The Vice-President of the European Parliament, Roberta Angelilli MEP, launched a book about Bobby Sands last Thursday, July 15th, at the European Parliament Offices in Rome. ‘Il diario di Bobby Sands. Storia di un ragazzo irlandese’ is the translation by Italian journalist Silvia Calamati of a book first published in Ireland a few years ago by Denis O’Hearn and Laurence McKeown. That book, ‘I Awoke This Morning – A Biography of Bobby Sands for Younger Readers’, has also been published in Irish – ‘D’éirigh mé ar maidin: Beathaisnéis Roibeaird Uí Sheachnasaigh do Léitheoirí Níos Óige’.

Welcoming the publication, the secretary of the Bobby Sands Trust, Danny Morrison, said: “Once again we see international recognition of  and respect for the struggle by Irish political prisoners, in particular the hunger strikers and that of the name Bobby Sands. Their sacrifice has stood the test of time and what they came through in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh is an indictment of successive British governments. But when one looks at the tense situation in Maghaberry it is clear that the British government is slow to learn from its past mistakes. I would like to congratulate Silvia Calamati on the publication of this book and her ongoing commitment to covering events in the North of Ireland.”

Footnote: many streets around the world have been named after Bobby Sands. In 1981 the Iranian government officially changed the name of Winston Churchill Boulevard where the British Embassy is based to Bobby Sands Street. The response of the British was to seal the entrance to their embassy on Bobby Sands Street and knock through the wall into Ferdowsi Avenue, which is now their new address. In 2001, a memorial to Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers was unveiled in Havana, Cuba.

Silvia Calamati will be appearing in An Chulturlann, Falls Road, on July 31st, as part of Féile an Phobail. She will be launching ‘Scéalta Ban ó Thuaisceart na hÉireann’, an Irish language version of her book, ‘Women’s Stories From The North of Ireland’.

Today is the 29^th anniversary of the death on hunger strike of IRA Volunteer Joe McDonnell from West Belfast. Veteran republican Jim Gibney here pays tribute to the fifth hunger striker to die in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh.

It does not happen very often that the publication of this column [Jim’s weekly feature in the ‘Irish News’] coincides with the anniversary of one of the ten men who died on hunger strike in the H-Blocks in 1981. Today is one of those rare occasions. Twenty-nine years ago Joe Mc Donnell died after 61 days on hunger strike. He was one of the oldest of the ten men yet he was also a very young man. He was 30-years-old. Joe was married to Goretti and had two children, Bernadette and Joseph. Joe came from a large family of eight children.

He began his hunger strike on the 9^th May 1981, four days after the death of Bobby Sands. Before his death, after sixty one days, three other prisoners had died - Francis Hughes, Patsy O’Hara and Raymond Mc Creesh.

Joe would have heard the news of their deaths while he was in a cell in an H-Block or in the H-Block hospital wing. There is no doubt that Joe would have known the fate that awaited him as the news of the death of each hunger striker reached his ears. Yet at no stage during his agonising hunger strike did he pause to consider his impending death.

In an article written by Danny Morrison several years ago, following a visit to the then closed and decaying Long Kesh, he recalled meeting Joe, two days before he died, in the canteen of the prison hospital. With Joe were Tom Mc Elwee, Kieran Doherty TD, Kevin Lynch and Mickey Devine.

Danny wrote: “Joe Mc Donnell, who had two days to live, was brought in on a wheelchair and kept joking throughout the visit. He smoked several cigarettes in between sipping water. I had been there to bring them up to date with our contacts with the British and the ultimately forlorn attempts to resolve the political status issue.”

Gerry Adams in his book ‘Before the Dawn’ wrote about knowing Joe from being interned with him: “Joe was a very happy-go-lucky guy.” He recalled Joe’s “sense of fun… On the day he started his hunger strike, he sent me out a King Edward Cigar from his prison cell.”

I wondered at the time and still do to this day where Joe and the other hunger strikers got their resolve to carry them beyond life. Indeed the same question may be asked of their loved ones who stood with them as they faced their final moments.

