On Wednesday 27th January the Martin Hurson Sinn Fein Cumann at University College Cork held its annual comemoration in honour of the IRA Volunteers buried in the Republican Plot there. The Youghal Vols Republican Flute Band let the march around the college pausing at Gaol Cross where a wreath was laid at the spot where Vol John Joe Kavanagh was killed in 1940 by the Garda Special Branch while attempting to aid an escape from the old Cork jail, the march proceeded to the Republican Plot where Dr.Feilim O'hAdmhail gave the oration.
A chairde, is a chomradaithe,
Ar dtús barra, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le hÓgra Shinn Féín as an chuireadh a thug siad dom bheith anseo anocht, le cupla focail a rá. Ba mhaith liom fosta comhghairdeachas a thabhairt d’Ógra as an chomóradh seo a reachtáil
Is cúis bhróid í domhsa bheith anseo i measca comradaithe ó Chorcaigh agus ag uaigheanna laochra s’agamsa agus s’agaibhse.
Ach is cúis bhróin í fosta domhsa, go raibh ar Ógra Shinn Féín an comóradh seo a reachtáil in ionad Comhairle Cathrach Chorchái nó fiú an Ollscoil.
Is cúis náire í dar liom nach síleann na daoine a bhain an tairbhe is mó as íobairt na ndaoine seo sna huaigheanna, na daoine mór le rá, na boic mhóra, is cúis náire í nach raibh siadsan sásta an ócáid seo a reachtáil agus nach bhfuil siadsan i láthair anocht.
First of all, I want to start by thanking Ógra Shinn Féin for the invitation to say a few words at this commemoration tonight.
I also want to congratulate them for organising it.
I feel very proud to be here among comrades and friends from Cork and at the graveside of people I would class as heroes of mine and I daresay you would class them as your heros also.
But I’m also sad to see that it took young people from Ógra to organise this instead of the likes of the City Council or even the University authorities
And though I am not surprised, it is still shameful that the people who gained the most from the sacrifice of these people in the graves, the important people, the well to do people, the rich people, the powerful people, it’s shameful that they feel unwilling or unable to organise this event or even to be present at it.
Maybe it says something about the society we are leaving in today – or the people that are running it. They might think for a moment though who would be running this society if it hadn’t been for people like those whose bodies lie in these graves.
I don’t know much about these volunteers. I don’t know from which parts of Cork they came or who their families were. I do know that they were among the few in their day who were prepared to go out, to paraphrase Pearse ‘to break their strength and die’ for you and for me and for the future generations.
I don’t intend to try and second guess what they would think about the society their sacrifice created. That lies with them in the grave. What I do know is that it takes a special type of motivation for young people to give up everything for a cause they believe in. I cannot see many of our present day politicians fitting that mould somehow.
What I can say is that it doesn’t seem to ME that we have created the society envisaged by Connolly and Pearse or Liam Mellowes.
We haven’t created a society, which in the words of the 1916 Proclamation, ‘cherishes the children of the nation equally’.
We haven’t realised the right as announced in the Democratic Programme of the First Dáíl (1919), ‘the right of every citizen to an adequate share of the produce of the Nation’s labour’.
Nor have we seen the subordination ‘of the right to private property to the public right and welfare’.
The notion that private greed should be subordinated to social need does not seem to be heard much in this part of the world.
Instead we live in a land which remains divided between the North and the South and ill-divided between the rich and the poor.
….which means that we as republicans and as socialists have a lot of challenges ahead.
In relation to the North I think there HAS been progress despite what many other republicans and socialists might think.
Britain still rules there and we may not be happy about that – I certainly am not. But there are possibilities there for further change. The Peace Process for all of its flaws - does present us with possibilities to organise particularly across the sectarian divide – if we have the will to do so.
Equality legislation has to a great extent eaten into the privileged position of unionism.
And while inequalities still exist between Catholics and Protestants, the biggest inequalities now beginning to manifest themselves are between the classes. One stark illustration of this is that a boy from West Belfast is currently expected to live six years less than a boy from South Belfast.
Increasingly we are witnessing something that none of us should be happy with
- an increasing equality of misery and deprivation among BOTH Catholic and Protestant working class communities.
