An interview with Dr Mustafa Barghouti, the founder and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, Activist and advocate of Palestinian rights.  

Up for the Match

Off on Sunday morning to Croke Park. Dark skies. Lots of grey clouds. Our journey was delayed by Féile An Phobail’s 5km and 10km run. Diverted and distracted we eventually got out of West Belfast and on the road to Dublin. Enroute the dark skies lightened. The grey clouds gave way to blue heavens and gentle sunshine. We were off to watch Antrim’s Lady Footballers in our own All Ireland against Louth. As we crossed the Border KneeCap kept our spirits high. Their ceol blasted out and the car rocked as we hip hopped to the Capital. A morning after the night before follow-on from Saturday evening’s Falls Park Country frolicks.

The match in Croker started off positively with Antrim taking an early lead but Louth soon asserted themselves and Antrim was chasing the game from then until the last ten minutes. Some of the players may have been overwhelmed by the big occasion.  If so who could blame them? To play in Croke is mighty and Antrim supporters were out in strength. Everyone, including us, as proud as could be.  Family members, club mates. The number of Northern Gaels was swelled by Tyrone supporters who later went on to win their championship against Laois. Dublin went on to best Meath in the Seniors. A great day of Gaelic football.

Gaza – An Gorta Mór – The Starvation

The scenes of desperation as starving people in Gaza try to get basins or pots filled with soup, are shocking images. It is a famine we are told. Last week the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations panel which had long warned of the threat of famine, concluded that it was now a reality.

The use of the word ‘famine’ and the images of starving children are a reminder for many in Ireland of what life must have been like during An Gorta Mór in the 1840s. But it is important to note that in a famine there is no food. In Ireland there was plenty of food. During those years the quaysides of ports along our coast were lined each day with abundant produce - all bound for export. It was a starvation.

The hunger in Gaza is an Israeli made starvation. Aid agencies and the UN have more than enough food and medical aid ready to enter Gaza. Israel prevents this. It is not a famine – it is a starvation

Orangism in the New Ireland

The northern statelet was built for unionism. It was constructed and then managed in a way to ensure that nationalists would never have a say in running the place.

We are less than three years off the 30th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Most citizens, and many within the broad unionist section of our people, have grown accustomed to the stability and peace it has brought but there are others who still hanker after the old days of supremacy. The DUP shares the office of the First Minister with Sinn Féin but their strategy is focused on the next Assembly election in two years’ time and their aim is to remove Michelle O’Neill as First Minister. That is why there is a battle a day over Irish language rights. That is why there has been no start on building the new Casement. That is why there is negative nonsense over bi-lingual signage in public places.

Planning for the Future

It was Charles Stewart Parnell who said: “No man has the right to say to his country. Thus far shalt thou go and no further.” This was in the 19th century. He also declared; “Let no one set a boundary to the march of a nation.”

Parnell was clearly setting out the right of the people of Ireland to self-determination. Interestingly he chose Cork to make this declaration.  That was the 21st January 1885. One of the current Cork TDs and the current Taoiseach Micheál Martin has a contrary view. Our right to self-determination is contained in the Good Friday Agreement so that right has been won. We now need to exercise it. There is an irony that An Taoiseach has set his face against this and that he refuses to plan for the certain day when the Good Friday Agreement referendums will be held.

Planning for the Future

It was Charles Stewart Parnell who said: “No man has the right to say to his country. Thus far shalt thou go and no further.” This was in the 19th century. He also declared; “Let no one set a boundary to the march of a nation.”

Parnell was clearly setting out the right of the people of Ireland to self-determination. Interestingly he chose Cork to make this declaration.  That was the 21st January 1885. One of the current Cork TDs and the current Taoiseach Micheál Martin has a contrary view. Our right to self-determination is contained in the Good Friday Agreement so that right has been won. We now need to exercise it. There is an irony that An Taoiseach has set his face against this and that he refuses to plan for the certain day when the Good Friday Agreement referendums will be held.

Our Martin

Last week, in the Guildhall in Derry, several hundred friends, comrades and family of Martin McGuinness came together for the launch of Jim McVeigh’s authoritative and compelling new book on Martin. Jim is a gifted writer.

