Easter statements

Statements issued by republican groups to mark the anniversary of the Easter Rising.

THE LEADERSHIP OF THE REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT (REPUBLICAN SINN FÉIN)

On this the 107th anniversary of the heroic Easter Rising of 1916 the leadership of the Republican Movement sends greetings to Irish people at home and abroad who are gathered at the graves and monuments to our patriot dead or remembering them in any other way. The Republic which those patriots served and gave their lives for has yet to triumph. We pledge to continue the struggle despite all that is thrown against us.

We send salutations to Sinn Féin Poblachtach, Cumann na mBan and Na Fianna Éireann who stand with us in the Republican project to bring about national liberation from British Imperialism and influence. Last year we made a call to the Irish people and especially the youth who believe in the cause of Irish Republicanism to join the ranks of the Republican Movement. Again, we make that call and we welcome those who have come forward since last Easter to serve their country. To give service to the Irish Republic is indeed a noble act and patriotic duty. With veterans and new people, the Republican Movement will endure. We will build the Movement on a good Republican foundation and we will resist the British occupation of our country to the best of our capability.

This year marks 25 years since the Stormont/Belfast Agreement which was signed by constitutional nationalists, unionists and the Dublin and British governments and strongly supported by the United States of America. The agreement was based on the lie that the “peace agreement” was voted on by all the Irish people as two referenda took place on the same day north and south of Britain’s Border. The referendum in the 26 Counties was on an amendment to the 26-County Constitution, not the Stormont Agreement. The establishment in Ireland and Britain are self-congratulating themselves on a great job done. They will fall over themselves in honouring people like Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton without whom we are told there would be no agreement. Ahern who was dragged before a tribunal and Tony Blair who lied to the British House of Commons and brought Britain into a war with Iraq along with their US allies at a cost of hundreds of thousands of mostly civilian lives. Those are the heroes of a so-called peace agreement which has now institutionalised sectarianism in the Occupied Six Counties.

There is only peace for those who accept the British occupation; for those that do not or it is suspected they do not there is stop and search, arbitrary arrests and house raids. Political courts where judgements are made on the political outlook of those unlucky to appear before them. Easter commemorations are attacked by the RUC/PSNI; the Easter Lily is banned from prisons where political prisoners are held while the poppy is allowed.

We condemn the political reformists who have turned their backs on the struggle for Irish freedom while out of the corner of their mouths they commemorate Irish patriots who carried out that struggle. The “peace process” has become more important than their stated long-term objective, a united Ireland. The “peace process” is a British process of containment of the Irish struggle. The reformists have now taken over from the SDLP as the “Stoop Down Low Party”. Their leader in Leinster House has declared she is a pen pal of the British King Charles. Recently-released State papers reveal that John Hume drafted a statement on behalf of the Provisionals’ military wing in 1996 in relation to returning to a ceasefire situation.

We reject the process which is now in full swing of bringing the 26-County State into NATO. China and Russia are being sold as the bogeymen on TV and radio news on a daily basis. Chinese social media is looked upon with suspicion. All of this is to play mind games with the electorate and promote NATO as necessary for defence. The EU is now also a military bloc. The people of the 26 Counties will have serious choices to make in referenda in the near future. The politicians who demand peace at home are doing their best to involve their own military in foreign wars.

We reject the rise of right-wing anti-immigrant parties who have come to the fore lately. Many of those involved carry our National Flag and also carry other Republican flags, for example the Starry Plough. Where were these “patriots” in opposition to the British occupation. These groups spew hatred and division which the Irish people as a post-colonial society are very familiar with. Some of these groups would be best described as the military wing of Fine Gael or “dissident” Fine Gaelers.

We salute Sinn Féin Poblachtach and their Mise Éire “the selling of Ireland” campaign which highlights the abandonment of Irish nationhood as a 32- county unit by the political establishment in favour of two partition states.

100 years ago, in 1923, the savagery and brutality of the newly-formed Free State came to the fore. From Kerry to Donegal, from Wexford to Galway and several other areas, Free State forces, using British guns and munitions, unleashed a campaign of terror against fellow Irishmen. They carried on where the Black-and-Tans left off. This must never be forgotten. The Free State did not succeed in crushing Republicanism, and they will never be allowed to do so.

In conclusion the Leadership thanks our members and supporters for all they do to keep the Republican Movement on the road to freedom. Since the formation of the United Irishmen in Belfast in 1791 down to this day we strive to bring about a better Ireland for the people to live in; a peaceful and fair society based on the traditional Republican ideals of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity.

Continuity not compromise. An Phoblacht Abú!

THE 32 COUNTY SOVEREIGNTY MOVEMENT

In the clamour and political self-serving rush to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement it is imperative that Irish republicans make our people aware that that agreement has made possible the 100th anniversary of partition.

There is absolutely nothing to celebrate about partition, be it for one day or one hundred years. From its inception it betrayed everything the Irish revolutionary tradition stood for and achieved. As a so-called steppingstone to freedom it has only ever stepped backwards each time a treaty was agreed to sustain it.

