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February 9, 1998
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The organisation also held a public meeting to mark the 80th Anniversary of the First Dáil in Buswells Hotel, Dublin later that evening (Thursday, January 21). Over 100 people attended and heard the Declaration of Independence read by Líta Ní Chathmhaoil, the Message to the Free Nations read by Ruairí Óg Ó Brádaigh and the Democratic Programme read by Seán McGoldrick.
The meeting was addressed by Éamon Larkin (south Armagh), Michael McManus (Fermanagh) and Pádraig Ó Baoighill (Monaghan). Dolours and Marion Price (former IRA prisoners and hunger strikers from Belfast) and relatives of JJ O’Kelly (Sceilg), one of the First Dáil TDs, were among the attendance.
Speaking from the floor Dolours Price said the Provisionals had sold out on the Irish struggle for freedom and she said “We have got to face them down. They have taken the wrong road”. Her sister Marion said that there could be no freedom while British rule and the Unionist Veto remained.
Responding to a question from a supporter of the Stormont Agreement Republican Sinn Féin President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said that the people were given no choice in the partitionist referendums in May 1998. Comparing it to the Treaty vote in 1921 he said that people were stampeded into voting for the Stormont Agreement and he quoted Liam Mellows who said that this was “the fear of the people and not the will of the people”.
He rejected those Leinster House politicians who alleged on RTÉ radio earlier that day that the Stormont Agreement vote superseded the 1918 General Election vote which returned Republican Sinn Féin with 70% of the seats in the First All-Ireland Dáil Éireann. “In December 1918, unlike May 1998, there was no threat of war, the people had choices in that they could vote for the Irish Parliamentary Party, the unionists or Sinn Féin.
“The Declaration of the First Dáil Éireann of January 21, 1919 said that there was no going back on the All-Ireland Republic and pledged that they would defend that Republic ‘by every means in their power’. Those who adhere to the constitution of Republican Sinn Féin are in direct lineal succession to the men and women of the First and Second All-Ireland Dáileanna which was subverted by the British-imposed Leinster House and Stormont regimes,” Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said.
(Text of letter to British Ambassador)
H.E. Mr Ivor Roberts,
British Ambassador,
Dublin
Mr Roberts, a chara
Beatha agus sláinte (greetings).
Republican Sinn Féin addresses you on the 80th Anniversary of the First Dáil Éireann and the adoption and promulgation of the Declaration of Independence by that duly elected All-Ireland parliament. We stand by that historic document even though the body which issued it was later suppressed in a British inspired counter-revolution.
As the incoming British representative to the 26-County State you have inherited a situation in Ireland which, as far as we are aware, was not of your making. Accordingly, Republican Sinn Féin wishes to bring certain facts to your notice.
Ireland is an historic nation entitled to its freedom and independence. It is not a revolted English colony to be divided up and have its unit of decision and franchise altered to suit British Establishment requirements. Neither is it to be allocated whatever degree of autonomy is suited to the interests of the English ruling classes.
The Stormont Agreement of April 10 last purported to perpetuate English rule in Ireland. This was done by supplementing the British government’s guarantee on the Unionist Veto with a further and similar guarantee from the Dublin Administration.
In the subsequent referenda in May the overall turn-out of voters in the 26 Counties was ‘disappointingly low’ at 56% according to the Referendum Commission’s report to the Department of the Environment (see Irish Times, December 11 last).
Further, the number of young people voting was much lower than that average. Of those aged 18 to 24 years, 38% only voted and for those under 40 years the turn-out was 44%. Despite these figures it has been reported that support for the Agreement was near unanimous.
Finally the commission concluded that “opinions were often emotional rather than reasoned with a simple desire for peace overwhelmingly dominating the thoughts of Yes voters”.
In the Six Counties the Agreement was urged on the electorate by two mutually exclusive and contradictory arguments. Nationalists were told it would weaken the Union with Britain and Unionists were assured it would strengthen it. Such an agreement cannot last.
For its part, Republican Sinn Féin — despite harassment and attempted intimidation — has continued to campaign politically for a planned and orderly British disengagement from Ireland and for a New Four-province federation, including a nine-county Ulster.
We enclose our ÉIRE NUA (A New Democracy) policy document as well as ‘Towards a Peaceful Ireland’ which charts the way forward through an All-Ireland constituent assembly. Also included are our social and economic programme SAOL NUA (A New Way of Life) which is based on Republican, Democratic, Socialist, environmental and self-reliance principles and a copy of the First Dáil Declaration of Independence.
