The campaign to save the 1916 Moore Street Battlefield site and those iconic buildings and streetscape that are forever linked to the most important historic event in modern Irish history has reached another potentially decisive moment.

In May, An Taoiseach Simon Harris announced the establishment of “a Taskforce to take a holistic view of the measures required to rejuvenate Dublin City Centre, north and south”.

The stated objective is to make Dublin City Centre “a more thriving, attractive, and safe cityscape; and a desirable location to live, work, do business and visit.” The Taskforce is expected to report this month (August).

On Monday, James Connolly Heron, Christina McLoughlin and Honor Ó Brolcháin of the Moore St. Preservation Trust and architect Seán Ó Muirí who is the Design Principle at Fuinneamh Workshop - an award winning architectural company based in Cork - met with David McRedmond, CEO of the Taskforce.

The delegation presented Mr. McRedmond with a copy of the alternative plan for the development of the 1916 Battlefield site as a 1916 Cultural Quarter and a new publication – 'Preserving Our Past; Rising to our Future' – which provides a summary of the alternative plan and a report of the successful conference held by the Trust in the GPO in April.

The property developer  Hammerson in its redevelopment proposals for the area has lodged five planning applications. These have been appealed to An Bord Pleanála and decisions are still awaited. At the same time Hammerson has initiated legal action against the City Council because Councillors voted to add historic Moore Street buildings to the Record of Protected Structures.

The Trust delegation highlighted the enormous threat to the 1916 Battlefield site posed by the Hammerson plan. Hammerson’s proposals do not meet the agreed recommendations of the advisory group that reported several years ago to the Minister. Hammersons propose  the destruction of buildings linked directly to the Easter Rising.

On the other hand the Trust plan not only meets all of the agreed recommendations of the Ministerial advisory group but also satisfies the objections of the Department itself to the extent of the developer's proposed demolitions throughout the site.

Monday’s meeting provided a significant opportunity to impress upon Mr McRedmond and the Taskforce that the creation of a Moore St. Historic and Cultural Quarter will contribute enormously to the rejuvenation of Dublin City Centre and its aim of making it a “desirable location to live, work, do business and visit.”

The historic Moore Street 1916 battlefield site and the traditional street market are crucial in any approach to improving the centre of our capital city. Moore Street campaigners, including the Moore Street Preservation Trust, are determined to protect this area and to ensure its transformation into a cultural quarter, truly cherishing our past and rising to our future. 

International solidarity needed 

By the end of this week, more than 40,000 people, mostly children and women, will have been slaughtered by Israel in the Gaza Strip.  The Strip has been reduced to rubble and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been left without shelter, food, clean water and sanitation. This is an Israeli-made humanitarian disaster.

Day after day courageous journalists living under constant threat from Israeli snipers, drones and bombs continue to report Israel’s targeted bombing of refugees;  the massacre of families living in tents; and of children starving because Israel is preventing food and medical aid from entering Gaza. In recent days Israeli soldiers deliberately destroyed a water treatment plant in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah and an MRI machine at the Turkish hospital in Gaza. This is genocide.

However, even in the midst of all of this dreadful suffering there have been important and positive developments. A fortnight ago the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the occupation and annexation of the Palestinian territories by Israel is unlawful. It also concluded that Israel’s discriminatory laws and policies against Palestinians violate the prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.  

This is a defining moment for the international community and in particular for Israel’s allies who by their support of Israel endorse its apartheid policies. Do they support international law or Israel’s flouting of that law? Is Israel to be held to account for its genocidal/apartheid policies? At this time there is no reason to believe that Israel and its allies will change direction. Achieving that will depend on building international support for international law. This too will not be easy but we cannot give up in our efforts.

Therefore our demands are clear. These must include the withdrawal by Israel from all Palestinian occupied land. There must be an immediate ceasefire by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. All hostages, including the thousands of Palestinians held by Israel must be released. Humanitarian aid must have free access to Gaza. There must be an immediate halt to the expansion of Israeli settlements. Palestinian statehood and the rights inherent in that must be accepted by Israel and its allies.

Finally, in a very welcome move Hamas and Fatah and 12 other Palestinian groups signed a ‘national unity’ agreement in Beijing aimed at maintaining Palestinian control over the Gaza Strip once Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged territory ends. The agreement calls for ‘interim national reconciliation government’ to govern Gaza.

Israel and its allies have sought to dictate the terms of any governance arrangement for the Gaza strip in any post war situation, including Israel maintaining control of the territory. All of these have been predicated on limiting the democratic rights of the Palestinian people to chose their own representatives and government. This cannot be allowed. The Palestinian people have the right to self-determination.

Féile Arís

It is Féile an Phobail time again. Well done to Kevin Gamble and all the Féile team for once again bringing us a truly outstanding Féile programme. There was a time, now receding in memory for many people and never in the memory of countless more who weren’t born in those troubled times, when August,  and the anniversary of Internment, was marked by incursions of British troops and RUC into republican neighbourhoods and days of rioting and deaths and injuries.

PROTEST: Caitríona Ruane, then Féile director outside NI Tourism Board in 1997 after the festival "was snubbed" by the agency
2Gallery

PROTEST: Caitríona Ruane, then Féile director outside NI Tourism Board in 1997 after the festival "was snubbed" by the agency

Féile an Phobail has replaced all that. Féile started following the killing in Gibraltar of three local people, IRA Volunteers Dan McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell at the behest of Margaret Thatcher in March 1988 — and the deaths of others at their funerals. Our community was demonised in a tsunami of invective by the establishment media and our political opponents. Féile was a communal response to that.

For thirty six years, West Belfast has hosted what is now an internationally-recognised community arts festival with a huge ceád mile fáilte for over 100,000 visitors who join us in celebration of all that is good about us. From August 1 to August 11 we will make music, poetry, dance and have sporting events. We will debate and argue and sing and discuss numerous issues and be inspired by one and other.

We will learn many things about the human condition. We will laugh and have a wee drink, if that is our choice. We will walk our hills and streets and be educated by wise guides.  We will launch books. We will consider plans or proposals for the future.  We will express solidarity with other causes. We will give other causes a platform.  We will be surprised and annoyed by some of what we hear and learn.  We will make new friends and refresh old friendships.

Of course we do a lot of these things a lot of the time. But during Féile we do all it nonstop and the Féile team and all their partners showcase it and facilitate entertainers and musicians and poets and historians from our own place and other places. So thank you again to all involved.  And to everyone else: come along and enjoy Féile 2024 with the rest of us.