Three ex-prisoners who knew Joe as an active IRA volunteer outside and inside prison spoke to me about the man they knew. Seamy Finucane said Joe had a reputation in Andersonstown for being “a hands-on IRA operator”. He was a member of two active service units attached to the Belfast Brigade and Battalion staffs. He oozed confidence. “In his company you knew you were safe”.

“Being safe” around Joe is how a very young prisoner, Jim ‘Jazz’ Mc Cann, remembered his time with Joe on the blanket protest in the H-Blocks. “Joe was a tower of strength. He got a lot of us through the protest. He was forever the optimist. A ‘raker’, the life and soul of the wing.” Joe never took a visit with his family for almost five years because he refused to wear a prison uniform. But he “talked about Goretti and Bernadette and Jospeh and his family especially his sister Maura every day and night,” according to Jim. He was in constant contact with Goretti through comms and had visitors from across Belfast smuggle her comms to him.

Jim said, “Joe’s dream was to get a visit with Goretti and the children and to be reunited with them, wearing not a prison uniform but his own clothes.”

Former hunger striker Raymond Mc Cartney described Joe as “the heart-beat of the wing. The wise ‘old’ man of the wing, who was very protective of other prisoners.”

Joe had regularly argued for a hunger strike, two years before it actually began. To his comrades he was ‘rock-solid’, ‘unbending’, ‘stubborn and principled’, ‘a figure head’, ‘a family man’, ‘a caring person’.

And a man who made others laugh while he got them through the toughest and challenging of times.

Tess Buckley’s photographs of Kilmainham Jail, recently used to illustrate Niamh O’Sullivan’s book, ‘Written in Stone’, have gone on display in the Dublin City Council Offices at Wood Quay. The exhibition began on Monday 21^st June and runs until Friday 25^th June. There has been immense interest in the photographs which have encouraged people to do follow-up visits to the actual jail.

The death has occurred in Belfast of well-known republican activist and ex-POW Seando Moore. The Bobby Sands Trust would like to extend its condolences to Seando’s wife Patricia and the wider McCabe and Moore family circles. Go ndeanna Dia trocaire air. Thousands of people visited the wakehouse, among them the families of the dead hunger strikers to whom Seando had become very close due to his involvement in national commemoration committee which organised exhibitions and events around the 10th, 20th and 25th anniversaries of the hunger strike.

Seando was laid to rest in Milltown Cemetery on Tuesday 15th June and the oration was delivered by his friend and Secretary of the Bobby Sands Trust, Danny  Morrison. He said:

“A former blanketman, Seamie Finucane said to me at the wake house on Sunday, ‘This better be a good oration!’ And I said, don’t be saying that, I am rusty and nervous enough. And he said, ‘Seando will be listening to every word you have to say and you better get it right.’

“Seando, our old friend and comrade, Seando.

“And Seando, before you start complaining about the Gaeilge, let me say, ‘Ta bron orm, ach tá mé ag foghlaim fóill!. Tá mé ag foghlaim go fóill!’

“When he first came to Beechmount, all those years ago, as an immigrant from Ballymurphy, Seando looked so young and innocent that Big Ted christened him ‘the child’. The speculation was that he was attracted to Beechmount because we had the best five star restaurant in the Belfast Brigade – Ma McCabe’s in Locan Street.

“The RA has been accused of many things down the years but it’s about time that it also took responsibility for the rickets suffered by the sons and daughters of Ma and Frank McCabe all of who’ll be quick to tell you at the drop of a hat: ‘we never got fed until all you lot had your fill.’

“So, Seando joined the Beechmount squad and was a courageous Volunteer of the Irish Republican Army. These were the days of Albert Kavanagh and Jimmy Quigley and Paddy Maguire and Stan Carberry and Basil Fox all of whom Seando was very close to.

“All of us have our memories of him. He was very, very funny, with his dry humour, and you couldn’t easily fall out with him. There was no spite in him and he was loyal and loving, as his mother and brothers and sisters knew and as we in Beechmount were to discover.

“Occasionally he and I used to stay up in my elderly widowed Aunty May’s house in Andersonstown. She was very traditional and every morning when Seando and I came down the stairs she would put out a boiled egg and a round of bread and butter. After sometime of this Seando was exasperated and said, ‘Has she no bloody Cornflakes?’

