Galway Advertiser 1993/1993_04_01/GA_01041993_E1_014.pdf 

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C O M M E N T

&

L E T T E R S

P E A C E I N O U R T I M E ?

Gay Participant Writes
Dear Editor,
As a participant in the St. Patrick's Day Parade I decided to put pen to paper. One of the letters in the issue of 25th March was headed " A Family Affair?" It said, " I would just like to knw how does the participa tion of homosexuals in the St. Patrick's Day Parade make it " a day for the fami ly?" This year was the best St. Patrick's Day I have ever h a d . I c e l e b r a t e d my Irishness, as every other years, and was delighted to be able to take part in the Galway parade. However, what really made it such a special day for me was the warm welcoming, genuine response from the people of Galway. The atmosphere on the 17th of March showed to be over the maturity, understanding and openmindedness of the Galway people, regardless of any ar ticle written, signed or un signed, whether it be an in citement to hatred, full of untrue information that pro bably comes about through being too guilable to untrue information. In fact, I was overwhelmed by the response of the Galway people. In answer to the letter that asked if we were shunned at the viewing stand in Eyre Square, I really have not idea what happened. T h e letter h e a d e d "Recruiting Exercise"? Dorothy and the other women who carried the ban ner, and the man were all in their twenties. I have to ad mit I don't know how old Toto is. As for the rest of the letter I find a strong air of homophobia about it which I think speaks for itself. Last but not least, I'd like to add that the welcome from the people of Galway on Paddy's Day was every bit as great, if not greater, as the welcome our Presi dent; Mary Robinson, had for us, the Lesbian and Gay group, in Aras an Uachtarain.

HIS time it was the people who got the jump on the politicians. On Sunday in Dublin, outside the General Post Office, between fifteen and twenty thousand ordinary Irish citizens gathered to express their P r o s p e r o u s revulsion at the callous murder of two young boys who had become G a l w a y the latest victims of the I.R.A.'s campaign conducted, a s we have W e l l , s p e a k i n g for N T H E early 17th myself, I have celebrated St. been told so often, on our behalf. As speaker after speaker declared that the century, despite the Patrick's Day every year I.R.A. did not speak for them, that they entirely disassociated themselves from what has become a pointless and bloody slaughter, it was possible to wars of Elizabethan since I can remember, with sense something quite new on the Irish political scene - a grass-roots move times, Galway was still a my family as a child, and prosperous commercial with and ment that demanded not only that the I.R. A. cease its pretence of acting for centre. For example the since Ifamilyolder. I friends got really "the Irish people", but a new commitment to badger the politicians into work customs collected on don't see how my sexuality ing tirelessly for a solution to the terrible twenty-year tragedy of Northern wine as recorded in 1611 should exclude me from any were very substantial. family celebration or get Ireland. Besides its trade in wine together, whether it be a Last Sunday some two thousand Galway people took part in their own it also imported iron, salt wedding, christening, first spontaneous rally, and this Sunday another peace rally will be held in Eyre and some English goods Holy C o m m u n i o n , bir Square beginning at 3.00 p.m. Last Sunday's rally was all the more impressive from Bristol. thdays, Confirmation, or the sad occasion of a bereave because it took place at the sametimeas the ordination of Bishop McLoughlin. Its exports were hides, wool Organiser Aidan Berry echoed the sentiments of Mrs. Susan McHugh, whose yarn, sheepskins, tallow, ment. radio phone-in last week sparked the new movement for peace, in pointing salmon and beef. Indeed its out that those who attended the rally were simply ordinary people who were trade equalled that of Cork and Drogheda. These three repulsed by the horror of the Warrington bombs. ports ranked equal third for Of course we have been here before. Many will recall the equally spon commerce in the country Dear Editor, being behind Dublin and Have any of your readers taneous demonstrations in 1976 that led to the foundation of the Peace Peo Waterford. The tanning of any view or idea as to how ple. After the initial enthusiasm wore off, divisions and quarrels gradually hides was noted as a particular this practise can be pro depleted the energy of those involved, and what began with such high hopes source of employment at that hibited. Is it illegal? Are time in the city of Galway. dwindled to the barely two hundred the organisation has today. there any laws with regard A description of the area Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. will have watched these developments with a about that time written by Sir to it? Sure, there must be. mixture of anxiety and cynicism. Anxiety, because a lot more blood has been Oliver St. John at that time split since 1976 and the revulsion of ordinary people is greater, but cynicism Vice-President of Connacht and later Lord Deputy. He because one thing the shadowy godfathers of the I.R.A. have is patience. wrote that the city was They have seen this sort of thing before, after Enniskillen, for example, and inhabited by English families and surnames and that it had they know how quickly ordinary people go back to their own concerns. ' 'fair and stately buildings:' The new peace movement represents an opportunity for our politicians The fronts of the houses were, Dear Editor, to respond, in a way they are not used to doing, to this cry from the heart. he wrote, all of hewed stone While efforts for peace in We have no idea how they will do it. But one thing is certain. If they fail up to the top and ornamented Northern Ireland have been with battlements in a uniform so to answer the people's call and fall back into petty bickering, the only ones manner as if the town were d e m o n s t r a t e d magnificently in Dublin and who wiU have cause to rejoice will be the gunmen. built upon one model.

