I\'m not really sure what a blog is but I suppose there\'s only one way to find out, and thats by typing stuff and seeing if people say, \'Oi Conor, that\'s not what a blog is\'. So here goes.

Woke up this morning at 6am, and started reading Deoraiocht by Padraic O Conaire. \'Why\', you might ask, was I \'reading Deoraiocht by Padraic O Conaire at 6am this morning?\' Well the truth is readers (can I say readers? sounds wankerish, but then this IS a blog), I had an exam this morning. An exam in which Deoraiocht by Padraic O Conaire played a substantial part. Exactly a 50 per cent part. The other 50 per cent was about Scealaiocht Bheil, but I don\'t want to talk (or type?) about that.

After my exam, I went into town, met a nice Korean woman wandering around college looking arseways at a badly photocopied map of the university, so rather than wal by like a cunt, I said, \'Hello\', in a cheery fashion, and then proceeded to tell her how to get to town. Now, by a funny coincidence, I too was walking into town (as mentioned above), so I ended up walking the whole way (4 mins) into town with her. Had a nice chat about Korea, and traffic and weather and how Irish people speak such strange English (I tried to prove her wrong, but alas...). We parted company at the top of William Street and shook hands, she bowed, then I gave a kind of awkward bow(Its nice to be nice, a drunk old man once told me). I began thinking, as I often do, about the weather, and bowing, and us as a people speaking strange English. From all this my thoughts turned to Bobby Sands. I read his poem, The Weeping Wind yeasterday.The wind blowing everything around promped the thoughts of that poem. As did the bowing. Sure its a custom, an a way of showing respect in some countries, but that little forward movement of my upper boddy, was an odd experience for me. I thought of a man who had so much respect and love for his country, his people, the poor and bowed people of the world, and his comrades, that he would lay down his life. He would not yield. He died unbowed. Unbroken.
Strange the way thoughts come to you.

I wandered around town for a while, no money and time to kill, and I thought for a while more on Bobby and his sacrifice. This Friday my cumainn are going to plant a tree in his memory, and I will say a few words. I was thinking what I would say? My comrades don\'t need to be told again the sad but heroic saga of the prison struggle. They know, too, the determination, the courage, the sadness, the pride. What sould I say? What can I say? So I wandered and thought some more. He was a young man. Twenty-seven years old. And he had spend almost a third of that young age imprisoned. Four years in the cages and five in the blocks. My thounghts didn\'t turn to why he joined the Army, why he fought, why he ended up in prison, why he became OC, why he went on hungerstrike, and ultimately sacrified his life to prove that his struggle was not criminal, that he was not a criminal. I understand the reasons. My thoughts truned to a young man, who was a poet. A thinker and an entertainer. I thought of him as a man who had died. I didnt think of the reasons, I thought of fella, who died five years before I was born, who I have no family connection to, whose relations I don\'t know.
Those who met and knew the ten men who died, those who grew up with them, served with them, struggled with them, they will remember the hungerstrikers, not just as heroes, not just as inspirational figures and martyrs, but as the men they were.
These thoughts were running through my head as I walked alnog the Corrib, and so I began to think again on what I might say. And nothing...
What can I say? Does anything need to be said? Is it enough that twenty or so young men and women, who weren\'t even born when he died, are gathered in his memory. We will all know why we are there. Is there a need for words? Our presence and the silence of our own though