Let's Welcome the World | Na Mná Abú | Opening the Gates of Hell

 Let’s welcome the WorldIt has been a very busy and eventful couple of weeks for all of those who speak and enjoy the Irish language and who have campaigned for decades against government policies of institutionalised exclusion, inequality and discrimination.Two weeks ago, and after years of prevarication by successive British governments, the British Secretary of State finally commenced the legal process by which the last penal law – the Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) 1737 - will finally be repealed. This is an important milestone in the long struggle to ensure equality of language rights for gaeilgeoirí in the North. There is now an onus on the Justice Minister Naomi Long to bring forward effective guidelines in the courts that reflect the increasing numbers of citizens using Irish in their daily lives in our society.  Na Mná Abú.I have been a life-long supporter of Antrim’s footballers and hurlers. And the Camógs as well. Colette played county back in the day. Back in another day I had a dream that I too might make the grade.  But wee boy dreams faded into reality and alas it was not to be.  I sometimes reflect on how different my Gaelic sporting life might have been in a different political dispensation.  If only?  So, I have followed our county’s fortunes and misfortunes from the side-lines for over seventy years now. That’s a long time.  I am one among many. Not all of us can be county stars. But we kept the faith on tough days out as well as on heady days in Casement and other county grounds and occasionally in Croke.  Opening the Gates of HellLate last week war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he was blocking humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip. His Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich applauded this decision and called  for the cutting off of electricity and water. Within hours this was done.  Smotrich went further and demanded the "opening the gates of hell on Gaza with a powerful, deadly and quick attack.”UN Human rights experts accused Israel of "weaponised starvation" after the decision to block humanitarian aid. They asserted that Israel as the occupying power is obliged to ensure sufficient food, medical supplies and other relief services reached the people of Gaza and the west Bank. They accused Israel of weaponising aid by deliberately cutting vital supplies.