An Phoblacht, March 2018

March 2018 Márta

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‘WE HAVE BIG IDEAS’ NOW IS THE OPPORTUNITY TO PROVE WE CAN DELIVER!

EXCLUSIVE

Interview with new Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald

One year on...

An Phoblacht looks at the life and legacy of Martin McGuinness

THE STORY IN PICTURES

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Social EU?... Repealing the 8th Paul Mason writes about the challenges facing the EU post Brexit - 6

Louise O’Reilly on the need for a grassroots campaign to win the referendum - 9

MAKE NO MISTAKE, IRISH UNITY IS UPON US - 25

A great team determined to deliver Irish unity and real change.

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AN PHOBLACHT Editor: Robbie Smyth An Phoblacht is published monthly by Sinn Féin. The views in An Phoblacht are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sinn Féin. We welcome articles, opinions and photographs from new contributors but contact the Editor first.

An Phoblacht, Kevin Barry House, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone: (+353 1) 872 6 100.

Email: editor@anphoblacht.com www.anphoblacht.com

CONTRIBUTORS

NEW LEADER NEW DYNAMIC Mary Lou McDonald speaks about leading Sinn Féin into government north and south

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SEE PAGE

MARTIN’S LEGACY

Gerry Adams writes about his friend and great leader, Martin McGuinness

A socially just Europe is possible

Paul Mason looks at the EU project and the task to make Europe progressive and more accountable 6

Why we must repeal the 8th amendment

Louise O’Reilly TD calls for an active grassroots campaign to achieve the repeal of the 8th

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The Conscription Crisis of 1918

Mícheál Mac Donncha writes about Irish resistance to the British government’s conscription policy 11 Gerry Adams TD

Paul Mason

Make no mistake, Irish Unity is upon us

Kevin Meagher argues that Irish unity should be firmly at the top of the political agenda

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Economist Michael Taft on the need to unleash the economic and social potential of civil society

Leadership is about rolling up your sleeves and getting things done.

Mary Lou McDonald SEE PAGES 3-5

Bring on the Productive Economy Michael Taft

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Social progress in Ireland has far to go Kevin Meagher

Ruairí Creaney examines social progress, but believes that conservative Ireland is not dead

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Postcards from a New Republic Louise O’Reilly TD

Sinéad Ní Bhroin tips the hat to the work of socialist designer and artist William Morris

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Iar-Uachtaráin Sinéad Ní Bhroin

Michael McMonagle

With the new Sinn Féin president elected, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD reviews our past leaders

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Trí gháir ar chnoc Máirtín Ó Muilleoir ag caint ar an streachailt reatha do chearta Gaeilge agus d’Acht ó thuaidh

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Mícheál Mac Donncha

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EDITORIAL

anphoblacht EAGARTHÓIREACHT

The Republican voice will be heard

F ROBBIE SMYTH editor@anphoblacht.com

The An Phoblacht magazine will be a forum to hear alternative challenging views about Ireland and the wider international world today.

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áilte Mór to the readers of the new An Phoblacht magazine and the latest episode in the development of an alternative republican voice.

With An Phoblacht online and on Twitter and Facebook the quarterly magazine will be a longer read and a complementary publication to the daily An Phoblacht on your smartphone or desktop.

The An Phoblacht magazine will be a forum to hear alternative challenging views about Ireland and the wider international world today. It will also give voice to our growing number of elected Sinn Féin representatives, this edition has a piece by Dublin North TD Louise O’Reilly on the Repeal the 8th amendment campaign.

It will also profile voices and views outside of the Sinn Féin tent. This edition has articles by author and film maker Paul Mason, economic analyst and trade union activist Michael Taft, CWU organiser Ruairí Creaney, and author Kevin Meagher.

Mason writes a compelling piece that highlights clearly the rifts and flaws in the EU today while pointing the way to a socially just Europe. Taft’s contribution is a call for us all to rethink how we approach economic issues.

Creaney tackles the lack of social progress in Irish society. Kevin Meagher argues that a United Ireland is closer than you think!

From leftfield comes Sinéad Ní Bhroin’s Postcards from a New Republic.

Read it and see what you think.

The historical pieces that were so popular in the old An Phoblacht are still here. Sinn Féin councillor and current Dublin City Mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha takes us back to the 1918 conscription crisis while Dublin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh provides pen pictures of all the past presidents of Sinn Féin, which brings us to the centrepiece of this edition – an interview with new Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald.

One of the older versions of the An Phoblacht newspaper used a United Irishmen emblem as part of its logo. The harp emblem contained the words ‘It is new strung and shall be heard’. This is how we feel about the new An Phoblacht magazine. We hope you enjoy the read and keep current with An Phoblacht online and on Twitter and Facebook.

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UACHTARÁN SHINN FÉIN

Mary Lou McDonald

INTERVIEW :: AGALLAMH

Sinn Féin president, Mary Lou McDonald TD talks about her vision for the future of Ireland and Sinn Féin.

IN THIS interview for the first edition of the new magazine format of An Phoblacht, new Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, has said she wants to lead a dynamic, vibrant and diverse party into government north and south.

In a wide ranging interview, the new Uachtarán Shinn Féin talks about her family, her background, introduction to politics and her vision for the future of Sinn Féin and Ireland.

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE

The Dublin Central TD was elected as Sinn Féin leader, taking over from former President Gerry Adams, at a Sinn Féin special Ard Fheis in the RDS in February. At the same Ard Fheis, Michelle O’Neill was elected as Deputy Leader of the party, a position formally held by Mary Lou McDonald.

Mary Lou McDonald has been a familiar face on the political scene in Ireland for many years, having represented Dublin in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009 when she became vice-president of Sinn Féin. She was elected to the Dáil for the Dublin Central constituency in 2011, a seat she has held since then.

While the new Sinn Féin President is well known and well respected across the country and further afield, many people may not be aware of the person behind the politician.

Here she discusses her influences and motivations and her vision for republicanism across the island.

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How does it feel to have been elected as Sinn Féin President?

I am so proud and honoured by the confidence entrusted to me by the party membership. It’s a little daunting on a personal level. That said I’m ready, and I believe we as a party are ready for the challenges and opportunities ahead. I’m surrounded by a great team of really talented and determined people who like me are looking forward to this next phase in the party’s development.

What kind of leader will you be?

I think I am approachable. I’m a good team player and I’m a strong believer in the benefits of teamwork. I can be impatient.

Leadership is about rolling up your sleeves, sorting things out and getting things done. I also believe it’s important for leaders in all spheres of life but particularly in politics to be true to yourself and to bring your own political instincts, political priorities, approach, and personality to the work you do.

Tell us a little bit about your childhood?

My mother Joan is fantastic. She is a very steadying influence for me and our family. Our extended family are close. I have two brothers and a sister with whom I had good craic growing up. We had a very regular, happy childhood. I loved my school and I had great friends. I did all of the things kids should and should not do as I was growing up.

My mother is from Tipperary so we would spend all our summers in the Glen of Aherlow with my grandmother Molly who was a huge influence in my life.

You have two children?

I do, Iseult and Gearóid and I’m married to Martin. We live in Cabra which is a fabulous community. The kids go to school locally. Gearóid is 11 and a fanatical hurler. Iseult is14 and she is smart as a whip.

Martin is an enormous support to me. I simply could not do what I do without his support at home and with the children.

My biggest wish for my children is that they are happy, and I want this for all children on this great island. I expect them to work hard, they know that. Perhaps more importantly I expect them to always to do their best, that matters to me. When you’re young there is a great life lesson in applying yourself to something and whatever it is you do in life, that you do your best and that you pursue things that you believe in.

What were the political influences on your life growing up?

My grandmother Molly, who lived in the Glen of Aherlow. She was hugely impor-

I’m a good team player and I’m a strong believer in the benefits of teamwork.

‘I believe that we will be in Government north and south to deliver real changes across Irish society’ tant in terms of how I understood life and politics. I learned a lot from that deep republican sentiment that Molly had. My mother is also very political, not just in terms of national politics, but international. Growing up we would sit at our kitchen table and debate things that were happening all across the world.

Why did you become politically active?

Mostly because of events all around me,

what was happening in the north but also I could see the increasingly disparity between the haves and the have nots, and I understood it doesn’t have to be this way.

We have nothing to lose and everything to gain from equality of opportunity.

Why did you decide to become active in Sinn Féin?

I remember the first time that I saw Gerry and Martin speak. It was in the Mansion

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House, and I went along with a friend of mine. The place was packed and I remember saying to my friend on the way out, “This is real, this isn’t political rhetoric.

This is history in the making.”

At that point I decided not alone that I would be politically active but that Sinn Féin would be my political home.

What do you like best about being a public representative?

Politics is a tough game and it’s still tougher for women. Yet every day I meet people in my own constituency and beyond who let me into their lives and share their experiences. That’s a huge privilege. I also get to lead of team of remarkable selfless elected representatives across this island who like me want to tackle

inequality and manage the economy to the benefit of all. I work alongside the best of the best. What more could a woman want?

What’s your aspiration for Sinn Fein?

I want to lead a very dynamic, vibrant and diverse party. One that is friendly, welcoming, has a real sense of purpose and is clear on its direction. I believe that we will be in Government north and south to deliver real changes across Irish society. Universal healthcare and significant investment in childcare to better support families; secure work and a living wage; investment in infrastructure and rural Ireland to develop an economy that works for everyone. We have big ideas, and all we ask is for the opportunity to prove we can deliver on them.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald and new vice president Michelle O’Neill

I want to lead a very dynamic, vibrant and diverse party.

