Longkesh Inside Out

This was a painting I done for a friend of mine whilst I was in Maghaberry prison sometime around 2014/15.

The obvious theme is centred around identity and the painting contains a line from a poem by Rimbaud – ‘Je est un Autre’. The translation roughly means ‘I is another’. This sense of being someone who others don’t know has been examined countless times by writers, ex-prisoners and academics for years. BR

For those of you who follow the LKIO site, could I apologise for the lack of articles, opinions and opportunities to highlight issues you feel important enough to comment on.

I’m hoping to try and get the site back to relevance but it will not happen if people don’t contribute articles etc. and comment on those presented.

If you have an article or anything you may want to be considered for the site please send them to me at robert.rdgrs@googlemail.com but remember we will not be presenting articles that are malicious or could be described as personal attacks on others. That doesn’t mean we will not publish constructive arguments – as Slugger O’Toole says, ‘Play the ball, not the man’.

We are going to introduce an opportunity for contributors to display paintings, arts and crafts, handicrafts, memorabilia – political and personal – and any other creative piece with an attached few lines or a few paragraphs explaining its creative history.

All contributions will be considered.

Bobby Rodgers, September 2018

As the sun rose in Sri Lanka and spread its life-giving rays across the fields and hills, striking the bleached bones of the men, women and children butchered and slaughtered on the orders of the Sri Lankan government and perpetrated on its behalf by its security forces, armed by Britain and other western States, it began to set on Ian Paisley Jr.

Paisley’s sin being, having failed to declare to the British House of Commons two hugely expensive holidays to Sri Lanka, approximately £100,000 in cost but vigorously stated to be half that cost by Junior himself who having initially denied it the first place! Read more »

For the first time the UK government have admitted they’re considering a general amnesty arising out of the Troubles.  Although an amnesty is not government policy, the admission came in a Lords debate instigated by the former Chief of General Staff of the Army Lord Dannatt, supported by other former top brass and former secretaries of state. What remains unclear is  how this would affect the Legacy package of the Stormont House Agreement, including the proposal for an independent Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) the terms for which came under sustained attack. Read more »

When does boyhood end?

For some it’s leaving school

To get a job or leaving school

To get no job at all, or buying

A drink for the first time on your own

Or the first time, properly that is,

With a girl or having to shave

The bristles off and not just fluff

Or for some the day you learned to drive

Or the day you had to dress

In a suit and tie for a grandad’s

Funeral or else some other

Personal, private, unforgotten thing,

Too personal in fact to mention.

For me, the night my father

Left me to the boat will count for that.

Eighteen and able to marry,

Able to vote, able to fight

In her Majesty’s Army, I was still

Inside a child, away to university

In England in a Liverpool ferryboat,

Packed tight with home-bound

Squaddies, watching at two or three

In the morning, the lights of

The Isle of Man sail by

As I stood on the deck and felt the cold

Wind rise on the Irish Sea and

Heard the gulls and knew that when manhood

Starts, in a sense, you’re on your own.

Philip Orr is a Writer, Historian and Political Commentator

‘No Stone Unturned’ – The Lawyers Speak Out To Irish-America, Blame PSNI For Arrests

Paul Nolan

There are two developments that could transform the deadlocked political situation in Northern Ireland. The first, which has received much commentary in the media, is the slow motion explosion of Brexit. The second, which has commanded very little attention, is the changing demography of the northern state, the effects of which will be even more profound.

The issue is likely to come sharply into focus with the next census, scheduled for 2021, which also happens to be the year that will mark the centenary of the creation of the Northern Ireland state.  It would be a considerable irony  –  cruel for some, pleasing for others  –  if it turns out that a state that was set up to provide security for the Protestants of Ulster by providing them with a permanent in-built majority should, 100 years on from its creation, end up with a Catholic population larger than the Protestant one.  Is that a real possibility? Read more »

The Middle Hut.

    The middle hut in Compound 21 also known as Passchendaele.  Here was Special category Status in Long Kesh. All the huts had place names from the First World War. (There was also the end hut and the half hut) Can anyone recall what the other huts in 21 where called?  Had not seen this photo before so it brought a back a few memories.  Stayed here for a decade of my life. On the left would have been Flints cube when I first arrived.  On the right (I think) were Davy Mc and Ginger Top the footballer. LOL. The chairs in the foreground, handmade by the men from whatever scraps and material they could glean.  There were some craftsmen and tradesmen in that place.   We painted this hut on the inside and kept it very clean.  It’s a fond memory when I think back to taking the bars off the windows, painting and then putting the bars back on. Read more »