Forty-five years sounds and seems like a lifetime ago. I suppose it was. In 1981, in West Belfast, I turned thirteen and was in my second year in secondary school (high school). A defining time in all our lives. I once read that the music you discover at that age stays with you. If that is true, then the 1981 Hunger Strike and its aftermath were the soundtrack to my teenage years. This week marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the death on Hunger Strike of Bobby Sands. I had attended the protests and the funerals. A black flag was hung outside our house, and posters in support of the prisoners were in our windows. This would be no surprise as Grandfather, Father and uncles had all been jailed for their Irish Republican beliefs. One uncle was still in jail and on the blanket protest. It was all very real, and urgent. I remember in later years asking my mother, herself a committed Irish Republican, how she managed with a husband who was an activist and two teenage sons. She confessed, “not very well.” That is why I am not nostalgic for those days. As you grow up and have a family, you reflect on the sacrifice of the Hunger Strikers who left behind wives and children, the weight carried by grieving mothers and fathers, and the lives they could have lived. But I do carry with great pride and awe those who faced down Margaret Thatcher and the British Government. Bobby Sands, brutalised, naked but for a blanket, denied sun and exercise for years, and yet would write that, “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.” I am thankful for the opportunity to get to know and to work with those who led the prison protests—those who recognised that the opportunity to move from resistance to securing a united Ireland. So here we are, all of these years, a generation on from conflict, and desire for freedom and unity remains. A new generation is now driving our struggle. Thatcher is gone, her Tory party and her union lies in tatters. Unionism no longer enjoys a political majority in North of Ireland. Sinn Féin is now the largest political party across Ireland. The North of Ireland has irreversibly changed. In 1981, the Irish Government refused to support the Hunger Strikers and even allowed Kieran Doherty, who was elected as a member of their parliament, to die. Today, again, an Irish government led by Micheal Martin refuses to take the opportunity to do the right thing and promote the cause of Irish Unity. I remember with pride those days and I am thankful that we now have a peaceful and democratic pathway to Irish Unity. I greive that loss but understand that were we are today is a product of all that went before us. We have further to travel and work to do to grasp the opportunity to build a new and united Ireland, that echoes with the laughter of all our children. Have a great weekend. Is mise, Ciarán
Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America
110 years ago today, James Connolly faced the firing squad of the British Empire with the same defiance and courage that had marked every step of his revolutionary life. Brutally wounded after the Easter Rising and unable to stand, Connolly was carried into the yard of Kilmainham Gaol and tied to a chair before British soldiers opened fire. Yet even in those final moments his spirit remained unbroken. Speaking to his wife Lillie before his execution, Connolly uttered words that have echoed through generations of Irish republicans ever since: “Wasn’t it a full life, Lillie, and isn’t this a good end?”
Connolly’s was a life wholly dedicated to the liberation of Ireland and the emancipation of the working class. He was no narrow nationalist. He understood that true freedom meant more than removing the Union Jack and the raising of the Tricolour. Connolly fought for a Workers’ Republic, an Ireland owned and controlled by the Irish people themselves, free from empire, capitalism and exploitation. As he famously declared, “The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour. They cannot be dissevered.”
The British executed Connolly believing they could crush the revolutionary spirit of Ireland through terror and bloodshed. Instead, they created one of the greatest martyrs in Irish history. His execution, carried out while he was strapped to a chair because his wounds were so severe, exposed the cruelty of British rule before the world and lit a fire in the hearts of countless Irish men and women determined to continue the struggle for national freedom.
Connolly warned that freedom without social justice would be no freedom at all,
“If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.”
More than a century later, his words remain a challenge to all who claim the republican tradition.
James Connolly died proudly for the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916, but neither British bullets nor the passage of time could silence his ideals. His name, his courage and his revolutionary vision live on wherever Irish patriots continue the fight for a united, free and socialist Ireland.
Constitutional change is firmly on the agenda in the UK and Ireland – The Irish News view
Sir Keir Starmer speaking to the media on Saturday
By The Irish News
May 11, 2026 at 6:00am BST
While many groups have worked strenuously but unsuccessfully for decades towards encouraging the final break-up of the United Kingdom through constitutional means, the latest set of British elections have brought them closer than ever to realising their aims.
It is hugely significant that the first ministers of not only Northern Ireland and Scotland but now almost definitely Wales as well are fully committed to independence, and have a mandate to push the debate forward during their present terms of office.
The era of two major parties, Labour and the Conservatives, dominating proceedings at Westminster also seems to be over, with the next British government likely to be an unusual coalition which may further undermine the unionist position.
Whether such an arrangement involves Nigel Farage remains to be seen, as, although his Reform UK group is relentlessly growing at present, much can change before the next British general election is due in 2029.
However, if Mr Farage does play a key role, unionists will undoubtedly recall his comment to The Irish Times in 2023 – “One day there will be a United Ireland. But it’s not on the horizon immediately.”
The DUP was previously prepared to put its full trust in another colourful English nationalist, Boris Johnson, before coming to bitterly regret the association, and can only regard the Reform UK leader with considerable suspicion.
It is also increasingly clear that the days of Keir Starmer, an instinctive unionist, as British prime minister are numbered, as he has stumbled from one crisis to another until his Labour Party performed pitifully across England, Scotland and Wales last week.
His successor may well have a much more open mind than Mr Starmer on independence issues, as do many Labour MPs, with a different phase emerging during the wider debate.
The level of nationalist support has traditionally been weaker in Wales than in Scotland, so the surge to power of Plaid Cymru, one hundred years after it was formed, deserves to be regarded as an historic moment.
