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You got a problem with that?

Rafa




Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Solution to the Whole Parade Problem




Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Derry Report


Today The Pensive Quill carries an article by guest writer, blanketman Thomas 'Dixie' Elliott on the Dark's recent commemoration

As we pulled into the centre of Omeath, my wife, my son and myself, a sense of disappointment gripped me. I saw Hodgkies and one or two others sitting in the sunshine waiting and my first reaction was, I thought more would've turned up.

I needn't have worried because we were early and before long they came and gathered outside the local pub. Mackers, Big Ricky O'Rawe and of course Hodgkies himself. Others mostly with Belfast and Dublin accents soon gathered, waffling away as we waited. Mackers had brought his son and daughter, Ricky's daughter had come along and I had brought my son who is twelve. Those of us who had the honour of knowing the Dark as a leader and a comrade who inspired all who knew him, were bringing our children in the hope they too would be inspired by our memories of this small man who had the strength of a giant. How fitting that his ashes are strewn on the very mountains where the profile of Slieve Foy is said to resemble the sleeping giant, Finn MacCumhaill.

We got into our cars and a bus and in convoy made our way upwards into the Cooleys. On the way up I spotted a wooden house that should have been built in the Swiss Alps and not the mountains above Carlingford Lough. I thought who ever built it should have had the good manners to be standing outside yodelling for passing travellers.

Soon the leading cars came to a halt at a place where the only thing I could see was a very high mountain ridge towering above us with a track leading up in that direction. Jeeze I said I hope the Dark didn't get his ashes scattered away up there. Those who knew otherwise laughed and we followed them on foot up the leafy track. I would say there was about 100 of us who had made the journey and the conversation was about one person An Dorcha, I'm sure he was there somewhere listening as we passed, but I only saw curious sheep.

Just as I was beginning to believe that the old devil had indeed had his ashes scattered on top off that mountain those in front began climbing up a rickety set of steps and over a stone wall. The crumbling walls of an old cottage long ago abandoned by Dark's ancestors stood defiant against nature's advances, sheltered from the winds that swept down the Cooley mountains by ancient trees.

A small area, strangely enough the size of a prison cell, was cleared in the tall grasses that must at one time have been the garden of that crumbling cottage. Here stands a monument that was obviously built by the love of a family for a departed father. It hasn't the grandeur of those in Glasnevin nor Bodenstown but never-the-less it is a monument to a common man who doesn't need his unbreakable spirit or selfless courage engraved in granite, it is engraved in the memories of those of us fortunate enough to have known him.

The Dark's brother, his comrade from D Company, Hodgkies and a comrade from Australia stepped forward to speak and while I listened I looked out over the fields and off into the distant coast line of County Louth and the Irish Sea that faded into the haze of the sunshine. As they told us that Brendan The Dark Hughes was foremost a Socialist and then a Republican I couldn't help but think that someday thousands will gather round this crumbling cottage to be inspired by a man who shines as bright as the sun did today and whose memory will never fade in the hearts and minds of future generations.

It is places like this that will keep the fire of Republicanism burning brightly and not Stormont, Leinster House or Downing Street. I heard Dark's family say those coming each year were growing in numbers and I hope that in years to come others will follow us up that mountain road to remember on the Dark's birthday a man who gave everything for the cause and took nothing in return.

Remembering The Dark in the Cooley Mountains

Just finished watching the World Cup match between England and The USA. For the game I wore a USA top my wife had sported during the last tournament. Even got her to photograph me, brandy in hand. The image could go up on the internet solely for the sake of annoying those irrelevant Lefties who I presume were standing outside the US Consulate in Belfast with placards proclaiming ‘Afghanistan for the World Cup.’


The result was a surprise as I didn’t really expect England to get anything out of the game. A draw wasn’t a bad outcome for them, more in fact than the sorry bunch deserved. They were flattered by it. A disjointed lot who seemed to think midfield was a region in the Australian outback, they left us watching the local park spectacle – boot the ball high and far and hope it finds the head of the big lad up front. How that lot could ever feign to compete with the likes of Messi suggests something of the delusional, probably the residue from a colonial past, when they actually could strut the world stage rather than stumble across it. They are a hee haw team of donkeys, more suited for fair grounds than football stadia. A few weeks back a friend told me he felt England would lift the trophy. I asked him if he felt Ireland would be united by 2016. It takes someone with an ability to look reality straight in the back side so closely that they lose their head right up it, to entertain that sort of impossibility.

Yet we know only too well that people think all kinds of strange things and they don’t even have to be religious. In 1978 in Cage 11 people could actually be found predicting Scotland to take the World Cup, staged that year in Argentina. How anybody could persuade themselves that such a thing was possible defied all logic. My forecast that Peru would stuff Scotland in the first game led to me being dismissed as hopelessly biased. A bigot I think was the term used. Some of these guys actually had pretensions to lead revolutions. One later publicly explained why he believed Freddie Scappaticci was not a British agent. Beliefs, strange things, not always the product of reason. How could England taking the World Cup be associated with reason? Chalk and cheese.

Take a look at this lot of England muppets. More chance of Iris Robinson taking the DUP Virgin of the Year award than England picking up the World Cup. If they really want success they should consider entering the World Knuckle Shuffling competition. That is something they could win easily overcoming, or coming over some might say, whatever competition took to the field. All the terminally stupid who follow them could chant ‘come on England’. And England would duly oblige.

Summary of tonight’s game: donkeys cheered on by dullards.

Tossers United

Room




Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Phártí Máladeorí Tae