Sam Millar ✒ Anything Goes With James English.
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| Sam Millar is an internationally acclaimed author and former Blanketman. |
Showing posts with label H Blocks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label H Blocks. Show all posts
Seamus Kearney ✒ Anything Goes With James English.
I pushed it back into its special place in the recesses of my mind because of its particular significance. They were the sweetest words that I ever heard uttered in the H Blocks, Seamus Finucane shouting then out the door of his cell upon picking up on the smuggled crystal radio that Bobby Sands had won the Fermanagh South Tyrone by election.
We had been told in advance that were Bobby to win we were to remain calm and no noisy celebrating: the screws were not to be alerted to the presence of a radio on the wing. All in vain – the place exploded spontaneously. When the screws came around with the evening meal the universal feeling was that lemon was not on the menu – they had faces that suggested they had sucked dry all available lemons in place of the usual alcohol. A simple enough phrase, Fuaireamar and bua, meaning we got the victory: but it has its own unique time and place in my mind and there it shall remain.
Yesterday, just over 41 years after that momentous event in the Blocks, Liverpool got their victory in the end. Penalties are not the best way to win a final. At the end of a match something like the team with the most shots on goal or the one awarded most corners should claim the trophy. It would encourage more open attacking football. Winning by penalties diminishes the joy of victory. Just as losing by them somehow makes the defeat a bit easier to take. Liverpool’s greatest Champions League title came courtesy of penalties but it was not the spot kicks that made that victory so sweet back in 2005. It was the comeback from 3-0 down at half time.
When Sadio Mane missed his penalty yesterday, I thought it was game over. Chelsea were back on even terms and sudden death was approaching. The whiskey was being gulped by this point rather than sipped. But once Allison saved from Mason Mount I sensed that the Chelsea player was about to experience his sixth cup final defeat.
Both domestic English cups have sailed away from the Thames and have headed up to the Mersey. But Chelsea were worthy opponents and it seemed harsh that they should go home empty handed. In all four clashes between the two sides this year Liverpool have failed to beat them in open play. But as soccer is about claiming the spoils rather than sharing them, it is winner takes all.
For all its repute as a hotbed of Irish republicanism, English soccer clubs had a huge following in the jail and a lot of soccer rivalry played itself out on the wings; usually between Manchester United fans and the rest. Bobby Sands was an Aston Villa fan. They secured the English league title three days before he died. One of the joys of imprisonment was managing to get through it without Man Utd ever being crowned champions. But there was that 1977 FA Cup final victory when they beat Liverpool despite a stunning goal from Jimmy Case. Still, bragging rights had a decidedly Scouse inflection throughout my time banged up.
There were a few Chelsea supporters in the H Blocks – most notably Tom Loughlin from the New Lodge. They were a different team then and the life of a Chelsea fan was never a joyous one. Jock Home used to mercilessly wind-up Chelsea supporters by referring to anyone who made a daft comment about any subject as one, putting on his best dullard accent that came with a heavy Glaswegian twang.
Liverpool face Real Madrid in Paris later this month in a clash that will produce the next champions of European club soccer, the Champions League trophy at stake. I fervently hope that the result in the French capital is not decided by penalties, either way. It would be a smudge on Liverpool’s prowess and a dulling of the shine from the silverware were they to take all three cups this year by way of spot kicks.
We had been told in advance that were Bobby to win we were to remain calm and no noisy celebrating: the screws were not to be alerted to the presence of a radio on the wing. All in vain – the place exploded spontaneously. When the screws came around with the evening meal the universal feeling was that lemon was not on the menu – they had faces that suggested they had sucked dry all available lemons in place of the usual alcohol. A simple enough phrase, Fuaireamar and bua, meaning we got the victory: but it has its own unique time and place in my mind and there it shall remain.
Yesterday, just over 41 years after that momentous event in the Blocks, Liverpool got their victory in the end. Penalties are not the best way to win a final. At the end of a match something like the team with the most shots on goal or the one awarded most corners should claim the trophy. It would encourage more open attacking football. Winning by penalties diminishes the joy of victory. Just as losing by them somehow makes the defeat a bit easier to take. Liverpool’s greatest Champions League title came courtesy of penalties but it was not the spot kicks that made that victory so sweet back in 2005. It was the comeback from 3-0 down at half time.
When Sadio Mane missed his penalty yesterday, I thought it was game over. Chelsea were back on even terms and sudden death was approaching. The whiskey was being gulped by this point rather than sipped. But once Allison saved from Mason Mount I sensed that the Chelsea player was about to experience his sixth cup final defeat.
Both domestic English cups have sailed away from the Thames and have headed up to the Mersey. But Chelsea were worthy opponents and it seemed harsh that they should go home empty handed. In all four clashes between the two sides this year Liverpool have failed to beat them in open play. But as soccer is about claiming the spoils rather than sharing them, it is winner takes all.
