Feb 16 2025 16 mins 5
My Internment by Roseleen Walsh
Roseleen Walsh is one of 36 women who were interned in the early 1970s. Her latest book – My Internment – tells the very personal story of her life as a young woman in west Belfast in the late 60s and early 70s. Of the constant pressure and danger of living under British occupation and of her time as an internee in Armagh Women’s Prison.
Roseleen has been writing for many years, including during her time in Armagh Prison. She is a writer of great skill including of poetry, plays and books. She is also a very determined individual as her account of her first days in Armagh makes clear. When her cell door was opened for the first time she remembers that “there before me was, not a mess, but a blank canvass. Immediately I knew white walls would suit me best for I intended making those walls a work of art! I would surround myself within the comfort of my own words. Since I was young, I had found it hard to express myself to others until I discovered that poetry was a wonderful way to articulate what I meant… The walls were to become like pages of a diary.”
Climate Crisis
January was a month of climate opposites. Storm Éowyn is now believed to have been one of the worst to ever hit the island of Ireland. It broke wind-speed records; forced the cancellation of flights and ferries; and within hours had cut power supplies to over one million households and businesses north and south. Tens of thousands were also left without water as treatment plants lost power.
Although last month Ireland was colder than usual January was still the hottest month ever recorded across the world. More worrying it is the 18th month out of the last 19 when the average global temperature was greater than that set by the world’s governments.
The World Stands at a Tipping Point
In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq by American and British forces and others in March 2003 Martin McGuinness and I warned Tony Blair and President Bush not to invade. We pointed out that it would be a breach of international law. At one particular meeting in Mr. Blair’s office in Downing Street Martin and I urged the British PM to learn the lessons of British involvement in Ireland and in other conflicts. We told him and his officials they were living in cloud cuckoo land; “if you go into Iraq it will be another Vietnam and it will be a huge mistake.”
One British official told us that it would all be over in a matter of months. Martin told him “... given the previous history of successive British military expeditions to Ireland, that certainly would not be my view of how the situation in Iraq is going to move in the next short while."
The Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and the pogroms against Palestinian towns and villages in the west Bank strike a similar note today and a lesson for the international community. The support of the British Government and the White House for the Zionist assaults on the Palestinian people is shameful. It is also, like the war in Iraq, short sighted and counter-productive.
Over 60,000 Gazans have been killed – mostly women and children and 80% of the infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed; a thousand are dead in the west Bank; south Lebanon is ablaze; Israeli forces have moved deeper into Syria, and the US President is seeking to expel the Palestinian people of Gaza from their homeland. The world stands at a tipping point amid the real risk of a possible wider conflagration.
