I cannot get "the Dark" out off my head. The past weeks have been like a bad dream from which one wakes only to find, that rather than a dream, it is a reality to be lived with.
Brendan is gone and on reflection the days we spent mourning him seem all too short. I still mourn him as do his close friends and comrades and the thousands of people who turned out as he did his last "float" around his beloved area.
There is unfinished business and as each day passes I feel the urge to see it finished.
Brendan Hughes was a great and charismatic leader of Oglaigh na hEireann; he was an inspiration and a source of strength and encouragement to those of us who had the privilege to work with him in our struggle against British Rule in Ireland.
There was one other there on the day of his funeral whom I have already written about on "The Blanket" and whom I also cannot get out off my head. Gerry Adams.
As I observed the man and his antics on that day I could not but feel a little pity for him despite my rising anger. He looked sick. Sick, perhaps, because
he was ignored by the massed crowd who had turned out for Brendan. This was Brendan's day and to try to rob him of that was a sad reflection on Gerry.
Just as Brendan once was, I too was a friend and comrade to Gerry Adams. No longer, yet looking at his lonely figure, clearly uneasy at the occasion, did bring a pang of sympathy to me for the man and the place in which he has put himself.
His ego has taken him to believe himself above the common people, he has set himself aside from numerous former comrades and must feel the burden of his present life, which is a lie.
How proud Brendan had been as commanding officer of "The Dogs", how willingly did he accept responsibility after responsibility within the Republican Movement. Always proud to serve "the Cause". There is little need to reiterate the fact that Brendan abhorred the direction Gerry Adams took the Movement.
Many of us shared that abhorrence, but Brendan was singled out for particularly harsh treatment for his non-conformity. He was ostracized, castigated and maligned. All of this contributed to his ill-health.
Gerry Adams knows who, and what he, himself, was during "the Long War". Let him unburden himself before it is done for him. What Brendan saw as a noble thing, Gerry Adams denies. It is time for Truth. Let it come from his own lips rather than mine. I too, like Brendan, was a proud Volunteer in Oglaigh na hEireann, an honour I hold dear.
Brendan has gone from this physical life but there are those of us who will carry on where he left off. We will be his litigants, his constant voice on this earth.
