David R. Shanks

Jan 26, 2025 | irishtimes.com | David R. Shanks

East Timor campaigner Tom Hyland was remembered for his compassion, empathy and human rights record at his funeral Mass in Ballyfermot church in Dublin on Saturday. The former bus driver set up the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign in 1992, and campaigned tirelessly until a 1999 United Nations referendum ended 24 years of Indonesian military occupation of the southeast Asia nation.

Dec 26, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Tracey Morgan |David R. Shanks

Tom Hyland, the Irish East Timor campaigner known locally as “Papa Tom”, was laid to rest on Thursday morning near Dili, capital of independent Timor-Leste. The Catholic service and communion was conducted in Bekusi cemetery’s tiny chapel, so small that even the impressive six-man choir had to stand outside. It was attended by well over 200 Timorese. The service was partly in Tetum, the Timorese language, and Portuguese.

Dec 24, 2024 | irishtimes.com | David R. Shanks

President Michael D Higgins has led tributes to East Timor peace campaigner Tom Hyland (70s) who has died after a long illness in Dili, the Timorese capital. Mr Hyland, a former bus driver from Ballyfermot, formed the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign the day after he saw a film on television about the 1991 cemetery massacre of about 100 young mourners by Indonesian troops. Timor later became independent Timor-Leste after a 1999 United Nations referendum.

Nov 9, 2023 | irishtimes.com | David R. Shanks

I think it is probable that Timor Leste would not be independent today were it not for the heroic bravery of Max Stahl. In 1991 he risked his life filming the Santa Cruz cemetery massacre of perhaps 100 young Timorese mourners by Indonesian troops. I had the honour recently to be asked by the organisation he set up 20 years ago to write an anniversary tribute to Max; he died in 2021 and appropriately his ashes are buried at that pretty Portuguese-style Santa Cruz cemetery.

Jul 23, 2023 | irishtimes.com | David R. Shanks

Thomas Hardy wrote of Casterbridge, his imagined name for the Dorset county town of Dorchester, as having virtually “no suburb” – “or transitional inter-mixture of town and down”. It stood “like a chessboard on a green tablecloth” The farmer’s boy could sit under his barley stack “and pitch a stone into the office-window of the town clerk”. It’s not so very unlike that today – even if you don’t half-close your eyes – though Hardy’s famous novel The Mayor of Casterbridge dates from 1886.