Farewell to Billy Blease
In my 60 years (OK, short of a few weeks) on this earth, one of the most decent men I have ever met was Billy Blease, otherwise known as Lord Blease of Cromac. He has just died aged 93 and today his obituary appears in the “Guardian”.
At the time I knew Billy best in the 1970s, he was Secretary of the Northern Ireland Committee (NIC) of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). This was his darkest hour when his beloved trade union movement was hijacked in a strike led by the Ulster Workers’ Council, a hard-line Loyalist force that overthrew the first power-sharing government of Northern Ireland. It has taken us three decades to put together another such power-sharing administration.
Billy was a brave and honourable man who fought for workers’ rights and against sectarianism of all forms and I was proud to know him.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:29 am
Rest assured, Roger, that in the midst of the many tributes that have been made to him, my father would have been particularly appreciative of your warm support for those who always seek to enhance those things than unite us rather than those that divide us.