Léargas: A Podcast by Gerry Adams

Time to Extend Presidential Vote to North and Diaspora   Last week I wrote about the threat posed to our world by climate change. The international climate change conference - COP 27 – which commenced in Egypt on Sunday is viewed by many as the world’s last real opportunity to reverse this threat. This year has been especially dangerous with a mixture of floods, droughts, huge storms and the threa...

Good Advice?  I thought I might pass on a random sample of some of the personal advice I have been given over the years. You dear reader  might, like me, benefit from some of it. Or perhaps not. Brazil The successful election in Brazil of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (popularly called Lula) has raised hopes that the huge damage being done to the Amazon rain forest and the threat to t...

Conway Mill – 40th birthday Conway Mill has been at the heart of west Belfast for over almost 200 years. First as a hard place of work for generations of local people, mainly women, and then as a community hub providing education and employment opportunities. Last week the Mill celebrated its 40th birthday promoting, supporting and facilitating small indigenous economic enterprises, and providing...

Wee Baby Brothers My mother, Annie, gave birth to thirteen of us. I am the oldest.  Then came Margaret, Paddy, Ann, Frances, Liam, Jim and David, Sean and his twin Brendan, Maura, Deirdre and Dominic. We are probably not all listed here in proper chronological order. I rarely get anyone’s birthday right. It’s hard to keep track. We are now reduced to eight. Our brother Liam and sister Frances died...

Cresslough I know Creeslough well. I have friends who live there. Outside the village. At both ends. My heart goes out to the families of the ten people who were killed last Friday. Same old Story Last Saturday’s DUP party conference saw it behave as unionist parties have usually behaved. Within their own little bubble.    It’s the same old story. The DUP was established 50 years ago to oppose civ...

Together we Can  Ireland’s Future is well named. Its landmark event last Saturday in Dublin was all about the future.  Saturday’s conference was an ambitious project. Over thirty participants addressed 5,000 citizens. Ten political parties with five party leaders along with leaders from civic society and the Arts talking about their desire to achieve a united Ireland.  And music and dance as well....

We are not invisible” – Springhill families Last week the family of Loughlin Maginn settled a case against the British Ministry of Defence and the PSNI over his murder by the UDA in August 1989. While it had been widely accepted for the previous 20 years that collusion between the British Army, RUC and unionist paramilitaries was an integral part of Britain’s dirty war in Ireland it was the murder...

The English Monarchy: A Tolerance of Differences  At the same time I have no time for hierarchies, aristocrats or royalty, whether they are political, religious, secular or industrial. They are all about power for elites. No one should have an entitlement to a life of privilege and wealth because they are deemed to be divine rulers.  I believe in equality. In community.  In citizenship.  In self-d...

Another British PM closer to Unity Liz Truss is now the leader of the Conservative Party and British Prime Minister.  No real surprise there. She is the fourth leader of the Tories in six years. And as each has tried and failed to reshape Britain to a post Brexit world Tory government policy – especially under Johnson - has shifted further and further to the right.  ON DANGEROUS GROUND. This is no...

Belfast People's Assembly  Last summer Sinn Féin announced the setting up of a ‘Commission on the Future of Ireland.’ The Commission is a unique and ambitious initiative which includes a series of Peoples’ Assemblies under the broad slogan - ‘The New Ireland is for Everyone – Have Your Say.’ On 12 October - the inaugural first public meeting of the People’s Assembly will take place in Belfast...

National Hunger Strike March Comhgairdheas to all of those who organised and participated in Sunday’s Belfast march to remember the hunger strikers of this and previous phases of struggle. Thousands came from all over Ireland to take part. I met comrades from Meath and Mayo and Dublin and Derry. The families of the hunger strikers had pride of place and many former blanketmen – wearing their grey...

The Women of Antrim. Congratulations to Antrim Ladies All Ireland Football Champions 2022 and Antrim’s All Ireland Camogie Champions. Na mná abú.  The Women of Armagh.  Last Friday, there was standing room only in The Felons as Richard McAuley and I were joined by former Armagh POWs Síle Darragh, Máire Cush and Martina Anderson for the launch of a new book, The Armagh Women during Prisoners’ Day. ...

