IN a recent interview Christy Moore remarked that the death of Bobby Sands robbed us of a great writing talent. Christy was praising the quality of the work Bobby created in the harsh conditions he endured. He was making the point that you can only imagine what Bobby might have gone on to produce in different circumstances where his creative imagination could have been nurtured and not repressed. But of course this was not to be. Bobby led the second hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and he was the first of the ten men who fasted to death in that awful summer of 1981.
I remember years earlier Bobby practicing his singing and guitar playing in Cage Eleven, where we were guests of the British Government, before the H-Blocks were built. Christy Moore was one of Bobby’s go-to performers as he honed his musical skills. He would be delighted that Christy has done so much to perpetuate his poetry and song writing alongside the sacrifice of the blanket men and the Armagh women. ‘McIlhatton’ and ‘Back Home in Derry’ are now part of the Irish singing tradition.
Another man who has helped to perpetuate Bobby’s writing is Danny Morrison. Danny, a very diligent member of The Bobby Sands Trust, is editor of a new collection of Bobby’s poetry (which first came out in October 1981). This reprint is a beautiful book, with wonderful illustrations and cover design by renowned artist Tony Bell.
There are twenty-four of Bobby’s poems. All of these poems were written in remarkable circumstances. Hundreds of mostly young protesting prisoners were cooped up naked for over five years – with only a blanket for cover – in the Special Control Units of the newly built H-Blocks. They were denied washing and toilet facilities and the right to exercise and to any form of intellectual or recreational rights, including pens and paper. They were beaten regularly. All of this was part of a British Government offensive to criminalise the republican struggle. Women republican prisoners in Armagh Prison were also targeted as criminals.
As Danny Morrison points out in his Introduction to Prison Poems, “The real criminality throughout Irish history is English/British interference in the affairs of another people.”
That essential truth is borne out in Bobby’s writings, which include short stories, songs, and his statements and comms reproduced in David Beresford’s classic, Ten Men Dead. One Day In My Life (Introduction by Sean MacBride) was first published by Mercier Press in 1982, which also published his Writings From Prison (Introduction by myself, 1998 ed.). His Prison Diary sold 40,000 in 1981, alone. All of this writing was accomplished secretly in his cell and scribbled on cigarette papers secreted in his body and smuggled out to the Sinn Féin POW Department in Belfast where Tom Hartley had the foresight to archive any of the material which he received so that a large amount of this prison literature has been preserved.
Danny Morrison’s ‘Introduction’ traces the history of the prison protests as well as the span of Bobby’s poetry and it is a reflective and moving reminder of the genius of the man and his unbreakable spirit.
Prison Poems is published by An Fhuiseog and is available from good bookshops and online @AnFhuiseog and www.sinnfeinbookshop.com
Rally to Defend Moore St this weekend
The campaign to protect the 1916 Moore St Battlefield site from demolition is moving up a gear. As regular readers will know An Bord Pleanála – the planning authority in the South – gave the go ahead recently for the Hammerson development plan which will see much of this historic site reduced to rubble.
Last week the Moore Street Preservation Trust published ‘The Battle of Moore Street' by Ray Bateson, a bi-lingual history of the final battle of the Easter Rising in the words of those who were there. Renowned Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan formally launched the book in Liberty Hall in Dublin saying; “It’s a great honour to have been asked to be here today and to launch this wonderful book." It is available from https://msptshop.myshopify.com and from good bookshops and online including @AnFhuiseog and at www.sinnfeinbookshop.com
This Sunday the Moore Street Preservation Trust is holding a rally in Moore Street to protest against the decision by An Bord Pleanála. The rally will take place at 1pm and I would encourage all of those who believe that this iconic 1916 historic site should be protected to join with us this Sunday.
The Moore St. Preservation Trust has produced a short video introduced by historian Liz Gillis. It can be viewed at: https://www.facebook.com/MooreStreetTrust/videos/11233766693550977
So, join us this Sunday at 1pm in Moore St. to defend this historic site from the wrecking ball.
Irish government fails Palestinians
More massacres. More children dead and maimed. More civilians killed by the Israeli government in a series of deadly assaults in Gaza and Lebanon. Health workers, journalists, and children continue to be the preferred targets for a right wing Israeli government that is being armed, funded and empowered by its western allies.
International condemnation and accusations of breaching international law make no difference to Netanyahu and his cronies. Only sanctions that are economically effective have any chance of shifting Israeli Government opinion.
Last week at the United Nations, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, published a major report – Genocide as Colonial Erasure. The report makes frightening reading. Ms Albanese described Israel’s order on “14 October 2023 for 1.1 million Palestinians to move south from northern Gaza in 24 hours as ‘one of the fastest mass displacements in history.’
In the year since then at least 90 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza have now been forcibly displaced amid calls from Israeli officials and others for Palestinians to leave and Israelis to ‘return to Gaza’ and rebuild the colonies dismantled in 2005… High-ranking Israeli officials, ministers and religious leaders continue to encourage erasure and dispossession of Palestinians, setting new thresholds for acceptable violence against civilians. The Nakba, which has been ongoing since 1948, has been deliberately accelerated.”
As a result of her courageous stand Albanese has been accused of being anti-Semitic by the United States and Israel.
This is the desperate context for the appalling decision by the Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition in the Oireachtas to reject an offer by Sinn Féin and other opposition parties to provide time this week to facilitate the passing of the Occupied Territories Bill which the Government has stalled on for five years.
Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald wrote to the government last week. In her letter to Simon Harris she wrote: “The people of Gaza cannot wait one moment longer. Israel must face the strongest of sanctions for the genocide that is unfolding. It is unconscionable to ask the people of Gaza to wait even one moment longer. The genocide is continuing and Israel is being allowed to act with impunity. A ceasefire will only happen if Israel faces consequences for their actions.”
With a general election in the South likely to be called by the end of this week there was only a short window in the political calendar for the Bill to be passed into law. An election campaign and then the negotiations needed to form the next government means that the Occupied Territories Bill will not become law until the new year.
This is unacceptable. Irish government Ministers claim to oppose Israel military aggression, especially at a time when Irish peacekeepers are under threat from Israeli forces in Lebanon and genocide is occurring in the Gaza Strip but refuse to take the decisive action needed to stand up to Israel.
Whatever the outcome of the general election a priority for the incoming Irish government must be firm and resolute action against the Israeli statement. Nothing less will do.