One that is friendly, welcoming, has a real sense of purpose and is clear on its direction. anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

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Journalist, author and film-maker Paul Mason explores the EU project and its many facets.

A socially just Europe is possible

THE centrist political elites who run Europe are displaying an irrational appetite for political risk. Either they don’t know, or

BY PAUL they don’t care, that the MASON entire EU project is in severe danger. That’s the only explanation for the insouciant way they are dealing with right-wing populism and the centrifugal forces sweeping politics.

In Poland you have the rule of law under attack – both via the attempt to rig the judiciary and, now, with a law banning debate on the complicity of some Poles in the Holocaust.

In Hungary you have a government using taxpayers’ money to mount an anti-semitic campaign against the philanthropist George Soros.

In Austria you have the first open coalition government between a party of the neoliberal centre and a party of the xenophobic right, resurrecting Nazi-era language.

In Spain you have the elected leaders of the Catalan parliament in jail for 120 days without trial, for exercising the most fundamental right in the bourgeois democratic thought system: the right of nations to selfdetermination.

These are not peripheral problems.

They are symptoms that the narrative the European Union is built on has begun to fall apart. Consent for inward migration is under stress, so is consent for cross-border migration where it suppresses wage growth and places services under pressure.

At the same time there is 6

falling consent for the pooling of sovereignty necessary to solve the economic problems that have dogged Europe since 2008.

When Jean Claude Juncker outlined five reform options for the EU in March last year I was one of the first to call for “option six” – a Europe of social justice. https://www.socialeurope.eu/option-six-aeurope-of-democracy-and-social-justice At the heart of that project would be a new social standard for core members of the EU to aim at. A new Treaty of the EU should mandate the equalisation upwards of all social rights and living standards.

The aim of a rapidly equalising minimum wage and social welfare provision would be to quickly regain consent for free movement within Europe and to boost consent for an active inward migration policy under the democratic control of the peoples of the EU. To maintain consent for the pooling of sovereignty, the only option is to make the European Parliament a full legislature, reserve some rights for national governments, and completely depoliticise and disempower the Commission.

The UK’s conservative government has... used Brexit to inject a sectarian dynamic once again into Northern Irish politics.

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But it is fairly clear that these measures would be, and are, vigorously opposed by the right-wing authoritarian governments of central and Eastern Europe.

And this is no longer just some theoretical or niche issue for policy wonks and civil servants. If you give the Parliament added power, but allow kleptocrats and racists in Warsaw and Budapest to manipulate their own electorates, abuse the state media, victimise NGOs fighting for human rights – then the entire EU electoral system becomes unfree.

It means Irish MEPs are sitting in the Brussels and Strasbourg parliament alongside people elected in conditions that would suit an emerging world kleptocracy. When the democratic ethos is undermined in Poland it is undermined in Ireland – to the extent that the EU countries share sovereignty. And sooner or later, as electorates in Europe’s mature democracies see long-cherished goals blocked, and principles undermined, by antidemocratic forces, consent for the whole project will come under greater stress.

The huge mistake we made – one of the many delusions of the neoliberal era – was to think that the ruling elites and upper middle classes of certain East European countries had bought liberalism along with neoliberalism. It’s now clear they did not. The more you ask “why are they doing this”, the more you hear Polish, Hungarian and sadly even Austrian anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

academics say: illiberalism, xenophobia and social conservatism are strongly rooted in the elite culture.

So the core Europe of social justice won’t have 27 members. That’s a sad fact for the youth of the countries that will be left behind – and progressives in Ireland have to do the best we can to build capacity for democratic institutions and support for progressives in the countries where democracy and the rule of law are under threat, and xenophobia rampant.

Unfortunately, one of those countries is my own.

The UK’s conservative government has – with the usual Tory mixture of historical ignorance and cold calculation – used Brexit to inject a sectarian dynamic once again into Northern Irish politics. By co-opting the DUP Theresa May has handed its leadership the power to eviscerate the Good Friday Agreement.

What happens next in the Brexit process is highly uncertain, and how the pieces fall into place will affect the future of Europe too.

It’s possible that Theresa May will face down her own cabinet and adopt some form of soft-ish Brexit that keeps Britain in an open trade relationship with Europe. But it is more likely that a combination of the EU’s negotiating position with the desire of her own cabinet will make hard Brexit the only option.

British prime minster Theresa May – it’s possible she will face down her own cabinet, but more likely will make hard Brexit the only option.

In the UK, Brexit has, for some, become an undeclared project of English nationalism.

Progressives in Britain can’t stop Brexit, but it’s entirely within our democratic right to make sure that 7

Main Picture: The DUP which has given the British Tory party a blank cheque on Brexit and which is working against the democratically expressed wishes of the people in the North to remain in the EU. Below: The ‘offer’, crazed as it may seem, of a new union between Britain and Ireland is actually entertained by some parts of the English nationalist elite.

if May brings a hard Brexit bill to parliament it can be defeated. If so, the government will fall and, hopefully, we can have a progressive coalition between Labour, the Greens and the progressive nationalist parties of Wales and Scotland.

But if we fail, and the Tories precipitate a hard Brexit, my experience reporting the 2014 Scottish referendum suggests that, within a generation, Scotland will be independent. In that situation, the DUP – riding high with its billion pounds and direct rule – will find itself up the proverbial creek.

In the UK, Brexit has, for some, become an undeclared project of English nationalism – a nationalism that is, symbiotically obsessed with the language and symbolism of Northern Irish Unionism.

When I speak to business and finance people in Dublin they are mystified as to some parts of the British elite’s attitude to the Irish border question. Unfortunately it is not only the product of lack of knowledge or focus - it is driven in some cases by a quite visceral and historic antipathy. The ‘offer’ of a new union between the UK and Éire – crazed as it may seem to readers of this magazine – is actually entertained seriously by some parts of this English nationalist elite.

So, as the left renews itself in Ireland the search for pro-active and democratic solutions to the border issue are a problem everyone has to own.

The remarkable fact remains that, as Britain enters a process of destructive disengagement with Europe, Ireland remains likely to be at its core. Staying inside a Europe gripped by centrifugal forces and xenophobia is going to be a challenge. If the EU project fails strategically, then the left has to recalibrate.

But achieving a large, core, consolidated group of countries with 8

harmonised banking, fiscal and social welfare arrangements – and a vibrant democratic culture - has to be the aim of every left party within the EU. Paul Mason is a journalist, author and film-maker.

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Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly on the upcoming referendum

Why we must repeal the 8th amendment

The 8th Amendment was put into the Constitution in 1983.

This year Sinn Féin will be campaigning for its repeal in the upcoming referendum. anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

IN 1983 when the 8th amendment was inserted into Bunreacht na hÉireann this state was a very different one to the one we live in today.

BY LOUISE O’REILLY TD

It was the time of the Kerry Babies case. The horrific treatment of cancer patient Sheila Hodgers and the tragic death of Ann Lovett and her baby are other incidences that mark this era.

The Roman Catholic church was still a very powerful influence and there was an institutionalised and deep rooted distrust of women. In that climate it was felt that society needed to cement its opposition to abortion in this state and from there came the referendum which gave equal rights to life to a pregnant woman and to a foetus.

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The scandal of the investigation of Joanne Hayes still reverberates 30 years on.

A number of medical professionals gave evidence to the Citizens’ Assembly on the 8th Amendment.

The death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012 provoked renewed debate on the 8th Amendment.

Young campaigners at a recent demonstration calling for the repeal of the 8th Amendment.

This was a religious and social affairs issue and although I was only ten at the time I remember well the debates and the many many men who spoke on the national media about the issue of abortion.

Women’s voices (from my recollection) were largely silent in the debate and the church played a major role in the campaign at the time which was characterised by moralising – lawyers not doctors were to the forefront of the debate.

Thirty five years later the issue of abortion access is very firmly placed in the rightful realm of women’s health care.

This was evidenced by the number of medical professionals who gave evidence to both the Citizens’ Assembly and the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment.

The medical professionals were in agreement – the eighth amendment means that they are prevented from delivering a full range of healthcare services to women.

This was clear from the evidence given by current and former Masters of Maternity Hospitals – they want to be able to deliver

healthcare to women and the eighth amendment is a huge impediment to this.

Sinn Féin will be out campaigning with those who want to see the eighth amendment repealed – we have listened to women and healthcare professionals and to our members have decided that we will be enthusiastically backing the campaign to repeal.

Our Uachtarán, Mary Lou McDonald made it very clear when she said that we need to see the eighth repealed and we need to trust women.

However, we as campaigners and activists know this won’t happen overnight and it won’t happen without political leadership.

That is why as the only party with a substantial grassroots membership that backs repeal, it is our responsibility to provide the political and community leadership which is so essential.

We do not want to see another X case, another Y case another tragic death like that of Savita Halappanavar – women have been let down for too long.

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We are not going to be driven to that slaughterpen in Flanders at the bidding of a government that is dripping red with the blood of our best countrymen.

– Hanna Sheehy Skeffington

An insane proposal.

– Dublin City Council They might as well recruit Germans.

– Bryan Mahon, British Army Commander-inChief in Ireland

A declaration of war on the Irish nation.

– Mansion House conference statement If they do not come, we will fetch them.

