Thought for the Week: Mullinbouys

Ian Kirk-Smith reflects on being of service in his final 'Thought for the Week' as editor

by Ian Kirk-Smith 2nd November 2018

On 11 November 2004, a room in Dublin Castle hosted the most significant state ceremony of the year. The stage was crowded with men. There were only half a dozen women, one a Quaker and another, centre stage, a Catholic brought up in Ardoyne in North Belfast during the troubles, then an IRA stronghold where a helicopter hovered overhead twenty-four hours a day, a place I knew well from cleaning blocked drains and manholes with my father’s small firm in the 1970s.