Taking a Stand

'I suppose one of the big lessons I learned in my life as a Catholic is that Christianity is a reminder that you cannot sit on the fence - that is, if you care about the way your sisters and brothers are treated and if you care about what is happening to the planet earth.'Moving from his childhood in 1940s Fermanagh, through his experiences as a defender and upholder of civil rights in Northern Ireland, Joe McVeigh takes the reader on a journey through his eventful life.

For McVeigh, Christian faith involved not just going to Mass and doing charitable works but also required a sensitivity towards those who were marginalised and felt excluded.Joe McVeigh's politics and theology had been influenced, not just by the Second Vatican Council and his studies in Maynooth but mainly, by his early life experiences growing up in Fermanagh.This book, by a priest who has challenged both civil and clerical authority, is a memoir of years of violence and bloodshed, sadness, sorrow and also of hope.

Honest and open, it gives an insider's account of some of the most difficult years in our recent history.