Tommy Sands is a master songwriter and renowned peace and social activist from Northern Ireland. Reared in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains, he grew up immersed in folk music, his family kitchen was a place where Protestant and Catholic farmers alike would gather to sing at the end of a day’s harvesting.
The prime songwriter for the infamous Sands Family, one of Ireland’s most influential folk groups of the 1960s and 1970s, Tommy’s songs have been recorded by musical artists from all over the globe. Regarded as “The Bard of Peace”, his song ‘There Were Roses’ has been described as “certainly one of the best songs ever written about the Northern Irish Troubles” and has been recorded by Joan Baez, Kathy Mattea, Dolores Keane, Sean Keane, Dick Gaughan, The Dubliners, Cara Dillon and many others. Quietly soft spoken with a wistful stage manner, Tommy delivers songs of injustice and humanity with well targeted humour and unerring aim, in an understated manner. In May 2002 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nevada, Reno, for his outstanding work as musician and ambassador for world peace and understanding. In February 2024 in response to the violence occurring in Gaza, Sands wrote a plaintive ballad titled “Anyone else up there” accompanied by a video about the plight of children in war torn countries.
Joining him on stage will be Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, the renowned Irish Civil Rights leader, former Politician, community activist and lover of traditional song. A life-long campaigner for social justice and human rights, she became an internationalist socialist republican and feminist. She is regarded as one of Ireland’s finest political orators, and a key figure in recent political history.
While still a student at Queen’s University, Bernadette and her colleagues in the newly-formed People’s Democracy transformed political resistance in the Northern Irish state by spearheading a socialist, anti-sectarian, mass movement for change.
In 1969 she became the youngest woman ever to enter Westminster parliament, having become a leading organiser on the barricades in Derry during the Battle of the Bogside.
The following year, when Mayor John Lindsay awarded her with a golden key to the city of New York, she passed it on to the Black Panther party, saying ‘I return what is rightfully theirs, this symbol of the freedom of New York.’
‘Bernadette’ as she is still known, continues to be fighter for equal rights, justice and humanity; currently working to support migrants’ rights in South Tyrone, she remains an iconoclast, a speaker of truth to power, and the unforgettable voice of the Troubles. It will be an absolute pleasure to present Bernadette McAliskey here at the ICC.
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