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Fearaim fíor-chaoin fáilte romhaibh go léir ag an Ard-Fheis seo, an dara ceann is nócha de chuid Shinn Féin.
You are all most cordially welcome to this, the 92nd Ard-Fheis of Sinn Féin.
The past year since last we gathered in national convention has been a very busy and eventful one for true Republicans. Some hours before President Clinton's visit to Ireland came the Bruton-Major document of November 28 which represented one more attempt to buy time for the current process. This was in the hope that repeated delaying tactics would erode the capacity of the people's struggle and end forever the dream or vision of a New Ireland free from British rule. It has not happened.
While the US President was welcomed on all sides to this country Comhairle Uladh, our Ulster Executive made an accurate comment afterwards (on December 3). It said that during the visit the Six Occupied Counties were portrayed on the media world-wide as a British province where Protestants and Catholics cannot live together.
The comment continued: "In the aftermath of that visit the realities on the ground will re-emerge. The position is a national colonial situation which will yield to the same remedies as elsewhere in the world."
An American woman, Francie Broderick wife of Matt Morrison, had been in Belfast giving interviews to BBC Television and Irish newspapers. Her husband had lived in the US for ten years, their two children were born there, yet he and ten other Irish political refugees were fighting deportation battles with the US government.
She was aided by Republican Sinn Féin activists and as President Clinton lit the Christmas lights in Belfast city centre she was there holding a banner which said "All Our Children Want for Christmas is Their Fathers - Let Them Stay." One year later her husband Matt Morrison from Derry has had his latest appeal dismissed on October 22. Time is running out for him and his family.
In Dublin Republican Sinn Féin's banners were blocked out from the cameras by police vehicles. The message read: "British Withdrawal for Real Peace." Placards calling for a US Visa for the Republican Sinn Féin President and an end to deportations to the British of Irish political refugees were held aloft. At the College Green meeting the protesters were refused admission as were those protesting the US blockade on Cuba and against the death penalty in the United States. All dissent was hidden in order to make a re-election propaganda film for Mr. Clinton.
One week subsequent to the visit and three months after his application to attend functions in the US during October, the President of this organisation received a refusal of his request. The grounds for such denial of freedom of speech - as the Irish-American papers characterised it editorially - need to be restated.
In his letter of May 2, l995 to eleven members of the US Congress who called for such a visa President Clinton wrote: "As long as Republican Sinn Féin maintains its present position towards the peace process, there is no basis for waiving Mr Ó Brádaigh's ineligibility or for including him and his organisation in the White House Conference on Trade and Investment in Ireland."
However, one of the largest Irish-American organisations, the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the United States passed a resolution at its biannual Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota in July last calling for a US visa for your President. Republican Sinn Féin welcomes this support from the American AOH and urges all concerned individuals and organisations to lobby for a reversal of this unjust denial which bars the people of the United States from hearing our political position and our alternative peace strategy. Political dissent was again crushed during the British Prime Minister's visit to Dublin on December 21. The same banner which was blocked off from cameras during the Clinton visit was this time seized from Republican Sinn Féin members by Special Branch and uniformed 26-County police. Major's cavalcade had to be rerouted but he was let know that while his government and forces remain in Ireland there will be protests against his each and every visit.
Also in December the reality of what is euphemistically called D Unit of Cork Prison was exposed in the report of CPT (European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment established by the Council of Europe). This report was sat upon by successive administrations in Dublin for eighteen months from June l994 to December l995. Michael Hegarty was held in the Cork torture unit naked and without any exercise from October 2 to 10 last year but the media would not then reveal its existence.
Political prisoners - and ordinary prisoners - are indebted to journalist Gene Kerrigan and the Sunday Independent for exposing this torture unit in an article on December 17. Publicity was given to a hitherto hidden part of the CPT report. For the sake of humanity the hell-hole which is D unit of Cork Jail must be closed down. Denial of sleep, letters, reading and writing materials and even legal visits takes place there. No prisoner - of whatever kind - should have to endure such an ordeal.
Of course the current process has been availed of to the maximum in attempts to normalise British Royal visits to this country. Republican Sinn Féin picketed the British Embassy in Dublin in January during a visit by Anne Windsor of the British Royal family. That morning severe sentences were inflicted by the Special Non-Jury Court in Dublin on a group of Republicans, five men and our Ard-Rúnaí Josephine Hayden, basically because they actively continued to reject British rule in Ireland. Also that morning a protester was arrested at the gates of Castlebar RTC as another member of the British Royal family arrived there. No dissent or right to protest at British rule here will be tolerated, it seems.
In the Six Counties the June visit of the heir to the British Crown underlined the increasing frequency - five in six weeks - of such displays of jingoism sprung surreptitiously on the local people amid overwhelming force. Side-by-side with the Stormont talks such action can be seen only as underlining Britain’s intention to retain possession of these Six Irish Counties.
Further, occasional British Royal visits to the 26 Counties and Mrs Mary Robinson's official visit to England with her invitation to Queen Elizabeth to formally visit the 26-County State indicate one point clearly. That is that as far as the Dublin government is concerned the matter of British rule in the Six Counties is accepted as finalised and relations are completely normalised.
