit. Bob Murray escaped injury. I was wounded in the neck, shoulder and upper body. We were blessed by incompetent assassins, UDA members and surrogates of the British system. 

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May marked the 75th anniversary of the Nakba or Catastrophe – the forcible expulsion of three quarters of a million Palestinians from their homes by Israeli forces in 1948. On 15 May 1948 the Israeli state was formally recognised by the United Nations. The expulsion of Palestinians which had been going on was stepped up. 750,000 Palestinian people were dispossessed and forced to become refugees in their own land. Israel ethnically cleansed over 500 villages and killed 15,000 Palestinians.