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I Can't Go Home and I'm Telling Teacher
A big round of applause for Sean O'Callaghan who has now courageously 'come out' and recently admitted that for the past two years he has acted as a key advisor to Ulster Unionist leader and First Minister David Trimble on how republican brains work. Using graph paper and callipers and by carefully observing the flight of crows Sean can tell exactly what Gerry Adams is thinking today and, crucially, what he is planning to say tomorrow.
Is it any wonder the unionists are in the state they're in!
'I have told David that Gerry Adams intends plunging our part of the United Kingdom into a united Ireland as soon as he can. David asked me was I sure and I said that I was pretty, pretty sure, allowing for some margin of error. I have no doubt that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are both in Sinn Fein and that Adams has now taken over as the President. I expect McGuinness to deny my assertion that he was born in the Bogside. He confided this piece of information to me during one of my dreams when I appeared below him as a rainbow trout.'
Sean replaces as Trimble's republican-watcher the human rights statistician and renowned raconteur Vincent McKenna who, unfortunately, hasn't heard, received a Valentine's card or a food parcel, from David or former Chief Constable Jack Hermon, since being sentenced to three years for sexually abusing his daughter.
That's table-mates for you.
On a lighter note, British Prime Minister Tony Blair last Thursday called on Sinn Fein to tackle the issue of the plight of exiles who have been forced to leave Ireland by the IRA. Mr Blair said that resolving the issue was an important part of the peace process. 'If we are genuinely concerned as we should be about putting the past to rest in Northern Ireland, the one major part of that are people who were intimidated out of the country, the so-called exiles.'
I know I shall be in a minority but I think that exiled touts, hoods and drug-pushers should be allowed back.
Young hoods and drug pushers just might have reflected on how they wearied an already oppressed community. They might have changed, been chastened by being away.
But Tralee, Ballymurphy, the Creggan will forever be tundras for the likes of O'Callaghan, Martin McGartland and Raymond Gilmour. Who would want to talk to them, sit next to them in a bar or restaurant?
Let them come and explain why they betrayed working-class people, their best friends and relatives; had them arrested, had them killed; broke up families, caused suffering and loss running into many years; protracted the conflict (because republicans were never going to surrender or give in to repression, including the work of informers) and all because it was they themselves who were weak and pathetic and took money, took blood money of the British and perversely tried to make of betrayal something noble.
Let the mouths come back.
They sit in England getting their books ghost-written because they're only use to snitching into a phone. Or they pop up on radio or television as 'experts' because without a fix of publicity their status as nobodies is confirmed. They'll feed the reaction of the British Tories, the intransigence of the unionists, they'll work the agenda of the securocrats, they'll say whatever they have to say, as long as it supports the establishment, as long as it is anti-republican or personalised against the republican leadership. They'll moan about the early prison releases, complain about Sinn Fein, cry into the microphone about themselves and yet they would die of heart failure if it was put up to them - You Can Go Back.
Because the truth - and they know it - is you can never go back, never undo the hurt, never be the self you were before you betrayed your people.
Eamonn Collins, who went through a phase as a renegade, a potential supergrass, came back to Newry to not only live among those he had accused (and who were arrested and jailed) but to continue to appear on television and radio and level accusations at republicans one day, only to attempt a balanced analysis of republicanism, like a republican spokesperson, the next.
I am convinced he had a death wish. Three years ago, whilst out walking his dog in the countryside in the early hours of the morning, almost as if he was making himself available, he was viciously beaten to death by unknown assailants.
None of the mouths will come back because, in reality, they are cowards. But they and the opponents of the Republican Movement will use their banishment as a pretext for blocking progress and putting further tests on Sinn Fein. They should be deprived of that.
And it will kill them to know just how irrelevant they have become when they are not even worth a dig in the face, a sideways glance or pouring a pint over.
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© 2007 Irish Author and Journalist - Danny Morrison