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26 March 2020 Edition

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Remembering Dickie Glenholmes – A towering figure who struggled for justice and equality

• Dickie and his wife Lily on Dooey Beach in Donegal, Dicky described Donegal as: ‘Every northerners spiritual homeland’

Picture this scene if you will – a bitter cold Christmas Eve around 9pm. A deserted street in Riverdale but for the lonely figure of my good self valiantly striding along trying to hide my face from a biting wind.

Buoyed up by a slight touch of intoxication in the blood-stream and the experienced knowledge that in the shortest time I will be in the warmth and good cheer of a Santa Claus party in Michelle and Pat Wilson’s home.

In the far corner of the living room is a large Christmas tree which is almost lost beneath a mound of Christmas presents for all those gathered.

And especially for Richard Glenholmes senior, who carefully placed himself at the centre of the party to avail of presents from many quarters, with a glass of wine – the level of which was measured by Lily’s silence, and expert eye, regularly examining the content of the glass and Richard’s demeanour, with a remarkable unspoken, yet productive impact on Richard.

For the next few hours three generations conversationally mixed while the hosts, Michelle and Pat, served up the fayre for the evening affording pride of place to Richard, Lily and friend Anna Roe, with myself and Eibhlín, the bridge between the first and third generations which is a loose gathering of siblings, Richard, Damien and Michelle and the grandchildren, Catríona and her husband Hugh, Ruairí, Cushla, Owen Roe, Caoimhe and Dulta.

The highlight of the evening was the distribution of presents which took place in an atmosphere of childish expectation, rushed endeavour, confusion, but always great satisfaction that Santa had been very good to all gathered, wherever you sat on the age spectrum from the first decade of life until the eighth.

The ebb and flow of the conversation reflected the festive mood of the season and equally important, in this particular company, the political mood of the republican struggle.

The gathering marked an end to the family and political year and did so with love, warmth, respect and above all generosity for all gathered between all ages but particularly for Richard and Lily.

In so many ways the gathering in Michelle and Pat’s home, which has been taking place for as long as I can remember, represents the values that Richard and Lily had instilled in their family and which shaped them and their life’s journey.

Richard Glenholmes and Lily Martin inherited these values from their own families. They had served them well growing up and they served well the family that Richard and Lily jointly led.

These were the values that welcomed me into the Glenholmes family decades ago as an adopted son and brother.

They are the values that embraced callers to the homes of Richard and Lily, whether in Ballymacarrett or Riverdale.

They are the values that made it possible for Richard and Lily to be active republicans and parents and grandparents for over 60 years. They were sown into the invisible fabric of their lives and drawn off throughout the years of war and conflict. A war and conflict whose impact was ‘part and parcel’ of family life for Lily and Richard and their children because Richard was ‘part and parcel’ as a leading Belfast IRA activist.

And can I at this point seek forgiveness from Richard for breaching one of his life-long golden rules, which he regularly lectured me about “Never loose talk, Jim!”

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Sorry Richard, on this occasion managed loose talk is required to place you and your family in the story of the Republican Movement in Belfast. And to pay due respect to you and your family and your contribution and theirs to making the Belfast IRA the formidable organisation it was.

My first memory of Richard and Lily and their family is in the violent chaos that engulfed the street we lived in, Bryson Street, during Internment week in 1971. In a week that saw Farrington Gardens in Ardoyne burn to the ground, Bryson Street, narrowly missed a similar fate. But it did lose all the families of Bryson Street including the Glenholmes family and my own family.

I recall as a 16-year-old watching Richard and Lily and others, helping them flee in the face of loyalist intimidation, to a safer part of the district carrying with them their worldly possessions on the back of a handcart.

Little did I know then that my life would integrate with the lives of Richard and Lily over the next 50 years.

Can I say from the outset of Richard’s IRA history and his family’s that the story would be entirely different but for the direct involvement by Lily in that history.

So let me start there. Lily was a republican activist in her own right. And that activism was as dedicated and loyal mother, wife and partner, at home and on the streets, in support of the prisoners and various protest movements opposing the British military occupation.

While Richard’s IRA life took him out of his home, Lily was the constant that ensured the children were reared, that Richard was visited on the three occasions he was in prison – twice interned and in gaol in England for many years.

It was particularly difficult for Lily when Richard was in gaol in England because of the travelling involved and the frequency with which he was ‘ghosted’, moved from prison to prison. On many occasions without Lily’s prior knowledge and she would turn up at the prison to find that he had been moved.

It was Lily’s republican beliefs and her quiet and patient manner that ensured that she managed the expected and unexpected difficulties that came to her door through her family’s active involvement in the Republican Movement. To survive those very difficult days Lily had three jobs – in the home and two others.

Richard’s imprisonment in England, Eibhlín’s long absence from the family home, and young Richard’s move to Dundalk were particularly difficult periods in the family’s life. Yet they were absorbed with fortitude and without complaint.

The Battle of St Matthew’s on June 27th 1970 was a turning point in the IRA’s history. It marked the re-birth of the IRA and Richard took great pride in the fact that the modern IRA emerged from the Battle of St Matthews – a battle he was directly involved in.

A week later in the company of Dessie Kennedy and the late Jimmy George, Richard found himself trapped inside a house in Milan Street in the Lower Falls, during the Falls Curfew.

They were there of their own volition to help the people of the Lower Falls at a very dangerous and life-threatening time. These were momentous happenings and they left a deep mark on Richard.

The IRA were part of Richard’s family background. His mother Mary was a republican and his father Dicky was an active IRA man who defended Ballymacarrett-Short Strand during the years before and after partition.