‘Our Martin’ is a very personal, insightful account of Martin’s life in Derry and his love for his wife Bernie, and she for him, and for their children, Fionnuala, Emmet, Fiachra and Grainne.

Martin said: “What politicised me was the civil rights protest. It wasn’t anything I heard in the house, or even in my grandmother’s house in Donegal. There was no republicanism whatsoever in my background.”

‘Our Martin’ by James McVeigh will be launched in Belfast at 1pm on 2 August in St. Mary’s University College Belfast, as part of Féile an Phobail. It is available from An Fhuiseog, 55 Falls Road and from www.beyondthepalebooks.com

2005 – Twenty Years On

Next Monday one of the most historic and transformative events in the Irish Peace Process took place. Twenty years ago on the 28 July 2005 the IRA issued a statement which ended its decades long armed struggle. In its statement the IRA said: "The leadership of Óglaigh na hÉireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign. This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon.  All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.”

The IRA leadership also said that it had authorised its representative to engage with the IICD (Independent International Commission on Decommissioning) to “complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use in a way which will further enhance public confidence.” This was confirmed two months later on the 26 September by the Commission.

The IRA initiative opened up opportunities for progress.

Peace processes are by their very nature challenging and difficult. They frequently fail. Many of the wars of the 1960s and 70’s were a response to the colonial occupation and exploitation of native peoples by colonial powers.  Africa saw many examples of these. Some conflicts went on into the 1980s and 90s. Algeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Angola, Mozambique, and others, including in Asia the Vietnam War and in the Middle East the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. The South African peace process brought an end to apartheid and witnessed the election of Nelson Mandela as President of that country in 1994. In our own place our peace process brought an end to decades of conflict and heralded processes of change.

Today, in a world still bedevilled by wars, the Irish Peace Process is frequently held up internationally as an example of a peace process that is working.  The governments occasionally try to root it in the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. But the truth is that it started in the 1970s when Republicans began to claim back the word ‘Peace.’

A Welcome Electoral Change

The decision, announced last week by the British government, that it will be lowering the voting age to those aged 16 and 17, is a welcome move. There is already widespread support for a reduction in the voting age. Last September the Assembly backed a Sinn Féin motion calling for this change. In the South the policy has received widespread cross-party support from Sinn Féin, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, The Green Party, The Labour Party, Social Democrats, People Before Profit, and many Independents.

The London government is focussed on the 2029 Westminster election but the North will have local government and Assembly elections in 2027. The focus now must be on ensuring that the necessary legislative steps are taken to ensure that 16 and 17 year olds can vote in those elections.

Updating the electoral register and ensuring that this new tranche of young voters have suitable identification, will be a big job of work but with political will it can be done. It would also send entirely the wrong message to future voters if the 2027 deadline is missed.

Legislating for young people to have the right to vote is the right thing to do. All parties in the North, with the exception of the DUP, support changing the voting rules. Young people should have the right to vote on decisions that impact on their lives, including voting for a united Ireland.

Gaels le Cheile In Conversation with Peter Canavan

Monday 28th July, 7:30pm - Naomh Eoin CLG Corrigan Park

Defend the GPO and Save Moore St.

There is widespread anger at the decision by the Irish government to convert the historic GPO in Dublin into shops and offices. Last Saturday hundreds gathered in O’Connell St. to protest at the government’s plans for the GPO and for the Moore St. Battlefield site. Their demand is for the protection of the cultural and revolutionary heritage of this part of Dublin.

Every nation that fought for its freedom from colonial rule - often from the British - has hallowed ground, the place where patriots made a stand against injustice and occupation. For the people of Ireland, the GPO is one such place.  It is the place where the revolutionary generation of the early 1900s declared for a Republic and where the Pearse read the Proclamation of that republic.

Best International Documentary

I spent the weekend in Galway and Mayo. The weather was amazing. The countryside with its miles of stone walls separating plots of land and the lush colours of green and rocky inclines was a joy to travel through.

I was in Galway on Saturday to attend the Galway Film Festival/Fleadh where Trisha Ziff’s film – A Ballymurphy Man - was receiving its world premiere. The cinema in the old Town Hall where the Festival is centred was packed to capacity for the screening. The audience was hugely attentive and very welcoming when Trisha and I went on the stage at the end of the screening to talk about the making of the documentary.

