Eibhlin O'Neill's blog

A call for the protection of traditional rights to harvest wild seaweed has been made by the community group Coiste Cearta Cladaí Chonamara. This has led to 17 applications for licences to harvest wild seaweed being put on hold after the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government accepted that seaweed harvesting rights already existed in coastal communities. The Attorney General advised that the Department should not licence harvesting in an area where a right already exists unless it can be certain it will not interfere with this right.

The Cromwellian invasion of Ireland (1649–53) resulted in the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell. The Parliamentarian reconquest of Ireland was brutal, and Cromwell remains a hated figure in Ireland. Cromwell passed a series of Penal Laws against Roman Catholics, who were the overwhelming majority of the population and confiscated large amounts of their land. Laws regulating the lives of Catholics and penalising the practice of their religion were introduced throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

Great Blasket (An Blascaod Mór in Irish) is the principal island of the Blaskets, County Kerry, Ireland (Na Blascaodaí, Contae Chiarraí, Éire). The islands were inhabited until 1953 by a completely Irish-speaking population, and are part of the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking region in Ireland). The inhabitants were evacuated by the government to the mainland of Ireland on 17 November 1953. 

Irish President Michael D Higgins has apologised to thousands of women forced to work in the country's Magdalene Laundries. The Magdalene Laundries were also known as Magdalene asylums. These institutions were usually run by Roman Catholic orders but were supported by the state. It has been estimated that over 10,000 were confined in these prison like institutions in Ireland. They housed so-called.  "fallen" women who were branded as both a mother and a criminal if they happened to have a child outside of marriage.

The Irish public have voted overwhelmingly in favour of abortion law reform in a referendum. The final result was 66.4% in favour and 33.6% against reform. At the present time in Ireland the Eighth Amendment grants an equal right to life to the mother and unborn and abortion is only allowed when a woman's life is at risk. The referendum has now given the Oireachtas (the legislature of Ireland) a strong mandate to introduce the legislation to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

Councillors in the Irish city of Derry (Irish: Doire) have voted to light up local government buildings in the colours of the Palestinian flag. The motion was passed at a special meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council on Monday. It follows events last week when more than 60 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, which met with widescale condemnation in Ireland.

Irish-language manuscripts are the focus of a major exhibition underway at Trinity College Dublin (Coláiste na Tríonóide Baile Átha Cliath). Trinity Library has a collection of over 200 medieval and early modern manuscripts written in the Irish language. Covering over a thousand years of Irish literature and learning, the collection is seen as one of the most important collections in the world. 

A delegation of language experts from the  Council of Europe (CoE) is visiting Belfast (Irish: Béal Feirste) this week. The head of the delegation Dr Aleksandra Oszmiańska-Pagett has renewed calls for an Irish Language Act during the visit. The council is Europe's top human rights watchdog with 47 member states and reports on how states comply with the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages.

Simon Coveney, Ireland's Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Foreign Minister has summoned the Israeli ambassador to a meeting to express Ireland’s “shock and dismay” after the killing of 59 demonstrators with more than 2,700 wounded during protests along the Gaza border yesterday.

Two important proposals are now being looked into following concerns raised by locals and groups supporting them in regard to the replacement ferry service to the island of Toraigh. Toraigh, is 14.5 kilometres (9.0 miles) off the north-west coast of County Donegal (Contae Dhún na nGall) in the north-west of Ireland. The people of Toraigh had mounted a very high profile campaign against a 40 year old vessel, Queen of Aran, becoming the replacement ferry imposed on them by the Department of the Gaeltacht. Significant safety and reliability concerns had been raised.