IT'S three weeks to Christmas. The decorations, inside and outside of the houses and shops and the Christmas trees in all their finery are everywhere as we prepare for the festive season. It puts me in mind of another Christmas which was not so jolly but where the spirt of friendship and family rose above the place we were in.
Below is a short extract from one of the stories in Cage Eleven, my book of life in the Cages of Long Kesh in the 1970s, which has just been republished...
THE cell door opens to let fresh air in.
Everyone raises his head for a look at the sky.
Free spirits haunting the sky of liberty,
Do you know your own kind are languishing in prison?
That’s how Ho Chi Minh describes it in his Prison Diary. Some things are universal. In the H-Blocks the POW sits, wrapped in a blanket, as far from the pisspot of stale urine as the small cell permits, and eats the mush from the tray.
Last year republican prisoners in the Crum, Armagh, Long Kesh, Magilligan, Portlaoise, the Curragh, Mountjoy and Limerick prepared for Christmas.
Last year in Hull, Wormwood Scrubs, Wakefield, Albany, Strangeways, Long Lartin, Gartree, Winchester, Winston Green, Parkhurst, Durham, Walton Leicester, Bristol, Aylesbury and Perth, Republican prisoners made ready for the festive season. This year they prepare themselves once more. It is the same in other struggles. For a Vietnamese in jail in Southern China;
In the cold autumn night, without mattress, without blankets,
Lying with back curled round and legs folded up close,
I try in vain to sleep. The moonlight on the plantains
Increases the sense of cold, and through the window bars
The Great Bear draws up alongside and looks in.
In homes throughout Ireland and England, families await the coming of Christ’s birthday. In many homes Christmas this year will be a mere memory of Christmases long gone. A home is a family. In jail the family, the home, is a memory.
With only memories to sustain it, Christmas is a lonely time. But then, memories keep us together. Memories of the past provide us with the determination needed to endure the present and to be ready for the future.
Kieran Nugent is four months in solitary wrapped in a blanket. No Christmas cards, holly, mistletoe or turkey. No tinsel or Christmas tree. Santa Claus is forbidden to visit prisoners. The materialistic side of Christmas is locked out. But a finer thing, a better thing, a holier thing, is locked in. In cells everywhere the spirit of Christmas is imprisoned.
I sigh loudly. Bik (Brendan McFarlane) opens the study-hut door. The sudden noise shakes me from my musings. He and Bobby (Sands) step into the yard. They also cheerfully abuse me.
‘Did the boys finally break you?’
‘I can’t do a minute of it,’ I reply.
They laugh and go into their huts. I stomp the coldness out of my feet and walk out into the centre of the cage. Leaning my head back I gaze skywards. I can see forever. The inky black heavens with thousands of pinpricking Bethlehem stars stretches into eternity…
Outside it starts to snow. Cage Eleven of Long Kesh settles uneasily into its wintering over Christmas. The hut OC turns off the lights. The hut is bathed in an orange glow from the lights outside on the perimeter fence. Snowflakes swirl against the windows. The wind howls through the wire.
‘Oíche mhaith, muckers,’ Egbert shouts from below his blankets.
‘Onward to freedom,’ Your Man replies. ‘Tiocfaidh ár lá,’ he yells. Cage 11 was re-published last month with original drawings by Danny Devenny. It is available from most good bookshops including www.sinnfeinbookshop.com www.thelarkstore.ie and An Fhuiseog, 55 Falls Road,
‘Nollaig shona dhaoibh,’ says Cedric. ‘Nollaig shona dhaoibh, comrades.’
‘Nollaig shona,’ we reply.
Cage 11 was re-published last month with original drawings by Danny Devenny. It is available from most good bookshops including www.sinnfeinbookshop.com www.thelarkstore.ie and An Fhuiseog, 55 Falls Road.
Sinn Féin consolidates its position
IT'S clear is that the mould has been broken in Irish politics – there are now three main parties: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin. But while Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have their own separate histories and cultures and are likely for the foreseeable future to jealously retain these, they are now one electoral political block.
This gives them a decided advantage in the efforts to form a coalition government because they start off with 40 per cent of the vote and the equivalent of this in seats. For its part, Sinn Féin has consolidated our position as the main party of opposition and with a mandate to form a government at this time. Getting partners will be a considerable challenge. It’s a numbers game.
WINNER: Mary Lou McDonald celebrates her victory in Dublin Central
Notwithstanding this, the general election also delivered a strong mandate for the parties of change – for Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats and others. Even if it is an option, none of us should go into government with FFFG. They represent a continuation of the policies that created so much difficulty for working people. The big issues remain to be resolved: Housing, health, partition, cost of living, climate change, the genocide in Palestine. A FFFG-led government with a mudguard made up of individual TDs or one of the smaller parties will not resolve these critical injustices.
The outworking of the negotiations to form a new government will be interesting. It is More of the Same versus Change for the Better. For the many. Not the few.
Sinn Féin came to this election after poor local government results and negative controversies on the eve of the general election. We fought a very good campaign led by Mary Lou and the leadership team. We have confounded the critics and will return with 39 TDs. I am delighted that we have re-taken three of the four seats we lost in the last term, with around eight new TDs.
For the first time Sinn Féin has won seats in every single constituency in Connacht/Ulster. This consolidation is crucial. Remember, it took a long time in the North to build the support we have there.
So now we will be reaching out in the first instance to the other parties and individuals elected on a mandate of change to look at how we deliver for the people who want to see the housing crisis fixed, tackle the cost of living, advance Irish re-unification and ensure that our young people have a future here in Ireland. And we will continue to work to deliver our vision for a united Ireland. And not just electorally. We will also campaign with citizens and communities.
Palestine solidarity
Friday was the annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. It was a day set aside by the United Nations General Assembly in 1977 to mark the date in 1947 when the United Nations Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II)).
The 1977 resolution was intended to encourage UN member states to give the widest support and publicity as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people. The United Nations designates such days as a means of raising issues of concern and to mobilise political will and resources to address global problems.
The genocidal war being waged by Israel on the Palestinian people is a blight and a shame, especially on the British, American, German and other governments which supports and arms Israel in its the mass slaughter of innocents. The images of dead and mutilated children and women – who make up 70 per cent of the 44,000 killed in the Gaza Strip – and the media and personal accounts of the victims of Israel’s atrocities will haunt those who stood by while this genocide was taking place.
If anyone or any people needs a Day of Solidarity, it is the people of Palestine. We must not allow the daily reporting of murder and destruction, of ethnic cleansing and death, to desensitise us to the genocide. The people of Palestine deserve to be more than just another news story that is read and passed over.
