New Year Statements 2023

A round-up of messages issued by republican organisations to mark the New Year.

IRA New Year Statement (New IRA)

The leadership of the Irish Republican Army wish to take this opportunity to send revolutionary New Years greetings to all our volunteers, imprisoned comrades and revolutionary armies throughout the world who are fighting against occupation and imperialism.

As we enter 2023 Ireland remains under occupation and our national sovereignty is denied by a foreign government. The Irish Republican Army will use all means at its disposal to break this bondage.

Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army and its leadership are determined to spearhead this action.

The occupation is promoted by the British institution known as Stormont and their bootlickers in the Crown Forces who torment our people. We call on the Irish people not to engage with these foreign entities.

The Irish Republican Army, at this time, rededicate ourselves to achieving our ultimate goal - the establishment of a 32 County Socialist Republic.

T O’Neill

32 County Sovereignty Movement New Year Message

Firstly we would like to send new year greetings to our republican and socialist comrades throughout Ireland and further afield. We send fraternal greetings to all the peoples seeking liberation around the world. Lastly we send our best wishes to Republican prisoners held in british and free state gaols and offer our continued solidarity.

We reiterate our position outlined in Derry recently that the electoral momentum on the island needs to run its course so that the false narrative of the so-called end days of partition can be exposed as the vapid rhetoric that it is.

It is incumbent on all republicans to challenge Sinn Féin careerists as to how any partitionist assembly will be used by them to secure British withdrawal from Ireland.

Will Sinn Féin, seeking election to government, coalition or otherwise, put before the Irish people a manifesto outlining in precise terms how they intend to use their office to restore Irish national sovereignty?

Will this manifesto outline, again in precise terms, how the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement can afford Irish republicanism any advantage in pursuit of its goals over and above the goals of its other adherents that seek to maintain the constitutional status quo?

We also urge the continuous and unified efforts of Irish republicans to undermine at every opportunity the insidious concept that a Border Poll represents a democratic route to the restoration of Irish sovereignty. The very premise of such a poll is a counter-democratic bulwark against any true expression of our people’s sovereignty.

This coming year will mark the 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. It has not been a productive period for Irish republicanism. We have corrected the historical narrative which has brought us to this point but that is no substitute for taking Irish republicanism forward.

As it stands the dilemma facing Irish republicanism is as follows: forge a united message which can resonate with our people or provoke change in the hope that we can direct it. If neither can done, we must leave the field to the next generation.

Beir bua.

Irish Socialist Republicans New Years Statement

The leadership of Irish Socialist Republicans extends our greeting to our members and supporters at home and abroad. We send our greetings to the mass organisations organising the People’s Resistance on a daily basis across Ireland, particularly Anti Imperialist Action, the Revolutionary Housing League and Óige Réablóideach. At this time of year we send our solidarity to all Revolutionary Republican organisations that continue the struggle for Irish National Liberation and Socialist Revolution, and to the Republican POWs being held captive in British and Free State Gaols across Ireland.

Revolution continues to be the growing trend in the world as the exploited and oppressed masses rise and fight against the forces of capitalism and imperialism. The Revolution in Ireland is very much a part of this world revolution and Irish Socialist Republicans stand in solidarity with revolutionary forces around the world fighting for national liberation and socialism. In particular we extend our revolutionary solidarity to our comrades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and to the Palestinian National Resistance who are taking the fight against Zionist Imperialism to new heights, it is an inspiration to all revolutionaries in Ireland. Today, we also send our greetings to the most advanced revolutions in the world, the People’s Wars in Peru, India, Turkey and the Philippines, and to the parties and organisations that have taken the historic step of meeting in the first unified Maoist conference in 2022, establishing the International Communist League.

Ireland at the beginning of 2023 remains both a colony and a semi-colony, partitioned and occupied by British Imperialism and dominated by British, European and North American Imperialism. 25 years after the signing of Britain’s Good Friday Agreement, a treaty that only served to copperfasten British rule in Ireland, National Liberation remains the primary contradiction in Ireland and must be the driving force for all Revolutionary Socialist Republicans. Resistance is the sole path to the victory of our revolution and must stand as the roadmap for Socialist Republicans in opposition to the revisionism of parliamentarism, electoralism or border polls. In continuing the struggle for National Liberation it is the task of Socialist Republicans to link the everyday struggles of the people to the National Liberation struggle and to unite all resistance against the common enemies of Imperialism and Free Staterism. To make this a reality across the 32 counties, we renew our call for an Anti Imperialist Broad Front, uniting all Revolutionary Republicans, socialists, and other progressives around a common revolutionary programme while at the same time maintaining organisational independence, and building cooperation to achieve our common revolutionary goals. The Broad Front is a revolutionary necessity. 2023 must be the year that all genuine revolutionary republicans put aside organisational or personal differences and enter into discussions about the way forward, organising a Broad Front and developing a common revolutionary programme for the defeat of imperialism and the victory of the Republic.