The Queen of England has said she will accept such an invitation "when things settle down." While Irish Republicanism exists and Ireland remains unfree "things will never settle down." For 30 years after the liberation of Algeria following the bitter political and armed struggle of l955-62 a French President could not visit that newly emergent nation. Are we a lesser people to accept the British Head of State while that government and army occupies part of Ireland?
Dissent is to be suppressed all the more efficiently by the use of the new Public Order Act in the 26 Counties. As was forecast by us the most trivial of excuses have been used to implement it. A Leitrim member who took photographs of Special Branch harassment for our SAOIRSE newspaper was jailed in August under Section 6 for "intimidating" the police. Similarly the PRO for Republican Sinn Féin in Limerick is currently serving three months in prison for pointing out to the occupants of a squad-car the danger of driving up on a footpath while young children were about. Civil liberties bodies kindly take note.
Within days of our last Ard-Fheis Republican Sinn Féin was calling for an outright boycott of any new Stormont under whatever guise. Such was tried and had failed four times, it was stated, and any move in that direction was retrograde and bound not to succeed. Séamus Mallon of the SDLP had advocated a "new police force" - which would include nationalists - within the British government system in the Six Occupied Counties. Then one year ago he announced that he had been "monitoring the activities of Republican Sinn Féin in South Armagh." We asked in reply if he would stop short at felon-setting for the British?
Then John Bruton showed his hand on the 70th anniversary of the infamous Boundary Agreement signed by his predecessors in the first Free State administration. Nationalist parties should have an "open-minded approach" to Unionist proposals for a New Stormont, he said. Nothing was learned and nothing forgotten, like the Bourbons of old, as Leinster House moved to repeat the mistakes of the past.
In the United States during April Mr. Bruton spoke of "what is available" at the proposed Stormont talks. Yes, we all know what is contained in that British agenda - Sunningdale No 2: another power-sharing Stormont with cross-Border committees. No thank you, Mr. Bruton. Chonaic muid cheana é (we saw it all before).
It attempts to consolidate British rule here and it will fail yet again to give us peace with justice, as did Sunningdale No 1. Anyone who takes part in it will be absorbed into that British system and will end up in due course "doing England's dirty work" in Ireland.
In Maynooth on April 11, John Bruton actually went so far as to quote the words of our late and honoured Vice-President Dáithí O Conaill: the Unionists were "here so long that they are part and parcel of the Irish nation." Dáithí O Conaill's words cannot be used to back up the Dublin administration's kowtowing to the British-cum-Unionist plan to restore Stormont under the guise of a Six-County Forum.
Our late Vice-President belileved passionately in an Ireland free from British rule in which present-day Unionists would control their own destinies in a nine-county Ulster parliament as part of a federation of the four provinces. He promoted the ÉIRE NUA policy of Republican Sinn Féin as a way of building a pluralist 32-County Republic that would cater for people of all traditions on this island.
What he did not support, Mr. Bruton, was a Unionist veto on the rest of the population of Ireland, representing as they do just 18 per cent of the people of this country. That is a recipe for continued British interference in a partitioned Ireland and the inevitable conflict which will result.
The result in January of the proceedings of the International Body on Arms known as the Mitchell Report did not include a ruling on the heavily-armed British Forces of Occupation, nor were the weapons held in Ireland and licensed under British law in its remit.
It went on to recommend an "elective process" confined to the Six Counties which could lead only to a New Stormont forced through by the Unionist majority there. It further sought a commitment in advance to accept the outcome of the Stormont talks where the Unionist representation must prevail.
It took ten-and-a-half months and an international commission to get the British government off its own hook of what is known as Washington Three. As in its other colonial situations worldwide the British have since started to climb down gradually and publicly. Such delaying tactics are simply aimed at buying time in the hope of securing total demobilisation of active resistance to British rule in Ireland.
Mr Major effectively rejected the Mitchell report where it sought that the surrender of arms and the Stormont talks should go hand-in-hand. He did of course espouse the UUP, DUP and Alliance proposal for a new Stormont. After all he is beholden to the UUP to stay in power. But Irish constitutional nationalists - whether long established or recently converted - were made once more the playthings in British party politics.
The Dublin-London summit at the end of February bowed before the ending of the Provisionals' Ceasefire and the Canary Wharf explosion and delivered a date of June 10 for the Stormont talks. Of course the agenda for these Unionist-dominated talks does not go to the heart of the matter and will not therefore bring a permanent peace.
Republican Sinn Féin had as early as January 22 called publicly for a boycott of a New Stormont and any elections to it since candidates would be required to subscribe to a political test oath. An extraordinary meeting of Comhairle Uladh in mid-April took this question in hand. A solid media black-out on the boycott campaign was met, of necessity, by advertising in Belfast and local papers which cost well into four figures.
An anti-Stormont directorate was established with local area agents appointed to push this campaign. Tens of thousands of leaflets and hundreds of posters were used while in New York a group calling themselves the Exiled Children in America funded a quarter page advertisement in the Belfast Irish News on the eve of poll.
The Block the Vote Committee USA publicised the boycott as it raised finance under the slogan "Make Your Vote Count - Stay Home." They even put the message on the internet's World Wide Web with the latest information and news about the campaign being made available to millions of internet users across the globe.
In the outcome hard core Republicans did abstain but tactical voting by former SDLP supporters added significant gains to the Provisionals' poll. This left the Adams leadership heading up an uneasy coalition of veterans of 25 years of struggle and constitutionalists ready to accept an "internal settlement" in the Six Counties.
