Archive for the ‘Derry Civil Rights March, October 5 1968’ Category
Goodnight Sister – Remembering Nell, October 4 2024, 7pm, The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1
Goodnight Sister is a tribute to the late Nell McCafferty, March 28 1944 – August 21 2024.
Details Here :
Photo : Derek Speirs
Nell McCafferty’s Funeral from Derry was broadcast late on RIP.IE – Minus an Eamonn McCann Eulogy, Gay Rainbow Flags, or any personal memories of a woman who “changed Ireland for the better”
Many people who knew Nell McCafferty could not get to her funeral in St. Columb’s Cathedral, Derry. An alternative was offered on RIP.IE – a live broadcast starting at 12.30pm. When interested viewers tuned in, they were mystified, seeing only a blank screen. The livestream did not start until after 1.00pm, as a priest shared the altar with three men conducting a religious ceremony containing no stories about one of Derry’s most talented writers, Nell McCafferty. At one screening venue a small group of Nell’s fans – including Máirín Johnson who travelled on the legendary Dublin-Belfast contraceptive train with Nell in 1971 – were not impressed. We learned later that Eamonn McCann delivered a eulogy in front of the altar – A report is below. Source :
Nell McCafferty “Changed Ireland for the Better”
Eamonn McCann delivers a eulogy for Nell McCafferty, St Columb’s Cathedral Derry, August 23 2024
Nell McCafferty ‘changed Ireland for the better’, mourners at her funeral in Derry’s Bogside told
Campaigning journalist and author, who focused on women’s rights, poverty and social injustice, died on Wednesday aged 80
Nell McCafferty “changed Ireland for the better”, mourners at her funeral have been told.
Delivering an elegy in advance of her funeral Mass in Derry’s Bogside on Friday, the veteran civil rights campaigner and journalist Eamonn McCann said it was “given to very few of us to actually change the world”.
Read the rest of this entry »Robert Ballagh’s “The Thirtieth of January”: A Bloody Sunday Painting and the Troubles in the Two Bits of Ireland
In this interview the artist Robert Ballagh discusses the painting “The Thirtieth of January”, depicting Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. The conversation provides valuable insights into Ballagh’s personal experiences and artistic process, shedding light on the political and social context of the time.
The interview provides a unique insight into the historical and cultural significance of the painting.
Critical issues related to the Irish government’s response to the conflict, the impact of the Bloody Sunday event, and the broader social and political implications are highlighted. Ballagh’s commentary on the role of the Irish government, the impact on nationalist communities, and the establishment of the Special Criminal Court adds depth to the discussion.
Bloody Sunday Painting – the Thirtieth of January – Robert Ballagh
Thursday, January 20 2022. John Meehan interviews the artist Robert Ballagh in Number Five Arbour Hill.
We are talking about Robert’s painting : The Thirtieth of January, a representation of Bloody Sunday in Derry, January 30 1972.
John Meehan :
Why did you zone in on Derry’s Bloody Sunday , and put so much effort into making this painting? What makes it different from so many other big events during “The Troubles” in the north of Ireland, which lasted for 30 years, from 1968 to 1998?
Robert Ballagh
Well, it’s a long time ago now 50 years, but I have to say that it had an enormous effect on me, and I don’t think I’m alone with that historical experience. I suppose one thing I should say, I was only thinking about this, and I haven’t said anything about this experience to others. I’m a Dubliner. I’ve lived all my life in Dublin. But unlike most Dubliners – it wasn’t by design – I had an extraordinary rich knowledge of the North of Ireland, before the conflict began. Because I was a professional musician in a showband. We used to play at least once or twice a week in the north. So I was in every town village or city in the north that had a ballroom or ballrooms. And so I experienced the reality of life in that society, and became very aware of the sectarian differences, shall we say – the nature of the society, which people didn’t appreciate at all. I tell one very short story to illustrate that. We played fairly regularly in one of the very popular ballrooms in Belfast : Romano’s in Queen Street. We developed quite a following! In the show business vernacular the word groupie was used. These girls used follow us, they came down to Dublin once or twice to hear us. And we were playing one night in Romano’s.
After the dance, they came up and we’re talking to us. They asked “When are you playing again in Belfast?”.
I remember saying “Oh, I think we’re here next week.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah – we’re playing in a ballroom called the Astor” which I knew was in Smithfield.
And they said, “Oh, we can’t go there.” And I said, “Why?” – because it was a public ballroom. It wasn’t attached to any organization or anything. It was a public ballroom.
They said, “Oh, no, that’s a taig hall”
And it was the first time I realized, and we realized, that our fan base in Belfast was Protestant.
“War and an Irish Town” – Joan McKiernan reviews a classic Eamonn McCann study of Derry and Partitioned Ireland
Joan McKiernan is an Irish-American socialist-feminist activist living in New York.
Joan McKiernan
War and an Irish Town
Source : https://againstthecurrent.org/atc223/war-and-an-irish-town/
By Eamonn McCann
First publication Pluto Press, 1974. Chicago: Haymarket Books edition, 2018, $20 paperback.
“‘WE’RE GONNA WALK on this nation, we’re gonna walk on this racist power structure, and we’re gonna say to the whole damned government — “STICK ‘EM UP MOTHERFUCKERS.’”
WITH THIS QUOTE from a film of the Black Panthers, Eamonn McCann, launches the Haymarket edition of his classic study of Derry and the North of Ireland Troubles, War and an Irish Town, taking us back to those heady days when so much change not only seemed possible, but likely to happen.
This is an especially timely reissue when the question of a united Ireland is again on the table.
