Ciaron O'Reilly
Donation protected
Ciaron needs support while maintaining solidarity with Julian Assange.
Ciaron held a multi-year vigil outside the Ecuadorian Embassy when Julian was confined there. When Julian was moved to Belmarsh Prison, Ciaron continued a presence outside. Now Ciaron is organising in the UK and Ireland.
Ciaron has limited funds and any donation would go a long way to allowing him to continue his efforts.
Ciaron O'Reilly - Beat up but upbeat!
A montage of images of protest and community.
Donations are in Australian Dollars:
$20 US = $30 Australian
$50 US = $75 Australian
£20 = $37 Australian
£50 = $93 Australian
€20 = $33 Australian
€50 = $82 Australian
Foreward to Ciaron O'Reilly's book
"Remembering Forgetting - A Journey of Nonviolent Resistance to the War on East Timor"
by Fr. Daniel Berrigan S.J.
Unpretentious, sturdy, bracing, also irrepressible, a spontaneous combustion of
community and solidarity. But also more solemn implications, classical, biblical,
deeply traditional. A worthy commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, following
the letter to its rhythms, from upper room, prayer and liturgy, to the streets and
confrontations with the powers. Such are reminders as I ponder Ciaron's text,
labours of love, wafting him afar, from Australia to East Timor to England (he
might have added the U.S. as well, where he and I first met, happily for me.
How can this story not be deeply serious? Lives and deaths, in large numbers
are at stake, under the collusion of awesome principalities, systems greedy and
foolish and armed tooth and claw against the innocent and unarmed; (or in the
principled faith of Ciaron and his companeros - with all due deliberation - the
disarmed!)
My brother Philip, presently a ward of Mr. Bush's Justice Warren, has remarked
on a compliment that often comes his way. In his estimate it misses the mark.
He is, so falls the praise, a "man of singular courage". No, he avers, don't speak
of courage. Speak rather of faith.
I ponder that quite serious distinction. I think Philip seeks the matter something
like this; courage is a kind of set-jaw attainment. You heave and heave, putting
shoulder against the invisible wall of fear, routine, family, ego chic despair, the
ho-hum culture of the self-damned. And in time the wall falls to rubble. You walk.
Faith is something else again. It's a gift, albeit a gift that demands in the
inelegant phrase, being worked on. But a gift nonetheless, with all the
implications of a 'first move' on the part of Someone Else, of probable
undeservedness on the part of you, me, anyone.
The closest analogy I think is falling in love; it happens, it comes home like a
clap of lightning, for the moment, the epiphany, it stops the breath. None of us
can claim to deserve it, most of us pause at times to wonder at it. Me, greatly
loved?
Yes, The Gift, infinitely to be honoured, esteemed, cozened with a Capital Letter.
Anyway, the word occurred to me; faith as, as I followed Ciaron across seas and
continents, this restless nimble spirit, this (literally and metaphorically) Gifted one.
of our torrid, tormented era.
The dreadlocks, the elegance, the hefty frame, the rhetoric of scorn and
celebration, the sheer, brazen unstoppable vision embodied. Ciaron talking the
talk (the right talk, the rare and endangered truth), Ciaron walking the walk (a trail
of tears to be sure, but a joyous dance as well).
He's been there, done that; he's on pilgrimage with those who pay up. He knows
there's no free trip, there's a toll gate on every highway.
Stand somewhere, walk there, sit there, refuse there, sing there, get dragged away
there. Pay up or join the inhumans.
God help us and God be thanked. And hey Ciaron - a kiss on the hand to you.
The Irishman, he's living (count them), two times a life!
Daniel
Ciaron O'Reilly
Twitter: @CiaronOReilly
"The poor tell us who we are,
The prophets tell us who we could be,
So we hide the poor,
And kill the prophets."
Phil Berrigan
Organizer
Ciaron O'Reilly
Organizer
Mitchelton QLD