Bernadette McAliskey’s Speech to the January 2013 Bloody Sunday March for Justice – We Have Got to Get Our Act Together or We Are In for One Hell of a Hiding
Bernadette McAliskey addressing the rally at this year’s Bloody Sunday March For Justice which had the theme ‘End Impunity’. Despite a wet, windy, wintry day around 3500 people braved the elements to march in solidarity with the victims of Bloody Sunday and other injustices
Link to a Video of Bernadette McAliskey’s Speech :
End Impunity! on Vimeo on Vimeo
Some Key Points from the speech :
Is the state of Northern Ireland governed according to the principles of openness, transparency and accountability?
Lawyers and human rights campaigners had to spend a whole day in court to force the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, Alliance Party Leader Mr David Ford, to allow Marian Price spend four hours grieving beside the coffin of her dead sister Dolours.
Nobody read about this because Mr Ford asked the judge to prevent public reporting of the case in the media.
But Bernadette McAliskey is not reporting; she does not work for the media; so she was only telling us :
The judge told Mr Ford that his behaviour was “unlawful, unreasonable, and irrational”.
“We are not supposed to say this” advises McAliskey.
What Should We Do Today About the New Dispensation in Northern Ireland?
“We have got to get our act together”
“We have got to do a bit more than just march”
“We have got to get a political programme together here”
“We have got to get moving”
Get the struggle for Civil Rights, Political Rights, Social Rights, Economic Rights – Together.
Or
“We are in for one hell of a hiding”
===============================
Readers are reminded :
Clare Daly TD questioned Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore on the imprisonment without trial of Martin Corey and Marian Price in the Dáil recently.
Video Link Here :
Daly points out that Martin Corey has spent almost 3 years in jail without being shown any evidence justifying his incarceration – Gilmore hides behind the fact that the case is subject to an appeal in the Belfast Supreme Court next February.
Sitting beside Mr Gilmore is the Dublin Central Labour TD Mr Joe Costello, Junior Foreign Affairs Minister and a former leader of the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation. The inaction of these government deputies on this issue is utterly shameful.
What a contrast – Eamonn McCann, Bernadette McAliskey, Clare Daly – Eamon Gilmore and Joe Costello.
Update 1 (courtesy of Padraigin Drinan); Deputies Costello and Gilmore, please note :
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality”
From Dante and quoted in the MacPherson report in to the death of Stephen Lawrence.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 
[…] But if there is no popular potency in defence of democracy, then, Bernadette McAliskey’s words from a few days ago will prove true: “we have got to get a political programme together here […]
Irish Left Review | Taking Democracy Seriously
Feb 4, 2013 at 3:48 pm
I am from vancouver,canada and i remembres Bernadette McAliskey from a long time ago .When i was living in the province of newfoundland in 1972 i heard Bernadette speaking on the radio.She phoned to Nwewfoundland to get support for the Irish Struggle.Later on in the early 1980s i met Bernadette in montreal when she was on a tour of canada concerning the Irish Struggle against British Imperialism.She is an excellent speaker with a good political conscious.
In 1996 i went to Belfast to speak to people there and see for myself what things were like there.Although i made the mistake of going in July and the reactionary,barbaric orange order was making a lot of trouble in Belfast at the time.I wanted to visit Bernadette who was living just outside of Belfast at the time. But i was told by the bus driver that it would be to dangerous for me to go there.
I see that this heroic woman is still doing good political work in Northern Ireland.It is people like her that will make the necessary changes in Northern Ireland.Keep up the good work.
Stan Squires
Aug 25, 2013 at 10:10 pm