Connections between Irish nuns in WW II resistance and the work of Standing Together

On Thursday 24^th of April citizens from Berlin and Donegal gathered in the community hall at the Franciscan Friary in Rossnowlagh, Donegal to commemorate 5 Irish women who were in the resistance against the nazis in World War II. These women were betrayed and imprisoned in Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for women. Four of them were liberated by the Red Cross exactly 80 years ago, at the end of April 1945 (together with 7,500 other women.

There was a unique mix of music, literature and poetry. La Voix mixte travelled  from Berlin to perform at this event and a choral evening with the Donegal Abbey Singers in Donegal town on the 25^th April. These choirs sang for peace and justice and their repertoire included an original composition to the words of Seamus Heaney on Hope and History by Uta Schlegel. Cathy Fleming read from her biography of Sister Kate Mc Carthy.  Winifred Mc Nulty, Donegal poet, read some information about Catherine Crean, Sister Kate Mc Carthy, Sister Agnes Flanagan Mary O’ Shaughnessy, and Mary Cummins whose names and details can now be found on the Irish Embassy website following a similar event in the Irish Embassy in Berlin. Margo Gorman shared her thoughts about the connection between these women and the struggles of ordinary people in Israel and Palestine for peace and justice today. www.standing-together.org.

Why commemorate 5 women out of the millions who had suffered during these times?

They were living and working as nuns, nannies and nurses in France or Belgium at the time of the invasion of the German troops. Ordinary people like us, the crowd in the hall in Rossnowlagh. They wanted to do something and used their skills and abilities to help Allied soldiers to get out of the occupied territory. In doing so they risked their own lives.

We are living in times of disruption, destruction and polarization. We often feel alone and powerless in regard to what is happening in the world and around us. Faced with despair and chaos, we need communication and connection between ordinary people like us and a sense of good things we can do.

Margo Gorman and Hans-Georg Rennert, an Irish-German couple (both with a background in Community work) and the main organizers of the event last Thursday are impressed by the work of Standing Together, a grassroots initiative that mobilizes Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the war and occupation, advocating FOR peace, equality and social justice. As Helen Yakoub, a 29 years old Palestinian activist says: “It turns fear into clarity, anger into action, loneliness into something communal.”

Margo and Hans-Georg invited the attendees to donate for the work of Standing Together. 350 Euros were collected and donated to Standing Together. As the organisation writes (in a newsletter dating from 11^th April): “Hope is not something we wait for, hope is something we build through collective action.” #gazaceasfuew #human rights

Margo Gorman and Hans-Georg Rennert, 27^th April 2025

The post Hope and History first appeared on Margo Gorman.

Locals cross the border between #Donegal in the Republic and #Fermanagh in Northern Ireland daily. Both counties are rural and both part of #Ulster. Since the #PeaceAgreement in 1998, a united Ireland needs a majority of citizens in both jurisdictions to vote for an end to partition. It is in the hands of all those who live on the island of Ireland and does not depend on the UK government. Reassured citizens on both sides of the UK-IRISH border found it easy to resume criss-crossing community life on the border for work, for shopping, for social life. The border no longer marked a boundary between the opposite poles of British and Irish where:

British=Industrialisation,Imperialism Landowner, Protestant

Irish=Rural, Oppressed, Peasant and Catholic

Since #Brexit, do those binary equations with their echoes of revenge, collaboration and violence fit the diversity of the #UlsterBorder today?

“Two buckets were easier carried than one. / I grew up in between”. Seamus Heaney spoke of the polarisation of industrialised versus rural in Ulster, but city life and rural life are interconnected now more than ever.

Living on the #Ulsterborder, a non-binary identity in rural buckets or choice of city would be easier to carry by those who identify British, Irish, European as changing interconnected identities.Can we reassess the legacy of the past with its call to violence and move on? Since #Brexit, Norherni remains in the single market for goods and continues to operate under EU custom rules. Is #Article16 which puts customs controls at Larne and Belfast sustainable?  Can we find a place in between?

The post #Ulster Border first appeared on Margo Gorman.

The Tír Connaill writers’ group has helped me cope with COVID time. We have gone from strength to strength by mixing email edits with Zoom meetings. The collective feedback edits, develops, encourages and inspires us all on to greater efforts. Luckily we have all eclectic tastes and our styles are complementary rather than comparable. There’s fun and Mills and Boon romance as well as drugs, crime and a dash of literary pretension from me. We are also well used to being we don’t have to waste time on being competitive. It’s harder for the new members who are meeting some of the others first time on Zoom but our atmosphere powers the airwaves. The Donegal backcloth gives us perspective.

The post Writing first appeared on Margo Gorman.