Peter Skeet Hamilton

As the year moves into its final hours it leads to reflection on those who will not cross the threshold of the year about to dawn. Skeet Hamilton may have remained with the Provos right up to his last breath, even having voted for Gerry Adams in Louth a few short hours before he died, but those of us who knew him and journeyed with him through difficult times never allowed that to get in the way of friendship. A contemporary comrade of the late Martin Meehan, Skeet had received a life sentence upon conviction for a 1975 IRA attack on the Shankill...

Chris Bray: Boston College

Below is a link to separate locations that feature an article by Chris Bray, a Los Angeles based blogger and historian who has been following the Boston College subpoena crisis. In the article Chris Bray, in the words of the Belfast Project director Ed Moloney, ‘charts a disgraceful and shameful chapter in the history of American academic life....

The Case Of Gerry Daly

It is very distressing for my mum and dad, Gerard and Bridget. They are very concerned about him, as we all are at this point. Not knowing anything is very distressing. Hopefully this appeal will help somebody to remember something that may lead to whereabouts – Belinda Daly. In recent weeks Prime Time ran a feature, Hidden Dead on the re-emergence in Ireland of a phenomenon better known for its association with the North’s violent political conflict. The use of unmarked secret graves to bury those who had transgressed some code outwardly respected...

This & That. Take 4

The Sky Blues Coventry is one of those English cities I have never been to. It is hard to make any claim on its behalf that it is best known for its soccer team. When we think of footballing greats Coventry City does not figure amongst them. To my mind rather than reaching for the skies the history of Coventry is more one of the skies reaching for it. It has a history of things falling on it from the sky, not all of them good. The Luftwaffe bombed it on a number of occasions during the Second World War. The IRA bombed it in the same period although...

Gerry Liar

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This & That. Take 3

A Baptism of Rape There are more things to be concerned about in Holland than those hedonistic pursuits in Amsterdam that Christy Moore sang about that so annoyed Gregory of God and his bible bashing devotees. A report just released by the Deetman Commission has found that Dutch priests abused 'up to 20,000 children'. Deetman reported that ‘to prevent a scandal, nothing was done.’  A culture of silence meant that dirty washing was not to be cleaned in public. Sort of sounds familiar. Archbishop of Utrecht Wim Eijk made it clear in his comments...

A Beautiful Tribute

Tonight The Pensive Quill features guest writer Julie Duchatel who explains the impact in France of translated work of Denis O’Hearn’s biography of Bobby Sands. Two independent Swiss and French publishers translated and published in September 2011 the very good biography about Bobby Sands, by Denis O'Hearn, entitled Nothing But An Unfinished Song. We decided to do so because first of all, the struggle of the hunger strikers and of the Irish Republicans to a larger extent, is so enormous that French speaking people interested in Irish history...

This & That. Take 2

The Pain of Confinement Jimmy Boyle touched on something when he titled one of his books The Pain of Confinement. It is a matter addressed  in today’s Sunday World by Suzanne Breen in respect of the ongoing detention of Marian Price. Were it not for Breen’s journalism many abuses of power in Irish society would never see the light of day. Marian Price has now been in solitary confinement since May of this year. She told Breen of the "mind-numbing boredom" of being confined in conditions of isolation.  ‘I get three visits a week in Maghaberry....

Response To Boston College Decision

The Pensive Quill carries the following response from Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre to the decision by a US court to deny a motion to quash a subpoena compelling the handover of material from the College's oral history archive. The court also ruled against a motion to intervene by both Moloney and McIntyre. We are naturally disappointed but we confidently expect BC to take up Judge Young’s implied invitation to lodge an appeal. One way or another this fight will go on. There are very important issues at stake – legal & political – that could...

This & That. Take 1

Government is Good.  In the face of looming home repossessions it is worthwhile revisiting the thoughts of the late George Carlin on the matter.  He looks at some possible solutions which the Dail is bound to consider. In a spirit of generosity it might drop the household charge and hand out crates and cartons instead. http://www.organizedrage.com/2011/12/dealing-with-homelessness-better-crates.html Murph Massacre As part of Human Rights Week the Ballymurphy Massacre Relatives Group has taken its case to Dail Eireann in Dublin. The...