For all its repute as a hotbed of Irish republicanism, English soccer clubs had a huge following in the jail and a lot of soccer rivalry played itself out on the wings; usually between Manchester United fans and the rest. Bobby Sands was an Aston Villa fan. They secured the English league title three days before he died. One of the joys of imprisonment was managing to get through it without Man Utd ever being crowned champions. But there was that 1977 FA Cup final victory when they beat Liverpool despite a stunning goal from Jimmy Case. Still, bragging rights had a decidedly Scouse inflection throughout my time banged up.
There were a few Chelsea supporters in the H Blocks – most notably Tom Loughlin from the New Lodge. They were a different team then and the life of a Chelsea fan was never a joyous one. Jock Home used to mercilessly wind-up Chelsea supporters by referring to anyone who made a daft comment about any subject as one, putting on his best dullard accent that came with a heavy Glaswegian twang.
Liverpool face Real Madrid in Paris later this month in a clash that will produce the next champions of European club soccer, the Champions League trophy at stake. I fervently hope that the result in the French capital is not decided by penalties, either way. It would be a smudge on Liverpool’s prowess and a dulling of the shine from the silverware were they to take all three cups this year by way of spot kicks.
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| ⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
His spirit reputedly wandered through Long Kesh scaring the shit out of unfortunate prisoners in the dead of night.
Long Kesh was built on the site of a disused WW2 airfield. Sections of the former runways can be seen on aerial photos of the prison.
There was a period in 1977, while I was in H5, when he seemed to be at his busiest haunting cells. I remember being shocked on at least two occasions when a fellow blanket man would let a scream out of him at night. Harvey had been and gone.
The stories of his hauntings varied. Sometimes, according to whomever he had paid a visit to, that prisoner would have been lying half asleep when Harvey would walk right through their cell, coming in through one wall and going out through the one opposite. On other occasions a prisoner would wake to see a figure dressed in the clothing of a WW2 pilot staring down at him.
There were also cases of prisoners who would wake up to find that they couldn't move and something was lying on top of them, pressing down on their chest. Though he might have many faults, I doubt that Harvey was a pervert. I experienced this a few times, both inside and out of jail, but I believe it to be sleep paralysis and not a ghost.
Harvey's hauntings seem to have petered out after we embarked on the no wash protest. Maybe the sight of walls covered in excrement was too much for Harvey and not only was it a form of exorcism but the tables were turned on the poor ghost regarding the scaring the shit of people. Whatever the reason Harvey seems to have returned to the cages around that time.
I never met Harvey myself but I wonder is his ghost still wandering the site of Long Kesh, bored and dispirited now that he no longer has a captive audience?
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Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman. Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie |
Paulo Freire was born on 19th September 1921 in the northeast of Brazil. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Recife in 1959. Two years later, he became the director of the Department of Cultural Extension at his Alma Mater. At Recife, he was involved in educational projects dealing with mass illiteracy. During those years, Freire developed and practised his radically democratic pedagogy.
'Educate to liberate'
Freire’s method was not just about teaching literacy; he also understood education as a process of politicisation. Freire was convinced that educating the masses would eventually lead to liberation from the oppressor.
Having been forced into exile by the military dictatorship in 1964, he moved to Chile, where he wrote his most influential book, the Portuguese best-seller Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Our imagination took us beyond the view from those windows to wherever our minds wished to take us.
To see the waves crashing against the Cliffs of Moher, the winds sweeping across the Sperrins, the rain falling on the Grand Canal or sheep sheltering against the snow in the Ring of Kerry.
We watched as wretched people died along country lanes while the rich passed by in their carriages. Food was plentiful but greed prevailed and we witnessed the genocide from those very windows as Bobby told us of their fate.
We could see Fiach McHugh O'Byrne crossing the Wicklow Mountains from those windows, fighting both the English and the weather. We watched with other Volunteers as the Sherwood Foresters approached Mount Street Bridge and our hands sweated on the butts of our rifles.
We saw Tom Barry take command as the day faded in Kilmichael and wondered who would live to see the new day dawning.
At night we looked to the stars from those windows and Ernie O'Malley lit another cigarette seemingly not caring that Free Staters might see the glow in the darkness of a heather clad hillside.
We saw all this while Tommy retold the stories of courage and sudden death.
The long summers of our youth were not far from those windows back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the memories came streaming in with the sun accompanied by bird song.
In our own minds we were as free as the birds which flew beyond those windows.
We could see Fiach McHugh O'Byrne crossing the Wicklow Mountains from those windows, fighting both the English and the weather. We watched with other Volunteers as the Sherwood Foresters approached Mount Street Bridge and our hands sweated on the butts of our rifles.
We saw Tom Barry take command as the day faded in Kilmichael and wondered who would live to see the new day dawning.
At night we looked to the stars from those windows and Ernie O'Malley lit another cigarette seemingly not caring that Free Staters might see the glow in the darkness of a heather clad hillside.
We saw all this while Tommy retold the stories of courage and sudden death.
The long summers of our youth were not far from those windows back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the memories came streaming in with the sun accompanied by bird song.
In our own minds we were as free as the birds which flew beyond those windows.
Guest writer Tony O'Hara with a piece about a poem he wrote while on the blanket protest in the H Blocks.
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