“A woman, Brenda, at the wake on Sunday was recalling the times when she used to dye Albert Kavanagh’s hair and Seando’s. I reminded her of what a terrible job she had made of Seando’s. A squad of us were at a dance in Clonard Hall one night when it was surrounded by the British army who came in firing rubber bullets and rounding up all the males. Myself and Basil were arrested and put into the back of Saracens – from where we were eventually taken to Castlereagh and interned. But from the back of the Saracen I could see Seando being put up against the wall and a spotlight was shone on him. I started to laugh because although his hair was black his eyebrows were still ginger! But he got away and lived to fight another day.

“I had made a gallon of home brew in the run-up to Christmas before I was arrested and Seando went to my house. “Mrs Morrison, I have just received an important message from Danny in Long Kesh and I have to remove everything that is under the stairs immediately.” So, Seando, and a few comrades took the beer round to Terry and Bernie’s and had a great time, he told me, when he eventually was arrested and landed into Cage 2.

“Of all the prisoners the internees had the most in terms of visits and parcels and letters and yet they did the most moaning. So, I was glad when Seando was arrested and interned – he was like a ray of sunshine to our Cage, a real wit and kept everybody in stitches.

“He was released after the big fire and during the 1975 ceasefire, I think.

“As I said, we had been going in and out of Ma McCabes and I don’t know when it was that he and Patricia put their eye on each other but from that moment on they were an item. There are lots of jokes about mother-in-laws but Seando’s case defies all the stereotypes. They got on so well that they lived next door to each other and she doted on Seando. Ma McCabe herself is very ill and all of our thoughts are with her today.

“Yesterday, I came across an unpublished letter that Seando wrote to her from the Blocks in 1978 and I hope she doesn’t mind me reading part of it out.

“‘Well, Ma McCabe and family, Got this chance to drop you a line. I hope you are keeping well and I’m sure you are still getting the regular visitors at dinner time. How is all the rest of the family keeping, too many for me to mention but I hope that they are okay. Before I forget, we had a smuggled photo here of a protest march, I think it was the 9th August.

“‘You’re doing a great job for us, Ma McCabe, this protesting. That’s what we need, people out there showing their support for us. Patricia was saying about her being on TV and the child in the Republican News. A few of the lads heard about the child in the paper. They are still slagging me about it. Are they keeping alright?

“‘Ma McCabe when you ring up Sean’s will you tell Patricia I had a letter for her but wasn’t able to get it out and I send my love to her and the child and I am thinking of them every day. I am getting carried away there, Ma McCabe, thinking I was writing to Patricia.”

            “‘Well, what about yourself? Are you keeping alright? What about the Hibs? Have you any contact with them now?… Does the Dolly Sisters [the two Eileens] still come round for the PDF. You can tell them I was asking for them.

            “‘Ma McCabe I want you to get a parcel ready for Patricia to bring up on the visit. You will have to make it around 3ins long. That’s tobacco. Make it round and put in a lot of headache tablets and painkillers also, as we don’t get any medical treatment. Make it round like a hair roller, put red matchheads up it also and papers for the fags. I hope I haven’t mixed you up there. I’m writing this and I’m mixed up!… If you see my mum please tell her that I had a letter for her but couldn’t get it smuggled out.’

“Like most republicans Seando suffered arrest and torture, including on one occasion three days in Springfield Road barracks where he was stripped and a hood placed over his head. He was continually beaten and was the subject of a mock execution and was threatened with being hanged out the window. He sued the RUC and later successfully won a brutality case against them.

“He was eventually caught on active service in 1977 but before he was sentenced to 10, 7 and 4 years in jail he and Patricia got married in Crumlin Road Prison. There is a great photograph of them in the house, taken by Seando’s dear friend Sean ‘Flute’ Osborne on Seando and Patricia’s thirtieth wedding anniversary. They are actually back in the Crum and the photograph is very symbolic of the fact, that although times were extremely tough for a young married couple, Patricia and Seando survived and triumphed over the brutality of Castlereagh, lengthy prison sentences, the blanket and no wash protests and the heartbreaking hunger strikes of 1981.