In continuing along the constitutional path the Provisionals will gradually squeeze out the support of the veterans while the constitutionalists will be consolidated in the party. British rule and the British government were the real victors here.
The efforts of those who worked for a boycott in all Six Counties and abroad are appreciated. They will continue their work on the ground remaining secure in the certain knowledge that their stand will be vindicated in time to come. British rule here has bought only time.
Significantly Provisional spokespersons stated during their election campaign that their organisation would "give their allegiance" to whatever comes out of the talks. This means, in effect, that they will attempt to enforce it on their own supporters and on the nationalist population in what would be the creation of the ultimate nationalist nightmare - a northern Free State acting in the interests of Britain with, of course, an "economy of English lives."
It was placed on the record on Channel Four TV DISPATCHES programme of April 24 that the Provo leadership had held secret meetings with Fianna Fáil 26-County government representatives within months of their l986 decision to accept the southern partitionist state. They did so without their own members' sanction and they have moved to the situation where they are now in effect the Six-County wing of Fianna Fáil
In an article in the Belfast Sunday Life on June 9 Mr Major said a "triple lock" would apply to any outcome of the Stormont talks scheduled to begin the following day. Majority party agreement in the Six Counties and acceptance by a referendum confined to that area only must come first but the Westminster parliament would have the final say.
While under notice that the British parliament ruled supreme regardless of whatever people in all parts of Ireland think, Comhairle Uladh gave notice that the campaign against the reimposition of a New Stormont would continue.
The talks at Stormont quickly degenerated to farcical levels and now six months from their inception they remain deadlocked. British withdrawal from Ireland is not even a serious subject for discussion there. The ultimate outcome is clear to see - Sunningdale Mark 2 - and what we are witnessing is just so much jockeying for position.
When these talks were picketed by Republican Sinn Féin on September 9 Vice-President Mary Ward told the media that the events of the summer had indicated that even the much-vaunted reform of equality of treatment under British rule in the Six Counties was not available and is not possible.
The lessons of the Drumcree Mark 2 stand-off during July were dearly learned by the nationalist population. For four entire days Orange roadblocks paralysed the Six Counties. These were led by middle-class elements of Unionism and the British forces in their various categories remained passive and in many cases openly consorted with them.
Ethnic cleansing was renewed in systematic fashion as more 100 nationalist families were driven from their homes by loyalist mobs. The British police in Ireland (RUC) were at the point of mutiny when the British government capitulated once more and forced the Orange march they had banned through the Garvaghy Road. The residents of the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast were subjected to a 15-hour house arrest and curfew in the interests of Orange supremacism and triumphalism.
As in 1886, 1914 and 1974 the Orange Card was again played and the British government duly backed down in the face of Unionist force and threat of force. "Parity of esteem" became a sick joke and the British ruling class forfeited all claims to moral authority to govern in Ireland. British disengagement was back on the political agenda once more.
To restore the shattered morale among the British paramilitary police orders were given to deal "vigorously" with resulting nationalist protests. Of the 6,002 plastic bullets fired throughout the Six Counties during that week July 7-15, 94 per cent or 5,663 were fired at nationalist protesters.
Over 1000 were fired in Derry City alone on the night of July 12 and nationalist Dermot McShane was crushed to death by a British Army armoured vehicle. In the previous three weeks three nationalists were killed in Lurgan, Dungannon and Belfast by British-backed loyalist death-squads. So much for equality of treatment under British law.
The British government cannot rule justly in Ireland since it operates by propping up one section of the community against another. How much more loss of life and human suffering must be endured before that simple lesson is learned?
But the British establishment was unimpressed by the July events, witness Patrick Mayhew's largely unreported speech to the British-Irish Association in Oxford on September 7. He reiterated the British agenda for the current process - the Six Counties would remain under British rule "for as far as we can see into the future" and any settlement would include "the end of all Irish claims to jurisdiction" over the Six Counties.
South of the Border Republican Sinn Féin was quick to respond to the Drumcree crisis. Public meetings were held in Salthill and Eyre Square, Galway and in Bundoran, Co. Donegal. Spokespersons in Limerick, Dublin and elsewhere put out statements. The July issue of SAOIRSE was sold out and a special supplement was brought out dealing with the developing situation.
It is necessary that local areas act on their own initiative when such crises arise. We have experienced Drumcree Mark1 and Drumcree Mark 2 Shall we see Drumcree Mark 3? and will we be ready to give a public lead in all areas to the Irish people?
The two years and three months since the unilateral, indefinite and unconditional ceasefire by the Provisionals has seen a progressive sectarianisation of the situation in the Six Counties. We have deplored attacks on places of worship as politically meaningless and further dividing Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter from each other.
Likewise Republican Sinn Féin totally opposes blocking and harassing people attending church services. We reject any attempt to equate normal weekend Mass-going with triumphalist Orange parades through nationalist areas.
Further, in so far as the weapon of boycott is used against those who manned roadblocks by the Orange Order during the Drumcree crisis it is understandable and we respect people's right to do so. But Republican Sinn Féin deplores any boycott of businesses on sectarian grounds, i.e. simply because the owners are either Catholic or Protestant.