– Lord French

The Conscription Crisis of 1918 MASS IRISH RESISTANCE TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

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BY DUBLIN MAYOR MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Between the 1916 Rising and the December 1918 General Election the biggest crisis faced by the British government in Ireland and the most seismic shift in Irish politics was the confrontation provoked by the attempt to impose conscription – compulsory service in the British Army by men of military age in Ireland.

By the spring of 1918 the war was well into its fifth horrendous year and there was no stopping the mass slaughter that since shortly after its beginning had seen millions of men transported to the fronts to be annihilated in industrial scale warfare. With Russia out of the war after the new Soviet Republic made peace, Germany was able to launch an all-out offensive on the Western Front in March which threatened to break the Allied line completely.

Britain was running out of cannon fodder and the War Coalition made up of Prime Minister Lloyd George’s Liberals and the Conservative and Unionist Party set their sights on the young men of Ireland. Recruitment to the British Army from Ireland, while very substantial, had failed to meet War Office expectations and it had declined as the war went on. This was due to a combination of horror at the scale of casualties, nationalist disillusionment with British broken promises of Home Rule, inspiration by the bravery of the men and women of the 1916 Rising, and revulsion at the executions, mass imprisonment and repression which followed the Rising.

Even before the Rising there had been concern in Ireland that conscription might be imposed. The President of the Irish Volunteers, Eoin Mac Néill, was not aware of the plans of the Irish Republican Brotherhood for a Rising and was against offensive action. However he did support armed action if the British government tried to impose conscription. A letter in the ‘Irish Volunteer – Óglach na hÉireann’ in October 1915 from the AntiConscription Committee called on Nationalist Ireland to organise at once against conscription. The Volunteer Executive issued directions to every Irish Volunteer that in the final resort it is his duty to “lose his life rather than suffer himself to be disarmed”.

In December 1915 a public meeting against conscription filled Dublin’s Mansion House to overflowing and was addressed by Eoin Mac Néill and PH Pearse who said that “if any man loved the English Empire, let him go and fight for the Empire, but that the men of Ireland would never submit to be conscripted”.

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In January 1916 when conscription was introduced for Britain, but not Ireland, John Redmond in the House of Commons said that he was not opposed on principle but he did not think it was necessary and would be counter-productive in Ireland “under the conditions of the moment”. Eoin Mac Néill condemned Redmond for this statement while crediting Redmond’s deputy John Dillon with speaking strongly against conscription in the Commons. “Mr Redmond will learn one of these days that his attitude has ceased to command any respect among the Irish people,” stated Mac Néill prophetically.

John Redmond died in March 1918; his hopes of a Home Rule Ireland, dominated by his Irish Party and within the British Empire, had been shattered by the war and the Rising. The death-blow to his party was struck by the British Cabinet when on 28 March it decided to impose conscription in Ireland. Top British general Sir Henry Wilson said he was “not afraid to take 100,000 – 150,000 recalcitrant conscripted Irishmen into an army of two and a half million fighting in five theatres of war”. US President Woodrow Wilson, conscious of the strong Irish lobby in the United States, warned of trouble there if conscription were imposed on Ireland.

On 8 April Dublin City Council passed a resolution that warned the British Government “against the disastrous results of any attempt to enforce conscription... any such insane proposal, which, if put into operation, would be resisted violently in every town and village in the country, ending in a great loss of life and establishing a battle front in Ireland…” The motion called on the Lord Mayor Laurence O’Neill to invite Irish Party, Sinn Féin and Irish Trades Union Congress leaders to meet him to organise a national campaign against conscription.

On 10 April Lloyd George introduced the Military Service Bill to increase the military age in Britain to 51 and to impose conscription in Ireland. In a typical publicity gesture, the Prime Minister accompanied the announcement of conscription with a promise that the Government would prepare to enact Home Rule legislation. After many such broken promises this ‘sweetener’ was regarded with deep cynicism in Ireland.

Some in the British administration in Ireland also warned Lloyd George’s government against conscription. Joseph Byrne, Inspector General of the Royal Irish Constabulary, predicted chaos if it were attempted while Bryan Mahon, head of the British Army in Ireland, said the Government “might as well conscript Germans”.

But these voices were ignored while Field Marshal Lord French and the Imperial establishment in London urged Lloyd George to MARCH2018MÁRTA anphoblacht

go ahead.

statement:

The Military Service Bill was passed in the House of Commons on 16 April by 301 votes to 103. The Irish nationalists all voted against and John Dillon, who succeeded Redmond as leader of the Irish Party, led them out of the House and back to Ireland in protest. This was effectively the end of the substantial Irish nationalist presence in the British House of Commons which had existed since the time of Parnell.

The initiative now passed to Sinn Féin, pledged, since its Ard Fheis in October 1917, to an Irish Republic, to abstention from Westminster and to establishing a National Assembly in Ireland.

“An attempt is being made to enforce conscription upon Ireland against the will of the Irish nation and in defiance of the protests of its leaders… We consider that conscription forced in this way upon Ireland is an oppressive and inhuman law, which the Irish people have a right to resist with all means consonant with the law of God.”

Lord Mayor Laurence O’Neill convened the anti-conscription conference in the Mansion House on 18 April. Sinn Féin was represented by its new President since October 1917, Éamon de Valera, MP for Clare, and by its founder Arthur Griffith.

For the Irish Party there were MPs John Dillon and Joe Devlin. The trade union movement had William O’Brien, Thomas Johnson and Michael Egan. William O’Brien MP represented the All for Ireland League; Tim Healy MP represented independent interests.

This was a very broad front, including individuals and parties that had been vehemently opposed to one another. The presence of such a strong trade union delegation was highly significant and was to prove decisive in the subsequent campaign.

The Mansion House meeting adopted the anti-conscription pledge: “Denying the right of the British government to enforce compulsory service in this country, we pledge ourselves solemnly to one another to resist conscription by the most effective means at our disposal.”

The meeting also issued a joint declaration which took its stand on “Ireland’s separate and distinct nationhood” and denied the right of the British government to impose conscription and said that the passing of the legislation in Westminster “must be regarded as a declaration of war on the Irish nation… The attempt to enforce it will be an unwarrantable aggression…”

De Valera made clear that, whatever the others did, the Irish Volunteers would resist in arms any attempt to enforce conscription. He had also conveyed this to representatives of the Irish Catholic bishops. Their normally cautious and conservative stance was challenged by conscription and they had little option but to support the determined opposition to it.

The Mansion House conference adjourned to send a deputation consisting of the Lord Mayor, Éamon de Valera, John Dillon, Tim Healy and William O’Brien (trade union leader) to Maynooth where the bishops were meeting. The deputation urged the bishops to support the pledge, which they did, and they issued their own anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

When the delegates returned to Dublin that evening thousands of people were gathered outside the Mansion House to cheer them.

The Irish Party had withdrawn its candidate from the Offaly by-election on the next day, 19 April, thus ensuring that Sinn Féin candidate Patrick McCartan was returned unopposed.

On 20 April, the Irish Trade Union Congress held an emergency conference in the Mansion House attended by 1,500 delegates. It was decided to have a general strike on 23 April. The Irish Women Workers Union marched to City Hall and pledged to join the resistance.

On Sunday 21 April, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the 32 Counties signed the anti-conscription pledge. Preparations then began for the general strike.

The Irish trade union movement had grown enormously since the 1913 Dublin Lockout. The largest union, the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, had 5,000 members in 1916. By the end of 1918 the ITGWU had 68,000 members.

It was the backbone of the strike on 23 April.

Historian of the ITGWU, C Desmond Greaves, has described the strike as “the greatest shut-down in Irish history”.

Factories, shops, schools and workplaces of all kinds closed. Workers paraded in towns throughout the country and the strike was effective in every county. It was incomplete in Belfast and surrounding districts yet 3,000 workers, many of them Protestants, attended an anti-conscription rally outside City Hall. In Ballycastle, County Antrim, it was reported that Orange and Green marched together with bands playing ‘The Boyne Water’ and ‘A Nation Once Again’.

The British Labour Party and Trade Union Congress issued a joint statement with the Irish TUC condemning conscription.

9 June was ‘Lá na mBan’ when thousands of women gathered all over the country and declared: “Because the enforcement of conscription on any people without their consent is tyranny, we are resolved to resist the conscription of Irishmen. We will not fill the places of men deprived of their work through refusing enforced military service.”

It was a measure of the depth of hostility to Ireland in the British government that, despite this mass opposition, they still proposed to go ahead with 13

conscription. In May Lord French was appointed Lord LieutenantGeneral and General Governor of Ireland, after he had told Lloyd George he would only accept the post if he could be a “military Viceroy at the Head of a quasimilitary Government”. He said of potential conscripted men: “If they do not come, we will fetch them.”

Most of the Sinn Féin leadership was arrested on the basis of the concocted ‘German Plot’ in May. The next month martial law was proclaimed across much of the country. Sinn Féin won the East Cavan by-election with Arthur Griffith on 21 June but the British response was to ban Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, Conradh na Gaeilge and Cumann na mBan in July.

British repression continued but the mass resistance of the Irish people forced them to postpone the ‘Order in Council’ that would have implemented conscription and it was never introduced before the First World War ended in November 1918.

The attempt to impose conscription mobilised people as never before in support of Irish independence. But it also exposed the extent to which the British government was prepared to coerce the Irish people to remain within the British Empire despite their repeatedly expressed democratic will.

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anphoblacht

special speisialta

Our great friend and leader Martin McGuinness left us on March 21st last year. Gerry Adams looks at Martin’s life and his efforts to build a new Ireland based on equality, peace and reconciliation.