We assure you that in time to come the people of Ireland will recover their courage and seek to move forward towards their historic objectives of English disengagement from their country and the achievement of a new and better Ireland.
Republican Sinn Féin hopes that during your stay in our country your attitude and work in this connection will be positive and not negative as has been the case with your predecessors.
We remain confident that the cause of Irish national independence will yet triumph and assure you that our determination to forge ahead with our programme remains undiminished.
Thar cheann na h-Ard-Chomhairle (on behalf of the Ard-Chomhairle).
Is mise
Ruairé Ó Brádaigh
President, Republican Sinn Féin.
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The meeting was held in Buswell’s Hotel, Molesworth Street, which happens to be situated mid-way between the Mansion House, where the First Dáil met, and Leinster House where the 26-County Assembly meets.
The speaker referred to “the body, styling itself ‘Dáil Éireann’, which meets nearby, but which can at most be called ‘Dáil na 26 Chontae’.
He continued:
“The First Dáil Éireann was the democratically elected Parliament of all Ireland and no body which represents only 26 of the 32 counties, and from whose election one-third of the people of Ireland are excluded, can rightfully claim to be Dáil Éireann or the successor of Dáil Éireann.
“The only successor of the First Dáil was the Second Dáil which was convened in Dublin on August 16, 1921, following elections held the previous May. Six of the TDs present represented constituencies within what has since become the Six-County State. The unionists chose not to attend.
“The Government of Ireland Act, 1920 was a Westminster enactment which purported to partition Ireland and set up two Parliaments, one in Dublin for 26 Counties and one in Belfast for Six Counties. The ‘Parliament of Northern Ireland’ was opened by King George V on June 22, 1921, and it lasted until it was prorogued and Direct Rule imposed or restored by Westminster in 1972. It was boycotted by nationalists from time to time but always by Republicans.
“Article 17 of the Treaty signed in London on December 6, 1921 provided as follows: ‘ . . . steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a Provisional Government and the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer . . . the powers and machinery required for the discharge of its duties . . . ‘
“Article 18, the last article of the Treaty, reads as follows: ‘This instrument shall be submitted by HM Government for the approval of parliament and by the Irish signatories to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, and if approved shall be ratified by the necessary legislation.’
The speaker continued: “On January 6, 1922, Dáil Éireann approved the terms of the Treaty by 64 votes to 57. The Dáil had thus placed itself in an impossible position. Five days later, on January 11, Arthur Griffith summoned the elected representatives of the 26 Counties, and those only, to a meeting in the Mansion House on January 14 ‘pursuant to the provisions of Clauses 17 and 18 of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty’. He signed the letter as ‘Chairman of the Irish Delegation of Plenipotentiaries’.
“This was the ‘Parliament of Southern Ireland’, which, with the already convened ‘Parliament of Northern Ireland’ would subvert the 32-County Republic and supplant the All-Ireland Dáil.
“They approved the Treaty and elected a Provisional Government for the 26 Counties. The British government transferred certain powers to them and they gave place to the Government of the Irish Free State on December 6, 1922, as provided for in the Treaty.
“Those deputies who upheld the Republican position ignored and boycotted both partition assemblies.
“The Leinster House assembly is the lineal descendant of this Parliament of Southern Ireland, begotten in the Westminster Government of Ireland Act, 1920 and called into existence by Arthur Griffith, as he and others implemented the Treaty in January, 1922.
“Apart from all of this, calling Leinster House ‘Dáil Éireann’ is a misnomer, since it represents only 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland.”
Seán Ó Brádaigh said he hoped this would help to clarify the situation and shed some light on the confusion caused by the big lie which has been repeated down the years since 1922.
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Born into the Republican tradition, his father Michael fought on the Republican side and was interned in Hare Park Internment Camp in the Curragh, Co Kildare during the Civil War.
Bill himself joined the Republican Movement in Glanmire in the early 1940s and became active in the struggle from then on.
In 1969 when reformist elements tried to subvert the Republican Movement, Bill was one of those who stood firm against this move.
In 1986 he again saw the threat to the Republican ideal and was again firm in his commitment and would not waver, despite the pressure put on him by the new anti-Republican elements who wished to subvert the Republican ideal.
In 1964 Bill became a member of the Cork IRA staff and worked extremely hard in his capacity as QM. He later became O/C of the Cork County Command.
In 1975 after a raid on his home by the Special Branch political police he was forced to go on ‘the run’.
He remained on the run until 1987, then because of ill-health he returned home. His ill health limited the amount of work Bill was able to accomplish for the cause, but it did not limit his commitment.
