Shane MacGowan was a friend of West Belfast. Back in 1988, in the wake of the killings of IRA Volunteers Mairead Farrell, Dan McCann and Sean Savage in Gibraltar, and the killing of other citizens at their funerals, and the killing also of IRA Volunteer Kevin McCracken in Turf Lodge, this community was subjected to a vicious full frontal tsunami of vilification on the back of decades of demonisation and discrimination.
One of our responses to this onslaught was the establishment of Féile An Phobail to provide a platform for the hosts of local writers, poets, singers, musicians, actors, playwrights, dancers, artists, sportspeople and many, many other positive creative people. We also invited others from outside West Belfast to join us. Many did. Household names from across the arts community in Ireland and abroad.
They included Shane MacGowan and the Pogues. In those days the big Féile gigs were in Springhill. There was no community more suited to host these events which have now entered into our local folklore and myths.
Shane came for one session and stayed for days. And he came back arís agus arís. It is hardly surprising that this was so. Shane was a poet of the dispossessed and the downtrodden. The Pogues, with their electric raucous mix of punk and Irish traditional ceol, were musically one of the best bands going. We were blessed to have them.
Despite his public persona Shane was a shy and modest man. He was very intelligent, very well read, and well versed in Irish history. He was also an unrepentant Irish republican, proud of Tipperary’s fight for freedom and his family’s rebel politics. He easily identified with the risen people of the North. He once told me and Martin McGuinnness to tell Tony Blair that he said Tiocfaidh ár lá.
Shane came for one session and stayed for days. And he came back arís agus arís. It is hardly surprising that this was so. Shane was a poet of the dispossessed and the downtrodden. The Pogues, with their electric raucous mix of punk and Irish traditional ceol, were musically one of the best bands going. We were blessed to have them.
He instinctively sided with the underdog. Many of his great songs reflect their difficulties as well as their resilience. From A Rainy Night in Soho; The Sick Bed of Cúchulaínn; The Old Main Line; Streets of Shame (about the Birmingham Six) banned by the BBC; or The Fairy Tale of New York. A Pair of Brown Eyes, Sally Mac Lennane. The Broad Majestic Shannon and many, many more Shane gave voice to and shone a lyrical light on the plight of the poor and the exiles. He deepened our Irishness and our humanity.
I last saw him not long before he died. Him and Victoria Mary. Just when he got out of hospital after a six month stay. He was bright and smiling. Glad to be home. When we parted I knew it would be our last get together. My condolences to Victoria Mary, to his father Maurice and sister Siobhán, and all his family. And to all who played music with Shane, his friends and fellow travelers. Shane was a one off, a modest, humble genius. Thank you my friend. Slán Shane.
Catriona Ruane, Gerry Adams and Mitchel McLaughlin holding the bugging device found inside Connolly House in 2004.
END OF AN ERA
Sinn Féin’s Connolly House in Andersonstown is now to close. A new constituency office has been opened for Órlaithí Flynn MLA in the row of shops just below Casement Park, and opposite The White Fort.
Sinn Féin bought Connolly House building in 1983 following our success in the Assembly election the previous year. A large meeting of activists was held in the old Martin Forsyth Club in Turf Lodge to discuss what we would name it. That’s how Connolly House got its name. I am sorry we didn’t go for the Irish version and I recall Seán Mac Goill, a wonderful pioneer and outstanding Gaeilgeoir, rightly reprimanding me for that. Incidentally, lá breithe shona duit Seán. 90 !
The new office soon became the election HQ for the June 1983 Westminster election when I was first elected as MP for West Belfast. In the forty years since then it has been at the heart of republican politics and activism in Belfast providing an invaluable public service to many thousands of citizens. It has also been a target for loyalist, British Army and RUC attacks, as well as from so-called dissident republicans and criminals.
In August 1984 the annual Sinn Féin march ended at Connolly House. The British government had banned Noraid spokesperson Martin Galvin from entering the North to speak at the event. When he appeared on the platform a large force of RUC in full riot gear attacked the crowd, smashed their way into Connolly House firing plastic bullets and assaulting anyone who got in their way. Galvin was nowhere to be found. But outside on the pavement John Downes lay dead. He had been struck at point blank range by a plastic bullet fired into his chest by an RUC officer.
In February 1994 the UDA planted one of their scores of South African-imported fragmentation hand grenades at Connolly House. The grenade was part of the weapons ship brought into the North by the UDA, UVF and Ulster Resistance with the active collusion of British Intelligence. The grenade was tied to bushes and a trip wire placed across the path leading to the front door. A few days later, the UDA returned and fired an RPG rocket into the building. The RUC arrested Joe Austin when he arrived at the scene. And a week later the UDA returned and shot and wounded three men carrying out repairs to the building.
Seven months later, on August 31, the IRA announced a complete cessation of military operations. In the immediate hours after the statement Martin McGuinness and I, along with other senior Sinn Féin leaders Pat Doherty and Bairbre de Brún, arrived at Connolly House for an impromptu rally. I praised the IRA leadership for its bold and decisive initiative. The crowd was enthusiastic. Many of them were friends and activists I had known for many years. I remember saying: "The freedom struggle is not over"… We are in a new area of struggle. There is a role for everyone in this new situation. We must develop an irreversible momentum for change, which will move the British government away from the failed policies of the past.”
The event had one unexpected side effect. Sky television, which decided to carry it live, had to use actors’ voices for Martin McGuinness and myself, because of the British government’s broadcast restrictions. But Pat Doherty and Bairbre de Brún were broadcast using their own voices. Perhaps they ran out of actors.
In September 2004 a large sophisticated electronic listening device belonging to MI5 was found attached to rafters inside the ceiling of the front office in Connolly House. At that time the office was used as a conference room for meetings. It was there that we met the Irish-American delegation in 1994 – known to us as the Connolly House group – the members of which played a key role in creating the conditions for the IRA cessation of that year.
That September, all the parties were invited to Leeds Castle in England for talks. We publicly carried the device with us through the media as we walked into the Castle.
Later, Martin McGuinness and I presented it to Tony Blair who walked over to it, looked at it and, turning to us, whispered: “Is it still on?”
These are just a few of the many stories that could be told about Connolly House. Many others will have other stories to tell. I want to thank all of those republican activists who over four decades and under threat worked tirelessly in Connolly House to provide a first class constituency service. Some stalwarts were there for all that time. Well done and go raibh maith agaibh.
THE LIES OF WAR
Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people recommenced last week. The deliberate murder of hundreds of Palestinian civilians and the industrial scale destruction of Palestinian homes, schools, hospitals and refugee camps is about the expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza.
The pogroms against Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank have the same aim.
The EU, Britain, and the USA hide behind the assertion that Israel has the right to defend itself and that they still seek a two state solution. But if the Israeli government has its way – and it appears likely – there will be no Gaza, just a graveyard for women and children.
The immediate demands remain. For a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the West Bank and for aid. It is a demand that must be made of those states that are currently empowering the Israeli government. They cannot cry crocodile tears over the deaths of Palestinian children while providing the Zionists with munitions or surveillance support.
