Our members gathered in a closed session on the Falls Road in West Belfast for this year’s Ard Fheis, as our planned afternoon session, due to feature attendees from across Ireland, was cancelled at short notice due to the ongoing situation on Garvaghy Road.
Kicking off 9.45am, standing orders were adopted, alongside the election of a steering committee and a number of tellers, before organisational reports were submitted. Delivered from the podium, these reports reviewed the work of our National Departments, specifically Finance, Membership and Publicity, before delving into local area reports.
National Finance laid out a significant twelve months since the 2025 Ard Fheis, which included the expansion of our online store, alongside other fundraising capacity, and which allowed us to open our first Lasair Dhearg office in Belfast.
National Membership Officer Ciarán O’Brien covered a strong twelve months, with an uplift in applications this year over previous, and discussed a renewed and strengthened application process, interaction with applicants and vetting procedures, alongside the onboarding and probation process. Expansion of our internal education process is to feature more significantly in the year ahead.
Pádraig Scott, heading up our Publicity Department, delivered a statistics laden presentation clearly and succinctly, laying out the growth of our online platforms and related output over the previous year. Internal upskilling, with digital media classes, content production and article creation remains a strong focus. He discussed plans to further solidify the Department in the new year with all Department staff to give consideration to the broadening out of the Department through internal recruitment and more formalised roles for those not currently positioned as Branch P.R.O’s.
Local area reports were delivered by those central to each area across the country, and detailed their productivity around our Core Organising Points.
Local area reports were delivered by those central to each area across the country, and detailed their productivity around our Core Organising Points.
After a short break, our members gathered again to discuss and vote on a number of motions put forward by our members to An Ard Fheis, and which focused heavily on anti-fascism, strategy and organising, a border poll, the ‘Loyal Orders’, International solidarity, Irish Republican prisoners, genocide in Palestine and the rights of those fighting against imperialism across the globe. A number of motions will be publicly released separately.
The event continued with a discussion and review of the final draft of our new Irish Language policy, and which came to a close with a unanimous vote in favour of the document, which will be prepared for launch and release in the coming weeks.