In his youth Bill played hurling with Sarsfield’s GAA in Glanmire and also cycled with Glanmire Cycling Club. In 1948 he was forced to choose between cycling and hurling and he chose cycling. This proved to be a wise choice as he went on to win county, Munster and All-Ireland cycling championships in the 1940/50s.
He was also a great fan and supporter of Irish music and was a regular attender at the local and national fleadhanna Cheoil.
To his wife Mary who he married in 1969, his brother Jack, nephew and nieces the Republican Movement extends its sympathy to them on their great loss.
I measc laochra na nGael go raibh a anam.
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Danny, who was a life-long Republican joined Na Fianna Éireann in 1930 and was a passenger on board the truck commandeered by Limerick Republicans, in an effort to get to the Bodenstown Commemoration. In that year 1936 the Fianna Fáil administration had banned the event.
One of those on board with Danny was Seán Glynn who was later to die in Arbour Hill jail, after the truck was stopped by Free State Forces and many of those aboard sentenced to prison. Danny and five other members of Na Fianna Éireann were released because of their youth.
In 1938 Danny joined the IRA and began training for the forthcoming English campaign. With the first round-up of those the Free State intended to intern, Danny went on the run.
He was on the run until his arrest in August 1940 and was interned until May 1944. On his release, Danny reported back to the Movement to continue his commitment to Irish freedom. When the Movement decided to strengthen the Sinn Féin position he was one of the first to join the Cumann which had been started in Limerick by Paddy Mulcahy and others.
Danny was a candidate in the local elections in Limerick on two occasions. Always very active locally he was a member of many committees in his local area. He was a founder member of NATO and was foremost in all their efforts to get better living conditions for Corporation tenants. He also campaigned against water rates.
In 1986 when the Republican position was again under threat, Danny along with other ex-internees met under the chairperson of Jack Crowe who was OC Curragh Internees.
They concluded that the course being proposed would not lead to Irish freedom and they rejected it in favour of the strategy proposed by Republican Sinn Féin.
In his last convesation with the writer of this article Danny said that acceptance of any of the two statelets by Republicans always ended up with the same tragic results.
Danny was pre-deceased by his wife Kitty in October 1988. He is survived by his son, three daughters and grand-children.
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The main thrust of Kelleher’s argument, an argument he has advanced all of his life, from the Curragh internment camp in the ’40s through to the Connolly Association with C Desmond Greaves, who seems to have been a major influence on him, is that the major cause of division in Ireland is not sectarian. ie Protestant versus Catholic, but rather between Monarchism and Republicanism which as Kelleher points out support for either position has historically crossed religious boundaries, class being the deciding factor in which side one upheld, Monarchy or Republicanism, invariably it has been those on the margins, the poor and dispossessed who have sided with Republicanism whilst those with access to power and wealth, such as the landed Aristocracy and the Catholic Hierarchy have stood on the side of Monarchy.
Kelleher sees both Musgrave, who in the early 19th century wrote what is regarded as the official British history of 1798 and Kavanagh in his history written in the late 19th century, portrayed the rising as a priest led Catholic revolt, as two sides of the one coin, each deliberately giving a distorted view of Irish history, from different perspectives but with a common purpose of subverting Republicanism.
It is significant that the Orange Order and the Catholic Seminary at Maynooth were both founded in 1795, each with the patronage of the British Government. A condition of the grant which Maynooth received from the British Government was that all entrants must take an oath of allegiance to the English Crown, that the Catholic Hierarchy paid more than mere lip service to this oath is evident by their words and actions during 1798.
The Archbishop of Dublin John Troy, in a letter read at all Masses in his diocese at the height of the rising, reminded his flock of the:
“Heinousness of violating the laws of our country and of attempting by insurrection and murder to subvert the Government of our gracious King” he warned them: “Let no one deceive you by wretched impracticable speculations on the rights of man and the majesty of the people.”
He ended by urging them to: “Unite with all your loyal and peaceable fellow subjects to crush the wicked spirit of insurrection.”
John Troy was not unique, his colleagues throughout Ireland were equally vociferous in the condemnation they heaped upon the United Irish Movement and its leaders.
What is clear from all of this is that the Catholic Church and the Orange Order have each played their part in furthering British policy in Ireland by nurturing sectarian divisions between the Irish people, in contradiction to the stated aim of the Society of United Irishmen, to unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.
What is equally clear is that the 1798 Rising was neither a Protestant or Catholic rising, firmly based upon the principles of Democracy, Justice and Equality with the creation of a sovereign independent Irish Republic, the primary objective of the Rising.