Those in Derry that 1968 night cheering the Black Panthers’ words shared a common goal: the fight against inequality and repression, whether on the streets of Derry or Chicago where Black activists were “then under murderous assault by the feds and local police forces across the US.”
In those years, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia, Chicago to Mexico and many other places, the world was filled with students, workers, communities fighting back. McCann argues that “Each upsurge of struggle sent out a flurry of sparks which helped ignite struggle elsewhere.”
He situates The Troubles in the North of Ireland in this time of international struggles. Those who were there for those struggles should read this latest edition, with a new introduction by the author, to reconsider what happened and why we did not win. Those who were too young at the time can read about those exciting times and what lessons can be learned for the future.
Read the rest of this entry »Transgender Rights – “Scotland is now ahead of the rest of the UK – though still behind Ireland” – Michael Farrell
Veteran human rights activist Michael Farrell has campaigned in favour of transgender people for many decades. He publicly posted this comment in support of a recent Scottish Parliament Law reform:
Congratulations to the Scottish Parliament for taking a big step to protect transgender rights and resisting a bitter campaign by anti-trans groups to prevent them from making it easier for trans persons to get legal recognition. The new law, passed by 86 votes to 39, means trans people won’t have to get a medical diagnosis and wait for two yeas to register their gender. Scotland is now ahead of the rest of the UK – though still behind Ireland. A good day for a small community of people who have been abused and discriminated against for generations.
Michael Farrell, a founding member of People’s Democracy, was a revolutionary socialist activist in the six counties of Northern Ireland during the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Read the rest of this entry »Thousands took to the streets to march on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday – DerryNow Report
The feedback I got all week was that the 2022 Bloody Sunday March in Derry today would be huge. This turned out to be true. An initial report is below.
Here is the intriguing bit. The mass media (e.g. RTÉ Radio Bulletin this morning at 8.00am) reported lots of other stuff – for example, Dublin government taoiseach Mícheál Martin laying a wreath – and said nothing about the march this afternoon at 2.30pm in Derry featuring speeches by Bernadette McAliskey, Éamonn McCann, and others. RTÉ is a public service broadcaster in Ireland largely funded by a license fee. It comes under pressure from the “great and the good” to toe the line and exclude radical voices. And sometimes it gets things spectacularly wrong – today was an example.
What is the key political message today : Prosecute the Generals!
We will keep fighting – and, eventually, we might win. If we don’t fight, we definitely lose.
“There Were Plans in Train for Something Terrible to Happen” Robert Ballagh on Derry’s Bloody Sunday, January 30 1972
“The Thirtieth of January” is a new Robert Ballagh Painting about Derry’s Bloody Sunday, January 30 1972. In a brief interview with the Museum of Free Derry, The artist describes his motivation and his actions at the time in Ireland’s capital city, Dublin. https://youtu.be/9ZZZNhwnpG0
He notes that the British state’s Saville Inquiry found that the people killed by the Paratroop Regiment were innocent – but there is a “nagging question” – “nobody has been proven guilty of anything”. Robert included a reference to this “nagging doubt” in the painting. It is a “shoot to kill” order written by the British Army’s Major General Robert Ford some time before January 30 1972. Ford suggested that several of the Derry “young hooligans” – as the Major-General called them – should be shot.
I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders among the Derry Young Hooligans
Major-General Robert Ford of the British Army
The artist reproduces these words on an elegantly designed document in the painting. The source for the words is an Éamonn McCann booklet about Britain’s Parachute Regiment.
Bernadette McAliskey and Éamonn McCann Marching in Derry, January 2019
“Some cause happiness wherever they go. Some cause happiness whenever they go” Is British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the way out?
I asked an interested comrade living in England – how long will Boris Johnson last? The first reply :
He’s clearly in serious trouble, and the Tories are scouting around their stable of horrors for a replacement.
Oscar Wilde’s Verdict “Some cause happiness wherever they go. Some cause happiness whenever they go”
The drama is receiving continuing attention in the Irish mass media. The RTÉ Morning Show hosted by Claire Byrne covered the Downing Street Pantomime. First boxer on the stage was Mr Andrew Bridgen (MP for Hard Brexit) [Bridgen is a competent anti-Johnson backbencher who may ascend to ministerial ranks if Johnson resigns]. Sir Tony Blair’s ex handler, Alistair Campbell (Iraq Dodgy Dossier) was in the opposite corner. Campbell started OK, concentrating on Boris Johnson’s CV – saying partygate is predictable once you knew the CV. Campbell went all Roy Keane after that – take out the player, never mind the ball – once Bridgen mentioned Campbell’s Iraq War Deadly Dossier. Lies about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” helped cause a hideous imperialist war – millions of innocent civilians dead and injured. Campbell’s behaviour contributed to the hounding of a courageous whistleblower, Doctor David Kelly, who died via suicide. Prime Minister Johnson lies about partying while the mother of a likely child abuse criminal (Queen Elizabeth and Prince Andrew) was grieving over the death of a dangerous driver husband (Prince Philip). Is this an episode in an ongoing drama – the strange death of Brexit Hard Right Britain?
Sources and Images :
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s Stormont-Westminster Double-Job Stroke Shot Down
Read the rest of this entry »Institutionalized Sectarianism in the North of Ireland – Ian Paisley, Prayers for Partition, Marching Feet in Derry
Today’s Stormont Administration is controlled by the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by far-right religious rabble-rouser Ian Paisley. Despite the honeyed words of today’s peace process, the Northern state’s government is choked by institutionalized sectarianism. Paisley’s spiritual children will descend on Armagh City on October 21 reciting prayers for partition.
October 11 1988 – Ian Paisley heckles the “AntiChrist” Pope in the European Parliament
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Tomás Ó Flatharta 