The words of Dr John Austin Baker, Anglican Bishop of Salisbury in England are surely relevant here. He said that loyalists and nationalists could not live together in peace and harmony while British rule remains. "Our injustice created the situation," Dr Baker said, "and by constantly repeating that we will maintain it as long as the majority wish it, we actively inhibit Protestant and Catholic from working out a new future for themselves. This is the root of the violence."
In effect then, there is an urgent need for renewed emphasis on British responsibility for the situation and therefore on the question of British disengagement from Ireland. This would break the impasse and act as a stimulus to both communities in the Six Counties to work out the future together. It is then that serious attention could be given to the ÉIRE NUA proposals for a new four-province federal Ireland, the only practical and realistic proposal that has so far excited any interest at all among the Unionist population.
During August further crises arose in local areas of the Six Counties and principally in Derry city. Here was seen the spectacle of Provisional members acting as policemen and stopping nationalist youths from engaging the British Forces of Occupation. The new Broy Harriers are already being formed, it would appear.
In all of this the British Government, intent on remaining in power at all costs and depending on Unionist votes for this, has obviously failed the nationalist people. But it has also failed the unionist population and used their representatives. The British will abandon them in time when it suits them just as they have deserted those who supported them all over the world - just as they will withdraw from Hong Kong next July without holding any referendum or similar procedure.
With the growth in the nationalist population the Orange Order seeks to "make a stand" in the face of the new realities at the end of the 20th century. They attempt to hold the line in military fashion and the British forces crack nationalist heads for them. But this will not secure the future.
The ordinary unionist population at ground level should face these new realities before their strength dwindles further; they should come to terms with the rest of the people of Ireland in the absence of the British Establishment. The unionist people should maximise their position now within a totally new context in Ireland. Now is the time and structures can be developed to safeguard minorities and majorities alike on this island.
In the 26 Counties over the past year much energy was devoted to the plight of Republican prisoners who were being denied political status. When all nine of these prisoners were brought together in Limerick Prison in February they formed a more cohesive grouping.
They were still being refused separate open-air exercise and for four months were never outside of the prison wing. Outside an active agitation built up quickly for full political status. This involved marches, public meetings, leafletting, and lobbying of local elected representatives.
As a result eight of the most active Republican Sinn Féin members in Limerick were arrested over a 10-day period and held under the Offenses Against the State Act. In response to this coercive action the families of the prisoners formed a Relatives Action Committee which intensified the campaign of protest.
Bundoran Urban Council supported the prisoners' demands on March 20, Ballyshannon Town Commission did likewise on April 2 while Shannon Town Commission went further on May 7 and offered to send a delegation into the prison to inspect conditions there. On May 11, the 50th anniversary of Séan Mc Caughey's death on hunger and thirst strike in Portlaoise Jail, the Limerick prisoners staged a 24-hour hunger strike in commemoration of his death for Ireland.
The clinics of politicians supporting the present Leinster House Administration were picketed including those of ministers in Dublin, Galway and Wexford. Nora Owen, 26-County Minister responsible was confronted in her clinic in Swords by members of the RAC. US Ambassador Jean Kennedy-Smith was handed a letter on various issues including the situation of the prisoners during a visit to Kiltyclogher, Co. Leitrim in June.
At the end of that month when the prisoners' health was giving cause for concern they won their protest. A prison yard for open-air exercise was made available after four months of such being denied to them.
Congratulations are in order for the prisoners themselves on their victory and also for their families, the Relatives Action Committee for their staunch support and all concerned in furthering their fight for political status. We salute the Limerick prisoners and send greetings to all Irish political prisoners world-wide who stand by a British withdrawal and Irish national independence.
The battle for improved conditions still goes on and a workshop for crafts and a classroom are still being sought while the sole woman Republican prisoner in Limerick has to endure deplorable sanitary and living conditions generally. They need your support constantly and not just in assistance to CABHAIR - the Prisoners Dependants' Fund.
During the Maastricht referendum some years ago it was announced that any proposed change in the policy of neutrality would be put to a referendum in the 26 Counties in l996. Yet this year we were told that membership of the NATO-sponsored "Partnership for Peace" advocated by the present Administration did not require a referendum. Gradually it seems neutrality is being abandoned since the Partnership for Peace, so-called, is just a waiting-room for membership of NATO.
In 1996 also the EU net tightened further on this country as foreign fishing boats, notably Spanish and Portuguese were allowed to operate much closer to the Irish shoreline since January 1. The EU now proposes a cutback of 40% in fishing fleets which may be bearable by the stronger interests but certainly not by Ireland which was late in development in this sphere.
In the unbridled capitalist model of development the strong trample down the weak as the prevalence of BSE disease and use of steroids among the very large farmers indicate the employment of their strength to further marginalise the small farmers whose methods down the years have been more in accordance with the healthier organic farming.
The past year has also seen an official attempt to remove the teaching of history as a compulsory subject in the Junior Certificate course in the 26 Counties. This met with failure but the intention is clear and the effort may be renewed. In the Six Counties of course official British history is taught in schools. With our children's past stolen they will be unable to understand the present or to plan the future. That would enable the ruling politicians who control the media to manipulate easily the younger generation and its successors.
As long ago as 1957 de Valera's address to the Ard-Fheis of Fianna Fáil was largely taken up with the upsurge of the Republican Movement at the time. His response on the ground had been filling the Curragh Concentration Camp with over 200 internees including elected representatiaves; but in apportioning blame for the situation he found fault with the teaching of history in the schools. No doubt he did not wish to be reminded of his own and his associates' actions in earlier life.
