AN initiative by the Sinn Féin Mayor of Monaghan, Matt Carthy, saw the centenary of the founding of the Irish Transport & General Workers' Union marked with a civic reception by Monaghan County Council for the trade union movement attended by most of the unions organised in the border county alongside the ITGWU's succesor, SIPTU. The event, on 5 May, just after the May Day Bank Holiday, was attended by SIPTU General President Jack O'Connor and local Dáil deputies Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Sinn Féin) and Seymour Crawford (Fine Gael). County councillors there included Seán Conlon, Noel Keelan, Pat Treanor, Jackie Crowe and Brenda McAnespie (Sinn Féin) and Heather Humphreys (Fine Gael). Town Councillors Gene Duffy (Ballybay) and Malachy Trainor (Monaghan Town) were also present. Free article

SINN FÉIN members were in Milan to attend the traditional 25 April parade which commemorates the Italian partisans who died fighting fascism. Arriving on the Friday night to attend a questions and answers session on Ireland in the Arci Metissage, a left-wing centre, the Irish republicans were up and about the next day for a tour of plaques honouring the anti-fascist fighters who died in the Ticinese district of Milan. Lunch was with partisan veterans, who thanked us for visiting them. Free article

JOSEPH BRADY was born in Leeson Street in the Lower Falls area of Belfast in 1923 in the wake of partition and the sectarian pogroms that came with the establishment of the Six-County state. The sectarianism of the Northern state and its effects on Joe in his early years influenced him in later life. In the late 1930s, Joe joined the IRA and became active in Army operations. As with many republicans, this led to his arrest and he was interned in Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast from 1940-1946. Joe may have been the last republican internee to be freed after the 1940s campaign came to an end. Free article

The North’s Education Minister, Caitríona Ruane  of Sinn Féin was honoured at a civic reception in her native Mayo recently. At the Mayo County Council ceremony Caitríona was described as  a ‘noble daughter of Mayo’

 REMEMBERING JAMES CONNOLLY: James Connolly’s great grand-daughter, Michelle Connolly, laid a wreath at the annual commemoration at the 1916 and trade union leader’s memorial statue at Liberty Hall in Dublin with SIPTU General President Jack O’Connor and SIPTU General secretary Joe O’Flynn.