March, 2017

“Boy, if you were petrified, you’d be a standing monument to ignorance”  was a cruel, if well-earned,remark made by an otherwise gentle Christian Brother to one of his pupils. The boy couldn’t help it. It was bred in the bone. One of his classmates, standing near him watching a football game, remarked on the foul-mouthed […]

Pics 1 and 2 are by John Patton (phototilly.eu)   Pic 1  Pic 2 “Given the week that has been in it, I offer these two portraits of Martin. Pic 1. was taken as he opened Fleadh Cheoil na h-Eireann in Derry in August 2013, an incomparable time of joyful , cultural celebration across the […]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4336736/McGuinness-mass-murderer-menace-eyes.html

    These are some things I will remember about yesterday’s wonderful celebration of the life of Martin McGuinness in Derry. The presence of Fr Des Wilson, 91 years young, who travelled from Belfast. 2  Bill Clinton’s description of Martin as a man ‘not just with a good heart but with a big heart that […]

Yesterday in Derry was a day of handshakes. Michelle O’Neill leaned across several people in the Long Tower chapel (nobody in Derry talks about the ‘Long Tower Church’) to shake Arlene Foster’s hand. Gerry Adams shook hands with Michael D Higgins, and then led him and Bill Clinton across the front of the chapel to […]

  Irish Daily Mail, March 22, 2017. “Me and Martin, the boy next door.” There was a stonethrowing riot against the British Army going on in Derry in 1970. I stood watching it with the late Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Jimmy Breslin, who coincidentally died on Sunday. I explained to him that Martin McGuinness, who […]

Brian Feeney in Belfast’s IRISH NEWS  (22 Mar) says –                                                                                    ” “Martin McGuiness was […]