There are many areas that the resistance can and do find common ground and cooperate, and many campaigns that we can work together to mobilise the masses into our struggle. Throughout 2022 Socialist Republicans have given strong leadership in many of these areas and campaigns, from the Housing War which has been a great organiser for the revolutionary movement, to Anti Fascism, the Cost of Living Resistance, anti-NATO and international solidarity. In 2023 these campaigns must be expanded to include key issues such as the rising workers struggles, environmentalism, and the Irish Language to imbed the revolutionary movement in communities across the country.

As we enter 2023, the threat to Ireland posed by NATO is very real. A NATO power, Britain, continues to forcefully occupy 6 Irish counties while at the same time the other key NATO power, US Imperialism continues to occupy a civilian Irish airport at Shannon, with the full subservience of the Free State Administration. As international imperialism continues to be stretched due to its ever deepening crisis, the imperialist powers at the centre of NATO have turned to warmongering as their hoped way out. Under this strategy Ireland is firmly in their sights as they want to bring all 32 counties into the NATO alliance and use Irish resources and manpower to advance their war efforts. The Irish People have repeatedly demonstrated that they are opposed to NATO and imperialist war. 2023 must see national resistance to the presence of NATO in Ireland stepped up across the 32 counties in a popular resistance campaign similar to the housing war and the mass campaign against the water tax. The fight against NATO is a key part of our struggle for National Liberation and Socialist Republicans will be to the fore in the resistance, attempting to bring a national popular campaign about.

2023 will be a year of Revolutionary Socialist Republican Resistance from the Housing War, the Cost of Living Resistance, Environmentalism and Workers Struggles, united into the struggle for National Liberation. It is once again the duty of Socialist Republicans to be at the fore, mobilising the people, creating access points for the struggle and strengthening and organising the Revolutionary Movement to continue the struggle until victory. The lessons from the revolutionary activism of 2022 has greatly strengthened the Resistance Movement for 2023. Building on those successes, now is the time to push forward and bring the revolution in Ireland to new heights!

For National Liberation and Socialist Revolution- Join the Revolutionary Socialist Republican Movement Now!

Beir Bua- Tiocfaidh Ár Lá

An Lár Choiste,
Irish Socialist Republicans

Saoradh New Year Statement

As we enter 2023 Saoradh extend New Year solidarity and best wishes to our members, friends and supporters at home and abroad. We also extend fraternal best wishes to all those engaged in anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and revolutionary socialist struggles across the globe. We also extend solidarity to other like-minded Republican organisations.

We would also like to pay tribute to our imprisoned comrades here in Ireland, as well as comrades enduring repressive bail and licence conditions at home and abroad. Their discipline and endurance serve as an inspiration to all of us.

2022 was a year in which Republicans once again faced down attempts to demonise, criminalise and extinguish our struggle. The usual suspects engaged in such activities, namely the British State agencies such as the PSNI, MI5, SRR, PPS and NCA. They were assisted by their allies in the 26 County neo-colonial administration.

These attempts were ultimately futile, as demonstrated by a vibrant Ard Fheis, increased membership, new party craobh, our continued activism and the continued vindication of our ideological position via the failure of administrations and puppet parliaments that are designed to quash any notion of a true Irish Republic.

Our activists were engaged in many arenas of struggle in the past 12 months. These included campaigns around poverty, housing, social justice, collusion and state murder, prisoners, ending partition, British policing, anti-sectarianism, anti-fascism, women’s rights LGBTQ+ rights, supporting workers on strike, opposing the scourge of drug dealers in our communities, campaigning for increased community facilities, international development and others.

This valuable and essential activism will continue into 2023 and beyond with increased energy and vigour.

Our recent Ard Fheis included motions that committed us to a body of work that includes increased co-operation with other Republican organisations on the basis of mutual respect and comradeship and further developing links with revolutionary organisations globally. This is vital if the Republican message is to remain relevant in an Ireland that is subservient to the whims of foreign imperialism and native capitalism.

Saoradh looks forward to another year of struggle, solidarity, advocacy and activism on 2023 as we march on together, building a movement that can take us further towards that certain day.

