I WAS astounded to read in the most recent edition of the Andersonstown News that the former Connolly House and adjacent land has been purchased by a "community body" and it is planned to develop a museum dedicated to the 1981 hunger strike on site.
There are currently over 2,000 people and families in West Belfast who are on the housing waiting list, many of them for over five years. Here is an ideal opportunity to help ease that housing waiting list and ease the homeless crisis in West Belfast.
There is already a republican museum in Conway Mill with many hunger strike artefacts. We also have the James Connolly Museum on the Falls Road, the Roddy McCorley Museum on the Glen Road, and Davitt's GAC were recently awarded funding for a museum. Surely we have enough museums in West Belfast that can display additional hunger strike artefacts.
The Andersonstown News front page story stated that, "the properties and lands are now in community hands". Hopefully these nameless community people will rethink their proposal and build affordable social homes.
G Reilly,
Andersonstown, Belfast 11