EXPLORING THE LEGACY OF

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he Duke Street civil rights march on October 6th 1968, the death of Samuel Devenney, after being beaten at his home by the RUC in April 1969, and the Battle of the Bogside later that year, were cumulative and transformative moments in the history of Derry. They also changed the lives of the people of Derry and the North and especially of its young people.

Like many other teenagers that year in Derry, GERRY Belfast, Newry ADAMS TD and other parts of the north, Martin McGuinness’s life was suddenly upended by a political crisis created by partition 50 years earlier. The apartheid system of injustice and inequality that was the north’s Orange State was being challenged by nationalists fed up with being treated as second class.

Martin McGuinness

- LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Three years later as we prepared to travel to London for secret meetings with the British government I met Martin behind the barricades in Derry. Those were different, more difficult days. The conflict was raging. Internment was the order of the day. Bloody Sunday had taken place only months earlier. The shock and anger among nationalists was still palpable. The Bogside and Creggan were under siege from the British Army.

In these circumstances most people, including a 22-year-old working class lad from the Bogside, could have been forgiven for feeling stressed and anxious - but not Martin. He was in control – calm, confident, a natural leader – wanting to talk about how we should approach the upcoming engagements with British Ministers – our agenda, proposals, bottom line.

In the 45 years since then Martin never changed. He was insightful and shrewd.

He could read a situation better than most and had a way of getting to the heart of an issue.

Whether it was canvassing for votes in elections in Mid Ulster or the Presidential campaign, or meeting constituents or political opponents, Presidents and Prime Ministers, Martin had that unique ability to engage at a personal human level. They might not have agreed with his politics but they all came to respect him.

Even before he entered into the Office of First and Deputy First Ministers

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special speisialta with Ian Paisley, Martin understood the importance of reaching out to our unionist neighbours. As the Minister for Education he reached out beyond the nationalist constituency. He fought for every child and every school without favour. His decision to end the 11 plus system was a visionary step which remains the only way forward for an inclusive, equal educational opportunity for all children.

Along with Ian Paisley, and then with Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster, Martin tried to build a new society in which everyone is equal and all opinions are valued. He was a united Irelander but he also understood the imperative of reaching out the hand of friendship to our unionist neighbours, even when they refused to take it. He wanted to understand what they meant by their sense of Britishness.

On one occasion Martin was part of Sinn Féin delegation that travelled to South Africa with unionist leaders to meet with President Mandela and other ANC leaders. They were there to learn from the South African process of reconciliation and negotiations. The unionists refused to talk to the Sinn Féin group. They refused to share the same social facility. They astounded their ANC hosts by refusing to meet Mandela with Martin. They also rejected the joint travel arrangements the ANC made for a break in the meetings to travel to the southernmost tip of South Africa. This was post-apartheid South Africa and unionism was behaving like the old South African National Party.

Martin was never fazed by any of this.

He understood that unionism’s siege or laager mentality was a consequence of our shared colonial past. Unionism fears compromise. It believes that saying yes could be another step toward a united Ireland – even if that yes is to arrangements that would work for everyone.

But Martin never gave up. Before and after the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal Martin was looking for ways in which to persuade the DUP to take the sensible steps needed to restore confidence in the political institutions.

When it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen Martin recommended to the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle that he resign from the office of First and Deputy First Minister. Even then, although seriously ill and against my advice and that of other comrades, Martin believed that he should travel to Parliament Buildings and tell Arlene anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

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special speisialta Even before he entered into the Office of First and Deputy First Ministers with Ian Paisley, Martin understood the importance of reaching out to our unionist neighbours.

Foster face to face what he intended to do. It was a mark of his strength of character and his belief in being straight with those he worked with that he made that difficult physical journey.

Martin McGuinness was a good friend and a great leader. He made compromises where he believed they could help peace and reconciliation. He never stopped taking risks for peace.

Martin McGuinness was a good friend and a great leader. He made compromises where he believed they could help peace and reconciliation. He never stopped taking risks for peace.

A year after he left us we still mourn and miss him. But I know if he was here now Martin would be the first to tell us to give ourselves a good shake.

Our responsibility is for the future. And whatever the recent difficulties we have to bend our minds and will to finding a way to shape that future so that everyone has a share in it.

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He was in control – calm, confident, a natural leader ...

“A year after he left us we still mourn and miss him. But I know if he was here now Martin would be the first to tell us to give ourselves a good shake. Our responsibility is for the future.“ Gerry Adams

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“In a way we are also lucky that we can take great pride on what he achieved during his lifetime. He was a massive figure in Irish politics and helped to transform this society so that our children are growing up in a better place than he did. That, to me, is the greatest achievement of all – to give that gift to future generations.”

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Fiachra McGuinness speaks one year on...

With a series of events taking place later this month to mark the anniversary of Martin McGuinness’ death, Fiachra McGuinness recently talked to the Derry Journal about the impact of his father’s death one year on. An Phoblacht reprint Fiachra’s comments to the ‘Journal’.

“Obviously the death of my father was devastating for us as a family and the last year has been very tough on us all,” Fiachra said.

“I know Martin McGuinness meant a lot of things to different people but to us, first and foremost he was a loving daddy, a granda, a brother, a husband. He doted on his family and it leaves a huge hole when someone like that is lost and we miss him every day. We always will.

“But we have strength together and we have had unbelievable support from people right across the world who had nothing but respect and admiration for my father and we are very thankful for that. It does help and it does give you the strength to keep going because we know that is what he would have wanted.

“In a way we are also lucky that we can take great pride on what he achieved during his lifetime. He was a massive figure in Irish politics and helped to transform this society so that our children are growing up in a better place than he did. That, to me, is the greatest achievement of all – to give that gift to future generations.”

A huge part of Martin McGuinness’ political life revolved around his role as Deputy First Minister. And his resignation from that post set in train a set of events which has ultimately led to the current political crisis at Stormont. But does Fiachra McGuinness believe politics would be in a different place now if his father was still here?

“I don’t see how things would be different because it is not through a lack of leadership in Sinn Féin that there is still no Executive in place, it is because of the DUP’s failure to embrace the rights and equality that is needed for a power-sharing government to genuinely represent all of the people.

“I have heard this said many times that things would be different if my father was still here but I don’t see how people can come to that position if they actually read his letter of resignation. He knew exactly what it entailed when he resigned. It was a very difficult decision for him to take because he knew that restoring the institutions wasn’t going to be easy. But he was absolutely adamant that any govern-

ment had to treat all the people equally. Those words are etched on his headstone because that is what he fundamentally believed and he knew that radical change was needed in order to make that happen.

“Of course he would have been frustrated by the DUP’s behaviour over recent weeks and their decision to renege on the agreement to restore the institutions. That was a mirror image of their decision to renege on the deal to build a peace centre at Long Kesh which he said himself, marked the beginning of the deterioration of the DUP’s behaviour in government.

“He knew there had to be an end to that kind of disrespect and failure of leadership. My father may be gone but the bar he set is still there. There have to be rights, there has to be equality and reconciliation if we are to move forward as a society and I look around at the calibre of leadership and activists in Sinn Féin and I know we will get there. And I know he would be so, so proud.”

A series of events will take place to mark the anniversary on March 21st, and Fiachra McGuinness admits it will be a difficult period for the family.

He said: “Of course, it will be hard but, as ever, we will get through it as a family and I’m sure it will be inspiring too.

Gerry Adams will be speaking about his memories of my father at an event in the Millennium Forum which I am sure will be very emotional and events like the Gaelic blitz and ‘The Chieftains Walk’ are really fitting ways to remember my father because they all represent things that he loved and were synonymous with him. So we really hope that the people of Derry get behind the various events taking place and help us remember our Chieftain.”

Wednesday 21st March Anniversary Mass, 7.30pm, Long Tower Chapel Saturday 24th March Gaelic Blitz, 11am-3pm, Celtic Park, Derry Sunday 25th March The Chieftain’s Walk 1:30pm Glenowen to An Grianan.

Monday 26th March Remembering the Chieftain with Gerry Adams 7:30pm, Millennium Forum, Derry City

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He knew there had to be an end to that kind of disrespect and failure of leadership. My father may be gone but the bar he set is still there.

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anphoblacht

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The debate on Irish unity has moved centre stage

% MAKE NO MISTAKE, IRISH UNITY IS UPON US anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

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ANALYSIS

anphoblacht

ANAILÍS

I LIKE TO THINK THE QUESTION OF IRISH REUNIFICATION IS A BIT LIKE A SMALL BOAT DRIFTING JUST OFF THE SHORE LINE. EVENTUALLY, THE TIDE WILL BRING IT IN.

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HE forces in play are elemental, so it’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ it happens. Small strokes of the oar will speed up the process and reduce the time it takes, or we can just let nature take its course. Either way, it’s inevitable.

This last 18 months has seen the debate about Irish reunification truly come alive.

The chatter has been constant; with much if it of focusing on the fallout for Ireland from Britain’s disastrous vote to leave the European Union. The Brexit-inspired existential crisis in British politics that has followed means all sorts of fundamental questions are now being asked.

Suddenly the prospect of Northern Ireland leaving the Union seems mundane when Scotland limbers up for another go at independence – and even Yorkshire now wants devolution.

And, remember, this is all just a prelude: Just wait until the effects of Brexit truly bite.