Lasair Dhearg New Year Statement

As another year comes to a close Lasair Dhearg sends revolutionary greetings to all of our members and supporters across Ireland and internationally. We extend our solidarity to all like-minded Socialist Republican activists and organisations, and our thoughts are with those anti-imperialists currently held in imperialist jails across Ireland and beyond.

This past year has been a notable one for Lasair Dhearg as an organisation and indeed for the broader struggle in Ireland.

Over the last twelve months the capitalist crisis has deepened significantly. The ongoing so-called ‘cost of living crisis’ has exposed class lines and laid bare the divisions in our society for all to see. There is a growing consensus across Ireland that we exist within a very broken system, designed for the enrichment of a very small class of people.

At present, both failed statelets on this island would have you believe that peace has been achieved and therein lies our salvation, the facts however would tell us otherwise. The Ireland of today is one firmly wedded to imperialism and the capitalist economic system.

Thousands of British combat troops continue to occupy the Six Counties, supported by over 7,000 members of the paramilitary police and hundreds of British military intelligence agents. Combined, there are over 20,000 British security personnel maintaining Britain’s occupation of Ireland – fuelled by a yearly security budget of Billions from the British exchequer.

Dozens of republican political prisoners continue to be held in prisons where they are regularly beaten and strip searched. Denial of visits is a common occurrence. And the prison regime in the Six Counties continues Britain’s policy of criminalisation.

A British Tory government, ably assisted by the Stormont puppet parliament when seated, continues to impose a regime of real-term wage cuts, poverty, and a declining health service.

International military flights continue to ship soldiers, machinery and heavy weaponry through Irish airports on their way to other global conflicts.

Hundreds of thousands are living without a home as hundreds of thousands of homes lie empty.

Poverty, food banks, hunger and malnutrition. Capitalism. This is the Ireland of today.

Since our inception just five years ago Lasair Dhearg had taken the decision to slowly but surely build an organisation from the ground up; one that would make no empty promises but seek to create something credible and capable; capable of one day bringing about the conditions for the creation of a 32 County Irish Socialist Republic.

As we brought that first five years to a close in November, our members agreed to lay forth a new five year plan for consolidation and national growth, building upon our previous successes. Our broader Movement, having only a handful of activists in one corner of Belfast in late 2019, now has a growing presence across Ireland and Internationally. We hope that our activism and our methods of organising inspire other like-minded comrades to join us in the building of this project.

These past twelve months have seen our activists engage in a number of campaigns and many forms of activism; from targeting housing profiteers and landlords, to tackling the continued normalisation strategy of the PSNI; from shutting down state security forces recruitment campaigns, to campaigning against the ‘cost of living crisis’; from standing on picket lines with striking workers and facing down fascists when they attempt to organise. We are proud that a significant number of our activists stood with many other anti-fascists from a range of organisations and none, as we confronted a noteworthy gathering of fascists at Fermanagh’s Lough Erne resort in November. The unity of those gathered with a single and agreed focus is a lesson for the future.

Looking ahead over the coming year we will reach a new landmark; 25 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. A whole generation has been born and raised into an Ireland living under the boot of a capitalist system that does not allow them to flourish and to prosper; born instead to create wealth for others and to be expropriated by an all too willing state within which they barely make a living. The year ahead provides us an opportunity to reflect on that ‘agreement’ and its consequences for the Irish working class.

As 2022 comes to a close, we reflect upon the centenary of the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which occurred on the 30th of December in 1922, and we are reminded that only a mass movement of the working class can build a force with the necessary strength to bring about the creation of a 32 County Irish Socialist Republic. To this end, we will continue to build upon current alliances and collaborate with like minded comrades where common ground can be sought to advance our aims and objectives.

The struggle continues; and it is leading to one inevitable conclusion, the liberation of the exploited and the expropriation of the oppressor.

Beirigí bua! Bígí Linn. Join us.

Irish Republican Socialist Movement New Year Statement

As we enter 2023 we wish to send fraternal revolutionary greetings to all our friends and supporters throughout the world. We offer solidarity to all those involved in anti-imperialist struggles whether in prisons or on the streets. As the new year begins we reflect on the past year, look to this coming year and assess where we are in regards to our stated goals and objectives.

2022 was a year of great hope for Republican Socialism in Ireland. Following advancements in our politics and activism, we tested the electoral water for the first time in a decade by standing in the 6 county assembly elections, which has resulted in encouragement that this is a viable strategy at present. We will continue to adopt an electoral strategy by engaging in elections across Ireland to run in tandem with our street and community activism. The IRSP will be contesting the upcoming council elections in the 6 counties in 2023 in locations to be confirmed in due course.