In Belfast today the highest levels of poor educational attainment are to be found among the poor on the Protestant Shankill Road, for example..
For me the greatest failure of republicanism in the North has not been the failure to end British rule there (although I’m not too happy about that either)
but the failure to attract even a respectable minority of the Protestant working class community, a community that is also oppressed by socio-economic deprivation and in some cases even more oppressed than some working class Catholic communities,
the failure to attract even a respectable minority of the Protestant working class community to republicanism.
For me that should be one of the main challenges for republicans in the years leading up to the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.
Tone talked about substituting the common name of Irish person, in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter. As secularists we should see this as our aim also. As socialists we should realise that not only is it in the interests of the Protestant working class to aline themselves with us – but in light of the recent talks between the British Tories and the Unionist parties – there is also every reason why the Protestant working class may want to distance themselves from unionism if given safe and secure alternatives.
It is also interesting that the biggest party in Scotland, the ancestral home of most northern Protestants, is now the SNP. And their demand is for independence from Britain not Union. And they are mainly non-conformist Protestants.
There is no natural imperative for a Protestant, Ulster Scot to demand separation from the rest of the island.
What we need to do is to show the Protestants of the North that we aim to create a society that they can have equal ownership of and be proud of.
In relation to the 26 County state, it’s clear that we haven’t created the society envisaged by Connolly or Mellowes here, either.
When I first came to Cork three years ago I was shocked at the level of deprivation and inequality I saw – the division between Northside and Southside; the division between rich and poor; the fact that UCC, the place where I worked, was seen as the preserve of the middle and upper classes, and not for the likes of the working classes – my people!
In this day and age, that young people from working class backgrounds should feel alienated from the likes of UCC, a public institution, a public service, that epitomises some of the problems which continue to exist in this society.
This type of inequality and marginalisation of major parts of our society has been well documented in many academic reports in recent years
In 2007, a Bank of Ireland report actually showed that the Irish state was the second richest country in the world per capita – but that per capita is important because it masked the fact that much of that wealth was in the hands of the few
In 2008, an OECD report (not surprising called ‘Growing Unequal’) showed that the Irish state was the 7th most unequal among the 30 richest states and had the second highest levels of Poverty – after the USA.
And this was during the Celtic Tiger!
Despite the recession, the 26 county Irish state still remains one of the richest states in the world. It is also one of the most unequal.
It’s estimated that 34% of the wealth of Ireland is in the hands of the richest 1%.
Which leaves 66% for the rest – for 99% of the population
And what does this mean in terms of income
Figures for 2006 during the Celtic Tiger showed that
• Nearly 60% of families were living on less than €40,000 per year
• While more than a quarter of families were living on less than €20,000
• About 5% of households enjoyed incomes of more than €134,000.
• While 11,200 households were on incomes of €250,000 plus
What this means in real terms is that while the country's top chief executives can look forward to salary packages topping €1 million annually,
1.5 million Irish citizens earn less than €38,000 per annum.
It also means that unequal access to services –health, education- as well as income, affect current and future life chances and opportunities.
And 5,000 people die prematurely here every year because of this inequality (Institute of Public Health,(2001), Inequalities in Mortality 1989-1998)
When we say we are socialists we are shouting to the high heavens that this situation cannot continue.
And when the Govt penalises the weakest in our society, by lowering already low wages and by cutting basic public services like health and education it’s time to say enough is enough!
When I was a youngster I had a vision of a new society, one where there were no British soldiers walking the streets on my estate, one where discrimination on the grounds of religion was a thing of the past, one where the racist supremacist attitudes of Orangism were confined to the rubbish dump of history, one where all of us on this island could feel ownership of it, and feel proud to belong to it.
One - to paraphrase another person who gave his life for this country – where we would find our revenge in “the laughter of our children” – all of them.
I don’t think that vision of a united Ireland, an Ireland of equals, a socialist Ireland, is something too much to ask for or to strive towards.
But we have to strive towards it, because it won’t be presented to us on a plate.
And the road will be a long one, full of many challenges - but not insurmountable.
Pearse once said, in answer to his critics.
‘Oh wise men, riddle me this: what is the dream come true?
What if the dream come true? And if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?’
Comrades, friends, let’s make this dream a reality!
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