Republican News · Thursday 9 January 2003

Sean Sabhat remembered

The annual commemoration for Sean Sabhat took place in Limerick last Sunday. Up to 200 people attended and marched from Bedford Row, led by a local colour party and the Youghal republican flute band, to the republican plot at Mount St Laurence Cemetery.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh, Sinn Féin TD, was the main speaker and he gave a stirring speech applauding the Republican struggle through the last century. He paid tribute to the 550 men and women on the Republican Roll of Honour, saying: "We are proud of them and the sacrifices they made. They had a vision, a desire to make this a better land, to free our country, to build a just and equal society.

"That is still our task today."

Sean Sabhat, Ó Snodaigh said, died not for a nation, but for the Republic. "Nobody should be under any illusion that we will achieve our goal easily; if it were easy, it would have been won years ago."

He added that as republicans "we need to be taking the time now to work out and explain where the future of Ireland lies. And to that end a good development is that we have begun once again talking about reunification. For too long we talked of war, of peace, but not about our plan for a new Ireland."

Eamonn Clancy of Limerick City Sinn Féin chaired the graveside proceedings and Mick Morrissey of Caherdavin laid a wreath on Sabhat's grave.