The Life of Eileen Howell

Gerry Adams pays tribute to Eileen Howell, ‘a good and decent woman in a community of good and decent women’

GERRY ADAMS, MP for West Belfast, pays tribute to a west Belfast community leader and a driver behind the Falls Community Council

THIS book pays tribute to a remarkable woman whose energy, vision and determination made a huge contribution to her community and inspired others. Eileen Howell died suddenly after a short illness in June 2004.

The launch of The Life of Eileen Howell fittingly took place in the Falls Community Council. The event was chaired by Liz Groves and addressed by Gerry Adams.

Gerry writes here about the day and about Eileen, “our friend and compatriot in many enterprises”.

EILEEN’S death was a deep shock to us all, especially her husband, Ted. He had instructed me  that the book launch was a celebration not a wake. He was wise. There was always the possibility that we could be sad when we needed to be merry.

I, for one, wanted this launch to be therapeutic.

I started my remarks with a poem written by Gerry Kelly in Colombia, where he got the sad news of Eileen’s death.

The invasion of whitethorn

Embroidered the summer with hope

Lulled into optimism

A petal, bright as the Sixties

Fluttered, out of season

Through the frantic clasping of love

As the petal settled to earth

Sorrow and joy mingled

New life bloomed

Neither love nor loss is ever simple

I then went on to pay tribute to Ted and to recount some of my experiences of him from our prison days before reciting a few lines of Bertolt Brecht:

There are those who struggle for a day and they are good. There are those who struggle for a year and they are better

There are those who struggle many years and they are better still.

But there are those who struggle all their lives: They are the ones we cannot do without.

And that’s what women do. They struggle all their lives. And that is one of the reasons why community, society, Ireland cannot do without them.

Enlightened women set a compass for humanity. Ireland needs them. We cannot do without them. We also cannot do without friendship. Máire na daoine is scath a cheile.

We live in each other’s shadow. Tom Hartley once said “You don’t have to like your friends for them to be your friends.” Friendship is at the core of our existence. All human beings have a basic need for friendship – especially in times of trouble. All of us need allies we can depend on. Is suile na chara – an scathan is fearr. A friend’s eye is the best mirror.

We also, all of us, have a need – a very deep need – to know that people can depend on us. We need that contact, that link, that nasc with other human beings. Out of that comes community. Community is an essential part of our humanity. It gives us meaning, focus, purpose, succour. It keeps us grounded. It keeps us right. It gives us hope. Without hope we are diminished. We come from a community with great hopes. Eileen was part of a whole raft of women activists which this community has been blessed with. Many of them were at her event.

Eileen was a woman with great hopes. As Doris Day would say, “high hopes – high, high hopes” for her clann and for her three boys: Eamonn, Proinsias and, of course, her oldest lad, Ted.

She had high hopes for herself and for us. She was unique – as we all are – one of those unmanageable activists.

Community does not happen by chance. It needs nurtured, developed, empowered, strengthened, respected, cheered up, cherished, united, respected, uplifted. It needs music and song and craic. It needs high hopes and great expectations. And that’s what our community and voluntary activists are about. They and Eileen are about freedom. Máire Comerford dedicated her book on the First Dáil “to those who gave what they had to give when they had it to give”. Talented, generous, principled, selfless people. And that’s what this book is about. It is a tribute in particular to Eileen. And more generally a tribute to the co-operative enterprise of women activists who gave so much and continue to give to their community. So celebrate the life of a good and decent woman in a community of good and decent women.

I finished with a few lines from Lucilita.

Eileen,

Anam cara do Ted

Máthair dá mic Bean I measc pobal na fhFál

Bean Béal Feirsteach

Bean lasta ar son an chirt

Teochroí

Cara I measc comrádaí

Dilseacht

Maitheas

Spraoiúil

Gáiriúil

Ceannúlácht

Dathúlacht

Áilleacht

Banúlacht

Ceiliúrann muid, Eileen

And that was that. Eileen would be pleased. So rejoice. Lift your glasses to her.

Sláinte.