A Week in the Life and Death of GAZA

I first met Mustafa Barghouti in the west Bank in 2014. The General Secretary of the Palestine National Initiative is a physician, an activist, and is head of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. He is also a member of the PLO and of the Palestinian Legislative Council. He advocates the use of non-violence and civil disobedience.

In a few weeks’ time, I hope to have the opportunity to interview Mustafa for a special podcast on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

Each day Mustafa sends out a WhatsApp update on news from the region. The following is an edited daily diary for the week beginning Sunday 6 July to Sunday 13 July.

No Economic Block on Irish Unity

In recent years there have been encouraging signs of growing support for Irish unity in successive electoral results, demographic changes, contributions from civic society, in opinion polling and in public commentary. Unsurprisingly, any debate on unity quickly focuses on practical issues like the economic viability of a united Ireland as well as on the future of a health and care system, governance structures, education, the environment and other matters.

Sinn Féin’s Commission on the Future of Ireland recently held a successful conference examining the issue of health in a new Ireland and the party produced a widely welcomed health and care document looking to a future all-island model. It is available at  https://sinnfein.ie/the-case-for-an-irish-national-health-and-care-service/

And now we have the report by Professor John Doyle of Dublin City University – ‘The Projected Public Finances of the Early Years of a United Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Subvention.’ The report is the product of joint research by Dublin City University and Ulster University’s Economic Policy Centre. It succeeds in cutting through much of the jargon associated with economics to present a cogent explanation of the economic benefits of a united Ireland.

The Future of the GPO

Micheál Martin’s ten-year plan for the GPO site in Dublin is shameful. His effort to sell the plan as a flagship project for Dublin City Centre, that will protect the historic and cultural significance of the GPO, was described by the Irish Times as “vague and ill-defined.” Mary Lou McDonald and others have been much more vocal and direct in their condemnation of the government’s plans. Martin’s proposal, for example, that the upper floors of the GPO will be turned into office space, makes no sense when much of the available office space in central Dublin is currently unused and vacant.

The reality is that the GPO holds a special place in the nation’s soul. It may have been a Post Office for all of its two hundred years but it is more than just another of those Dublin buildings that reflect the capitals colonial past. It is acknowledged by generations of Irish people as the birthplace of the Republic, as envisaged in the Proclamation. For over one hundred years it has symbolised the hopes, aspirations and vision of that historic document and of the courage of the men and women who risked everything in April 1916.

World Premier in Galway of ‘A Ballymurphy Man’

This weekend I will be in Galway for the 37th annual international Galway Film Fleadh/Festival. The Fleadh runs for a week every July.  This year it’s between 8 July and 13 July. It was established in 1989 as a place for Irish filmmakers to exhibit their work to their peers.  

This year it will host World, International and Irish Premieres in the Town Hall Theatre and Pálás Cinema.It will feature 31 World Premieres, 11 International/European Premieres and 46 Irish Premieres from 44 countries, featuring 96 feature films in total

Join the campaign to “Save the GPO”. Sign the petition which calls for the development of a 1916 Cultural Quarter in the area around the GPO, O’Connell Street and Moore Street and the implementation of the Moore Street Preservation Trust plan. 

We must fight to save the GPO together.

Sign the petition here:

Palestine

The Israeli forces as part of their on going genocide, in the last 24hrs have killed 142 Palestinian civilians, and injured 487. 

Internment

A British Supreme Court judgement in 2020 ruled that almost 400 internees were unlawfully detained under British law in the 1970s.  These internees are now elderly and some are quite poorly.  They were victim of appalling treatment at the hands of the British state forces and were held in shameful conditions.

‘British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made his views clear earlier this year when he told the British Parliament that he would block compensation.

Internment was an abuse of power and a denial of human rights by the British state.  This was compounded for these 400 because the British government breached even its own law.

The original injustice endured by the internees will be deepened by the stupidity of a vindictive British government which doesn’t accept its own law.  Another example of the British waiving the rules when it suits their political agenda 

Defend the GPO

The Dublin GPO and the streets and laneways around it are forever linked with the Easter Rising of 1916. This is a Battlefield site of major historic and international significance which successive Irish governments have failed to develop properly. Successive promises of investment and planning in Moore St have come to nothing. Succesive governments have reduced the National Monument to four houses leaving the rest of the historic area to be destroyed by a London based developer.

