Léargas: A Podcast by Gerry Adams

071120 It’s Gerry Adams and in this podcast I want to deal with a number of issues: a hunger strike by a Palestinian prisoner Maher al-Akhras and the success of Breanndán O Beaglaoich  First of all I want to welcome, after 103 days, the end of the hunger strike by Palestinian prisoner Maher al Akhras. It is a testimony to his courage and fortitude and determination to highlight a grave injustice b...

Few names from the Tan War 100 years ago are as well known that of Kevin Barry.  His torture and execution by the British at the age of 18 generated huge national and international attention. His name evokes a deep rooted emotional connection to a young man who heroically fought for Irish freedom and lost his life at the end of a hangman’s rope. The song was written a few months after his death. ...

My Podcast this week deals with the demolition of Herbert Park in Dublin , the home of the only leader of the 1916 Rising to be killed in action, and the report of the Independent Panel of Inquiry into the Circumstances of the H-Block and Armagh Prison Protests 1976-1981.’  40 Herbert Park was demolished two weeks ago in a shameful act of political and corporate vandalism and greed.  Its demolitio...

For those of you who don’t know him or have never heard of him Chuck Feeney is an extraordinary human being whose kindness and vision has brought hope and joy to millions.  Last week he signed the papers to finally bring an end to Atlantic Philanthropies – a humanitarian and charitable organisation he established in 1982. His purpose was to give away his 8 billion dollar fortune. I first met Chuck...

This weeks Podcast is about An Taoiseach Micheál Martin; his failure to address Irish Unity; and questions his Shared Island Unit. Partition is almost 100 years old. But for democrats across this island, and in the Irish diaspora, for all of that time it has always been the great wrong that has to be righted. But it is not only a historic wrong. It is also a great injustice now, today. It remains...

WITNESS TREES. I used to have an old hard backed copy of Nora Connolly O’Brien’s; ‘ Portrait Of A Rebel Father’ . This wonderful account of James Connolly’s life, as recalled by his daughter, is a must read for followers of the great man. I foolishly lent my copy to a comrade and that is the last I saw of it. But that’s another story... In my copy of ‘ Portrait Of A Rebel Father’ there is a photo...

This podcast is going to deal with the shameful refusal of successive Irish governments to develop a national monument, a cultural quarter, a revolutionary quarter, a freedom quarter, a 1916 quarter on the battlefield site of Moore St. For those of you who don’t know Moore Street runs parallel to O’Connell Street from Parnell Street to Henry Street beside the GPO.  16 Moore Street was the last mee...

Sunday, August 2nd is the anniversary of the death on hunger strike in 1981 of Andersonstown man Kieran Doherty. Normally, August is also when Sinn Féin holds its National Commemoration in remembrance of all of the 1981 Hunger Strikers and of Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg who died in prisons in England. However this year the Covid-19 pandemic has made that impossible, so like so many other event...

This week I thought I would talk about the 12th in this podcast. When I mentioned a few days ago to some friends that I was going to do this podcast about the 12th and asked them what they thought if I sang a few Orange songs, the answer was no. And that’s understandable. Some of these songs are very sectarian, are about hatred and are not acceptable. I first came across Orange songs way back in t...

The big spin from last week and the formation of the new government in Dublin is that civil war politics is dead and gone.  But the truth is that for most career politicians they have been dead for decades. What we now have from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is the same old, same old – with the Green party propping it up. But there is one new significant historical difference.  As Micheál Martin takes...

Traditionally the third Sunday of June is when Irish republicans from across the island of Ireland gather at the graveside of Wolfe Tone in Bodenstown. Such annual commemorations have been taking place for almost 150 years. Tone’s central thesis has remained a cornerstone of Irish Republican philosophy to this day. He wrote: “... to break the connection with England, the never, failing source of a...

You only die once. You live everyday. I first met Martin McGuinness shortly before he & I travelled to London in 1972 as part of a delegation to negotiate with the British govt. Martin would have been seventy on the 23 of May. He lived a very full life & he lived it well. There was a wonderful online celebration organised by The Martin McGuinness Peace Foundation (its available https://www...

Last week the British Supreme Court quashed two convictions I had received in 1975 for attempting to escape from Long Kesh internment camp. It was a long ten year battle. The case also revealed the fact that the British government at the highest level knew that I was unlawfully interned before the two trials. They also knew that up to 200 other internees were also likely to have been unlawfully de...

A remembrance of my friend and comrade Bobby Sands who died on hunger strike this week (5 May) 1981. Bobby was the first of ten republican prisoners who died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. The Thatcher Govt's criminalisation policy was an attempt to defeat and criminalise the political prisoners and through them the republican struggle. The republican POWs in Long Kesh and in Armagh Woman&apos...

Current Affairs, Politics, Irish Unity, History and Culture.