Colin Broderick In Person

Colin Broderick In Person

As part of Féile an Phobail’s virtual Scribes at the Rock I interviewed the New Jersey-based writer Colin Broderick, a former native of Tyrone, about his two extraordinary memoirs, That’s That and Orangutan, which deal with his troubled childhood,...
The Dungeons of Tazmamart

The Dungeons of Tazmamart

My review of Moroccan Aziz BineBine’s biography about his eighteen years of torture in the dungeons of Tazmamart was published in last Saturday’s Irish Examiner. Tazmamart was translated from the French by Lulu Norman and is published by Haus – pp....
Navigating History

Navigating History

With the continuing protests over the death of George Floyd spilling into other protests, especially in Britain, with campaigns to remove statues and other monuments honouring slave-owners and imperialist figures, here is a feature I wrote twenty years ago on the...
Racism In Our Midst

Racism In Our Midst

I wrote the following feature seventeen years ago. It was published in August 2003 in the Andersonstown News and is as relevant now as it was then, because racism remains pervasive, both subtle and explicit – clearly in the USA, as witness the killing of George...
Behan and the IRA

Behan and the IRA

On this day in March 1964 Brendan Behan died at the age of forty one from alcoholism. Before he became an internationally-acclaimed author he worked as a house painter and also joined the IRA, initially as a courier. Behan was a friend and comrade of my Uncle Harry, a...