IRSM Easter Commemoration 2002

From The Starry Plough
Apr. 2002

The Irish Republican Socialist Movement held it's annual commemoration on Sunday 31st March in Belfast to mark the 86th anniversary of the Easter Rising. The march, headed by an IRSM colour party, proceeded from Costello House to the Republican Socialist Plot in Milltown Cemetery. Over five hundred people attended this year's event making it one of the biggest commemorations of the day throughout Ireland. John Murtagh of the IRSP's Ard Comhairle delivered the main oration.

"Comrades, once more we gather to pay homage and remember those Republicans and Socialists who gave their lives in the struggle for a Democratic Socialist Republic.

"Extraordinary events make for extraordinary people. The men and women of 1916 may seem like heroic figures, but we must never forget they were ordinary men and women who lived in extraordinary times.

"Today as we come to the slow ending of the armed conflict that has engulfed us all over the last three generations it is time to take stock and re-affirm our first principles. What did the ordinary men and women including our own comrades who died for a Republic think they were doing?

"Was it fighting for an abstraction called freedom? No.

[base "]Was it for glory? No.

"Was it for the freedom to exploit others? No.

"Was it for the copper fastening of partition? No.

"Was it for the restoration of Stormont? No!! Emphatically No.

"It was for the right of you and me and all citizens born of this island to live with political economic and social freedom in a Republic that really did cherish all the children of the nation equally.

"For us in the Republican Socialist Movement, that can only come about in a Socialist Republic. The Republican Socialist Movement is made up of ordinary men and women, who live ordinary lives but who want, what is considered extraordinary today, the right to live in a Republic that is democratic inclusive and based on socialist principles.

"Ask yourself who today stands by that concept of the Republic?

"Those fat cats of Irish business life who can award themselves bonuses of £17 Million in one year for refusing union recognition as in Ryanair?

"The bought politicians, who feed on the stench of corruption greed and bribery in the current Dail?

"Without principle idealism or compassion they have allowed the poor of this country to slip further into debt and misery.

"The drug dealers in every town and village in Ireland who spread their poisonous trade amongst school kids?

"The Northern politicians who enflame sectarian passions with their petty disputes over symbols and flags?

"The racists who turn worker against worker by enflaming prejudices and ignorance.

"The trade unions leaders who if the example of Mick O[base ']Reilly is anything to go by would sell their workers out faster than Judas betrayed Jesus.

"Or the great and the good whose desire is to be photographed with USA Presidents preferably on St Patrick's Day in Washington.

"Their political life in Ireland has become so dumb-downed that a Photo opportunity means more than a political Manifesto.

"None of those groups of charlatans stand by the Republic of Connolly. We salute those ordinary men and women who whether in the INLA, the IRSP, the prison camps, on the blanket, on picket line and strike action, in mass action and in day to day trade union activity, in community and tenant associations, trying every day to alleviate the hardships of working class life - are the real defenders of the Republic. Not for them the easy allure of the Yankee dollar. Just the ongoing republican struggle for a socialist Ireland

"Friends and Comrades you will not hear words of consensus and compromise "of moving the process forward" or of "inclusive dialogue" from this platform.

"For what those words and phrases stand for is capitulation to the class enemy. We know what side of the barricades we stand on. It is on the side of the oppressed, the exploited, the marginalized and the derided.

"We are on the side of the victims of USA Imperialism and militarism. We stand by the Palestinian masses in their struggle for justice. We are with the poor of Afghanistan oppressed by foreign armies and religious fundamentalism. We are with the poor of Columbia and in defence of the Cuban Revolution. We salute the bravery of the continuing Turkish death fasters and the revolutionary communists in Spain that are tirelessly fighting against the most awful repression of fascism. We make no apology for our anti-imperialism and sincerely hope no one from this country flies to the USA to apologise to Senate hearings for the anti-imperialist actions of any Republican.

"In the North there is now a politically and economically aware nationalist middle class prepared to sup from the spoils of the Stormont table. They appoint their friends and relations on the growing number of quangos, award contracts to their best friends and tut tut about violence in working class areas.

"Yet every day in those areas violence continues unabated as the poison of sectarianism enflames working class areas. The INLA has been active in defence of working class areas. That poses no threat to any ceasefire or threatens anyone except sectarian and racist bigots. When the police and the forces of the state turn a blind eye to sectarian attacks is it any wonder that republicans have to take to the streets to defend areas from sectarian attacks. This movement will not turn the other cheek.

"However we appeal to all those who claim to be either republicans or nationalists in front line working class communities neither by word or deed heighten or enflame sectarian tensions. That was not the way of Connolly, Mellows or any other Republican Socialist. It is not our way.

"Heroin, the drug and all its side effects, personal, political and social are alive and well in this country. Heroin mainly effects the poorer working class communities and for that percise reason large sectons of the working class in areas of our large inner cities have been isolated and left [to live with all the side affects of capitialism but with precious little support, that is the nature of the beast.

"In a system designed to ruthlessly pursuit profit and gain, peoples live, hopes, dreams and happiness have no part to play, it is in these communitties that heroin is most visible. These are the areas of our cities that were left for dead by the authorities decades ago.

"Today we as republican socialists strive to create the conditions of a 32 county socialist republic full of justice, fairness and equality for all, irrespective of race, colour or creed, but within that political context it is up to eah and every one of us as political, community and anti-drug activists and more importantly as parents to work tirelessly for the children of tomorrow, for our history will not judge us on what we have tried to do for our people but on what we have achieved.

"Active community and anti-drugs members of this movement will be judged by the very same people we represent, the people of no property, the poor, the devrived, neglected and the ignored and we will not be deflected by those, who would rather sell the cheap-headline than to report the real life daily struggle of social exclusion and inequalityinflicted on the working class by those who for years have treated us as second class citizens.

"As we predicted when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, sectarianism has not only been institutionalised it has spread like wildfire. The Good Friday Agreement has benefited the middle classes not the working classes. And it has not been fully implemented. This movement took the extremely difficult decision to recognise that the will of the Irish people was for the implementation of the GFA and for peace. We acted accordingly and the INLA ceasefire has been as solid as any. We have respected the wishes of the Irish people.

"We now call on the 26 County Administration to respect their own Good Friday Agreement and immediately release one of the last remaining prisoners to qualify for release under the Good Friday Agreement, Dessie O'Hare. They have acted in bad faith over the release of Dessie. From this platform we send greetings to our comrade Dessie and say we will not stop until your release.

"Elections are due to take place in May in the 26-counties. At this time the Ard-Comhairle are considering a proposal by the Dublin Membership to run Dessie O' Hare as a candidate in Bertie Ahern's constituency of Dublin Central. The Ard- Comhairle will after conclusive debate with the membership make a final decision at an election convention, which will take place within the next ten days.

"Comrades, friends, relatives of our martyred dead, as we walk away from this graveyard ponder not on the dead but on the living. No one can predict the future. But if everyone here played just a small role in fighting injustice and oppression then the dawning of a new day in political life in Ireland would be that much closer."

Last update: 5/21/02; 7:33:35 AM.