How apt are the words of the American journalist, biographer and poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) when he wrote: "Whenever a nation falls down or a society fails, one condition is invariably present - they have forgotten where they came from." As a people it is at our peril that we sever our roots with the past.
In the opening months of l993 Republican Sinn Féin launched its social and economic programme SAOL NUA - A New Way of Life. Based on Republican, democratic socialist, self-reliance and environmental principles, it was brought out at a time when official unemployment figures for Ireland were 410,000 - 302,000 in the 26 Counties and 108,000 north of the Border.
One of the objectives listed in its Programme of Immediate Action was "supporting the campaign for a television service in Irish." We here at this Ard-Fheis heartily welcome the inauguration of Telefís na Gaeilge. The pity is that it had to wait for 35 years after the arrival of English language television with its low-level treatment of Irish.
Mar sin is ábhar dóchais dúinn, tá súil againn, maidir le forbairt na Gaeilge teacht ar an aer do Theilifís na Gaeilge, mí ó shoin. Cuirimíd na mílte fáilte roimpi, fiú más cás linn, na deacrachtaí a bhaineann le aimsiú an stáisiúin in áiteanna éagsúla ar fud na tíre.
Is cás linn ach go háirithe gur chinn rialtas na 26 Chontae agus RTÉ arís eile an uair seo gan T na G a chur ar fáil chomh láidir céanna ar fud oir-thuaisceart an oileáin is ba cheart. Botún a rinne RTÉ an chéad lá gan seirbhís a sholáthar do Bhéal Féirste - an dara cathair sa tír - agus do Chontae Aontroma - an contae is mó iománaíochta i gCúige Uladh mar shampla - chomh láidir céanna le Ciarraí nó cathair Chorcaí.
Ní de thaisme a tharlaíonn sé in athuair anois go bhfuil "poll" sa learscáil arís an babhta seo agus go bhfuil T na G ceilte ar an bpobal nua Ghaeilge is díograisí and is mó fás in Eirinn i mBéal Féirste. Cuid de phlean idirnáisiúnta é - más é bhur dtoil é. Plean é ina nglacann rialtas Bhaile Atha Cliath leis nár cheart cur as do chraoltóireacht na Breataine ó thuaidh ná iarracht a dhéanamh fiú amháin craoladh thar teorainn a dhéanamh ón stat ó dheas isteach sna Sé Chontae.
Trua nach bhfuil an mhisneach céanna acu is a bhíodh ag rialtas na Gearmáine maidir le Beirlin agus an DDR sa seansaol. Deirtear linn go "bhfáiltíonn" rialtas na Breataine roimh T na G - mura bhfuil i gceist ach go laghdaíonn sí an náire ba cheart a bheith orthu faoi fhaillí i dtaobh na Gaeilge ar an BBC agus UTV thar na blianta.
Ach is cosúil go bhfuil laghdú ar dhíograis Paddy Mayhew ó tuigeadh go rabhthas i ndáiríre an uair seo agus go dtiocfadh T na G ar an aer mar a bhí pleanáilte.
Rud amháin ba cheart a thuiscint áfach. Is ceist pholaitiúil í seo, ceist atá chomh polaitiúil le cosaint cearta iascaigh nó aon cheist idirnáisiúnta eile idir rialtais. Is fada muid ag rá gur cheart polasaí ceart craolacháin a bheith ann a chinnteodh cláir inár dteanga féin agus faoinár n-oidhreacht féin do mhuintir na hÉireann, is cuma cén áit ina bhfuil siad ina gcónaí ar an oileán.
Ach ina áit sin tá polasaí craolacháin Bhaile Átha Cliath le fada an lá tógtha suas le scéimeanna chun teilifís na Breataine - an leagan Béarla dí móide cláir sheafóideacha Mheiriceá - a scaipeadh ar fud oileán na hÉireann uilig. Seasamid áfach le cearta mhuintir na hÉireann go léir sna cúrsaí seo agus go háirithe le cearta Ghaeilgeoirí Bhéal Feirste maidir le T na G láithreach.
Tá cuma na maitheasa ar an seirbhís nua cheana féin. Míorúilt chultúrtha a bhfuil curtha i gcríoch ag Cathal Goan, Ultach de bhunadh Ard Aighin, Béal Feirste agus a fhoireann bheag díograiseach go háirithe maidir le soláthar cláir do leanaí.
Nach é an trua géar é nár tháinig T na G ar an aer glúin ó shoin, go deimhin nár chuir RTÉ seirbhís Ghaeilge ar fáil ón chéad uair a bunaíodh an tseirbhís siar in l961.Ag Dia amháin atá a fhios cé mhéid Ghaeilge bhreise a bheadh beo agus in úsáid ar fud na tíre inniu dá mbéadh seirbhís cheart náisiúnta teilifíse ann le 35 bhliain anuas; mar ní beo do theanga phobail san aois seo mura bhfuil forais ar leith aici féin, ina measc seirbhísí raidió agus go háirithe teilifíse.
