Sean Sabhat commemorated in Limerick
Up to 500 Republicans from all over Munster were not
deterred by the inclement weather or the huge Special
Branch presence at the annual Sean Sabhat commemoration
in Limerick last Sunday. As is usual, well over a dozen
carloads of the unwelcome observers, complete with
video and still cameras, monitored the march and
commemoration from start to finish and harassed
participants as they left the graveyard where the
patriot is buried.
A colour party and the Cork-based Ahern-Crowley
Memorial Fife and Drum Band led the hundreds from
Bedford Row to the graveyard a mile away, where Kerry
Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle member, Martin Ferris delivered
the oration.
Pádraig Malone chaired the ceremony, and formally
introduced Jenny Shapland, who is the Sinn Féin
candidate in the forthcoming by-election in Limerick
East. She pledged that she would proudly represent the
party's objective of attaining a 32 County Democratic,
Socialist Republic during the campaign, and expressed
confidence of gaining extra electoral support for Sinn
Féin. To the large presence of Special Branch in the
graveyard she said that ``Republicans are not going away
and we will not be bullied or intimidated by you. We
have a voice and will be heard.''
In his address, Martin Ferris said that Sean Sabhat,
like volunteers Ed O'Brien, Diarmuid O'Neill and
Limerickman Packie Sheehy, took the fight to the heart
of the British presence, and their sacrifices have led
to the present climate ``whereby the Republican Movement
is now at the negotiating table confronting the British
politically about their illegal presence in our
country'' and he was confident that the republican
objectives will be realised. ``We will continue with our
struggle in whatever form is necessary until such time
as we achieve and arrive at our destination of an
independent, united Ireland, free form British
interference'', he said.
Contrary to media speculation, Martin Ferris asserted
that the Republican Movement is united and disciplined,
and British strategy has always been to divide. ``They
will not succeed, nor will they ever deter Republicans
from working towards our goals'', he assured the
attentive hundreds.
On the issue of consent, he asked, given the Unionist
intrepretation of it, if the consent of the people of
Fermanagh, Tyrone, Armagh and Derry, who all have
nationalist majorities mattered din the eyes of
unionism. True consent, he said, is the consent of all
the people of Ireland - national self-determination.
The attitude of the participants in the negotiations to
this question will determine if they are sincere about
them.
He said that the hundred gathered at the graveside of
Sean Sabhat are ``a tribute and a credit to Irish
Republicanism'', who remember their patriot dead. He
praised their steadfastness in the face of the Garda
beatings, searches, intimidation and harassment by the
state forces, and appealed to Republicans from all over
Munster to support Limerick Sinn Féin in every was
possible in the upcoming by-election.