“A few years ago, the Bobby Sands Trust launched a book to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the hunger strike. I was speaking at it and was describing some of the comms that I received from the blanketmen. I was actually speaking about ones from Seando and him describing to me how these men locked behind doors for four years, regularly beaten, played Bingo to entertain themselves, and I started to cry and could hardly talk because it brought it all back.

“After his release he and Patricia went on to build a good family and home. Their family went on to include besides Francine, Sean, Patricia Ann and James, grandchildren Eoin and  Seainin.

“‘After his release from prison,’ as Gerry Adams said the other day, ‘Seando became an indispensable part of Sinn Fein.’ He worked hard locally on community issues and was the driving force behind the work of the commemoration committee.

“But Seando could never forget the memory of ten men dead and when it came to the tenth, twentieth and twenty-fifth commemorations of that incredible prison struggle Seando travelled the length and breadth of Ireland and Britain organising exhibitions, displays, lectures and discussions. Latterly, he was seriously ill and those long journeys were bound to take their toll on his strength but he told one comrade: ‘When the Movement came to ask me to do the commemorations… that was my medicine.’

“It is a tragedy that so many former POWs – and the number is shocking - survived the armed struggle and prison only to be so cruelly cut down by disease, especially cancer.

“Although he was ‘the child’ when he came to Beechmount forty years ago and was known only to a few, in recent times he was probably one of the best known republicans in Ireland. Anytime you spoke to a relative of the hunger strikers the first thing they asked was, ‘How’s Seando?’ I was in a small hotel in the northern outskirts of Cork City a few weeks ago and a couple, total strangers, who weren’t even from the area, but were from Kerry came up to me to ask, ‘How’s Seando keeping?’

“When Seando phoned you it was always with those beguiling few words, ‘Well, mo chara, how’s things?’ You knew that he wanted you to do something.

“About twelve years ago he had the idea of commemorating all the people from A-Company area who had helped the struggle, fed and looked after or sheltered Volunteers, the anonymous people, who having passed on were now beyond British rule. He asked me to help him but he did all the running, collecting the biographies and photographs. It’s an incredible little pamphlet for it demonstrates that the IRA was a real people’s army with support on every street. I cannot mention all of them – or we would be here all day – but there were people like John and Teesie McCullough, the Gills, Mrs Burns, Pearse Graham, Billy Taylor, Ken Smith, the O’Rawes, the McCooeys, Dinky Quigley and May McManus and her brother Joe – and people like Stoker Cosgrove, whose daughter Nora, married to Patricia’s brother Jim, was murdered by the RUC on the morning of Joe McDonnell’s death. And just as they lied when they killed the people on Bloody Sunday the British lied about the circumstances of the death of Nora.

“To Seando’s mother, Ellen, his brother Phillip, and sisters Rosaleen, Margaret and Geraldine, I would like to offer my condolences, the condolences of the Republican Movement and those of everyone here today and all who visited that packed wakehouse since last Saturday. To Patricia and the family you have lost a great, decent man who was so, so proud of you. Patricia, you made him a happy companion and husband; and the children fulfilled him.

“On one of the periods when Seando was low he said to Patricia what if we never see each other again and she responded with a typical Seando answer – ‘you don’t get rid of my that easier, I shall see you in heaven’.

“And last Saturday morning as he was letting go she told him, ‘Seando, today, you will be with the hunger strikers in heaven.’

“In her death notice Patricia wrote: ‘My husband, my best friend, and soulmate. What we had no millionaire could buy and wonderful memories no one can take away. I know in my heart you will look after me and walk beside me every step I take. Wait for me and walk beside me every step I take. Wait for me.

Your loving devoted wife, Patricia.’

“As we were finishing the booklet Green River we looked at a number of poems because we wanted to pick out something appropriate for the introduction. Seando chose this one which was written by a Turkish political prisoner. I would like to dedicate it to Patricia. It is called, ‘You’re Not Alone’.

If one day my eyes cannot see

Or if we part

Never to meet again

I’ll still be by your side.

When you sing a song on your own

Or get angry with people

Or as you learn new things

I’ll be in the sounds and the words.

And, if you ever fall into darkness

I shall come

To your side with amazing lightness of colours.