T

r

Is mise,
Nuala W a r d , Galway.

B a n

Bill

Posters

Take a walk along any of of litter and gives the city a our city streets and you shall dirty and tattery image, par see all the nice new litter ticularly to visitors. bins and silver painted Yours sincerely, telegraph poles plastered G.E. Boyle with these dirty useless bills. MaunseUs Road, It is a most disfiguring form Galway.

RE Can Galway Help Thei R E JAEDCETRS GAY ENC Peace Movement? D E FEditor, E Dear
vite members from serious clubs in Galway City and County area to join us in developing community and club relations with cor responding clubs in Nor thern Ireland. It is mothers, sisters and daughters whose sons, brothers and fathers become involved in paramilitary violence. At the very least it would be worth the effort of throw ing one pebble in an angry sea, and perhaps assuage a little of the suffering. I reject completely the pejorative labeling by the the Gay Movement and its sup porters of persons and organisations which are op posed to gay and lesbian participation in St. Patrick's Day marches. Terms such as bigotry, gaybashing, narrowmindedness, etc, are grossly unfair and highly provocative, and do a great disservice to the cause of the gay movement generally. For myself I will say that I would not attend a St. Patrick's Day march which had a gay or lesbian banner in it, on the grounds that I think that any public display of ones sexual orientation is obnoxious, incongruous and totally insensitive on such an occasion. I will also say that I'm not at all opposed to gays or lesbians marching in the Parade as heterosexuals do. At the same time I have to say that the Galway Chamber of Commerce did admit a gay float in their parade, and consequently, that entitled them to take part in the march. People who are opposed to that should register their opposi tion by not attending or marching.

L E T ' S M A K E M O V I E S !

O

N Tuesday of this week Minister for the Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins T.D., following hot on the heels of Neil Jordan's Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the phenomenally successful film "The Crying Game", acted with characteristic verve in re-activating the Irish Film Board. Many Irish people will have shared Neil Jordan's obvious discomfort when he spoke, after receiving the Bafta Award for "Best British Film of 1992", of the pro duction as "Anglo-Irish". Why was it not just an "Irish" production? Irish film-makers, actors, actresses, producers, designers - we mustn't forget Michelle Burke's Oscar for the superb make-up on "Bram Stoker's Dracula", her second - are regarded as among the best in the world of inter national cinema, ft was instructive to note the virtual unanimity of British critics who praised the delightful "Into The West" as far superior to the mega-buck "Home Alone 2". And then, of course, there is "The Field" and "My Left Foot", which won an Oscar for that other "English" actor, Daniel Day-Lewis. Minister Higgins' move is to be warmly welcomed as a long-delayed step in the right direction. Let's make movies - Irish movies! The world's audiences are clearly waiting.

elsewhere in recent days, it The Galway merchants he would be a missed oppor described as "rich and great tunity if we in Galway and adventurers at sea." They the West of Ireland could were a very exclusive body, as the descendants of the original bolster these efforts. People English founders, and they from all persuasions in the rarely admitted any "new North have supported our English" to have freedom to tourist industry by coming trade there or to get access to annually on their holidays. education. Many friendships and a lot Of course the Irish were, of good will have been built according to St. John, never up between us over the admitted as free citizens. Yet years. they were described, in the As a woman I would in words of St. John, as "kind to strangers" "In their manner of entertainment and in futhHung and apparelling themselves and their wives they preserve most the ancient manner and state"--so they obviously Dear Editor, Many people are passing maintained English customs in through the deep waters of dress and in deportment. The city of Galway was sorrow. Having lost a cmpaclearly an English outpost and nion, a dear friend, through in those years efforts were death, they are experiencing being made to protect it the heartache of separation. against any attack. St. They are overwhelmed with Augustine's Fort was being a sense of emptiness. They strengthened with an extra are wondering how they are wall raised outside the earlier ever going to cope with the inner defences and the old lonely hours that lie ahead. Augustinian church inside it As a result of a death in our was being divided to contain munitions--all to keep own family, Ambless was formed, a voluntary Galway safe. organisation that reaches out P. O'Neill.

Bridie Gannon 2, St. Enda's Road, Galway

New Organisation to help Bereaved
the hand of friendship, of fering fellowship and prayer support through the mail. If any of your readers are grieving tday, heart aching, lonely or in need of someone to talk to, further informa tion can be got by writing to - John Wood, Ambless, Shalom, Lower Celtic Park, Enniskillen, Co. Fer managh, BT74 6HP.

Yours sincerely, J. Wood Tel: 0365 - 327328.

W. Conunins Athenry.