| Description | Interview with William Crawford who walks through some of the streets in Derry with Charles Parker and discusses the history of some of the buildings and monuments. He talks about local knowledge of the siege of Derry and the need for children to learn more local history as it might broaden their minds, the historic shopping centre of Derry, and his feelings about the name Londonderry. He talks about the places he played in as a child, his feelings about the war memorial and its symbolism, the Derry Diamond and its name, and the Guildhall. He talks about his fear of a united Ireland and Northern Ireland will becoming a Catholic state, but thinks this is likely to happen eventually (tracks 1-7).
Interview with Eamon McCann who ran for political office in Derry. He discusses his political views, his reception by the Protestant working class when out canvassing in the Fountain area, and the prejudices that exist on both sides amongst people who have limited contact with the other community. He talks about the social disapproval that he thinks would be shown towards anyone in the Protestant working class areas who admitted to voting for him, and compares the choice that voters had, between middle class Catholic and Protestant candidates who he thinks would be unlikely to do anything for working people, and him. He goes on to discuss attendance at his open air meetings, the questions he fielded about his religion and attitudes to the Partition of Ireland, and his attempts to get people to discuss the social and economic issues affecting them as working people. He thinks that his challenge is to get people to think about social justice in a state rather than issues surrounding Partition, and comments on the percentage of votes he gained from Catholic working class youth, comparing his votes with the numbers cast for the other candidates. He talks about the progressive political views of the more militant youth in the city, and the potential in harnessing this for a progressive political solution to the current problems in Northern Ireland. He discusses his dream for a class conscious workforce but thinks that this is a long way off because of the corruption of the current Labour political leaders, and because any future change will have to come from younger people in the trade union and Labour movement (tracks 8-14).
Total: 31.41 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF565D0880180 |