A Windfall Tax urgently needed The cost of living crisis is taking a terrible toll on families. Food and energy bills are increasing at a phenomenal rate pushing more and more people into debt and poverty. The ready excuse trotted out by governments and most of the media to explain this dire situation is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war. While this is clearly having an impact it ca...

The Ark The Ark wasn't a big public house. Situated at the corner of Broadbent Street on the Old Lodge Road it consisted of a public bar, partitioned from a more discreet backroom and a snug. That was it. A backdrop of shelved whiskey bottles fronted by a no-nonsense wooden counter which separated myself and the only other barman from the clientele David Trimble David Trimble became First Min...

SWEETS I USED TO KNOW There was a Sweetie Shop across from Saint Finian’s School, just above Leeson Street on the Falls Road. It had a large advertisement for Blue Bird Toffees  as part of its frontage. It was an attractive feature boasting an iconic Blue Bird in full flight.  I call this fine establishment a sweetie shop because my recollection, which may be flawed, is that this shop sold only sw...

I love benches.  I like to spend as much time as I can outdoors. Now in case I give the wrong impression let me make it clear that I am not all the time walking or hiking. I do do that sometimes but mostly I just sit. That’s why I like benches. I have one I inherited from our old neighbour Billy McCulloch. Truth to tell I inherited only the metal ends.  Stand up against sectarianism Controversy, s...

Scots set date for independence referandum.  The Government of Scotland has moved decisively by setting the date for a referendum on sovereignty and independence. 19 October 2023 is that date. Its decision has already won support among Scottish voters. A poll published recently in the Times showed that those for and against independence are neck and neck. 48% of those surveyed were in favour of in...

Do Your Job Leo! Some of our political leaders in Dublin repeatedly reduce their offices to the status of an observer. This affects many matters which fall within their responsibility. Quite often we are treated to commentary from a government Minister on public services or the lack of them, homelessness or the cost of living crisis. It is as if they had no responsibility or obligations for dealin...

Bingo: My recollections last week on my successful battle against the dreaded nicotine, sparked, pardon the pun, similar recollections from some of my friends. Richard, who never smoked, reminded me of our old comrade Joe ‘Bingo’ Campbell. Bingo used to work in the old Sinn Féin office at the corner of Sevastopol Street. In those days the office was little more than a slum. It housed a number of p...

The Collectors Story I have known Tom Hartley for 55 years. During that time he has given decades of service to the republican cause. He has been an organiser, a writer, a propagandist, a leader. During the anti-internment protests of the early 1970s, and then the H-Block/Armagh campaign he was in the front line No Smoking Back in the day my generation, or most of us, used to smoke. It was the soc...

Three Books I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate an occasional column to books. We can return to Brexit, the Protocol and other such matters at another time.  So in this column I am reviewing three books. United Nation by Frank Connolly. On The Blanket by Eoghan Mac Cormaic and International Brigade against Apartheid: Secrets of the People’s War that Liberated South Africa’ By Ronnie Kasr...

Confronting sectarianism The posting online of a vile video showing members of the Orange Order mocking the murder of Michaela McAreavey has been widely condemned. Last week in another video Pastor Barrie Halliday appeared on social media describing Catholics as ‘rats that need to be murdered with rifles and grenades.’ A wedding and a strike James Connolly is one of my heroes. He was a socialist,...

The Planter and the Gael.  Last week US Congress member Richie Neal, Chair of the Ways and Means Committee on Capitol Hill, led a Congressional delegation from Washington to Brussels, London, Dublin, the Blasket’s, Derry and Belfast. The delegation met with a very wide range of political representatives including Government representatives as well as civic society.  Time for Truth Natasha Butler’s...

A referendum on the Future Sunday marked 24 years from the historic referendum in May 1998 that saw almost three quarters of people in the North vote in support of the Good Friday Agreement.  Despite the twists and turns in the years since then the Agreement has proved resilient in maintaining peace and in plotting a course for constitutional, political and economic change in the North and across...