If you ever fall into darkness

I shall come

To your side with amazing lightness of colours.

Tim Brannigan’s mother was from Belfast, his father from Ghana. Tim’s Irish republican activism led to his arrest and imprisonment in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh in the 1990s. Tim’s powerful memoir explores the meaning of identity and is a book which has garlanded praise across the full spectrum of the media. As part of Féile an Phobail’s Youth Fringe Festival Tim will be speaking on August 6^th in St Mary’s University College, Belfast, about his experiences. Here, veteran republican Gerry O’Hare reviews Tim’s memoir.

To be an IRA Volunteer in Belfast during the seventies was a dangerous life-style choice. Its members mingled in crowds to avoid detection and took whatever steps they could to survive and remain at liberty. The varied precautions they took have now become legend and folklore. Similarly, IRA supporters took risks, protected activists, marched on the streets, and suffered abuse. But imagine being black, from Beechmount, with the Brits all around, and being a supporter of the ‘RA!

Enough said.

This book is the tale of just such a person; his beginnings, his growing

up in Belfast, working for the Movement and the struggle and – surprise, surprise - his eventual capture and imprisonment.

Tim Brannigan was born to a strong and resourceful woman, Peggy Brannigan, from Carrickhill. A married woman we hear that she fell for the charms of a Ghanaian medical doctor. Already married, with three children, she thought she could get away with her indiscretion - but giving birth to a bouncing black baby put paid to that. That’s where this story begins. Luck, which appeared to have forsaken her, returned to Peggy’s side.

For years, she had been a helper at ‘St Joseph’s Baby Home’ and - on occasions – had brought babies home with her for the weekend. Tim’s stepfather, Tom, we learn was completely unsuspecting of Peggy’s dalliance and, after his birth, Tim was quickly bundled off to St Joseph’s.

Peggy simply told family and friends that her baby had died at birth.

Traumatized by her own deceitfulness, she hatched a cunning plan to bring Tim home – by adopting him. This plan worked quite well, as neighbours were aware of Peggy’s big heart for orphan babies. Thus Tim becomes a fully paid up member of the Brannigan family and gains three elder brothers at one swoop, so to say. Another brother is born, and the unsuspecting Tom is eventually shown the door by Peggy who takes on another man in her life – Chris.

Being the only black kid on the block in Belfast brought daily problems for Tim. School time appears to have been mostly ok, apart from the usual racist comments from the odd school bully. But the Brannigans form a wagon around the kid - and he retells his upbringing and school days with much humour.

Growing up in the seventies brought the young Tim into the real world and this reviewer’s eye is caught by the title of a chapter: ‘Young, Lifted and Black’ (a parody of a hit song of the time ‘Young, Gifted and Black’, originally written by Nina Simone). Through education and determination to make a life for himself, Tim gets to Liverpool university and gains a degree. Qualified, he looks for work in Britain but soon hankers for home and Peggy.

Earlier, as a young boy, he had sold An Phoblacht for Sinn Fein, but getting on in college was his real goal. When he comes home, he tells us, it’s not long before the IRA comes a-knocking at his door. The end result is a tragedy for himself, his mother and brothers. He allows two IRA men to hide weapons in his mother’s old wreck of a car and is spotted by a local tout. Within a day, the family home is raided and all are hauled off to Castlereagh holding centre.

Fearful for his mother, he owns up and takes full responsibility. That sends him to jail for seven years and he eventually ends up in the H-Blocks where he knuckles down and does his time. The story recalls his attempts to become a journalist in which endeavour he shows great resilience. He never lets his various employers know of his conviction, however, and lives under a continual, fearful shadow that they will find out and give him the sack.

He ends up in the Irish News and, when another journalist warns him of threats to expose him, he informs his employers.  They are understanding. Unfortunately, the journalist who warned him is not so lucky. It was Martin O’Hagan who was assassinated by loyalists for his courageous expose of their criminality.

This week sees the launch in Italy of a new book about Bobby Sands. Silvia Calamati, a journalist and a writer, has translated ‘I arose this morning…A Biography of Bobby Sands for Younger Readers’ by Denis O’Hearn and Laurence McKeown which was published a few years ago.