Agreeing to partition said to Wolfe Tone that the objective of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter is secondary to maintaining sectarian divisions to satisfy British imperial interests.

It said to Robert Emmet that his epitaph must be indefinitely postponed because the Irish people do not have a place amongst the nations of the world.

It said to Fintan Lalor that irrespective of the cost of famine and emigration; homelessness and evictions the landlord will still get their rent.

It said to the Fenians that the soil of Ireland does not belong to the people of Ireland and that the toils of their labour will continue to enrich the oligarchy and the multinationals.

And it said to those who are buried here, those who wanted the ideals of the Proclamation to be carved into the fabric of Irish society, that Home Rule within the empire is their preferred option for our people because that is the option which secures preferential treatment for themselves.

They will come from far and wide to laud this British peace. They will lay claim to be the authors of this peace so that they can seek rehabilitation from political and financial corruption to once again seek the perks and prestige of high office.

They will wrap themselves in the shroud of this peace to cover their blood-stained clothes from the slaughter of Iraqi innocents. That is a particular hand of history they would rather remain hidden.

Others will tell us that repudiating our people’s right to their national sovereignty will in some way ensure that our sovereignty will be restored. Like others who co-signed that agreement their lust for political power has blinded them to the price they have already paid for it.

They are now in the Englishman’s pay. Taxation is set at what the multi-nationals say it will be and not what it should be for the benefit of our people. The provision of homes continues to reside in the realm of private profit for banks and vulture funds. The promise of change has conformed to the point of view of the powers who most resist it.

There is no part of the republican narrative that accepts that our constitutional and democratic future should be surrendered to the control of a British minister.

And we not only address this deeply flawed democratic deficit to the Irish people, we address it to the British people also. Your recent decision to withdraw from the European Union was largely centred on your desire to regain control of your own law making and economic affairs from people you have no democratic control over.

Are the people of Ireland not equally deserving to be in control over our own destinies from people and institutions who are not democratically accountable to us?

We cannot vote for your Secretary of State; we can’t vote against them either! Why should the Irish people be forced to accept this double standard?

You are more informed of your history in Ireland from Netflix than you are from your schools and universities. The Good Friday Agreement is not a democratic settlement because the very premise of any partitioned vote is a gerrymander in favour of an artificially contrived majority.

This democratic contortion applies to a Border Poll also. From the outset the British Government gave a ‘triple-lock’ guarantee that the unionist position would prevail over any other.

The nature of any question posed is purely at the discretion of the British authorities who will undoubtedly frame it with their own political interests uppermost in their minds.

The votes of the people in the Twenty Six Counties are reduced to mere theatre as the mechanism of the poll is solely concerned with a majority in the Six County Statelet.

This is what you have inflicted on the Irish people. It is the continuing culmination of a litany of historical abuses you have perpetrated in our country.

Through your policies you have targeted our identity, our faith, our culture, our economic well being and through the years 1845 to 1852 our very existence.

And the fact that our people have come through these perennial abuses with our sense of identity and nationhood firmly intact there remains only one policy left open to you, your complete withdrawal from Ireland.

The 1916 Proclamation is an outstanding blueprint to build a sovereign republic for all our people. In the revolutionary tradition it firmly recognises that the divisions amongst our people are those carefully fostered by an outside power.

That is the connection which must be broken, but it is only the first of many. We must break the connection with historical revisionism that says we should fear to speak of Easter Week.

We must break the connection with the post-colonial mindset that continues to say to us ‘croppies lie down’.

This then allows us to break the connection with our economic subjugation, to shatter our connection to homelessness and poverty by asserting our sovereignty over the fundamental rights of all our citizens.

“We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.”

This is the bedrock of Irish republicanism. It is the only basis upon which a truly inclusive republic can be built for our people. Those who signed the Easter Proclamation transcended party politics. They were nation builders and completely selfless when it came to serving our people.

This is the price for calling ourselves republicans. There is no career path to securing our objectives only the wages of sacrifice. Irish republicanism must re-align itself to make ourselves relevant in current times. It cannot be business as usual. It cannot be the old slogans.

A republican voice must resonate once again. A collective voice that articulates the republican ideals of the revolutionary tradition. A message that reinforces who we are and what we mean to achieve, the breaking of the connection with England and the establishment of a sovereign Irish democracy within an All-Ireland republic.

Beir Bua!

A statement was also issued to the Irish News by the New IRA in which it affirmed that it is “committed to achieving what the republic declared on the steps of the GPO (General Post Office) in Easter 1916”.

“We have consolidated our base and extended our international links,” the statement said.

“We will continue to obtain and develop the best weaponry that we can to pursue this struggle vigorously and energetically.”

“The IRA have stated in the past that we will continue to move forward on our objectives.

“We have constantly set those targets with a number of successful operations carried out recently.”

“We continue to recruit, train and target the occupying forces.

“We will not be found wanting when it comes to executing the struggle.”

The statement was signed T. O’Neill.

Urgent Appeal