Cuirimíd fáilte freisin roimh an nuachtán nua Foinse atá curtha ar bun ag Pádraig Ó Céidigh agus a cháirde sa Spidéal le cabhair ó Bhord na Gaeilge. Tá súil againn áfach go mbeidh sé níos cothraime do chás na Poblachta ná an nuachtán a chothaigh an stát le 12 bhliain roimhe seo.
Bhí blas cung an tSaorstáit chomh soiléir ar seo nach gcuirfidís ráitis nó óráid i nGaeilge uainne i gcló ar chor ar bith, go fiú nuair a reachtáladh ócáid mhór chomórtha Wolfe Tone i nGaeilge ar fad i mBaile Buadáin i 1993 mar chuid de chomóradh Bhliain na Gaeilge, líne ní bhfuair muid. Fuair an nuachtán sin airgead nach beag ar an mbonn gur theastaigh sin le himeachtaí Gaeilge a chlúdach - ach a chaith an chuid is mó dá dhua ag trácht ar íontais lucht Fhine Gael, agus go deimhin Chumann na nGaedheal roimhe sin ar mhaithe leis an nGaeilge i gcóras an tSaorstáit.
B'annamh a luadh lochtaí an chórais áfach - agus ní thuigfeá go deo uathu gur chuir Fine Gael agus an Lucht Oibre i mbun rialtais dóibh in l973 deireadh ar fad nach mór le príomhphointí polasaí na hathbheochana Gaeilge úd, gan aon rud eile a chur ina áit.
The provision of adequate programming in Irish on radio and television is however only one of the essential props in the modern world which sociolinguists tells us are vitally necessary if a minority language is to survive in the middle of modern international communications.
Indeed the lesson would seem to be, from the success of Raidió na Gaeltachta as well as the initial impact of Teilifís na Gaeilge, that we urgently need to pursue a programme of specific linguistic institutions if a crash programme to ensure the survival of Irish into the third millenium is to succeed.
Bord na Gaeilge and Udarás na Gaeltachta may have many faults. But the idea of specific institutions, with explicit responsibility for delivering services to Gaeltacht and Irish Language communities is obviously the way forward. Go deimhin ba é sin an loighic a bhain leis an bhéim a leagadh ar Ghaeilge sna scoileanna mar chéad chéim na h-aithbheochana.
But we need to go further, in terms of local government, health and community welfare provision, in terms of social contact for youth, in terms of training and vocational guidance but most specifically perhaps in terms of providing genuine Irish-medium education at third level in a genuine all-Irish university or series of third level institutions.
The UCG experiment of l929 was never wide enough or specific enough to cater even for the modest needs of the then Free State in the pre-computer age. This question was probed and discussed in depth at our annual Feis na Poblachta held in Galway this year in September.
We can, and we must build on the lessons to be learned at a time when there is a crying need to develop the use of Irish professionally in all sorts of areas from health-care to journalism to social studies to law.
Faoi'n Ollscoil Náisiúnta atá sé i dtús ama is dócha. Bhí Ollscoil na hÉireann chun tosaigh ar go leor dreamanna eile ón uair a bunaíodh í siar in l908, nuair a bhí Impireacht na Breataine in airde a réime. Mar sin féin socraíodh go mbeadh bunchumas sa teanga náisiúnta riachtanach do dhuine ar bith ó áit ar bith sna 32 chontae a bheadh ag iarraidh scrúdú iontrála an Mháithreánaigh a bhaint.
The Thomas Davis dictum that you must educate to be free is as true today as it was in the days of the Young Irelanders. But one has to build on one's own educational requirements and traditions. Sinn Féin provided a sound and valid basis for nation-building ever since this organisation set out from the modest beginnings of Arthur Griffith in l905 to the Republican reconstruction of l9l7 that led to the overwhelming electoral victory of l9l8.
And in that regard, perhaps, it is worth issuing a word of warning also about T na G in spite of the welcome we have for it and the obvious sincerity of some of those we have seen engaged in its pioneering work. T na G is a lifeline to the whole nation. It is not simply a children's channel, ainneoin an gá atá le cláir i nGaeilge do pháistí.
It follows that T na G must develop its own independent News and Current Affairs outlook and programme. It must not, it cannot be allowed to become another version of RTÉ. Nor can it turn out song, dance, sport and entertainment while the Irish nation burns up before our eyes.
The important issues in life, social, economic, political, as well as cultural, must be discussed openly and independently completely free from the shocking legacy of the Cruise O'Brien Section 31 era which so dominates Montrose all the time.
For where else in the world would a former head of government be on the Board of the Broadcasting Authority? More specifically where else in the rest of Europe in the post-Stalinist era would two of the most influential members of an RTÉ Authority interview board consist of a former Taoiseach and a former Stickie MEP?
A new Director-General of RTÉ is due to be selected in time for the next general election in the 26 Counties. A former Fine Gael justice minister, Jim Mitchell who seems proud of the fact that he tapped the telephone of Vincent Browne and other journalists in his day, actually vetoed as Minister for Communications the appointment of an RTÉ Director-General.
But with Garret Fitzgerald on the interview board as well as a very predictable spectrum of Blueshirt and Stickie men and women, no problems are foreseen for Fine Gael this time. That traditional Blueshirt/Stickie axis could always find a suitable accommodation in Montrose down the years when Eoghan Harris was supposed to be the finest, most radical person in Irish broadcasting.
