Confronting sectarianism | A wedding and a strike | I am not guilty – I want to go home

Confronting sectarianismThe posting online of a vile video showing members of the Orange Order mocking the murder of Michaela McAreavey has been widely condemned. Last week in another video Pastor Barrie Halliday appeared on social media describing Catholics as ‘rats that need to be murdered with rifles and grenades.’A wedding and a strikeJames Connolly is one of my heroes. He was a socialist, a republican, a writer, a thinker, a trade union leader. He fought for the rights of workers and against their exploitation. He joined with Pearse and Clarke and Ceannt and others in the Irish Republican Brotherhood at Easter 1916 in striking for Irish freedom and for the right of the people of Ireland to independence and self-determinationI am not guilty – I want to go homeThis week I wrote again to Leonard Peltier, the native American rights activist who has been imprisoned for 46 years. Regular readers will know that over the years I have written about his continued wrongful imprisonment – he is America’s longest serving political prisoner.