In an addendum Derry Kelleher would appear to argue that any further struggle must concentrate on the Civil Rights agenda within the Six Counties. This would be to deal with the symptom rather than the cause, the question of Civil Rights and Equality cannot adequately be addressed whilst the Six County State exists and the British presence in Ireland remains.
However as Derry Kelleher makes clear, those who would take up the cause of a Free and Independent Ireland must have a solid grounding in an understanding of the true nature and history of Irish Republicanism and so properly share our common Dissenter heritage.
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For almost thirty years Fr Raymond Murray Has vigorously campaigned against British Government Human Rights abuses in the Six Counties. Along with Fr Denis Faul he has been a meticulous compiler of Britain’s Human Rights violations in Ireland. He is co-author of 33 books and pamphlets, dealing with such issues as harassment and intimidation, the use of plastic and rubber bullets, inhuman and degrading treatment of those in RUC or British Army custody and collusion between British Intelligence and Loyalist Death Squads.
Patrick McNally of Armagh, one of the twelve ‘Hooded Men’ tortured in Ballykelley Barracks in August 1971 describes in graphic detail the physical and mental torture endured by he and the other 11 men subjected to a regime of sensory deprivation, which entailed being hooded, spread-eagled against a wall and deprived of sleep for a period of days at a time, whilst also being exposed to high pitched noise or ‘white noise’. All of this was interrupted only by a series of interrogations which included severe beatings. This statement was taken from Patrick McNally by Fr Raymond Murray in March 1974.
Murray also recorded testimony from those tortured in Girdwood Barracks and Palace Barracks, these were originally published in pamphlet from in 1972 entitled British Army and Special Branch Brutalities. Among the methods of torture used was the application of electric shocks to the body.
Patrick Fitzsimons who had been a celebrated amateur boxer described the treatment meted out to him. “They took me into another room. They told me not to look around but I saw a man with a green apron and green overalls with a mask like a doctor. He was a big heavy-set man. They made me sit on a chair facing the wall. They blinded my eyes with a cloth. They rubbed my arm with some stuff and I felt a jab in my arm. I felt my head dizzy. Then I thought they were taking my blood pressure for a band was wrapped round my arm. It got higher and higher and I felt it going through my legs and the rest of my body.
“I was holding on to the arm of the chair. Another person lifted my arm off the chair, told me so sit ordinary without holding anything. The shocks went all through my body, down through my feet and all. Then I heard a voice saying ‘I think he has had enough.’ The other replied, ‘Electrocute the bastard’. The things round my eyes and arm were taken off.” (pages 59-60). It is clear from such testimonies that the people of the Six Counties were being used as ‘Guinea Pigs’ as Britain perfected its methods of repression and counter-insurgency.
In its arsenal Britain has included the use of pseudo gangs similar to those used in Kenya and Aden. The UDA and the UVF were as Raymond Murray points, used as a Third Force which could be turned on and off when required.
“So close has been the collusion between the State and one Loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, that it took twenty years to proscribe them, even though this group has murdered more than 500 innocent Catholics, men, women and children.” (page 180).
This book bringing together as it does almost thirty years of investigation and research exposes the true nature of British Rule in Ireland.
We see the British State War Machine in all its many guises. Internment and the torture and brutality meted out in Ballykelley Palace and Girdwood barracks, names which will forever ignite only fear and loathing in the heart of the Nationalist community.
The use of rubber and plastic bullets which have claimed the lives of sixteen people, eight of them children over the past thirty years. The deployment of Loyalist Death Squads and a policy of Shoot-to-Kill implemented particularly by the RUC and SAS.
The people of the Six Counties have seen it all. special forces, special courts and special prisons all with one objective, to bolster a sectarian and gerrymandered state and deny the people of Ireland their right to national self-determination.
Raymond Murray in summing up the last thirty years calls for the establishment of a ‘Truth Commission’, based on the South African model. However, in this writer’s opinion such a ‘Commission’ would be premature, as unlike South Africa, we do not have a final settlement as the root causes of the conflict have not been addressed, the State responsible for these gross abuses of Human and Civil Rights remains in place.
We can only finally lay the ghosts of our past to rest when we have removed the cause of injustice in Ireland, which is Britain’s presence in Ireland.
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Web layout by SAOIRSE -- Irish Freedom February 9, 1998 Send links, events notifications, articles, comments etc, to the editor at: saoirse@iol.ie marked "attention web-editor". |