At the same time Irish history had to be turned on its head in Montrose in a purge of Irish Republicanism whose elected representatives and spokespersons were banned by ministerial diktat in any case. RTÉ may argue that they have to take what they get from the politicians by way of compromise coalitions on its Board, but a test of integrity for Telefís na Gaeilge will come at the time of the next general election in the 26 Counties.
On the environmental aspect of life it is noted that British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) has applied to increase the level of nuclear waste emissions into the Irish Sea, an area already suffering from an excess of British nuclear pollution to the detriment of both English and Irish people living near the coastlines concerned.
Greenpeace has challenged the Dublin administration to accept or reject the proposed "Peaceful Nuclear Co-operation Agreement" between the EU and Japan. BNFL are desperate to supply plutonium fuel to Japan and this raises concerns about its plant at Sellafield. We congratulate the people in the Dundalk and hinterland area for their actions to curb this menace to health and living conditions.
Further we commend the local communities who have tackled another threat to society head-on -- the drugs' menace to which 70 per cent of crime in the 26 Counties is related.. At our Ard-Fheis last year Vice-President Des Long appealed to local tenants and residents' groups to work with community activists to take a stand against the drug barons and those laundering money for their evil trade.
The lack of response from the politicians during the year was high-lighted by unfortunate events and all Leinster House parties with the exception of the Greens sought shelter from public anger in a bogus move to restrict bail which can only diminish civil liberties without really addressing the drug menace. Direct action at local level by organised communities remains the surest hope in tackling this dire threat to their future.
Indeed as our Limerick PRO Joe Lynch -- himself a former Irish Shipping sailor -- pointed out in August last, the Leinster House decision in l984 to liquidate Irish Shipping Ltd left the country open to the smuggling activities of international drug cartels. Lowly paid - and in some cases unpaid - crews have been used to ferry cocaine and heroin into Irish ports, using our country as a backdoor to Europe.
But the Leinster House deputies were not so negligent when they put in a pay claim for a salary increase of £10,000 per annum last May. They currently draw £33,354 annually plus expenses. The most recent claim was in addition to the extra £40 per week to their expenses, costing the taxpayer another half-million per year. That increase was featured as a single line in the "principal features of the (last) Budget" but the miserly £2 per week increase in the Dole at the same time was of course highly publicised.
During the summer and before the Drumcree confrontation the outgoing Chief-Constable of the British paramilitary police in Ireland acted as a spokesperson for the British-backed death squads when he stated publicly that they would mount an immediate and bloody backlash to acts of resistance to British rule. The alleged "Peace Train" activists were curiously silent during the July crisis. No white ribbons were given out at Drumcree nor did any "Peace Train" arrive in the nearby Portadown railway station.
But in October one of their leading spokespersons could bear threats to the Dublin government from the loyalist death squads of bombing in the 26 counties if that government did not act against Republicans. Already there had been raids on the homes of our members in Donegal, Roscommon and Westmeath even while the robbers and molesters of old people in these areas were doing their evil work. Who says Leinster House does not yield to violence, British and pro-British threats of violence?
There is an undeniable pattern in such attempted intimidation of Republicans. From Belfast to Donegal, through the midlands and Galway down to Limerick, it is our PROs, our local councillors, our paper-sellers and our political activists whose homes have been raided in a most intimidating fashion and who are harassed and jailed under the new Public Order Act. Is this the "security response" demanded of Dublin under threat of bombs in the 26 Counties?
Meanwhile the British response to the current process is evident in the significant deterioration in the conditions of Irish politicial prisoners in England and the emergence of the "shoot-to-kill" policy there. I refer here to the wanton gunning down of an unarmed young Irishman, Diarmaid O Neill by British forces and the lying and contradictory public statements put out by them over subsequent days.
The Dublin administration's sincerity can be measured through its ongoing attempts to extradite Nessan Quinlivan and Pearse Mc Cauley to the British. This was specifically the purpose of a most successful indoor public meeting held by Republican Sinn Féin in Galway last February.
Washington's sincerity can be gauged from its political extraditions of Jimmy Smyth during August and an ex-paratrooper in March. President Clinton reneged on all his explicit promises to the Irish-American community: "No more Joe Dohertys," "visas for all Irish political spokespersons" and "endorsement of the Mac Bride Principles" on fair employment in the Six Counties. Two extraditions and many more in the pipeline, a veto on the Mac Bride Principles Bill and denial of a visa to your President were the tally in response to those commitments to Irish Americans.
With regard to the transfer of Irish political prisoners from England to jails in the 26 Counties, let it be noted that while such is of benefit to families and prisoners in the matter of visiting arrangements, there are conditions attached.
The Dublin government now acts as jailer for the British in such cases: the full stated sentence must be served and no further appeals or re-opening of cases, regardless of new or additional evidence is allowed. These transfers are no free gift; John Bull always seeks his pound of flesh. Incidentally, Paddy Kelly should have been released on health grounds, not transferred.
In the matter of American support for Irish freedom, Des Long spoke at the annual Michael Flannery anniversary dinner in New York in October and toured afterwards for five weeks. Branches of Cumann na Saoirse, the Irish Freedom Committee have now been set up throughout New York, in New Jersey, Boston, Lowell, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg.