In keeping with this shameful approach the Irish government last week published a 10-year plan which will see the General Post Office (GPO) become a mixed-use development. The spin from Government is that the GPO will become a flagship project, including retail and office components with a Designated Activity Company being established. 

Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald TD described it well when she said the government’s proposal as “another shameful betrayal of Ireland’s proud revolutionary history.” 

In any other city in the world we would see visionary, ambitious plans to develop the site, preserving our history with a national museum, arts and culture, education, tourism and homes to make it a living, breathing area.

So, join the battle to Save the GPO and Moore St. Sign up to the petition and support the campaign of the Moore St. Preservation Trust for a modern historical quarter – shaped around the GPO, Moore Street Battlefield site and O’Connell Street. The link is: https://outreach.sinnfein.ie/save-the-gpo/ 

Kneecap Abú

Well done to Kneecap and those other performers at Glastonbury who stood up to the British political and media establishment and courageously spoke out against the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and the west Bank. Well done also to the tens of thousands who applauded and cheered as Mo chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, demanded ceasefires, an end to the mass murder of Palestinian people and stood up to the censorship of the British Broadcasting Corporation. 

Féile an Phobail – A festival extravaganza

This week I was given a copy of the minutes of a meeting held on the 22nd June 1902 in the Catholic Boys Hall on the Falls Road to establish a league for junior hurlers. The venue was the Catholic Boys Hall. So far I have three locations for this hall. One is off Dunlewey Street not far from

Ceasefires Now

Should we have been surprised by the decision of the US President Donald Trump to attack Iran? No. Shocked maybe but not surprised. The weapons of mass destruction spin, that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq two decades ago, was already in wide usage by some western governments and sections of the media before B 2’s dropped so-called ‘bunker buster’ bombs on Iran. And we all remember what a disaster the Iraq war was for the people of that nation and for world politics. An estimated million Iraqi citizens died.

The attack on Iran was an act of aggression against a state that had not attacked the USA. It was in clear breach of international law and it almost certainly broke US domestic and constitutional law. Moreover, two nuclear powers – Israel and the USA – have attacked a nation that does not have nuclear weapons. And applauding in the wings are Britain, France and Germany and others who are colluding in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Mol an Óige

The boys and girls of Rang A Seacht graduated from Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh last Friday. I was there in my capacity as a Daideo to one of the scholars. Our oldest lad’s oldest lad. It was a wonderful event. The Assembly Hall was filled with parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, teachers and classroom assistants. Pilib said a few words as a céad míle fáilte.

He reminded us all that we are Gaels. Part of Gaelic society in Belfast. Part of the Irish language community here and across Ireland. Living our lives through Irish. Bringing our language with us wherever we go.

Family Album

When Frankie Quinn was sixteen his father gave him a  camera and sent him along to the newly formed Camera Club in the McAirt Community Centre. The club was focussed on recording life locally in the Short Strand/Ballymacarrett district which was being redeveloped.

It was 1982. Large parts of the area had already been demolished when Frankie set to work. All of us who are interested in our local history have benefitted from this initiative by his father and from Frankie’s work. Over the decades he has produced photographic treasures for us to contemplate and remember how things once were particularly in working class Belfast communities two generations ago.

Frankie has won many awards and produced fine exhibitions of his work along with a number of publications. Family Album is the latest of these. It is about his home place. The tiny nationalist district of Short Strand and Ballymacarrett in East Belfas

Stand-Up to Racism

In 1972 Catholic families – who had endured three years of sustained sectarian attacks on their homes – fled Annalee St in North Belfast. Last month - fifty-three years later - Catholic homes in Annalee St. were again the target of sectarian attack and families were forced to flee. In the last fortnight we have also witnessed the firebombing of homes in Ballymena, the Larne Leisure Centre and racist attacks in other parts of the North.