She was in Belfast last week – on the anniversaries of the death of Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes – to speak about her latest translation ‘Il diario di Bobby Sands. Storia di un ragazzo irlandese’, published by Castelvecchi, Rome.

Since 1982 Silvia has been interested in the Irish question and has lived in Dublin and Belfast for considerable periods of her time. From 1990 until 1995 she wrote for the Italian weekly magazine ‘Avvenimenti’.

Since 1999 she has been working as a free-lance journalist for many Italian radio stations, in particular with RAI NEWS 24 and RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiana, reporting on the main events throughout the Irish conflict.

Previously, she has translated ‘One day in my life’ by Bobby Sands ( ‘Un giorno della mia vita’, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1996), and ‘Renewing the Irish Church’ by Joseph McVeigh,  (‘Guerra e liberazione in Irlanda. La Chiesa del conflitto’, Edizioni della Battaglia, Palermo 1998). She is the author of ‘Irlanda del Nord. Una colonia in Europa’ (Edizioni Associate, 2005) (‘Northern Ireland. A Colony in Europe’).

In 2001 she published ‘Figlie di Erin. Voci di donne dell’Irlanda del Nord’ (Edizioni Associate). In 2002 this book was released in Belfast in English, with the title ‘Women’s Stories from the North of Ireland’ (Beyond the Pale Publications). In 2006 Icaria (Barcelona) published it in Spanish, with the title ‘Hijas de Erin. Voces de Mujeres de Irlanda del Norte’. In 2007 this book won two important awards in Italy: ‘Concorso Internazionale ‘Storie di Donne’ (Salerno) and ‘Premio ‘Il Paese delle Donne’, awarded by the International Women’s Centre in Rome.

In 2008 she published ‘Qui Belfast. 20 anni di cronache dall’Irlanda di Bobby Sands e Pat Finucane’ (‘News from Belfast. 20 years of articles from the country of Bobby Sands and Pat Finucane’).

The book, a collection of articles written mostly by Silvia Calamati from 1984 to 2004, covers the most important political and social events which resulted in the outcome by the Northern Ireland political parties signing the historical Good Friday Agreement in April 1998. In 2002 she was awarded the TOM COX AWARD at the West Belfast Festival for her commitment as a writer and a journalist.

ITALIAN VERSION

Silvvia Calamati

Figlie di Erin. Voci di donne dell’Irlanda del Nord

Edizioni Associate, Roma, 2001

ISBN  8826704139

ENGLISH VERSION

Silvia Calamati

Women’s Stories from the North of Ireland

Beyond the Pale, Belfast, 2002

SPANISH VERSION

Silvia Calamati

Hijas de Erin – Voces de Mujeres de Irlanda del Norte

Icaria, Barcelona, 2006

See also -

IL REPORTER

IRLANDANDO

VIAGGIATORI ONLINE

IRLANDA ONLINE

Irish republican sympathizers gathered last Sunday, 9^th May, to inaugurate the recently redesigned Bobby Sands Garden in Plougastel, Finistere, France. This garden was first inaugurated in May 1991 on the tenth anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands by Mr Andre Legac, the then mayor of the town. The whole garden has now been re-landscaped and is an extremely attractive site (in the centre of town) and sight (beautiful garden with lots of plants and flowers) to commemorate the life and sacrifice of Bobby Sands and all the hunger strikers.

A plaque was unveiled by the current mayor of the town, Mr Dominique Cap and it reads: ‘GARDEN BOBBY SANDS, IRISH MP MARTYR, 1954-1981’

A series of white line pickets were held in republican areas of Belfast today, Wednesday, 5^th May, to coincide with the 29^th anniversary of the death of IRA Volunteer Bobby Sands after sixty-six days on hunger strike. Bobby was the first of ten IRA and INLA Volunteers to die, including Kieran Doherty from Andersonstown who, like Bobby, was elected to parliament [for Cavan/Monaghan in Kieran’s case] during the seven-month long hunger strike.

The pickets were held between 5 - 5.45pm on the Falls Road, Andersonstown Road, the top of the Whiterock Road, the Stewartstown Road, in Ballymacarret at the Mountpottinger shops and on the Antrim Road/Newington area.