Ard-Chomhairle member Pádraig Mac Mathúna travelled to the West Coast and with Dan McCormack of San Francisco made a presentation in the course of his activities to Charles Malone, veteran Fianna Éireann member and former Irish Republican prisoner who is now seriously ill. Irish-America is much more aware at this stage of the realities on the ground in Ireland and supporters of the Irish struggle are moving towards active assistance for the true Republicans on this side of the Atlantic.
At home in Ireland the inadequacy of the existing structures for development in the west was never more clearly seen than in a recent interview with the CEO of the Western Development Partnership Board. (IT 25/11/96). Their action plan seeks the empowerment of local communities and action over 20 years "to level the playing field in economic and social development" between east and west. It covers Connacht plus Donegal and Clare and grew out of the western bishops' initiative four years ago.
Bord Telecom has told them no town under 10,000 population can be connected to their £10 million plan to plug into the world-wide web or information superhighway. Problems with an inferior data transmission service will also apply to conventional highways. The famous Cohesion Fund of the EU to bridge the gap between rich and poor areas will give less than 10 per cent of the 26-County State's allocation to the roads of the west, a region with 20 per cent of that State's population.
Projects of £100 million or more are required for maximum funding which defeats the purpose of the fund and discriminates against the west. It already looks as if the N 17 made famous by the Sawdoctors some years ago may go the way of the Sligo-Limerick railway line and other public services in rural Ireland.
At one of the original Developing the West Together meetings in Tuam the idea launched by this movement of Dáil Chonnacht was adopted. The answer is to have all powers of government except foreign affairs, national defence and over-all financing exercised within the province. Power and decision-making devolved then to the lowest possible level would give control directly to local people and not to centralised bureaucracies.
Ten days ago John Hume sought to brand those who continue to struggle for British withdrawal and Irish freedom as "enemies of Ireland". When the British forces fired over 1,000 plastic bullets on one night in Derry city last July and British troops crushed local man Dermot McShane to death under an armoured vehicle, Mr Hume did not mark the perpetrators as "enemies of Derry and enemies of Ireland".
The constitutional politicians down the years have used such abusive language about Irish revolutionaries - before, during and after l916. It all depends on one's version of Ireland. The SDLP and those in the Provisionals who are willing to settle for a reformed Stormont with cross-Border boards certainly see people who continue to struggle for a free Ireland as their political opponents.
But John Hume's version of an Ireland remaining under British rule is not the ideal of those who made sacrifices down the centuries. Their model of British disengagement from our country and completely new structures giving political space and power to both majorities and minorities has a legitimacy that not even he can challenge. Ní h-ionann Éire dúinn, Mr Hume.
To summarise Republican Sinn Féin's position then: No amount of talking at Stormont will deliver a lasting peace because the discussions there are based on a British agenda and do not provide for British government disengagement from Ireland. The talks are confined within the limitations of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of l985, the Downing Street Declaration l993 and the Framework documents l995.
All of these give 18 per cent of the population of Ireland the decision on the future. The remaining 82 per cent count for nothing. The Stormont talks can be "inclusive, without preconditions, within an agreed timeframe and with confidence building measures", but at the end of the day are subject to Mr Major"s "triple lock". This means British rule in Ireland is cemented by the requirements of a majority at the talks, a majority in a Six-County referendum and the final say of a majority in the British parliament.
The current process then cannot produce a British withdrawal from Ireland and therefore will not give us - the people of Ireland - a permanent peace so dearly desired. History teaches us the lesson that as long as the British government remains here there will always be those who will oppose that British presence. History did not stop evolving in August 1995.
The Ard-Chomhairle stated in February last that if the Provisionals' renewal of conflict were unequivocally directed towards a British withdrawal from our country through the controlled and disciplined use of force and with the objective of creating a totally New Ireland then it would be consistent with the Republican philosophy. But if it is being pursued merely to gain a place at "all-party talks" which the Unionists will dominate then such action is clearly not justified.
As the Provisionals gradually move over into a constitutional political party, they will vacate revolutionary situations. We must fill these vacuums for if we do not those empty spaces will be filled by others. We must continue our consultation with our members on the ground on the advisability of contesting the coming Westminister elections as abstentionists. Should the Provos decide to sit in the British parliament thereby denying the whole basis of Sinn Féin, then we will be faced with a challenge we can hardly ignore.
The tasks to be confronted are surely monumental but duty calls us to the freedom struggle. It is now more widely accepted, as the days pass, among Republican-minded people that our analysis is correct, that we are right at this time - and have been since l986. We must then by the diligence of our work give leadership - nationally, on the international scene and back down to local level.
We must promote our policies at every opportunity that can be availed of. The prisoners must be supported and our newspaper SAOIRSE - Irish Freedom circulated as widely as possible . Where even two or three assemble the Republican view should be articulated, for even if people are not convinced by argument, the sheer logic of events on the ground as they unfold will bear out what we say.
This coming week marks the anniversary of the infamous Treaty of Surrender which reinforced Partition and unleashed a counter-revolution on a movement within reach of national freedom. By pogrom and sectarian killing in the Six Counties and bloody civil war in the rest of Ireland the 32-County Republic was suppressed.
Our task is to restore the march to national liberation disrupted then and several times since - most recently in l986. Above all else we must learn from such mistakes, mobilise support and maintain the forward momentum towards freedom - in our day.
Long live the All-Ireland Republic!
An Phoblacht Abú!
Ends.
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