The images of homes in flames in Ballymena reminded me of similar scenes I first witnessed in Belfast in August 1969. The film footage of that period is of streets ablaze, frightened families hurriedly stacking furniture on lorries or carrying their most precious possessions on their backs. Then it was the racism and sectarianism of the apartheid unionist state attacking nationalist and republican families, killing residents, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing thousands to become refugees in our own city.

Regrettably, the same sectarian and racist fundamentalism that motivated those attacks still exists today among some in our society who campaign against housing for Catholics, hang effigies of political leaders on bonfires and use violent rhetoric to promote hate crime against immigrants and those they define as ‘others’. That is those who are of a different religion or colour, or sexual orientation. 

Defending Neutrality

The Israeli rogue state has set the world on a dangerous course. Its deadly assault on Iran, allied to its violent actions in Lebanon and Syria and its genocidal war on the Palestinian people, has cast a huge shadow over the Middle East. As its military forces continue to kill scores of Palestinians daily in Gaza and its war planes attack Iran the Israeli military imposed a complete siege on the west Bank. Over a thousand military checkpoints which provide Israel with absolute control over the occupied west Bank, were completely closed imposing a siege on the Palestinian towns, villages and isolated farms of that region.

As the world focusses on the exchanges between Israel and Iran the Zionists’ genocidal and ethnic cleansing strategy against the Palestinian people is escalating. Those western states that have refused to challenge Israel’s murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians or stand-by international law, are now defending Israel’s attack on Iran using the same unacceptable excuse that Israel has the right to defend itself.

Pat Finucane - End the Delay

It has been ten months since the British Secretary of State Hilary Benn first announced that he was setting up an independent inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane under the 2005 Inquiries Act. Last week he appointed Sir Gary Hickinbottom as the Chair of the Inquiry. Hickinbottom has been given responsibility for investigating one of the most high profile examples of state collusion between loyalist death squads and British state agents and agencies during the decades of conflict.

As well as Hickinbottom, former Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan and international human rights lawyer Francesca Del Mese have been appointed as assessors to the inquiry. Their role is to advise the Chair but they will not be involved in any final report.

It has been a long difficult road for Geraldine Finucane and her family to secure this Inquiry. Twenty-four years ago the British and Irish governments agreed at Weston Park to establish public inquiries into a number of troubles-related cases. Canadian Judge Peter Cory recommended inquiries into the deaths of: Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill, Billy Wright, and Patrick Finucane and also into the deaths of RUC officers Bob Buchanan and Harry Breen.

Jim Fitzpatrick signed Limited Print of Elizabeth O’Farrell 

Regular readers of this column will know that I wholeheartedly support the efforts of the Moore St. Preservation Trust to preserve the 1916 Moore St. Battlefield site in Dublin that is under threat from the developers wrecking ball. This week the Trust - a not for profit organisation led by Relatives of the Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation – will launch a new limited edition signed print of Elizabeth O’Farrell by the renowned Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick. One hundred prints will be available from Thursday evening at €150 as part of the fundraising efforts of the Trust to raise much needed funds in support of its alternative plan for a cultural and historical quarter in the Moore Street battlefield site. 

Health and Care in a New Ireland

Last month the European Movement in Ireland –Amárach Research – reported that a majority of people in both parts of the island were in favour of a united Ireland within the EU. The figures were 67% in favour in the North and 62% in favour in the South.

Last week the Life and Times Survey, which is conducted by Queens University, reported that the gap between those who support the union with Britain and those who favour Irish Unity, has halved in the last year. In 2021 the gap was 23 points. In 2023 that had halved to 12 points. This year it has halved again to 5 points.

An Act of International Piracy

In an act of international piracy Israeli forces hijacked the humanitarian aid vessel the Madleen in international waters as it was making its way to the Gaza Strip with much needed humanitarian aid for the beleaguered community. The Madleen is part of the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition and it had a crew of 12 including environmental activist activist Greta Thunberg and Rima Hassan MEP. The Israel action is part of its strategy to control the public narrative around events in the Palestinian occupied territories, particularly Gaza, where millions face starvation.

In the Gaza Strip and the west Bank the daily slaughter of innocents by the Israeli regime’s murder squads continues unimpeded. So too does the deliberate targeting of the health service which has been all but obliterated by Israel’s genocidal military campaign. The objective is clearly to remove sll Palestinians from Gaza.