Mary Lou McDonald, A Republican Riddle is no hagiography, nor is it a glib hatchet-job, writes Bill Nevins.
Gerry Adams
While Fidel Castro is known as a committed internationalist, supporting independence movements in Angola to South Africa, Nicaragua and even French Polynesia, less is known about his support for the Irish struggle, .
But in 1981, when Irish Republican prisoners were in the midst of a historic hunger strike against the British state, it was Fidel who once again sided with the oppressed.
The 100th anniversary of Ireland鈥檚 Easter Rising against British rule was commemorated over the Easter weekend in Ireland and across the world. Although the rebellion failed, it spurred the Irish liberation struggle amid widespread anger at savage British repression.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, writing for his Leargas blog, has warned that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that formally ended more than two decades of armed conflict in the six counties in Ireland's north still claimed by Britain, 鈥渉angs by a thread鈥.
鈥淭he conduct of a number of EU governments over the past number of weeks has been alarming,鈥 president of Irish republican party Sinn Fein and member of the Irish Dail (parliament) on the outcome of the European Union summit, which ended Greece submitting to a harsh deal.
鈥淭hey have effectively closed down the Greek banking system and held the Greek Government and people to ransom.