Prior to joining the IRA, Richard’s background was in trade unionism. It was as a trade unionist he learned about the struggles of the working classes and his introduction to socialist ideas. Time in prison helped him develope his socialist republican outlook and he blended this with his IRA activities.

Comrades of his describe him as being ‘fearless’ in the formative years of the struggle when prison life or the grave were often the only alternative options for those on active service. His leadership qualities were noticed and he rose up through the ranks of the Belfast IRA.

Richard was a steady, safe pair of hands, whose wisdom and leadership was often required and when it wasn’t, he offered it up in the interests of the struggle.

He was by nature a mild-mannered, thoughtful, caring and generous man with firm views about how the movement should conduct itself and he regularly made his views known. He was vocal. His voice was not silent.

I recall Richard in the mid-70s telling a group of young republican activists from Ballymacarrett/Short Strand that the IRA had only one enemy and it was the British forces – not Unionists, nor Protestants. I recall him forcefully telling the same group that the IRA was not a sectarian organisation.

With others, including the late Fr Alex Reid and the late Fr Des Wilson, he mediated peace between the different armed republican groups in this city. At a time when most IRA volunteers of his age were assigned to other appropriate duties Richard went on a mission to England to rescue the late Brian Keenan from prison.

He spent years in prison. Long before Bobby Sands wrote that everyone had a part to play in the struggle Richard was living out that sentiment. He was adaptable and proud to work for the republican struggle whether on active service for the IRA or active service for Sinn Féin.

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• Brian Keenan, Harry Thompson, Tommy Devereux, Martin Ferris and Dickie Glenholmes right behind them

He was comfortable in the National Grave Association, the Felons, a tenant’s association, in Connolly House, supporting the many street campaigns for people’s rights. Wherever people were struggling, there you found Richard.

And one of his most prolonged yet enjoyable struggles wasn’t that posed by the British government but by a life-long comrade and friend Dessie Kennedy whose life-long ambition, next to his contribution to achieving a united Ireland, was to ‘better’ Richard as a prankster.

Richard described Dessie as the ‘bane of his life’ and Lily described him as his ‘saviour’. An inseparable comedy duo like Laurel and Hardy or Morecambe and Wise they laughed their way through their fifty years of friendship. Listening to Dessie it was like they lived two lives – a life in the struggle lane and a life in the comedy lane.

A prize possession of Dessie’s is a hand-made pillow which sits on a seat in his living room with portrait photos of Richard and him on each side of the pillow. At a special dinner one night, the company sat down to a steak each with all the trappings – while Dessie sat down to a glass of water and a loaf of bread and a framed poster from Richard inscribed with Dessie’s philosophy of a humble man – ‘A glass of water; A loaf of bread; Somewhere to rest my weary head; That’s all I ask in life’. Dessie took some time to recover. But he did.

Lily confided in Dessie that she was worried about Richard’s soul because he was not attending mass as often as he should. One morning Richard discovered a pair of rosary beads in one of his shoes.

He asked Dessie did he put them there. He said he did and explained that Lily was worried about his soul but of course it was not the sole of Richard’s shoe that Lily was worried about.

Dessie took great delight in presenting to Richard a Christmas card he sent to him signed from Long Kesh in the early 70s. It was signed ‘Dicky Glen Short Strand’. No mention of his much-beloved Ballymacarrett there said Dessie.

My abiding memory of Richard in Long Kesh was as OC of the internees. Under his leadership, there were more successful and attempted escapes. His eyes would light up and he would smile generously at me. He loved that story.

One of Richard’s other great comrades and life-long friends was like Dessie a Ballymacarrett man, Harry Thompson. Harry’s illness and passing affected Richard deeply. Harry was never far from our conversations over the years and his contribution to the republican struggle.

Richard had comrades and friends ‘over the bridge’ and one such friend was Gerry Adams. They met in Long Kesh during Internment and formed a close bond of comradeship which remains to this day. 

In a tribute Gerry wrote: “Dickey was a truly remarkable and exceptional human being. He was a freedom fighter and a political prisoner in British prisons in Ireland and England. In the hard years when the British imprisoned him without trial and he was locked away for years in England he kept the faith.

“So did Lily. A republican in her own right. Lily was the perfect partner for Dickie and a wonderful, grounded and strong woman. She and her clann minded Dickie through his long illness and she reared the children through his long years in prison and on the run”.

Gerry went on to say: “Dickie demonstrated time and again enormous strength of character, perseverance and vision. His legacy will continue to inspire his family and all of us in the time ahead”.

I visited Richard a few times a week over the last 18 months when he was house-bound. There was not a time he didn’t praise Seanadóir Niall Ó Donnghaile. He was very proud of Niall and Niall was very proud of him. Niall would be with us today but he is on his way to Canada to represent the party at several meetings.

But before he left, yesterday in the Seanad Niall paid tribute to what he described as “two towering figures”, Richard and Fr Des who “struggled all their lives for justice and equality”.

He said Fr Des was “not just a believer in the gospel of hope and liberation he was a practitioner of the gospel of hope and liberation”. Because of their work, Niall said “we can look forward to the best years”.

And in the company at the Santa Claus party in Michelle’s and Pat’s I could see the best years. It was there on all the faces – young and not so young. The ‘not so young’ were the custodians of the IRA’s history. 

We knew what it meant for the IRA to fight as they did. And we are proud that they did.

And Eibhlín put it so clearly when she said “War came to us”. It did. The Glenholmes family were part of that war. They are now part of the peace. Their grandchildren and great grandchildren can be proud of their roots. They can enjoy the ‘best years’ speaking Irish and English in the full knowledge that their Granda Dickie and Granny Lily fought for them so they did not have to.

• Jim Gibney is a Republican activist, former political prisoner and parliamentary adviser to Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile

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