ON Tuesday we buried our friend and comrade Brendan McFarlane. Bik texted me just two weeks or so ago to say he was back in hospital. He had been battling cancer for some time. A few days later the medics stopped his treatment. There was nothing else they could do for him. Suddenly and unexpectedly he was gone. He died peacefully surrounded by his loving family.
My solidarity and sympathy to Lene, a mighty woman, and to their children, Emma, Tomás and Tina, his brother Gerard and the wider family circle. His loss for them is immeasurable. For his countless friends and comrades his death is a deep blow.
Bik spent almost all of his adult life as a republican activist – an Óglach, a political prisoner, a leader, a man of courage, fiercely proud of and loyal to his community, a resolute advocate for Irish unity, a Gaeilgeoir, a friend and a comrade.
A lot has been written about Brendan and his IRA activities and he surely was a very committed activist, but my memories of him are of a good-humoured, thoughtful and steadfast friend. We met in prison fifty years or so ago. He used to joke that he became the prisoners' press officer when he admitted he could type. He was too modest. He could also write. We always got on well.
Years later Bik was OC of the blanket men during the 1981 hunger strike. For almost a year he minded the hunger strikers in the H-Blocks. He stood by Bobby, Francis, Raymond, Patsy, Joe, Martin, Kevin, Kieran, Tom and Mickey – and the others who survived it. He met them in the prison hospital as their bodies slowly failed. He was their voice with the prison administration and with the visiting delegations whose principal purpose was to persuade the prisoners to unilaterally end their hunger strike.
Brendan was in daily contact with a small number of us during that terrible but inspiring summer of 1981. He was the calm, steady leader. A bunch of us inside and outside the H-Blocks and Armagh Women’s Prison became, and remain, remarkably close as we worked to try and prevent the deaths of Bobby Sands and his nine comrades.
I still have the tiny little ‘teach’ that Brendan wrote to me when Bobby died. A 'teach' or 'teachtareacht', or 'comm', was usually written in tiny letters on cigarette paper and occasionally on pieces of paper from pages of the Bible and smuggled taobh amuigh from the H-Blocks.
Others will remember Bik’s many other talents and adventures. He was a central figure in the Great Escape when 38 H-Block prisoners busted their way out of H7 in 1983. They also recall his time with Gerry Kelly on the run in Europe, back again in the H-Blocks and then his work following his release as a political and community activist. He was a singer of note and a writer of fine songs.
In his oration, Gerry Kelly told the story of an inspiring republican – a united Irelander – who never gave up, never bowed the knee, who remained unyielding and brave to the end. On occasion over these last few days I have been asked to sum up Brendan, to define the kind of activist he was. For me, he was the man Bobby Sands and his comrades trusted.
Lene was the love of his life. He was a good family man. A great friend to those of us privileged to know him as well as we did. For that, I am forever grateful.
Taking a stand
The decision by Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald and Leas Uachtarán Michelle O’Neill not to attend the St Patrick’s Day events in the White House and the Speaker's lunch on Capitol Hill will undoubtedly upset some of our friends across Irish America. This is very understandable. Sinn Féin’s access to successive US administrations was won after decades of very hard work by many people across North America. Understandably, they do not want to jeopardise or lose that influence. It is worth noting that in the past Sinn Féin has always attended White House events when invited, including during President Trump’s first term in office.
So the Sinn Féin decision was taken after much deliberation. The catalyst for this was the recent statements from President Donald Trump in which he called for the expulsion of over two million Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip, his refusal to countenance their return and his proposal that the United States of America will take over the region. The decision would have been the same had a Democratic President called for the expulsion of two million Palestinians.
International law and successive United Nations resolutions and international agreements have long accepted the need for a two-state solution and the right of the people of Palestine to self-determination. President Trump has torn these up in the interests of an Israeli apartheid state engaged in genocide and of those multi-national companies eager to exploit the billions available in the gas and oil fields off the coast of Gaza.
PROVOCATIVE: Donald Trump's promise to ethnically cleanse Gaza delighted Benjamin Netanyahu
The Irish peace process and the imperative of defending the Good Friday Agreement, as well as the need for constitutional change and economic investment, have always topped Sinn Féin’s political agenda in all our visits to the USA. Successive US administrations have played a positive and important role in building and sustaining the peace. The historic connections between Ireland and the USA are important to us.
We acknowledge this each time we visit America and Sinn Féin leaders who will be travelling again to the USA in March will do so again. They will actively and positively engage with political leaders, Irish America, the trade union movement and US business. As Mary Lou McDonald says, Irish America and the USA is "an important partner for peace” and “St Patrick’s Day, each year, is an important moment to re-enforce all of those connections.”
Irish republicans are also internationalists. We have a responsibility to use the opportunities available to us to raise our concerns about international issues where we believe the US administration is wrong. We do so with the Irish and British governments and in the EU and other international forums. We do so respectfully but firmly. Until now our criticisms have been ignored by former President Joe Biden and now President Trump.
From the first time I met President Clinton thirty years ago, and thereafter with subsequent US Presidents, I always took the opportunity to raise my concerns about US foreign policy; about the embargo on Cuba, the plight of the people of Palestine, the efforts to advance peace in the Basque Country, freedom for Leonard Peltier and of other issues of concern for Irish people and others. I travelled to Cuba and also Gaza. Undoubtedly this caused difficulties at the time for some of our friends in the USA. But, like us, their commitment to Ireland allowed us and them to overcome these differences of opinion.
Sometimes a stand has to be taken and friends can agree to disagree because our main common ground is unity for Ireland as set out in the Good Friday Agreement. What Mary Lou and Michelle are doing is taking a stand against what President Trump is proposing for the people of Palestine. To be silent or to acquiesce to the expulsion of a people from their homeland is be complicit in it. It demands, as Mary Lou says, “serious dissent and objection.”
So too does the use of USA armaments in Gaza and the West Bank and the White House endorsement of multiple breaches of international law by the government of Israel.
The stance taken by the Trump administration is tantamount to throwing petrol on a fire. It is storing up a depth of division and anger that has never been witnessed before in the Middle East and it makes any prospect for a peace process problematic for years to come.
They never took Leonard's spirit
Leonard Peltier was finally released from prison in Florida last week. The 80-year-old political prisoner had spent almost the last 50 years in prison protesting his innocence.
FINALLY: Leonard Peltier on his release with rock star and actor Steve Van Zandt
Leonard is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and he is now on his reservation in North Dakota where his family and friends gathered to welcome him home.
After his release he said: “They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” and he thanked “all my supporters throughout the world who fought for my freedom.”
Fáilte abhaile, Leonard.
