Posted by Jim on September 7, 2016
Brian Feeney. Belfast Telegraph. Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Let’s be clear at the outset. Máirtín Ó Muilleoir is quite right to raise the question of EU funds for Peace IV and INTERREG which have produced £1.5 billion and £820 million respectively since the ceasefires in 1994.
Another £500 million are due from these funds in the next four years. Ó Muilleoir’s question is whether the UK Treasury will guarantee that money. So far they have said they will underwrite only any plans signed off before November even if the UK gets out of the EU before the money is paid over.
That kind of money is vitally important for the north because of the jobs it supplies particularly in impoverished districts and also to people affected by the Troubles across the north. It’s pretty obvious as Ó Muilleoir says that if the money is not forthcoming hundreds of jobs will go. Now equally it’s a lot easier to sign off on schemes already planned than to anticipate schemes which might come on stream in the next four years so he’s doing his job to try to nail down the Treasury to meet the British share of money the EU has promised.
You have to wonder why Arlene Foster felt it necessary to step into this area. Her intervention contributed nothing except to get herself on TV. She said she was ‘disappointed’ and that Ó Muilleoir was ‘causing alarm among the business community’. Let’s leave aside the fact that as a successful businessman in his own right the finance minister has a lot more hands-on experience in business than Arlene.
Is this the same Arlene Foster who signed a joint letter with Martin McGuinness on August 10 standing her Leave campaign on its head by registering concern about the north’s access to EU funds and agricultural support? She also signed up to pointing out that the ‘north is uniquely vulnerable to the loss of EU funding’ and ‘recognised the possibility that it cannot be guaranteed that outcomes that suit our common interests are ultimately deliverable’. Hmm.
So it’s OK for Arlene to say it but not Ó Muilleoir? Accused of doing a U-turn by implicitly admitting that advocating Leave vote was a major miscalculation – which it was – she subsequently said a letter from the Treasury in August provided ‘clarity’ in relation to EU funding. It didn’t. It provided what concerns Ó Muilleoir, namely a guarantee that anything sent in before November is OK. After that who knows? Not Arlene. Foster’s sniping raises again a wider matter. She seems to have no concept of sharing power. She seems to regard herself as prime minister able to control other ministers. In reality, by interfering and sniping she diminishes the office of first minister. Engaging in inter-party political banter demonstrates she can’t see the wood for the trees and shows she hasn’t yet learnt the difference between being first minster and an MLA.
If every statement by a Sinn Féin minister or a UUP MLA that annoys her leads her to yield to the irresistible urge to tweet a reply or issue a press statement then she shows no sense of priority let alone gravitas. All her utterances assume equal importance (or unimportance) so no-one can distinguish between what she thinks important enough for the first minister to comment on and what is another cheap trivial shot.
In the end her inability to button her lip reinforces what a report last week for the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building found, that is the executive is so divided with fundamentally different views about how to respond to Brexit that it will be extremely difficult to agree a position. The fact that Foster and Ó Muilleoir met the secretary of state for Brexit separately last week proves that.
Nonetheless we come back to the fundamental point which is that Arlene Foster got it wrong, the voters in the north rejected her case and she’s still in denial. It’s Ó Muilleoir who’s accurately expressing the concerns of the majority in the north. Perhaps that’s why Foster was so piqued by the positive reception his remarks received.
It seems her signing up to her U-turn letter on August 10 was an aberration.
Posted by Jim on September 6, 2016
Letters to Irish News (Belfast).
Fr Joe McVeigh. Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Trevor Ringland, a man with very fixed unionist views, clearly does not like republicans or republicanism. As a unionist he is pro-monarchy and anti-republican. That’s his choice, which limits greatly his understanding of the world. He describes republicanism as a ‘flawed ideology.’ And suggests that the 10 men died for ‘a flawed ideology’.
Mr Ringland began his letter – ‘Hunger strikes sadly a recurring theme of Irish republicanism’ (August 29) – by stating “I probably won’t watch 66 Days…” Such a negative approach to begin with suggests that he is not open to learning and discovering the mind of republicans. He goes on to condemn the hunger-strikers for ‘taking their own lives for a political cause’.
The use of hunger strike as a weapon to obtain justice has a long history in Ireland and indeed in other countries like India where it was used by Mahatma Gandhi. In Ireland it was used as a means of protesting against injustice in Celtic times and was known as troscadh (fasting on or against a person) and cealachan (achieving justice by starvation).
It is important to put the hunger strike in context.
In 1976 the British Labour government introduced a new policy of criminalisation. From then onwards republican prisoners sentenced would be required to wear prison uniform and conform to new prison rules. When the prisoners refused to conform to this new regime they went on a protest of wrapping themselves in a blanket and refusing to be forcibly taken to the toilets.
In August 1978, Cardinal Tomás O’Fiaich visited the H Blocks in Long Kesh prison to see the situation for himself. Afterwards he stated: “I was shocked by the inhuman conditions prevailing in H Blocks 3, 4, and 5, where over 300 prisoners are incarcerated. One would hardly allow an animal to remain in such conditions, let alone a human being…The stench and filth in some of the cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta around the walls, was almost unbearable. The nearest approach to it that I have seen was the spectacle of hundreds of homeless people living in sewer pipes in the slums of Calcutta. From talking to them it is evident that they intend to continue their protest indefinitely and it seems they prefer to face death rather than submit to being classed as criminals. Anyone with the least knowledge of Irish history knows how deeply rooted this attitude is in our country’s past.”
The British condemned the cardinal’s remarks. The cardinal was ridiculed in the British press, where it was often noted that he came from Crossmaglen in south Armagh.
The refusal by Margaret Thatcher and the British government to respond to the cardinal’s appeal for justice and mercy led to the first hunger-strike in 1980. When it ended with the promise from the British to introduce reforms a second hunger strike led by Bobby Sands began. In his diary he outlined the reasons why they resorted to the second hunger strike in 1981. From his point of view to accept the new regime would have been to criminalise the entire struggle for Irish freedom. The protesting prisoners hoped that the British would be forced to change their attitude as a result of world opinion and introduce a humane regime in Long Kesh summarised in the five demands.
The prisoners on the fast were acting in solidarity and in the cause of justice and human dignity.
Mr Ringland, being a monarchist, would not understand. I think Mr Ringland should go to see 66 Days.
He might learn something and he might learn to be a little more respectful of others who differ from him politically.
Fr Joe McVeigh
Co Fermanagh
Posted by Jim on September 4, 2016
DEATH IS NOTHING AT ALL
“Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before only better, infinitely happier and forever we will all be one together with Christ.
*Originally published in March 2015.
Posted by Jim on
Dear Fellow Hibernians,
It is with great sadness that I report of the passing of Bill Sheehan of Kings County Division 19.
Today we lost a loyal Hibernian. Though hampered by illness for years, he was always counted on and relied on in many Hibernian events.
We lost a Hibernian Brother and a true friend.
Details to follow when we receive them.
Sadly reported,
Steve Kiernan, President
AOH KINGS County Board
Posted by Jim on September 2, 2016
