Bloody Sunday base

Ruairí Ó hEara brought us past this 18th century former church then Glass Works which is ripe for development as it's just yards from the city centre. Sadly, they say the asking price has been too high for developers and thus it lies empty. (Bottom pic shows Ruairí facing Robin Livingstone outside the Glass Works. Repeat to poster: Glass Works. A former Presbyterian church, the word Glass Works is clearly visible above the columns. The Gas Works is in the Brandywell. I'm told the Martin Brothers from Carrickmacross have bought the Glass Works for £1.6m and plan to make it a restaurant.)

This Great James' Street building is infamous for another reason: the Paratroopers were based in here on the day of Bloody Sunday — TV and cinema footage shows them looking over the wall of the Glass Works into the Bogside — and shots were fired from this position at demonstrators.

The Bogside murals — this one shows a young rioter at 'aggro corner' as the Brits came in — are phenomenal and a real step above must murals. (I'm told this young gasmasked teenager is now a driving instructor.) Last night, a new mural to John Hume was unveiled. Did locals refer to the entry at the entry to the Bog as "aggro corner" or is that a British Army PR invention?

And of course, as we came down off the Walls from where a huge spytower once stood, we came to the famed Free Derry Wall.

Foyle view after Derry stroll

We are sitting in Mange2 on the banks of the Foyle with our Derry tour guide Ruairi O hEara after walking Derry's Walls and viewing the Bloody Sunday memorial.

At first glance, the Derry tourist product is compelling and attractive but underdeveloped.

No doubt the walls and the siege make for a great story but some buildings along the way remain shuttered and the city centre pedestrian area looks deserted.

That said, the only way is up for derry if they can get the former Fort George and Ebrington Barracks sites developed.

Blogging from my blackberry with the Belfast Media Group management team and the starters have arrived!

Irish priest undaunted in his mission to aid Africa's most abandoned

(I'm pictured in Times Square last Tuesday with Fr Pat Kelly.)
It had been portrayed as ‘Mission Impossible’. With falling vocations to the Missions in the developed world, how could established Catholic orders continue their relief work among ‘the wretched of the earth’?

But for Andersonstown-born US-based priest Fr Pat Kelly, who is spearheading a new move to aid Africa’s most abandoned, the solution is obvious: Recruit in the developing world.

Fr Pat — who recalls learning Irish in the West Belfast home of Máire Drumm as a teenager — heads up the international fundraising efforts of the SMA Fathers, who have set up seminaries in the Phillipines, India and Africa to compensate for the fall-off in western missionaries.

“These were countries which previously were being asked to receive missionaries and now they are being asked to be missionaries,” he said over coffee in a Times Square diner. “My job here in the US is to raise the $1m (£500,000) needed each year to support around 250 students who will then locate in the most impoverished areas of Africa.”

Fr Pat entered the Society of the Missions to Africa — best-known locally for their Dromantine base — in 1967 and said his first Mass seven years later in St Agnes’ church, Andersonstown. His mother Bridie passed away four years ago while his father is now a resident of Nazareth Lodge in South Belfast.


He travelled first to Liberia where he worked with locals to develop the church while building schools and health centres and tackling extreme poverty. “As a missionary, you put your skills to work whether it’s in education, media, business or, as some of our missionaries do in Liberia, caring for those who suffer from leprosy or AIDS.”
In formerly war-racked Liberia, 100 patients are cared for at a special centre in Ganta set up to provide hope and health for those who suffer from leprosy, a stigmatised condition which is curable with medicine and good care.

After five years in Africa, Fr Pat was asked to tackle the problem of falling numbers in the order — “our numbers were going down but the need in Africa was going up” — by setting up a centre for vocations in the Phillipines. After launching a seminary for the SMA students in the Phillipines, the Irish missionary then moved to India where he replicated the success. “Only two per cent of India is Catholic but in a country of one billion people, that’s a lot of Catholics,” says Fr Pat. “I was basically the only white person in the communities in which I worked. There was nothing there when I arrived but we set up a house for students and the Indian bishops and the Indian Catholics were incredibly helpful. Many Indians supported our work by donating 100 rupees each year (£1.10) which is the equivalent of one day’s salary for an office worker.”

There are now 30 Indian SMA Fathers working in Africa .