But Britain’s self-ejection from the European Union is merely an accelerant poured over the dry tinder of pre-existing electoral, demographic

BY KEVIN MEAGHER

and constitutional trends that will deliver a united Ireland in any event.

Long-term population changes in the North, as well as Unionists’ sheer lack of crossover appeal, makes reunification inevitable. As if to illustrate the point, a recent Lucid Talk poll asked a sample of 18-44 year olds whether they wanted to ‘leave’ and become part of a single Irish state or ‘remain’ in the UK. Fifty-six per cent wanted to live in a united Ireland and just 34 per cent opted for the status quo.

As an ideology, Unionism is built on crude majority control. So how does it respond to being in precipitous decline as an electoral force? Forget the DUP’s deal with the Tories – that’s little more than a discountable footnote in British political history. The Tories regard them as little more than useful idiots, easily bought off with a dollop of public money that, in all likelihood, was coming to Northern Ireland anyway.

No, the real story of last year was the DUP’s poor performance in March’s assembly elections. Unequal to the task of cleaning-up her own mess over the Renewable Heat Incentive fiasco, Arlene Foster led the DUP to near cataclysm, with Sinn Féin just 1,100 votes behind.

It’s entirely probable the First Minister’s job will switch hands next time around.

Perhaps even more significantly, just thirty-odd thousand votes now separate parties committed to remaining in the UK from parties backing Irish unity. That’s the equivalent of half a single parliamentary constituency.

This is only going to end one way.

As a political project, the goal of Irish reunification has

The headline news is that Northern Ireland, as a concept, is utterly finished. We are now in injury time.

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ANALYSIS

anphoblacht

never been more confidently expressed or empirically justified. No wonder Gerry Adams feels it’s now safe to retire.

Moreover, it is entirely feasible to see Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – a long-term supporter of Irish unity – emerging as Prime Minister if Theresa May’s shambolic government collapses before 2022.

In case anyone had not noticed, we are truly through the looking glass these days.

None of which is to crow about Unionism’s predicament. I am merely stating the self-evident facts. Unionists can read graphs and piecharts and can see what’s happening just like everyone else.

The headline news is that Northern Ireland, as a concept, is utterly finished. We are now in injury time. As soon as it’s clear nationalism has the votes, there will need to be a border poll.

Once it returns a majority for unity, Northern Ireland ceases to exist. Is it really that simple? Yes, it really is.

How Unionists respond to this unfolding agenda and seek to shape their future is up to them. No one is bouncing them into anything. All they are required to do is accept the principle of consent. For 20 years, nationalists and republicans have done so with equanimity. Unionists will have to tell us they will also abide by the will of the people. There really is only one answer to that question.

Similarly, the two governments should prepare in earnest for this endgame. They are co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement process that will deliver Irish unity – as it was always meant to. They both need to internalise the logic in play here and apanphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

ANAILÍS

preciate the time horizon they are dealing with is now shorter than either of them would probably like.

Irish unity is now set as a medium-term probability.

Even the most objective analyst would now question how and why Northern Ireland can endure.

The sheer paucity of a coherent argument for the place is striking. And it’s a case that precious few in Westminster are serious about making. The centenary in 2021 will be a hollow celebration.

The boat is coming into shore - whether anyone likes it or not.

Kevin Meagher is author of ‘A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about,’ published by Biteback

Irish unity is now set as a medium-term probability. Even the most objective analyst would now question how and why Northern Ireland can endure.

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If the left is to enter into and eventually lead the economic debate it must promote long-term sustainable growth.

Bring on the

Productive Economy TOO many people on the Left treat the economic debate as an extension of

BY MICHAEL the budget TAFT – arguing for increased public expenditure here, increased taxation there, and ranking resources in order of priorities.

While these arguments need to be made and won, the economy is not a function of budgetary options. If we are to enter into and eventually lead the economic debate we must promote the long-term sustainable growth of the productive economy – that space where people produce goods and services that other people want to buy or need.

There are three basic elements to growth: • First, investment – both public and private. This is obvious – a business with dial-up will hardly prosper in the age of fibre-optics.

• Second, labour: both the supply and people’s skill base. Again, this is obvious. A society with a falling birth-rate and, so, labour force will eventually run into trouble. And people need the education and skills for the modern production processes of the 21st century.

• Third, innovation: this is essentially the application of people and their skills to that investment situated in private and public enterprises.

These three elements make up 28

productive, long-term and sustainable growth. And while this may seem rather dry (it is) this is the stuff of the economy.

And the implications are both widespread and challenging. Let’s go through some of these elements.

Investment is the driving force of a modern economy – and it goes beyond just public investment. We need to revamp the tax and grant regime to discriminate in favour of productive enterprises – particularly, in the indigenous sector. More importantly, we need a significant strategic investment bank and public competition with private retailers. This requires a re-think on privatising AIB which could serve both these functions as an aid to the productive economy.

Unblocking bottlenecks to labour supply is essential. The lack of affordable childcare is not only a burden on households and businesses (money spent on high-cost childcare is less money spent in the productive economy), it also strains labour supply. Expanding labour supply is also negatively impacted by precarious employment; especially if this bars people who, for example, are balancing caring duties, or find themselves trapped between uncertain work and the social protection system.

In addition to unblocking bottlenecks, we must invest in our human capital, or education and re-skilling. In the future, education will become increasingly important in driving innovation and productivity. However, Ireland fares poorly in this regard. We would have to increase education spending by €2.5 billion just to reach our EU peer group

We need a new business model focused on longterm wealth creation in contrast to the unproductive houseflipping activity prior to the crash.

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average; we are under-investing in early childhood education; while the high cost of third-level education is essentially a tax on learning.

In addition to education, Ireland is a major under-spender on research and development. Again, to reach the average of our EU peer group, we’d have to spend more than €1.3 billion. In both education and R&D, we need to devote substantially greater resources.

One of the key issues in promoting sustainable long-term growth is to grow businesses that have the capacity and willingness to bring together investment, education and R&D in order to promote innovation and increase productivity.

And here we run into some problems. anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

Multi-national investment has been vital in inserting the Irish economy into the global chain of capital-intensive and digital companies. Without this investment, Ireland would be a much poorer place.

However, when we turn to indigenous businesses – which accounts for over 80 percent of employment in the market economy – we find an under-performing sector by European comparison.

Indigenous activity is over-concentrated in the low value-added, low-waged sectors (wholesale/retail, hospitality) and under-represented in the higher value-added manufacturing sector apart from food. Given that small and medium enterprises are less likely to

export or, when they do, are over-reliant on the British market, we need new strategies, rather than the old, and largely discredited, stand-bys (lower wages, lower taxes, lower regulation).

We need a new business model that is focused on long-term wealth creation in contrast to the unproductive houseflipping activity prior to the crash. This will entail the creation of new generation enterprises committed to investment, training and education, innovation – working to a longer horizon than the next quarterly report or annual accounts.

This new model sees business as a social space – composed of a series of contractual relationships between stakeholders: managers, shareholders, 29

long-term sustainable growth of the productive economy

workers, suppliers, creditors, the community, the environment; a collective asset operating within complex markets.

In this, work is transformed – from the pernicious ‘labour is a cost’ to labour as a co-equal with capital in creating income and wealth, disassembling unproductive hierarchical practices. This requires not only the privileging of labour (collective bargaining, employee participation and management); it also require facilitating a plurality of enterprise forms: public enterprises (national, regional local), community-owned businesses, hybrid private-public companies (not to be confused with PPPs), labour-managed enterprises, networks of self-employed workers (in cooperative form), etc.

This can be jump-started through a new grant system that offers – through public agencies and a public bank – an enhanced suite of supports and patient

capital to enterprises dedicated to these responsibilities of investment, innovation and labour-privileging. It can also be facilitated through legislation that recognises the rights of the producers – the workers – promoting collective bargaining, the ending of precariousness, and in-work benefits through an expanded social wage.

But we should be aware that this requires a long-term, cultural struggle – to steer the public debate away from the vapid notion of the individualistic, American-cowboy motif of the lone entrepreneur struggling against red tape, taxation and unions to create wealth. Rather, business endeavour and innovation is a social activity – men and women working together in the workplace, in networks, in a community of like-producers.

The fundamental starting point is

women and men, applying their skills to expanding investment, to create goods and services that people need or want to purchase, in a social space in which they play an ever increasing role, where capital becomes more an instrument than an organising principle, blurring the division between public and private markets. This can unleash the economic and social potential of civil society.

It is high time that progressives and trade unionists champion this vision and campaign for the step-by-step programme that will slowly piece these together, challenging employers’ prerogatives and their ideological monopoly over what makes up a competitive and efficient economy. This is about privileging the producers.

Welcome to the new productive economy.

Michael Taft is an economic analyst and trade union activist It’s time that progressives and trade unionists champion a vision which can unleash the economic and social potential of civil society.

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anphoblacht focus fócas

Social progress in Ireland has far to go A bleak conservative view of Ireland is a thing of the past, argues CWU organiser Ruairí Creaney WHEN Pope Francis visits Ireland later this year, he will do so as the leader of a greatly diminished organisation whose teachings continue to be rejected by the majority of the country. The previous papal visit in 1979 by the much more conservative John Paul II attracted crowds of over 1.2 million people in Phoenix Park, an enormous display of mass support unlikely to materialise on the same scale this time round, given the awareness of the horrific abuse that occurred in Ireland’s industrial schools, the medical experiments carried out on children in the care of religious orders and forced labour in the Magdalene Laundries. In 2015, Ireland rejected the homophobia of the Church and voted in favour of marriage equality. By the time Pope Francis visits the country this year, it hopefully will be the case that the Irish people will have already rejected the Church’s obsession with controlling women’s bodies and voted in favour of repealing the 8th Amendment.

