Friary Family trip to Ireland, Sean MacEoin , Hibs and Scotland!

I am now in Edinburgh staying at my parents after spending Easter with them and my sister in County Monaghan visiting our irish family.
I am pictured here in Clones and my dad is by Tea Pot Row in Rockorry where he used to live around 60 years ago and worked on the farms and in the flax mill.It was great to meet lots of family and travel around Monaghan , Longford and Sligo.

I have known for some time about a family member on my mother's side, Willie Angus VC who played for Celtic before winning a VC at Givenchy where he was wounded 40 times rescuing Lt James Martin. He survived and lived to a ripe old age and his VC is in the military museum in Edinburgh Castle.
More at:
http://kerrydalestreet.com/page/Willie+Angus
and; http://www.forvalour.com/

I now find that my Grandfather in Ireland was a direct first cousin to General Seon MacEoin the "Blacksmith of Ballinalee", close frind of Micheal Collins and one of the founders of the Irish Free State. The picture here is of Sean MacEoin and Michael Collins at his wedding.
He fought with Collins in the IRA was injured and captured by the

British, tried and sentenced to death for treason in June 1921. In the meantime he was elected to the Second Dail for Longford-Westmeath, released eventually at Collins insistance and nominated Eamonn De Valera for President. During a long political career he was Ministere for Defence and Justice and twice stood for the Irish Presidency against Sean O'Kelly in 1945 and Eamonn De Valera in 1959. He retired from public life in 1965 and died living in the Longford area in 1973. Quite a character! And I thought that I was the first (and best!) politician in the family!! More at http://www.ucd.ie/archives/html/collections/maceoin-sean.htm

Meeting of the Pro and Anti Treaty officers at the Mansion House, Dublin on 8th. May 1922 (from Left to Right) : Sean MacEoin, Sean Moylan, Eoin O'Duffy, Liam Lynch, Gearóid O'Sullivan and Liam Mellows

Although I watched Monaghan draw with Dublin at Gaelic football, lost at Ibrox against Rangers to drop down to 4th in the SPL they apparently played well enough to go down 2-1 and still look good I think for the 3rd spot!
Scotland play Croatia tonight with George Burley's first game in charge so it will be interesting how they do against a very good Croatian team?

I attended a Homeworking Club Awards Ceremony organised by the The Educational Alliance Africa and handed out Certificates to children who had acheived over the past year, a really positive initiative and I hope to work closely with them over the next year to develop the Homework Club and other intiiatives in Camberwell Green Ward.
Today is St. Patrick's day hence the shamrock and I am not drinking any Guiness tonight as I have the Camberwell Community Council tonight but will make up for it when I spent 5 days in Ireland over Easter!

More possible bad news on the horizon as I recieved a letter with proposals to close the Job Centre in Camberwell! I will of course object but I really put the blame squarely at the feet of this disgraceful administration who have made it clear that they want to strip out Camberwell and clearly the news has spread!

Hibs won 2-0 against Kilmarnock to go third in the SPL so all still on track and I feel reasonably comfortable that we can hold on to the UEFA Spot until then end of the season.

Scotland ended not with a bang but a whimper after the Calcutta Cup win losing to Italy in Rome! Frank Haden must be pulling his hear out at such performances this year after a few years of progress and a reasonable World Cup.

Of course all congrats to the Welsh and a brilliant Grand Slam only months after a poor World Cup. Like football Rugby is a funny old game!!

Nunhead Labour Party Pub Quiz, "Calamity Clegg" in a mess, "tough love" from the Tories and Hibs and Scotland have contrasting fortunes!

I am all ready to done my Quiz Master hat on again this Thursday for the Nunhead Labour Party Pub Quiz in the Nuns Head at 7.30pm.
I have been scouring the internet for enough tricky and obscure questions for the well informed Nunhead Party Members and hope that we can raise lots of funds for the local party.

Hapless Lib Dem Leader Nick "Calamity" Clegg is trying to patch up the damage that he has already inflicted to his ramshakle party last week and it is easy to see why he has been labelled "Cameron Lite" as like Cameron he is a vacuous non-entity making up "policy" on the hoof without a seconds thought and then getting into trouble with his party afterwards! I cant believe he got into a mess over, of all things, Europe! The only hope for the Lib Dems is a hung parliament with them holding sway and to be honest I would rather have to live with a Tory majority than have that lot excercising any power at a national level!! Not that I look forward to a tory government with anything other than absolute horrer especially after hearing Osborne on the Politics Show yesterday talking about "tough love" for welfare recipients and I think we all know what that will mean!
Hibs went out of the Cup Replay 1-0 to Rangers but it looks like another good performance from us with Rangers defending desperately at home in the closing part of the game. Defeats against Celtic and rangers of course are not the problem we need to keep winning the other matches to clinch that 3rd place and a UEFA Cup spot.


Of course the best sporting result of the week was not the FA Cup giantkillers of Barnsley and Cardiff but Scotland's Calcutta Cup Victory against England at Murrayfield!
Not a great game to watch but the result was right and was needed after 3 straight defeats and has done something to salvage Scotland's season!

Campaigning in Camberwell with Val, Lib Dem Hypocricy (again!!) and Hibs lose to Celtic!

We had a really excellent campaigning session in Camberwell Green on Saturday with Val Shawcross on a beautifully sunny day!

Again we had a really good response on the doorstep with 60% of out contacts supporting Labour, this in an area which is not by any means our strongest. This follows on from extra sessions in the week that we are now running which are again giving us a very good, almost surprisingly good, response!

Eight of us were out and covered a lot of ground in the 2 hours and still managed to get back for most of the football!

Lib Dem Executive member was caught out by us and the SLP this week by lobbying for a new children's Centre in Lambeth (her hopeful new constituency!) less than a week after voting to close the Livesey Childrens Museum in Southwark!!

Crass cynical hypocricy from the Lib Dems should come as no suprise to anyone and there is really no point highlighting to the Lib Dems as they just dont care!! they are quite unbelievable at times and a quite disgraceful excuse for a political party!

Even on a national scale they are in a complete shambles over a Referendum on the new Treaty to such an extent that they will be abstaining on the vote today!! What a joke both nationally and locally!!

Hibs winning run came to an end against Celtic on Saturday but watched miost of the match on Setanta after campaigning and thought that they played well and just ran out of steam a bit at the end. they look comfortable at the moment and stronmger at the back so I still think the 3rd spot is ours for the taking!

Arsenal has a really excellent win at the san Siro last night and the possiblility of 3 English teams in the last 8 of the Champions League a real possibility. I fancy a Man U v Arsenal Final in Russia!