Young missionary
After a 12-year stint in India, Fr Pat was asked to relocate to the SMA Fathers US headquarters in Tenafly, New Jersey, to head up their fundraising drive. “I stay with families across the US and address Masses and Catholic groups. I tell them that rather than send money to drill a well, they can fund our students. If I train and ordain a young missionary, he will not only drill the well in the most desolate area of Africa but he’ll build the school and health clinic as well. Our students are now in Africa, India and the Phillipines and their final destination is Africa. There’s not much money at either end of that equation so we’re turning to the Catholics of the US for help.”

His travels have given him an opportunity to get to know many Irish Americans... and display his singing talents. “I am Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus in Virginia and at the DC St Patrick’s Day parade last year, I ended up singing the National Anthem in Irish when the singer didn’t turn up,” he laughs.

While Fr Pat sees his job as spreading the Gospel, he acknowledges that he can’t “preach to someone whose stomach is empty or who is dying of malaria”.

“We are sending priests to the places where no-one else wants to go and I’m grateful in this country, where people are besieged with charitable requests, that we have generous supporters. However, there’s no let-up in the demand and more funds are needed. I may be 59 and I’ve been at this work for 35 years but, in reality, I’m only getting started.”

Anyone who wishes to support Fr Pat’s work — particularly by taking part in his drive to encourage supporters to donate a sum of money on their birthday — can check out the SMA website at www.smafathers.org or email him at patkellysma@gmail. com. Visitors are also welcome to the African Museum at the order’s Tenafly base — one of five SMA African museums worldwide which reflect the order’s respect and admiration for the peoples and cultures of Africa.

Hand to hand combat

My problem is that things are so uniformly positive in the US and the pace of activity so hectic that on return to home base, I am frustrated at the snail's pace of change. Thus my frustration at the news that our new culture minister has made it an article of faith that he won't be shanking hands with the Shinners (who, undoubtedly, are lining up to take his hand).

I'm pleased therefore that First Minister Peter Robinson and our new Lord Mayor Tom Hartley shook hands like adults and gentlmen (never mind as mature politicians) when they met at an event in Sydenham recently. It's time to turn up the pace of activity and I've no doubt the DUP constituency is more than ready for handshakes to be made — and to be relegated to the background of our political discourse.

Oh to be in Brooklyn this weekend for a commemoration in honour of Matilda Tone, wife of Wolfe Tone. I recall that she once stopped Napoleon as he moved in cavalcade into Paris to ask for help for herself and her son after Wolfe Tone's death.

According to the organisers: "We will be meeting at the gate of Green Wood and will march to the grave site behind a piper, A wreath will be place on the tombstone and a statement will be read about the role of women in the struggle for Irish freedom.
After the failure of the United Irishmen uprising in 1798 and the death of her husband in prison, Matilda spent a period of exile in France before coming to America. In America Matilda kept alive the spirit of Irish Republicanism. She was an active speaker and worked to get the dairies of Theobald Wolfe Tone published."

Top Tory who will be new head buck-cat in North

Ciarán Barnes of Belfast Media Group and Irish Echo has just caught up with Owen Patterson, the Tory shadow spokesman on Northern Ireland and the guy tipped to be the next overlord in the North.

It's worth checking out the whole interview.

Auschwitz images and farewells to Edwin

Edwin Poots got little thanks for stonewalling demands for funding for the Irish Language Broadcast Fund in the North — which would effectively have gone out of business next Wednesday at its quarterly meeting because funds would have been exhausted.

Once Peter Robinson came into his inheritance, Edwin was shipped out and that giant of culture and beacon of reconciliation Gregory Campbell drafted in to replace him.

And now it seems, his best efforts to stymie the Fund have come to nought since Gordon Brown has divvied up the £6m — at the request of Gerry Adams during the recent crisis talks at Number 10.

Interestingly, this story broke first on Raidió Fáilte's 8am show where Gerry Adams was interviwed by phone. Over 50 jobs secured and a bright future for the Irish language broadcasting sector — and for TG4 which relies strongly on the Fund for its Ulster Irish output. A victory a day, indeed.

Meanwhile, Alex Maskey launched an exhibition of photos on the Auschwitz concentration camp at St Mary's University College last night. Pictured at the event are: Lord Mayor Tom Hartley, who opened the Auschwitz exhibition of photographs in St Mary’s University College with Cllr Alex Maskey MLA , Inga Radford — who lost seven brothers and her father in the death camps — and Lisa Leopold who organised the visits by local people to Auschwitz. “On Holocaust Memorial Day in 2004, I was challenged by the Lord Mayor and by the late David Ervine to organise a charter trip to Auschwitz for local people and I’ve been organising a charter trip every year since,” she says.