In the past decade, reactionary social attitudes fostered by the Church and Ireland’s right-wing elite since partition have been marginalised to a large degree. The image of Ireland as a bleak, conservative and sexually repressed backwater is now a thing of the past. However, while it is true that the church’s power has been reined in, it is important to acknowledge that the legacy of this brutal institution is far reaching and few of the economic structures that were put in place after partition have been challenged, let alone dismantled.

Today’s system of power is embodied by landlords who evict people because they can’t afford the rent.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, most other European states, either through social democratic governments from above or under pressure from a strong labour movement from below, established extensive welfare states in order to raise the living standards of their working classes. Ireland was an anomaly in Europe. Instead of the socialistic ideal of decent public services for the majority being delivered by the state through taxation of the wealthy, Ireland continued to follow Catholic social teaching which dictated that health care, education and social welfare would remain in the realm of charity rather than the public sector. Even the modest Mother and Child Scheme, introduced by Noel Browne in 1950, which aimed to provide free health care to mothers and children up to the age of five, was stopped by the Church authorities on the grounds that it was “communist” and an “invasion of family rights”.

Ireland’s timid attempt to achieve universal free health care was killed at birth, at the behest of the ‘pro-life’ Catholic Church. anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

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Charity was a convenience that the religious orders would never give up.

It bestowed upon them a system of power and patronage that would have otherwise been impossible had services like health and education been under democratic public control. As well as that, it serviced the needs of the right-wing elites by diminishing the expectations of what social rights Irish people felt they were entitled to as citizens. Thus, it is seen as perfectly normal in the south of Ireland that the access to health care should be determined by the amount of money in your wallet. In housing too, market forces and reliance on charity dictates policy. Whether or not you have a roof over your head is a matter between you and your landlord, a bank or the vulture fund that wants to repossess your home.

The role of government in this regard is merely to ensure you have access to a charity should you be faced with the worst-case scenario.

On top of preventing a proper welfare state materializing, the Church fought to ensure the role of women in the Irish state was restricted to child bearing and house work, a vision that took hold at the very foundation of the Free State. During the revolutionary period, many women displayed a radicalism that challenged narrow Catholic nationalism and conservative pre-determined gender roles. This was a radicalism that did not go unnoticed, as John M Regan points out in The Irish Counter-Revolution, 1921-1936: “After the civil war, there was deep suspicion about the role republican women… All the female Dáil deputies voted against the treaty”.

As well as sexism and misogyny, class bigotry has always been a dominating feature of the Irish state, and it is this bigotry that has perhaps been challenged least in recent years. The sexual orientation and immigrant background of Leo Varadkar, for instance, was picked up by much of the international media as proof positive of Ireland’s apparently unstoppable liberalisation. What was rarely mentioned was that he built his leadership on a hate campaign aimed at welfare recipients. Varadkar’s sexual orientation does little to diminish the open contempt with which he obviously holds working-class people.

The conservative Ireland that Pope John Paul II visited in 1979 is almost unrecognisable today. However, conservative official Ireland is not dead and done; it has merely changed it clothes to become more “liberal” and “diverse”. The counter-revolution that started in 1922 is still very much intact and the same exploitative economic power structures remain unchanged. Ireland’s right-wing elites ensure that any progressive gains that are made do not interfere with the profits of landlords, corporations and vulture funds. Their equality is a strictly neo-liberal version of equality.

Social progress is tolerated only insofar as it does not alter capitalist power relations. Hence, in a spectacle that should haunt all progressives, corporate entities like PayPal, Microsoft and Bank of Ireland that did precisely nothing to further the cause of LGBT people have the brass neck to take leading positions in the annual Dublin Pride Parade.

The system of power in Ireland is no longer personified by bishops who possess a weird fixation on other people’s sex lives. Today’s system of power is embodied by the landlord who evicts a pensioner because she can’t afford the increased rent; it is the multinational firm that is assured by powerful people that they will never have to deal with trade unions or treat their workers fairly; the banking system whose debts we will be paying off for decades; it is the abusive system that forces 3,000 children growing up in homelessness causing unfathomable psychological damage; it is the lawyers, the accountants and the advisors who help the rich avoid paying tax, cheating the Irish public out of vital funds for our hospitals, schools, communities and public transport systems.

Power has shifted in Ireland, no longer the prerogative of the clergy but others have taken over the mantle.

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As well as sexism and misogyny, class bigotry has always been a dominating feature of the Irish state, and it is this bigotry that has perhaps been challenged least in recent years.

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Postcards from a New Republic ‘Postcards from the New Republic’ is a hat tip to British designer, artist, entrepreneur and Socialist William Morris’ News from Nowhere series of articles from 1890 published in the Commonweal, the newspaper of the Socialist League and set in a distant future where Morris’ socialist, and romantic, utopia has been secured. Our story’s protagonists are Willa Ní Chuairteoir and Lucy Byrne accompanied by their four children James, Afric, Banba and Alroy who together enjoy and endure the equity and exigency of the future’s New Republic.

IT’S Sunday night and Willa’s getting the kids sorted for the week ahead.

Never an easy

BY SINÉAD NÍ BHROIN task. Prizing the two eldest out of the community garden is a feat in itself. The youngest is hobbling around with his leg in a cast. Banba is tucked up in the sofa writing away and in a world of her own. Willa’s wife Lucy is frantically ironing roaring at no one in particular about the state of the house. The energy supply to the house has been patchy all week, thanks to another spell of heavy rains with no break in the clouds. They added another couple of solar panels to the roof last winter but with the rubbish weather they’ve not made much of a difference.

James lands in red faced and covered in potting soil. She’s done it again Ma, he roars. Willa and Lucy throw each other a knowing look. Afric trundles after him looking sheepish. What’s the point in growing all that veg she asks if we can’t feed some of it to the animals. You’ve fed the pig half the fucking herb garden you moron! shouts James. Ma, I’ve spent the last hour replanting the beds. How can she not know the difference between lamb’s lettuce and sweet basil?

British socialist and designer William Morris

site. Afric and Seán are shooing the last of the animals into the shed. Willa and Afric walk Seán home and slowly stroll up to the house.

Willa shepherds James into the utility room and motions at him to take off his muddy boots. Afric has already headed back outside to sort out the animals for the night. It’s Seán Duffy’s turn this week but she is happy to give her best friend a hand. Anything to get away from James.

He’s a fanatic about the garden at the best of times. He’s been ordering her, and everyone else around it for as long as she can remember.

Willa throws her arm around her eldest daughter and asks her to be a little more thoughtful with her brother. He’s an old head on young shoulders she explains.

He worries about the regulations. Ah for God’s sake Ma, we grow plenty for everyone. We do love, but it doesn’t stop him from worrying. If the crops fall short he’s afraid people will go hungry.

Food security is a fact of life now. Global restrictions on air travel mean we can’t get everything we need from the supermarkets anymore. Afric rolls her eyes. I know Ma, I know.

Willa takes a stroll around to ‘the big feed’ as the garden is known. The family live just a stone’s throw from the 10-acre

Lucy is usually the first up and this Monday is no different. Alroy’s cast is nearly the full length of his leg so he’s

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been sleeping downstairs. Lucy give him a gentle shake. She’s needs him washed and dressed by eight. The public health nurse is picking him up with the local ambulance for his x-ray to make sure his leg has set right. All going well they’ll have him assessed and over to the school by ten.

Banba’s the next one up. She’s half asleep but still has a book in her hand.

Ma, she mumbles. Did you ever here of a woman called Marie Curie? Yeah, wasn’t she a scientist? She was a Nobel laureate Ma! She discovered radium, so without her our Alroy wouldn’t be getting his x-ray today. She even created the first mobile x-rays in World War One to bring onto the battlefields to help army surgeons.

Jeepers love, is there anything you don’t know? Banba laughed and headed back upstairs to wake up the rest of the family.

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IAR-UACHTARÁIN 1. Edward Martyn (1905-08) (30 January 1859 – 5 December 1923) The founding president of Sinn Féin Edward Martyn was from Ardrahan, County Galway. He was a Gaeilgeoir, poet, novelist and a playwright and patron of the arts. He funded the publication of Arthur Griffith’s The Resurrection of Hungary. He left Sinn Féin in 1908 to concentrate more on his writings, though he remained close to his revolutionary literary friends such as Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Mary Plunkett and Patrick Pearse, and while he didn’t endorse the Rising he was very much affected and mourned the executions in the aftermath. While supportive of Sinn Féin after the Rising, he was not uncritical during the revolutionary years. He supported the Treaty in 1921, but during that time he was not engaged much in politics.

2. John Sweetman (1908-11)

3. Arthur Griffith (1911-17)

(9 August 1844 – 9 September 1936)

(31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922)

A Dublin man who lived in County Meath with his wife and six children, he was elected as MP for East Wicklow (1892-95), after being involved in agitation for tenants’ rights and agrarian reform. In 1879 as a committee member of the Irish Land League he proposed Charles Stewart Parnell as the League’s president. John was a founding member of Sinn Féin in 1905, one of its main financial contributors, an officer in the Irish Volunteers and was imprisoned after the Rising. He left the IRA in 1920 as the war became more and more violent and he supported the Treaty and later Fianna Fáil in the 1920s.

