Top Issue 1-2024

3 June 2004 Edition

No county has suffered more from partition

3 June 2004

"You know the way, when you are in jail, you have a picture in your mind of the place you love. This strand was that picture for my father, which went with him through the jails in England. He used to run along the strand here at Luddon Beach every morning. It's like it's ours - it meant so much to him." Pádraig Mac Lochlainn's father, Raymond, after ten years in English jails, died in 1983, aged 34. "I'm nearly his age now," says Pádraig. Free article

Ending isolation in the West

3 June 2004

"People, especially women, want change - it's not just a slogan," says Rose Conway Walsh, who is standing in Belmullet for Mayo County Council. "There is a huge issue of poverty today for the people who have been left behind, particularly in rural areas. I know this. I work in a community development project, and I see it all around me. People in Dublin have absolutely no idea what under-development of the West means in everyday life. Free article

Remembering the Past - Michael Gaughan

3 June 2004

BY MÍCHEÁL MacDONNCHA - In June 1974, Ireland was in turmoil, as the Troubles were in their fifth year. In the Six Counties, internment without trial was in force and the British Army was on the rampage throughout nationalist areas. British forces were colluding with loyalists openly and in secret and had bombed Dublin and Monaghan in May, killing 33 people. Of the hundreds of republicans imprisoned at this time, the most vulnerable were those in English jails. Among them was a young man from Ballina, County Mayo. Free article

The 5th Column

3 June 2004

An Phoblacht's famous weekly satirical column. Read on... Free article

Vintage stuff

3 June 2004

BY EOGHAN Mac CORMAIC - Joe McDonnell, who died on Hunger Strike, used to have a tale about going to a house in Andersonstown in West Belfast after the '72 Truce broke down and asking the householder if it would be possible to dump some weapons there. 'Well it would,' he was told, 'but nobody has ever come back for the last stuff ye left here.' Free article


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