American Trade Unions and Ireland | Keeping the Faith for Unity | Terry ‘Cruncher O’Neill | Gabriel Rosenstock

American Trade Unions and Ireland

Last Friday I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the company of my good friend American Trade Union leader John Samuelson and the staff of Áras Uí Chonghaile and Fáilte Feirste Thiar – the west Belfast Tourist Board. Unbeknownst to John both organisations had agreed to name one of the Áras rooms after himself and a former Transport Workers Union, (TWU) President Mike Quill. 

Keeping the Faith for Unity

This Easter the Good Friday Agreement is 28 years old. It only seems like yesterday that we were all gathered in Castle Buildings wondering if David Trimble was going to take the leap. He hadn’t spoken to Sinn Féin at any time during the negotiations – except on one occasion when I said hello to him in the toilet and he told me to grow up. But on Friday 10 April 1998 he signed up to the Agreement.

It was a defining moment in our recent history. It was a compromise between conflicting political positions. For the first time since partition the Agreement brought peace, stability and hope, and the opportunity for a better future for all the people of the island of Ireland. 

Terry ‘Cruncher O’Neill

It was the profound sadness that I heard on Sunday of the death of my friend and comrade Terry ‘Cruncher’ O’Neill. Cruncher was an incomparable singer of Irish songs of resistance. Type his name into google and you Will discover videos and audio recordings of Cruncher singing. 

My memory is full of occasions when he enthralled an audience. There is a great Frankie Quinn photo of himself, Joe Cahill, me and Gerry Kelly singing ‘Something Inside So Strong’ at the tops of our voices outside the old Sevastopol Street office. Cleaky is in the foreground looking after us. 

Gabriel Rosenstock. 

As we go to press I am also sorry to hear of the death of Gabriel Rosenstock, poet, play wright, haikuist and writer. Gabriel was one of the leading lights of Irish language literature. He was the author and translator of more than 180 books and publisher of over 400.