A Background in Science
Most Saturdays they stood outside the GPO in Dublin. People holding signs bearing slogans both…
Stephen Mc Randal was born in Belfast. Taking drugs from his early teens, he felt himself to be removed from the troubles of Northern Ireland and the world. He had a home on high, from speed, downers, or any drugs he could lay his hands on. Spat on, beaten, chased through the streets, only to have friends murdered, he’s seen it all as normal life. Regardless of how he’s been perceived, he was never a nationalist, but imagined himself part of a counterculture that transcends national boundaries, aware of and opposed to corporate domination of our planet. Spending most of his life on the outskirts of society, he squatted in houses, caravans and ‘benders’ (hazel sticks bent over and draped with canvass.) His official work life, what little there was, ran from stevedore to fisherman, from archaeology to building sites and also rubbish collector. He has been paid for writing twice in his life. Once by New Society magazine for an account of his short stay in the Crumlin road prison which was never published, and by highly esteemed British periodical “The New Statesman” which published an account of a police raid he witnessed. More often his writing has garnered punishment, but unofficially he still gets away with a few things. His writings make up for their lack of sheen or gloss with an authentic and determined capability to present his perspective. Mr Mc Randal has something to say.
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