Pictured top is Mark Guilfoyle with his sons Kevin and Brian. The Guilfoyles were in the Cultúrlann in West Belfast as part of their Irish holidays and I managed to snap Mark before he set off for Stormont. A strong support of peace and justice in Ireland, and a staunch supporter of the Daily Ireland project, Mark has been rolling out the red carpet for Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and many others in Kentucky for some time now.

From 1991 to 1995, Mark served in the administration of Kentucky Governor Brereton C. Jones, serving at the highest levels of the administration as General Counsel to the Governor, Budget Director and Secretary of the Governor's Executive Cabinet. He, wife Casey, and their five children are heading to Sligo and then Ennis...roll out the green carpet if you see them coming.

There is a crack in everything..that's how the light gets in

Californian pal Larry Levin tells me 73-yearold Leonard Cohen couldn't get three 10,000 audiences on consecutive nights in the US — possibly because one of his songs is entitled "Democracy is Coming to the USA" ("I love the country, but I can't stand the scene").

However, even under a downpour, his outdoor performances in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham were truly exceptional. He responded with generosity and humility to his welcome in "this city of poets and singers".

Highlight of the concert - on a night of many highlights - for me was his song about imperfection, "there is a crack in everything...that's how the light gets in".

Áthas orm níos cóngaraí do bhaile go bhfuil mionbhus nua faighte ag Coláiste Feirste, scoil lánGhaeilge 500 dálta in Iarthar Bhéal Feirste. Ar an bhealach ón tseomrataispeántas go dtí an scoil, i ndiaidh an feithicil nua a thógáil, bhuail an príomhoide Garaí Mac Roibeáird agus an rúnaí Róisín Nig Uidhir (sa phictiúr thuas) isteach chugam.

Tribute to Rosemary at inquiry

The chances of the Rosemary Nelson Inquiry pinning to the wall the Special Branch forces who commissioned her murder are slim indeed.

But at least the Inquiry did give Ed Lynch, courageous founder of Lawyers Alliance for Justice in Ireland, an opportunity to pay tribute to the slain lawyer when he gave his testimony last week.

Around 250 lawyers from the US had backed the Alliance in repeated visits to Northern Ireland where they had exposed human rights abuses and miscarriages of justice.
Closing his testimony, Ed Lynch said the family of Rosemary Nelson (40) could hold their heads high. “You had a wonderful person in Rosemary,” he said. “Those of us who came from the States felt very privileged to be in her company. She was a special person. I don't think we will see her like again very soon. I have a belief that there is a spiritual life and I think that Rosemary's spirit continues and she is living in that spiritual life.”

The New Jersey attorney recalled picking up the Rule of Law Award on behalf of Rosemary Nelson when it was posthumously presented to her at the American Bar Association in Chicago in 2001.
“That recognises a lawyer who has distinguished herself or himself in protecting the disfavoured, standing up where others declined to stand or maybe were afraid to stand up.

“There were lawyers there and judges from Africa, from Europe and South America and they stood in tribute.

‘Rosemary studied and followed the teachings of Dr Martin Luther King Junior. In his last public address before he was shot down in Memphis, Dr King spoke of how he wished to be remembered, as if he had a premonition of things to come the next morning.
“Perhaps you will find Dr King's remarks an appropriate remembrance of Rosemary Nelson. ‘I would like someone to mention the day of his memorial that Martin Luther King Junior tried to give his life serving others. I would like for someone to say that day that Martin Luther King Junior tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked, to visit those who were in prison, to love and serve humanity.

‘Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice, say that I was a drum major for peace, I was a drum major for righteousness, and all the other shallow things will not.’ And that is all I have to say in honor of Rosemary Nelson."

Four members of the Lawyers Alliance, including Boston attorney John Foley who worked with Rosemary Nelson for a period, have now given evidence during the 34 days of hearings which have now been heard by the inquiry.

Our picture shows Ed (left) with Ned McGinley of the AOH and Tom Burke from the Lawyers Alliance with Andersonstown News Editor Robin Livingstone during a visit to our offices.

Water of life

The Harbour Lights restaurant in Lower Manhattan's South Street Seaport, where we held the Pat Finucane fundraiser, will also be the best place in the city to view the planned waterfall artworks which are presently being installed in New York's East River.

Designed by artist Olafur Eliasson and funded by the city, they will create magical waterfalls where none should exist. Work has already begun on scaffolding for the first waterfall below the Brooklyn Bridge (artist's impression pictured) and while the waterfalls will cost $15m to build for a showing which will run from mid-July to mid-October, the city of New York estimates they will bring in $55m in tourist revenue.