Ted Howell

Gerry Adams penned the following obituary for his late friend and comrade, Ted Howell, who died earlier this month (for Leargas).

Ted Howell was 77 when he died last Friday. On Tuesday we buried him in Milltown Cemetery in the grave of the love of his life, Eileen Duffy. The two of them were devoted to each other. They were married on October 9, 1972. That night Ted was arrested. Fortunately, his false ID held up and he was released the following morning.

Eileen was a formidable republican also. She was a hard worker and a champion of West Belfast. Ted and she had two fine sons, Eamonn and Proinnsias. Sadly, Eileen died in June 2004. Ted regularly visited her grave in the twenty years since her death.

Ted was a child of the 50s and 60s. He loved music, an enduring passion. He was a voracious reader with an abiding interest in politics and international affairs. The anti-colonial wars of that period in Algeria, Cuba, Vietnam and the struggle in South Africa were huge influences in his life, but it was the apartheid regime of unionism, its system of structured political and sectarian discrimination, the pogroms of 1969 in Belfast and unionism’s resistance to equality and human rights that shaped his republican politics.

So he became an activist. Firstly, within his own community in Iveagh and Beechmount in Belfast and then through the trauma of the hunger strikes into national positions. Ted was a committed united Irelander, a republican activist for all of his adult life. He was twice interned in the 1970s, on the Maidstone prison ship and in Long Kesh. Think of any of the major republican political, organisational shifts or initiatives taken over recent decades. Ted was at the heart of all of them.

He was one of the so-called kitchen cabinet which managed Sinn Féin’s initial private/secret engagements with the SDLP, with the Irish and British governments, and our efforts to build support in the USA with our peace strategy. And then there was the public process of negotiations with the two governments and the USA. In all of this Ted was indispensable. We established a negotiations structure to deal with all this and Ted brought cohesion to our efforts, good practice, accountability and oversight.

He was very shrewd with great politics. He could also smell bullshit and bullshitters from a mile away. Ted was a progressive in the mould of Connolly and Tone and an internationalist. He was avowedly anti-sectarian. He gave short shrift to anyone he heard making comments that could be construed as sectarian. His brother Jim had been murdered by a loyalist death squad along with his business partner Gerald McCrea on July 2, 1972.

Ted believed in the right of the people of Ireland to self-determination and to the democratic right of Irish citizens to shape our own future. He understood strategy and the need for the national question to be at the centre of Sinn Féin strategy. Although his illness was making it more difficult for Ted to get about, he remained active. He was a valuable member of the party’s Uniting Ireland Committee and just before the Christmas break he took part in a meeting that discussed how we can engage more positively with those from the unionist/Protestant section of our people.

Ted has now gone. His loss to our struggle is immense. His contribution to modern republicanism is enormous. He was a decent human being. Funny and modest and loyal. He was very sociable and good company. He was a quiet, unassuming, humble, and generous person. Ted was a giver. A legendary cook and a knowledgeable gardener.

His loss at a personal level is immeasurable for his friends and comrades. It is even greater for his sons: Eamonn and his wife Nora, and Proinnsias and his wife Karen; his grandchildren Micéal, Caoimhe and Amelia; and their wider family and friends, including his sisters Anne and Margaret and nieces and nephews.

On behalf of republicans everywhere I want to extend our solidarity and condolences. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Urgent Appeal