A Dubliner who was synonymous with the growth of Irish separatism in the early 20th Century, he founded Sinn Féin in 1905. Through his many and highly influential newspapers he promoted the cultural, economic and political revolution growing in Ireland in the early years of the 20th Century. Arthur was one of the men sent by Eoin MacNéill to deliver his countermanding order to Irish Volunteers units around the country on the eve of the Rising. He did though, go to the GPO and offered to join in the fight, but was sent home by Seán MacDiarmada as “they wanted his pen and his brain to survive the fight for their memory –- and not to join in”.

While in jail he was elected for the first time as TD in the June 1918 East Cavan by-election. After signing the Treaty in 1921 he was a key architect of the Free State before his death shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War.

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4. Éamonn de Valera (1917-26)

5. John J O’Kelly (1926-31)

6. Brian O’Higgins (1931-33)

(14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975)

(7 July 1872 - 26 March 1957)

(1 July 1882 – 10 March 1963)

An Irish Volunteers commandant during the 1916 Rising he was sentenced to death before being transferred to jails in England until 1917. He was elected president of both Sinn Féin and the IRA in October 1917 having been elected four months earlier in the East Clare by-election. He spent much of the Tan War in the United States trying to raise funds and garner support for the Céad Dáil. As president of Ireland he sent the plenipotentiaries to London for the Treaty negotiations, but rejected their signing of it and took the anti-Treaty side during the subsequent Civil War. Three years after the IRA’s dump arms order signalled the end of the Civil War he left Sinn Féin, founded his own party, Fianna Fáil, and took his seat in the Free State parliament for the first time in 1927.

A Kerryman who got involved in political and in Irish language circles in Dublin in 1897, he became a renowned writer in both English and Irish. Elected TD for Louth in 1918 he held a variety of positions in the Céad and Second Dáil. Sceilg, as he was known was a fierce opponent of the Treaty and travelled to US and Australia to garner support for the republican cause. He took over as Uachtarán Shinn Féin after Fianna Fáil was formed by Éamonn de Valera having left Sinn Féin in 1926.

A prolific writer in English and as Gaeilge, Brian from County Meath was in the GPO during the Rising. While imprisoned for the second time he was elected TD for the first time in December for West Clare, being re-elected in 1921, 1922 and 1923. During the Treaty debates, he was fiery defender of the Republic, and later after 1926 was one of de Valera’s and the Free State’s fiercest opponents. His time as Uachtarán Shinn Féin was characterised by falling numbers, increased marginalisation and a growing gulf between the different branches of the Republican Movement.

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IAR-UACHTARÁIN 7. Fr Michael O’Flanagan (1933-35) (13 August 1876 – 7 August 1942) Michael O’Flanagan from County Roscommon was ordained in 1900.

Throughout his years as a priest he regularly clashed with Church hierarchy as they tried to silence him. He addressed the O’Donovan Rossa funeral in August 1915, was central to Count Plunkett’s February 1917 North Roscommon by-election victory and was the republican envoy in the USA and Australia during the Civil War. He was on Coiste Seasta and later Uachtarán Shinn Féin as the party began to recover from the Civil War and the effects of Fianna Fáil being formed in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a open advocate for the Spanish Republic in its fight against Franco fascism from 1936 to 1939 and toured the USA seeking support for the Spanish Republic.

8. Charles Murphy (1935-37)

9. Margaret Buckley (1937-50)

(16 February 1880 – 28 April 1958)

(July 1879- 24 July 1962)

Born in Dublin, Charles or Cathal Ó Murchadha was involved in many organisations promoting independence, being an early member of Sinn Féin.

He joined the Irish Volunteers along with many other republicans when it was founded in November 1913 and was involved in the 1914 landing of weapons at Kilcoole, County Wicklow, and was part of the Boland’s Mill garrison during that the Rising. He was elected onto Dublin Corporation in 1919 and elected TD for Dublin South in 1921 and again in 1923. He was imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail during Civil War period and vehemently opposed partition and de Valera’s subsequent capitulation.

Cork woman Margaret Buckley was the first female leader of any political party in Ireland when she took over the reins as Uachtarán Shinn Féin. A republican activist all her life, she was also a trade unionist, a Republican Court judge, a Gaeilgeoir and a member of Cumann na mBan. Her The Jangle of the Keys is the seminal account of the imprisonment and hunger-striking of women POWs in Mountjoy Jail during the Civil War. On the party Coiste Seasta and as Uachtarán she was often at odds with those with conservative views having taken on the task of leading the party at a very difficult time for Republicanism. There was severe repression on both sides of the Border with mass internment, hunger strikes and prison executions. She managed to hold Sinn Féin in place before she handed over the reins to Patrick McLogan at the 1950 Ard Fheis. She remained on as a vice-president until she died in 1962.

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10. Paddy McLogan (1950-52, 1954-62)

11. Tomás Ó Dubhghaill (1952-54)

(22 March 1899 – 22 July 1964)

(1917–12 March 1962)

From County Armagh Paddy emigrated to England where he joined and was active with the IRB in Liverpool. During the Rising he was in the GPO under James Connolly and was afterwards interned in Frongoch, one of several stints he was to endure in different jails. Active during the Tan War, he was also central to rebuilding and leading the IRA after the Civil War. Elected nationalist MP for South Armagh in 1933, Paddy was also twice elected Uachtarán Shinn Féin. He was an active republican including organising weapons shipments from the USA until his death in disputed circumstances two years after stepping aside as Uachtarán in 1962.

Thomas Doyle born in Drimnagh in Dublin used his position in the Department of Defence to plan one of the IRA’s most audacious operations in December 1939 which involved the taking of 13 lorries ladened with hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition from the State’s armoury in the Magazine Fort in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. He was arrested and interned as a result. Tomás as he was then known was interned again in 1957.

A founder of An Cumann Cabhrach in 1953, he was its secretary until his death. Before and after his term as Uachtarán Shinn Féin president Tomás was a party vice-president, and was still active in the party when he died in 1962.

12. Tomás Mac Giolla (1962-70)

13. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (1970-83)

(25 January 1924 – 4 February 2010)

(2 October 1932 – 5 June 2013)

Tomás from Nenagh, County Tipperary, joined Sinn Féin and the IRA while working in Dublin. Elected onto the Ard Chomhairle in 1956, he was also involved in the IRA campaign, Operation Harvest, resulting in his arrest in January 1957. Following his release he was elected party president and presided over a period of debate within the party, before he and others split from the Republican Movement in 1969/’70 at a time when nationalists were under State and sectarian attack for demanding their rights.

He was then to lead the Officials and was elected a Workers’ Party TD in 1982.

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh grew up in County Longford, and joined Sinn Féin and the IRA while studying in UCD. He was involved in preparations for and during for the IRA’s campaign that began in December 1956 and was jailed as a consequence. He was one of four Sinn Féin TDs elected in the 1957 General Election. He escaped from the Curragh Concentration Camp in 1958 and was appointed Chief of Staff the following year. He was again jailed and later released in 1962. In 1970 he was elected Uachtarán Shinn Féin after Tomás Mac Giolla and others set up the Officials.

He was involved in ceasefire talks in 1974, championed the Éire Nua policy in the party and led Sinn Féin until the 1983 Ard Fheis.

He walked out of the party’s Ard Fheis with some of his followers in November 1986.

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IAR-UACHTARÁIN

14. Gerry Adams (1983-2018) (6 October 1948 ) Belfastman Gerry Adams joined Sinn Féin the mid-1960s, and was at the inaugural Civil Rights Movement meeting in 1967. In 1972 in the first of several periods in jail he was interned, but was released to participate in secret talks in London that July. Gerry oversaw Sinn Féin’s electoral strategy and growth after the election of Bobby Sands in 1981, seeing the party grow from a few elected councillors to gaining over 500,000 votes in 2016-’17. He was elected MP for West Belfast for the first time in 1983, and then in 2011 was elected TD for County Louth. The longest serving Uachtarán Shinn Féin, he was seriously wounded in an ambush by a British death squad in March 1984. From 1988 Gerry Adams was instrumental in developing the party’s peace strategy, which led to two IRA ceasefires in 1994 and 1997, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements. He was also central to encouraging in 2005 the IRA to formally end its armed campaign. After nearly 35 years at the helm Gerry stepped down at a Special Ard Fheis in February 2018. anphoblacht MARCH2018MÁRTA

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Trí gháir ar chnoc

THUG an Comhalta Máirtín Ó Muilleoir an óráid seo in Craigavon ar 14 Márta 2018, agus é ag seoladh go hoifigiúil Polasaí Gaeilge Shinn Féin.

ard as a ngean dá dtír is dá dteanga.

Smaoiním orthu i gcónaí nuair a chluinim fán dul chun cinn atá déanta ar chúrsaí Gaeilge anseo.

Tugann sé aird ar thrí shaghas gnímh mar mholadh agus mar gheall ar a thaithí féin i saol na Gaeilge.

In áit labhairt ar an pholasaí féin anocht, ba mhaith liom labhairt libh go pearsanta, mar chomrádaithe, mar Ghaeilgeoirí agus mar chomhghleacaithe.

Dúirt Martin Luther King gur chóir dúinn a bheith cinnte gur chun tosaigh i dtólamh atá ár siúil; creidim agus muid anseo tráthnóna gur féidir a rá go cinnte gur céim eile chun tosaigh atá sa chruinniú Gaeilge seo – sa chathair a ainmníodh as duine a mhúnlaigh stát ar díbríodh an Ghaeilge as.

