Martin Galvin with a letter  that featured in the to the Irish News on 26-11-2020.

 A chara,

The six county centenary on May 3rd will be followed by the 40th anniversary of Bobby Sands' death on May 5th. There is a direct connection between the centenary some will celebrate, and next year's Hunger Strike commemorations. You cannot understand the Hunger Strikers, without understanding the British state in which they lived.

Before surrendering her post as Victims Commissioner, Judith Thompson cautioned the British government "Don't take a Westminster view of something that is so important for Northern Ireland." Her words apply as strongly to the centenary, or Brexit as to legacy justice.

There is no mystery how centenary celebrations following the "Westminster view" would go. Just analyze how successive British secretaries regard the north, with ideas customarily adopted by unionist supporters.

Westminster and their adherents will hail their "wee country", founded upon democracy, which survived Irish opposition and periodic rebellion. Any sectarian flaws can be blamed on local attitudes, provoked by disloyal opponents and rebels.

Whenever Westminster sent troops to preserve British hegemony, their killings were not crimes, but within the rule of Westminster made laws. British troopers were "acting under orders, and instruction and fulfilling their duty in a dignified and appropriate way", said Karen Bradley. Regard other views as a "pernicious counter narrative" per Theresa Villiers.

Bobby Sands MP, indeed each of the Hunger Strikers lived a different reality. The six counties were no "wee country" but two-thirds of Ulster, which Britain gerrymandered out despite a democratic vote in the Westminster run 1918 general election and Declaration of Independence .

For fifty years, Britain's Orange State used systematic sectarian discrimination denying jobs, houses and votes to keep Croppy numbers down.

Peaceful civil rights marchers threatened this sectarian system. They were beaten off the streets, eventually shot down on Bloody Sunday. British troopers backed British hegemony with Internment and the Ballymurphy Massacre.

The Hunger Strikers felt a deep moral duty, despite risking imprisonment or death, to fight to end British rule because they believed it was the only means to end British injustice.

They suffered torture and death rather than be masqueraded in a criminal costume and used so that "Britain might brand Ireland's fight 800 years of crime".

You cannot understand the Hunger Strikers without understanding the British state in which they lived. You cannot understand the truth about celebrating a centenary of partition without understanding the Hunger Strikers.  


Martin Galvin is a US Attorney-At-Law.

Celebrating Centenary Of Partition

Martin Galvin with a letter  that featured in the to the Irish News on 26-11-2020.

 A chara,

The six county centenary on May 3rd will be followed by the 40th anniversary of Bobby Sands' death on May 5th. There is a direct connection between the centenary some will celebrate, and next year's Hunger Strike commemorations. You cannot understand the Hunger Strikers, without understanding the British state in which they lived.

Before surrendering her post as Victims Commissioner, Judith Thompson cautioned the British government "Don't take a Westminster view of something that is so important for Northern Ireland." Her words apply as strongly to the centenary, or Brexit as to legacy justice.

There is no mystery how centenary celebrations following the "Westminster view" would go. Just analyze how successive British secretaries regard the north, with ideas customarily adopted by unionist supporters.

Westminster and their adherents will hail their "wee country", founded upon democracy, which survived Irish opposition and periodic rebellion. Any sectarian flaws can be blamed on local attitudes, provoked by disloyal opponents and rebels.

Whenever Westminster sent troops to preserve British hegemony, their killings were not crimes, but within the rule of Westminster made laws. British troopers were "acting under orders, and instruction and fulfilling their duty in a dignified and appropriate way", said Karen Bradley. Regard other views as a "pernicious counter narrative" per Theresa Villiers.

Bobby Sands MP, indeed each of the Hunger Strikers lived a different reality. The six counties were no "wee country" but two-thirds of Ulster, which Britain gerrymandered out despite a democratic vote in the Westminster run 1918 general election and Declaration of Independence .

For fifty years, Britain's Orange State used systematic sectarian discrimination denying jobs, houses and votes to keep Croppy numbers down.

Peaceful civil rights marchers threatened this sectarian system. They were beaten off the streets, eventually shot down on Bloody Sunday. British troopers backed British hegemony with Internment and the Ballymurphy Massacre.

The Hunger Strikers felt a deep moral duty, despite risking imprisonment or death, to fight to end British rule because they believed it was the only means to end British injustice.

They suffered torture and death rather than be masqueraded in a criminal costume and used so that "Britain might brand Ireland's fight 800 years of crime".

You cannot understand the Hunger Strikers without understanding the British state in which they lived. You cannot understand the truth about celebrating a centenary of partition without understanding the Hunger Strikers.  


Martin Galvin is a US Attorney-At-Law.

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