Labour’s Welsh collapse has been dramatic, and all the evidence is that it will remain in disarray there for the foreseeable future, with Plaid having an outstanding opportunity to consolidate its grip on the Senedd.
The Scottish National Party has emerged from a prolonged period of upheaval to become stronger than ever, and is entitled to step up its efforts to secure a second and potentially decisive referendum on independence.
We are in a period when the old certainties are being swept away, and constitutional change has moved from a distant prospect to an increasingly viable option in Scotland, Wales and plainly Ireland.
Law Society members ‘disgusted’ as CEO apologises for providing character reference for paedophile cousin William Lloyd-Lavery.
Convicted paedophile William Lloyd-Lavery at Belfast Crown Court on April 28
Brett Campbell
Reporter
11 May 2026 6:00 AM
Solicitors have expressed “disgust” after the chief executive of a professional body representing them provided a character reference for his paedophile cousin William Lloyd-Lavery.
Members of the Law Society for Northern Ireland were informed via email that its chief executive, David Lavery, had expressed remorse to its executive committee for telling a Crown court judge that the man convicted of abusing four schoolgirls in the 1970s was “a person of sound judgement and good character”.
An email seen by the Belfast Telegraph, and signed by the Law Society’s president Mark Borland, seeks to reassure members that the committee “considered this matter with deep concern and the gravity it requires” particularly in light of its “commitment to justice, equality, the rule of law and its advocacy on behalf of victims and survivors of sexual abuse”.
“David Lavery has apologised sincerely and unreservedly to council and has acknowledged that providing the reference was a serious error of judgement,” the correspondence states.
The executive committee welcomed the apology, but acknowledged the concern the matter had caused.
A number of Law Society members described the situation to the Belfast Telegraph as “disgusting” and said they were “appalled” by how it has been handled.
William Lloyd-Lavery, a former history teacher at Richmond Lodge in south Belfast, was handed a two-year sentence for indecently assaulting four female pupils, aged 13 and 14, between 1975 and 1979.
Sentencing the 77-year-old from Richmond Avenue in Lisburn, Judge Patrick Lynch referred to a character reference submitted by the defendant’s cousin, David Lavery, who explained that while related, he only got to know Lloyd-Lavery in later life.
“My impression of Mr Lloyd-Lavery was principally formed when I got to know him when he was working at Stormont,” the reference states.
“By that time, he was a middle aged man in his late 50s and early 60s and was happily married with two adult children.
“I knew that he had a Christian faith and attended Lisburn Cathedral.
“He appeared to me to be a settled, family man who wanted to contribute to society through his work on behalf of a number of elected representatives.
“I know that he was well respected in these circles and was viewed as a person of sound judgement and good character.”
A former chair of the Ulster Unionist Party and founding member of the Loyalist Communities Council also provided a character reference for the convicted child predator.
David Campbell, who served as a senior adviser to the late First Minister David Trimble, previously told this newspaper he does not regret doing so.
Law Society NI members have been told its executive committee has asked its personnel committee to oversee the development of a new protocol for “senior officers providing personal or professional references, including the reputational, ethical and governance considerations that apply in such circumstances”.
“This matter has also highlighted wider concerns around character references in cases involving sexual violence, abuse or serious harm,” the email concludes.
“The executive committee believes the society should engage with appropriate justice-sector partners to consider whether clearer guidance, policy change or legal reform is required in relation to the use of such references.
“The issues arising from this matter will be subject to further consideration, including by council. The matter will also be included on the agenda for discussion at the next council meeting.”
Forty-five years sounds and seems like a lifetime ago. I suppose it was. In 1981, in West Belfast, I turned thirteen and was in my second year in secondary school (high school). A defining time in all our lives. I once read that the music you discover at that age stays with you.
If that is true, then the 1981 Hunger Strike and its aftermath were the soundtrack to my teenage years.
This week marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the death on Hunger Strike of Bobby Sands. I had attended the protests and the funerals. A black flag was hung outside our house, and posters in support of the prisoners were in our windows. This would be no surprise as Grandfather, Father and uncles had all been jailed for their Irish Republican beliefs. One uncle was still in jail and on the blanket protest. It was all very real, and urgent.
I remember in later years asking my mother, herself a committed Irish Republican, how she managed with a husband who was an activist and two teenage sons. She confessed, “not very well.”
That is why I am not nostalgic for those days. As you grow up and have a family, you reflect on the sacrifice of the Hunger Strikers who left behind wives and children, the weight carried by grieving mothers and fathers, and the lives they could have lived.
But I do carry with great pride and awe those who faced down Margaret Thatcher and the British Government. Bobby Sands, brutalised, naked but for a blanket, denied sun and exercise for years, and yet would write that, “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”
I am thankful for the opportunity to get to know and to work with those who led the prison protests—those who recognised that the opportunity to move from resistance to securing a united Ireland.
So here we are, all of these years, a generation on from conflict, and desire for freedom and unity remains. A new generation is now driving our struggle.
Thatcher is gone, her Tory party and her union lies in tatters. Unionism no longer enjoys a political majority in North of Ireland. Sinn Féin is now the largest political party across Ireland.
The North of Ireland has irreversibly changed.
In 1981, the Irish Government refused to support the Hunger Strikers and even allowed Kieran Doherty, who was elected as a member of their parliament, to die.
Today, again, an Irish government led by Micheal Martin refuses to take the opportunity to do the right thing and promote the cause of Irish Unity.
I remember with pride those days and I am thankful that we now have a peaceful and democratic pathway to Irish Unity. I greive that loss but understand that were we are today is a product of all that went before us. We have further to travel and work to do to grasp the opportunity to build a new and united Ireland, that echoes with the laughter of all our children.
Have a great weekend.
Is mise,
Ciarán
Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America