Last year we bore witness to the devastating impact of capitalism, with working class people paying the price via the “cost of living crisis”, which saw prices of food, energy and infrastructure dramatically increasing with the profit taking of the global multinationals exploding. Local and International venture capitalists have been using the crisis to increase profit margins while working class people continue to suffer, the wealth divide continues to exponentially increase in Ireland and throughout the world. The IRSP will be starting 2023 by not just stating facts that working class people already know, but by acting against those who continue to exploit our vulnerable communities for profit.

Over the past 12 months, the momentum towards Irish Unity continued to grow, with census results indicating what the IRSP predicted in 2016 when we publicly backed calls for a Border Poll on Irish Unity, believing it to now be the most viable course for ending partition. Though, the IRSP note with caution that the more evident it becomes that Irish Unity becomes inevitable, the enemies of the working class begin positioning themselves to ensure capitalism via so called “civic nationalism” retains control in Ireland post partition. The IRSP being the only organisation highlighting this threat will continue to build the Yes For Unity campaign, the socialist working-class alternative to civic nationalism.

Internationally, 2022 was a year where ongoing warmongering actions of the west via their armed wing NATO created open conflict in Eastern Europe. The IRSP refused to be drawn into the western and NATO narrative and propaganda and haven been monitoring the situation in Ukraine since 2014 and by utilising our direct contacts in the area; drawing our own conclusions. We send solidarity to every nation and people fighting against western neoliberalist hegemony.

2023 will be another great year for the IRSP, we will continue to build across Ireland and build and strengthen our domestic and international connections. As always, the IRSP will continue to be at the forefront in defending our working class communities against enemies both foreign and domestic, while we will continue to stand in solidarity with the workers in their campaigns for better pay and conditions.

Up the Socialist Republic!

If you want to play your part in fighting for 32 county socialist republic, join the part of Connolly and Costello by joining the IRSP today – join.irsp.ie

Éirígí New Year Statement

As 2023 begins, Éirígí For A New Republic offers thanks to its members and supporters in Ireland and overseas for their contribution to the Irish republican struggle throughout 2022.

Through your activism you are advancing the cause of Liberty, Equality, Community, Justice and Democracy in Ireland. As this new year begins, take pride in the knowledge that you are acting in the same cause of generations of republicans stretching back to the time of Wolfe Tone.

2023 will mark the hundredth anniversary of the conclusion of the counter-revolutionary war that crushed the Irish Republic that had been declared at the outbreak of the 1916 Rising and democratically endorsed by An Chéad Dáil Éireann in 1919.

The military victory of counter-revolutionary forces in May 1923 copper-fastened partition and hastened the emergence of two conservative, sectarian, capitalist states in Ireland. James Connolly’s prediction that partition would result in a ‘carnival of reaction’ proved to be frighteningly prescient.

From the outset, the economic, political and social design of both states placed the interests of bosses, bishops, bankers, landlords, gombeen politicians and the wider capitalist elite above the needs of the citizenship at large.

While much has changed in the century that has passed since 1923, the fundamental design of both states remains unchanged and incapable of change. Today, a century after their formation, the Twenty-Six and Six County states still place the interests of the few ahead of the needs of the many – a fact borne out by the current simultaneous crises in healthcare, housing, environmental protection, energy and many other areas of public life.

The early weeks of 2022 saw the lifting of virtually all Covid-related restrictions across Ireland, ending almost two years of unprecedented public health measures. Éirígí again extends heartfelt gratitude to all frontline workers for the roles that they played in overcoming the challenges presented by the emergence of this deadly new virus.

Despite the effective ending of the Covid health emergency, the Irish healthcare system remains in deep crisis on both sides of the border. Accident and Emergency departments are routinely overwhelmed, while more than 1.2 million people, including over 100,000 children, are now on waiting lists to access basic medical services.

This appalling scenario has not arisen because of Covid, but because of decades of ideologically driven mismanagement and underfunding of healthcare services by Leinster House, Stormont and Westminster.

Only the establishment of a new all-Ireland national health service can end the healthcare crisis – a publicly funded, single tier system that will deliver world class care on the basis of need, not wealth.

The energy crisis that was triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has once again highlighted Ireland’s vulnerability to international energy shocks and Ireland’s chronic over-reliance on private Big Energy corporations.

