Armagh Project 2015

Thieves have stolen nearly 7,000 Pounds worth of Scaffolding from the premises of McCrory Scaffolding, Silverwood Industrial Estate, Lurgan on Tuesday Afternoon. The Property was removed between 3:45pm and 6:45pm on Tuesday and a lorry would have been required. Lurgan detectives are appealing to anyone who may have seen the property being taken to ring them at Lurgan 325144.

(One must wonder how you would steal product designed to take up space and allow for great heights and get away with it, and also why you would do so.)

I picked up a June 2015 issue of the Belfast Telegraph from the reception desk of the hostel and was surprised to read the article, “Abortion law is inhumane, court told”. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland regardless of the circumstances that resulted in the pregnancy of the woman, or the health of the fetus: “rape, incest, and serious malformations of the [fetus]”. The story covers a woman who had to travel to England in order to terminate her fetus that suffered from underdevelopment issues of the brain. She came to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission with her case and they are now undergoing a legal case to repeal the 1861 abortion law, on the grounds that it is cruel and unusual punishment to force a woman to have a child against her will, and making her have to travel under such traumatic circumstances.

I found this particular article interesting because I assumed that abortion was legal here because Northern Ireland is part of the UK. It made sense to me to see anti life posters in the Republic because it is a predominately Catholic country, however, I would have thought Northern Ireland to be more progressive.

I found an interesting article at the library complaining about football players being scooped up by talent scouts and going over to the States during the summer, during the local championships. The Antrim Commission couldn’t compete after losing 5 top players to foreign clubs in Florida. The article took a few approaches to the issue, mostly stating that some people leaving might be doing so just because it is the opportunity of a life time and also promote the sport in other countries; albeit, they might not get the fame they are promised by the scouts in the US. Apparently the scouts are a bit belligerent, popping up in the locker rooms to speak with players about coming to America, right in front of their coaches and teammates. If a player completes the paper work required to go abroad with enough advancement, that was fine, but erratic up-and-leaving is disappointing and harms the teams. As a solution, it was suggested that only players over 30 should be allowed to go abroad, as they would have the bigger names in the States anyway, and this would allow the younger players to continue on at their clubs and grow with them locally. Either way, the American talent scouts must be stopped from stealing our hard-playing boys!

I found a rather comical article from this past May involving some very interesting, though unorthodox psychological tactics against rebellious youths. A Belfast police van was “under attack” by a group of about ten drunk teenagers that proceeded to throw their empty bottles at the vehicle. How did the guards decide to combat this?

By playing ice cream truck music over their loudspeaker.

Apparently, after less than five minutes of hearing the unbearable childhood rhythms, the teens stopped their assault and retreated from the van, leaving the guards to proceed in their patrol duties. While it was looked upon as humorous by a number of the officers that immediately heard of the event, it was quickly considered a very unprofessional method in dealing with the prominent issue of youth delinquency. I’m no journalist, so I’m going to take the liberty of sharing my own opinion: I think this is actually pretty damn clever!

I looked through old Irish Times articles from the 1990’s and, as expected, found much violence and destruction during the Troubles.

In 1996, the Irish Republican Army bombed Manchester, England in what came to be known as the Manchester bombing. The bomb was 3,300 pounds and was put in a van in Manchester city centre, targeting the city’s buildings to cause damage.

The bomb did cause destruction and cost the city about 700 million pounds, which would be over 1 billion today. But the bigger effect was that the bombing injured 212 people. The IRA phoned warnings about an hour and a half before the bomb detonated, and the area was evacuated, but that did not stop the injuries.

The Manchester bombing was the biggest bombing in Great Britain since World War II. It was condemned by the British and Irish governments as well as U.S. President Bill Clinton. The IRA later stated that they ‘regretted causing injury to civilians.’

The perpetrators of the bombing were never caught. This was just one of the many tragedies of the Troubles, leaving many injured with no justice.

Jeffrey Bismayer and Soldier On were inspired by Nessa O’Mahony’s poetry reading when she visited Baltimore earlier this year. Accompanied by research at the Armagh Library and an insightful trip to the Collins Barracks Museum in Dublin, I was able to create Soldier On. My goal was to address an often-hushed topic and explore the struggle of a WWI veteran after returning to an Ireland he no longer feels a part of.