Towards A General Strike

Tonight The Pensive Quill features a piece by guest writer Sean Matthews arguing for more than one day strikes. The recent public sector strike builds on the momentum from the education and healthcare strike last month and sends out the message that we mean business. We are relied on every day to run the hospitals, schools, fire service, and all other public services that society depends on to function. We have demonstrated that when we withdraw our labour and stand together in defence of our rights we have real strength. However a one day strike...

Zombie on the Stairs

I am over halfway through a great novel by Cormac McCarthy which I picked up in a second hand bookshop during the week. It is titled The Road and details the relationship between a father and son as they struggle to survive in a post apocalyptic world of predatory hostility.  As the father of a six year old boy, the story has a certain resonance beyond the book.  But whereas the father in McCarthy’s novel is loyal to a fault my son regards me as a cheat. Usually when he tires in the...

End the Torture of Marian Price

Tonight The Pensive Quill features guest writer Sandy Boyer, the co-host of Radio Free Eireann [1] on WBAI in New York City. In the following piece originally carried at http://socialistworker.org/2011/12/06/end-torture-marian-price, he reports on the unjust imprisonment of Northern Ireland political prisoner Marian Price. MARIAN PRICE is the only woman political prisoner in Northern Ireland. She has been in continuous solitary confinement, except for three visits a week from relatives, since her arrest in May. The United Nations Special Rapporteur...

Socrates

A qualified doctor, renowned intellectual and an outspoken, pro-democracy fighter during Brazil's brutal military dictatorship, Socrates had defied many stereotypes - Helena DeMoura, CNN Casually perusing through a newspaper in the house of a friend, a piece about an erstwhile world renowned footballer caught my eye. Socrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira, concisely and universally known as Socrates, the former Brazilian soccer international, had died at the age of 57. In 1982 Socrates was the gifted player who captained the...

The North Shuts Down

Tonight The Pensive Quill features an article forwarded by Sandy Boyer. Although not written by him as mistakenly stated by TPQ, it deals with the recent strike in the North of Ireland. It was originally carried on the Socialist Worker (Ireland) web site 100,000 workers in Northern Ireland staged a massive one day strike on Wednesday. Throughout Britain, it was the largest scale strike action since the General Strike of 1926. In Derry, 2,500 workers rallied at the Guildhall while 20,000 turned up in Belfast. At a huge rally afterwards in Belfast,...

Resolution

What makes this book riveting reading, like Appaloosa before it, is the economy of language. While it is a dialogue driven novel each sentence spoken is stripped to the bare minimum yet conveys with razor sharp precision insight, intent, menace and meaning in abundance. It is dialogue as action. Each sentence is measured and distilled before being and delivered as if laser guided. From the opening page Parker, through his characters, primes his readers for a journey through the lawless West. Human rights didn’t much matter there, business did....

Occupy Belfast

Today The Pensive Quill features a talk by guest writer Sean Matthews. The talk was given on 15/11/11 at Belfast Occupy Camp Teach-Ins and it was on the topic of 'Reform vs Revolution - What type of Change do we want and how do we get there? There’s a lot to be angry about. On the one hand mass unemployment, cut backs and pay cuts, we have death and destruction on a grand scale. On the other, the crushing bore¬dom and alienation of everyday life. All of these various horrors are tied together, different faces of a single system. It exploits and...

Tram Talk

A brouhaha has stirred this week after YouTube featured a video clip showing a London tram passenger expressing racial sentiment by the bagful. With infant in lap she sat there and laid it on thick to people of black skin and Poles. It was a racist rant in which those who spoke differently or appeared as something other than white were urged to go back to their ‘own’ countries and leave ‘my Britain’ alone. To get some sense of perspective, the British National Party is able to have its members returned to the European parliament and to have councillors...