The Dublin government’s response to that crisis has been to accelerate the giveaway of Ireland’s vast wind energy resources. Big Energy has already identified locations for offshore wind farms that could generate enough electricity to power a staggering 30 million homes by 2030 and a further 15 million homes post 2030.

These hugely ambitious plans are being advanced with little meaningful public debate or widespread public awareness of the long-term consequences of handing control of Ireland’s renewable energy sector to profit-driven Big Energy corporations.

Since 2006, Éirígí has consistently advocated and campaigned for Ireland’s energy resources to be held in public ownership and used in an environmentally sustainable manner for the collective good of the Irish people. In 2023, Éirígí will continue to build public awareness of, and public resistance to, the giveaway of Ireland’s wind energy resources through the Power To The People campaign.

Éirígí activists passing the historic GPO in Dublin. Bringing renewable energy into public ownership is the only way to guarantee energy security, energy independence and affordable energy.

The number of people being denied access to secure, affordable homes across Ireland continued to increase in 2022 as the housing crisis deepened further. The incalculable human, social and economic cost of the crisis is now being paid for by the people of no property in every village, town and city in Ireland.

The Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition remain fanatically committed to a housing model which places control of housing in the hands of land-hoarders, developers, bankers and landlords. Despite all the evidence to the contrary they continue to assert that the private sector and so-called market forces can deliver large volumes of secure affordable housing.

The housing policies of Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats and other opposition parties lack the ideological analysis, vision and ambition to break the stranglehold of the private forces that currently control housing in Ireland. As such, they are incapable of ending the housing crisis or delivering secure, affordable homes for our people.

In 2023 Éirígí activists will continue to campaign for the establishment of a new system of Universal Public Housing, understanding that only UP Housing can permanently end the housing crisis and transform Irish society for the better in the process.

2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Sunningdale Agreement and the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. While separated by a quarter of a century the political framework of these two political initiatives were broadly similar.

Both initiatives endorsed the Unionist Veto. Both sought to co-opt a section of Irish nationalism into administrating British rule in Ireland through a quasi-parliament in Stormont. Both included the creation of toothless all-Ireland political structures to provide a fig leaf of cover for participating nationalists. Both involved the transfer of limited powers to Stormont, but ultimate power, including the power to disestablish Stormont, was retained by Westminster.

The political establishments in Ireland and Britain were strongly supportive of the Sunningdale and Good Friday Agreements precisely because those initiatives presented no threat to the constitutional, economic or political status quo.

Today, Stormont remains in a state of suspension, as it has been for ten of the last twenty-five years. The much vaunted, but very limited, all-Ireland elements of the Good Friday Agreement have either stalled or regressed since 1998.

The notion that the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement offered a realistic route to Irish re-unification by 2016, as the Sinn Féin leadership asserted, has been proven to be nonsense.

Recognising the very real limits of the Good Friday Agreement does not equate to a call for a ‘return to war’, in the same way that recognising the futility of armed actions in 2023 does not equate to a call for support of the principles that underpin the Good Friday Agreement.

Éirígí has always rejected the notion that the strategic options open to Irish republicanism can be reduced to a binary choice between being either ‘pro-war’ or ‘pro-Good Friday Agreement’. Such simplistic, narrow thinking only serves the interests of the Irish and British political establishments.

Since 2006 Éirígí has consistently argued that positive social, political and economic change can only come through the building of a new peaceful mass movement that is made up of political parties, trade unions, cultural groups, women’s organisations, community groups and other progressive forces.

The key task facing Irish republicans in 2023 is the same as it has always been – to build widespread understanding of, and support for, the key tenets of Irish republicanism in the form of Liberty, Equality, Community, Justice and Democracy – to establish and develop republican organisations – to create a groundswell of popular support for the establishment of a new all-Ireland Republic.

There is no short cut to the New Republic. Convincing a critical mass of the Irish people to reject the status quo and to embrace the republican alternative will take patience, time and much work. Éirígí activists have already begun that work in communities across Ireland.

Éirígí’s Democratic Programme For The New Republic provides a detailed vision of a future Ireland that will reverse the carnival of reaction that has defined Ireland for the last century – a future Ireland based around a democratic economy and a fair society where all of our people will have access to healthcare, housing, education, energy, employment and those other things that are necessary for them to reach their full potential as citizens of the Irish Republic.

We encourage those who agree with the vision contained in A Democratic Programme For The New Republic to join the fight for radical change, to join the republican struggle, to join Éirígí.

Urgent Appeal