Derry Socialist Republicans mark 1916 Easter Rising on Republic Day
A small crowd gathered at the Republican plot in Creggan Cemetery to mark the 106th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.
Main speaker, Lasair Dhearg Derry’s Lorcán Ó Duine started proceedings by calling upon Caolan McKeever to lay a wreath on behalf of Lasair Dhearg Derry, before inviting Pól Torbóid to read the 1916 Proclamation.
Lorcán said:
“On this day 106 years ago, hundreds of women and men seized strategic positions across Dublin City. Among them were the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan and na Fianna Éireann.
“As armed lines of marching women and men gathered in front of Dublin’s GPO, they, along with the population of the city, were read the Proclamation. That historic document is and was the foundation of our 32 County Republic. A Republic that was to cherish all the children of our nation equally.
“A Republic realised in the heroic acts of the women and men who faced all the might of the British empire, and though gravely outnumbered, they fought like lions.
“Their deed, and the executions that followed, inspired an otherwise passive population to take up arms. In just a few short years the battles fought from street to street in Dublin City on Easter week, were to be fought in the ditches and roadsides of rural Ireland.
“As towns and villages across the country committed support and personnel to the effort, the deeds of Easter week were to be eclipsed and surpassed by the heroic acts of those who committed themselves to a monumental military effort. An effort met by the barbarity of Britain’s war machine, as it gunned, raped and pillaged its way across our country.
“Unable to reign in the guerilla tactics of the IRA who faced down British military units in the field, Perfidious Albion, deceitful as they are, sued for supposed common ground. What followed was partition, counter-revolution and the foundation of more bloodshed in years to come.
“This was the context within which this sectarian statelet was formed. And though conflict ebbed and flowed, the state’s war against the Irish population never ended. This was a state that discriminated against anything green, for fear that it might dilute its Orange character.
“Our language then, as now, was discriminated against. Because they know, like us, and in the words of Pádraig Pearse, that “a country without a language is a country without a soul”.
“This was a Unionist state for a Unionist people. From its foundation, its borders harboured Unionist death squads. The state not only protected them, but supplied them, funded them, and utilised them in their war against our people.
“This past year marked a number of dates worth noting –
“100 years of partition, and the centenary of this sectarian statelet. This state will not see another one.
“The 30th anniversary of the Sean Graham Bookies massacre. A unionist death squad, supported by the state and its armed mercenaries in the RUC, gunned down five innocent people on Belfast’s Ormeau Road.
“The 40th anniversary of the 1981 Hungerstrike. Where ten brave men died fighting the criminalisation policies of the state.
“And the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, where 14 unarmed civilians were gunned down by Britain’s notorious parachute regiment on the streets of this very City.
“These acts occurred before this supposed “new dispensation” in the late 1990s.
“We were told that support for a stormont government would allow us the space to achieve justice for those slain in massacres like Sean Graham Bookies and bloody Sunday.
“We were told that stormont would help us achieve our ideals of a Socialist Republic.
“Instead, families are still fighting for justice as the armed wing of the state, the psni and others, use courts and legal procedures to hide evidence and cover up the truth.
“Our ideals have not only been unachievable through countless Stormont governments and various new agreements, but it has allowed the state apparatus to reap rewards for the rich and landlord class, and to wreck our communities.
“More have died through suicide since the end of the war than those who were killed during it. An issue our City knows only too well.
“Poverty is endemic. Homelessness is prevalent. Families are having to choose between buying food or heating their homes. And the costs continue to rise.
“Be under no illusions. A war is at hand. This is a war between classes. Between the haves and the have nots. The state and the stateless. A war between us and them.
“As another generation strives for the realisation of the vision laid out in 1916, we appeal to like-minded comrades to join us. We cannot do it alone.
“Nothing less than a 32 County Socialist Republic will help us achieve a more equitable society. This is what those who marched in Dublin City on this day 106 years ago fought and died for.
“The only lasting tribute to them, will be the achievement of their ideals, and you can help make that happen.
“Go raibh míle maith agaibh.”