Agus mé anseo, ba mhaith liom an deis a fhreastal le haitheantas a thabhairt ar phobal an limistéir seo – an Lorgain, Port an Dúnáin, Craigavon — i dtaca leis an Ghaeilge a chur chun cinn. Is mór mo mheas ar na Gaelscoileanna sa cheantar go háirithe; Naomh Proinsias sa Lorgain agus Bunscoil Eoin Baiste i bPort an Dúnáin. Ina theannta sin, ar ndóigh, tá stair fhada uaibhreach ag baint le Conradh na Gaeilge sa dúiche seo agus molaim go hard na Conraitheoirí.

Ní féidir meas a léiriú do Ghaeilgeoirí an cheantair seo gan machnamh a dhéanamh agus ómós a thabhairt do Gerard agus Rory Cairns a feallmharaíodh abhus in 1993 nuair a bhí a dtuismitheoirí amuigh ag freastal ar ranganna Gaeilge sa Lorgain.

Clann dílis Ghaelach a d’íoc praghas 40

Spreag sibhse mé leis an chuireadh theacht go Craigavon leis an seoladh seo a dhéanamh agus anois ba mhaith liomsa, mar bhuíochas, sibhse a ghríosú chun oibre.

Sin an dóigh is oiriúnaí le cáipéis pholasaí a sheoladh, dar liom — caint a dhéanamh ar aicsean le cuspóirí an pholasaí sin a chur i bhfeidhm.

Nuair a bhí mé i mo mhéara ar Bhéal Feirste, cheap mé séiplíneach Búdaíoch – Paul Haller. Nuair a ghlaoigh mé air in California, dúirt sé liom go nglacfadh sé go cinnte leis an cheapachán mar go raibh taithí leitheadach aige a bheith ag plé le ‘hopeless cases’ – do mo dhálta féin.

Ach le linn na bliana in oifig, ba é an chomhairle a ba chríonna a thug sé dom ná – ‘déan do dhícheall’.

D’fhiafraigh mé de cad é an chuid de sheanmóirí an Buddha as ar tháinig an chomhairle sin.

Dúirt Paul liom nach ón Dharma nó ón Bhúdachas a tháinig sé ar chor ar bith – ach óna mháthair féin.

Is doiligh comhairle máthara a shárú, mar sin de déanaimis comhairle;

déanaimis comhairle Mrs Haller ar bhonn pearsanta, ar leibhéal pobail agus ar leibhéal stáit.

AN GNÍOMH PEARSANTA Dúirt Pádraig Mac Piarais go mba bhreá leis an pobal dílseach a chluinstin ag stróiceadh mionnaí móra in éadan an Phápa – a fhad is gur i nGaeilge a bheadh an mhallacht sin. Ar seisean: “the prospect of the children of Sandy Row being taught to curse the Pope in Irish was rich and soul-satisfying”. (The Murder Machine, 1912).

Tá ceacht ansin do gach duine againn; bímís buí, glas nó aon dath eile.

Is é an gníomh is fóintí a thig linn a dhéanamh mar Éireannaigh ná an Ghaeilge a labhairt. Sin an príomhdhualgas atá orainn. An teanga a fhoghlaim, a shealbhú agus a labhairt.

Gan amhras, caithfidh í a léamh agus a scríobh ach gan cainteoirí Gaeilge, níl ann don réabhlóid álainn cultúrtha seo.

Is pléisiúr é an Ghaeilge a labhairt.

Deir an t-údar Hugo Hamilton, a scríobh an leabhar gleoite The Speckled People fána thógáil go dátheangach i mBaile Átha Cliath, deir seisean gur teanga phobail í an Ghaeilge agus go dtagann athrach ar a mheon agus a mheanman nuair a bhíonn fáil aige labhairt le Gaeilgeoirí eile.

Aontaím leis. Is taisce í an teanga Ghaeilge a shaibhreoidh do shaol; agus níl le déanamh agat ach í a fhoghlaim agus a labhairt.

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Dá líonmhaire lucht na Gaeilge is amhlaidh is deacra ag naimhde an chothromais cur i gcéill nach ann don teanga seo – teanga atá á labhairt sa dúiche seo sular rugadh Críost féin.

AN GNÍOMH POBAIL Is dúshraith láidir pobail í an Ghaeilge.

Deir mo chomhghleacaí Mark Drakeford, aire airgeadais na Breataine Bige agus duine a d’fhoghlaim an Bhreatnais, deir sé go ndearcann na Breatnaigh ar an teanga s’acu mar áis eacnamaíoch.

Is amhlaidh an scéal abhus, d’ainneoin leatrom na n-údarás.

Na pobail is láidre Gaeilge sa Tuaisceart, is iad is láidre fosta maidir le féin-mheas, muinín agus spiorad dochloíte pobail.

Leoga murab é athbheochan na Gaeilge in Iarthar Bhéal Feirste, bheadh lag-trá eacnamaíochta ann i gceantar na bhFál – áit a bhfuil corradh le 20 togra Gaeilge ann – ina measc siúd: Coláiste Feirste, an tÁisaonad ag Coláiste Ollscoil Naomh Mhuire, Forbairt Feirste, Gaelchúrsaí, Aisling Ghéar, Ionad Uibh Eachach, Cultúrlann McAdam-Ó Fiaich, Béile Blasta, Raidió Fáilte, Dánlann Uí Dhiolúin agus araile.

Nuair a thógann tú pobal Gaeilge, taobh leis an mhórphobal Béarla, cruthaíonn tú postanna do na Gaeilgeoirí óga; mar mhúinteoirí, mar aistritheoirí, mar cúntóirí ranga, mar lucht déanta scannán, mar ealaíontóirí agus fiú mar pholaiteoirí.

againn.

Ach anois tá ar nglórthaí le cluinstin.

Tá an dream óg go háirithe ag iarradh a gceart ó gach rannóg rialtais agus ó gach áisíneacht stáit. Ní ghlacaimid leis nach bhfuil an Ghaeilge le feiceáil áit ar bith ar champas Ollscoil na Ríona; ní ghlacaimid leis nach bhfuil an Ghaeilge le feiceáil ar feithiclí an PSNI nó an Seirbhís Uisce nó an Feidhmeannas Tithíochta nó na gcomhlachtaí iompair nó ar na mórbhóithre.

D’iarr muid Acht Gaeilge le go dtabharfaí aitheantas agus cearta don Ghaeilge. Ach in éagmais Achta ná bímis inár dtost; tógtar guth na Gaeilge in achan réimse den stát-chóras ar son aitheantais don Ghaeilge.

POLASAÍ

POLASAÍ GAEILGE SHINN FÉIN

SINN FÉIN IRISH LANGUAGE POLICY

Is é an turas féin an réabhlóid. Samhlaigh seirbhísí sláinte agus gairmtheoracha, agus ceoil agus spóirt agus riaracháin. Tchí tú go dtagann bláth ar an phobal tríd an ghníomh simplí sin – an Ghaeilge a labhairt.

AN GNÍOMH STÁIT Ansin tugann tú aghaidh ar an státchóras.

Nuair a iarraimid ár gcearta mar Ghaeilgeoirí, nuair a éilímid Acht Gaeilge, nílimid ag iarraidh crot bréagach a chur ar chúrsaí an stáit.

Nílimid ach ag iarraidh go mbeadh an stát ionadaíoch den phobal.

Duine ar bith a deir gur scáthán é ar an phobal sna Sé Chontae: státchóras a dhiúltaíonn an Ghaeilge a aithint, a dhiúltaíonn an Ghaeilge a labhairt agus a mhaíonn nach gceadaítear an Ghaeilge a aithint, táthar dall d’aonturas ar an athbheochan cultúrtha atá ina ábhair bróid agus dóchais

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam

Díríonn an polasaí bríomhar Gaeilge seo ar na céimeanna a ghlacfaidh Sinn Féin le seasamh ar son cearta lucht na Gaeilge agus leis an teanga a chosaint agus a chur chun cinn.

Tá tagairt anseo do na Gaeltachtaí, don oideachas, do na meáin agus don phobal.

Molaim an polasaí-doiciméad seo agus molaim sibhse as a bhfuil déanta agaibh don Ghaeilge agus don náisiún sa cheantar seo.

Iarraim oraibh coinneáilt libh, coinneáilt libh, coinneáilt libh.

Tá 30 bliain thart ó caitheadh amach as mo chéad chruinniú de Chomhairle Bhéal Feirste mé as siocair ‘teanga leipreacháin’ a labhairt.

Bhí dhá dtrian den chomhairle an t-am sin ina n-aontachtaithe agus smacht iomlán acu.

An tseachtain seo caite, vótáil an chomhairle féin ar son Acht Gaeilge agus ní raibh ag 22 vóta aontachtach (as 60 vóta) in éadan an ruin.

Bhí 19 vóta SF i measc na vótaí ar son an ruin agus ar son an athraithe. Nuair a sheas mé i mo chéad toghchán in 1985, is é 7 suíochán a bhí ag SF. Dúirt Martin Luther King Jr: “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”

Tá a fhios agam nach bhfuil eagla ar bith oraibh roimh an tsreachailt sin agus tá a fhios agam go mbeidh an lá libh agus leis an Ghaeilge.

D

N IE R F IS H T U O B A S E GERRY ADAMS WRIT

S S E N N I U G c M MARTIN EE PAGE 16 S

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