Death of George Harrison

international | miscellaneous | press release

Monday October 11, 2004 12:18

by Alan

“George Harrison who has died in New York was Patron of Republican Sinn Fein since 1994. A native of Shammer, Kilkelly, Co Mayo, he was a veteran of the East Mayo Battalion IRA.

He emigrated to the USA in 1938 and from then on he was a life – long Irish American activist and an active supporter of international liberation struggles.

In 1982 along with the late Michael Flannery and three others he was acquitted in an American court on a charge of supplying arms to the IRA.

George was in his ninetieth year and his passing leaves a huge gap in the ranks of Irish American supporters of the Republican Movement in Ireland.

Leaba I measc na bhFinini go raibh aige.” — RSF President, Ruairi O Bradaigh

The National Irish Freedom Committee – (Cumann na Saoirse Náísiúnta) joins with all true Republicans in Ireland, Scotland, England and throughout the world to mourn the passing of a lifelong Irish Republican and Eternal Fenian, George Harrison of Brooklyn, New York, New Hampshire and the County Mayo.

We empathize with his family and innumerable friends during this time of their profound loss and grief at the passing of this modern Irish hero. He shall be remembered forever. And as we remember this dedicated man, we rejoice in his long consecrated and meaningful life. A life that was dedicated to the unification of Ireland by any and all means possible.

To this end, George and a committed cadre of his fellow physical force Republicans organized a weapons procurement programme which had three decades of success in supplying the Freedom Fighters of the Irish Republican Army with the wear with all to sustain their campaigns.

Unfortunately, the fruits of George’s and his friends’ labor is now being bartered as the price of admission for revisionist former Republicans to participate in British direct rule of the six occupied counties in the north of Ireland. Adams and his purloined posse are swapping semtex for summer homes, guns for governmental positions, and they are cementing over arms dumps to secure their status as second class citizens in their Loyalist controlled state – not what George and his compatriots had in mind when they set about their clandestine weapons quest.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention George’s support of freedom movements worldwide. Of George it was said, “Never met a revolution he didn’t like.”, and to paraphrase the old ballad, “God grant you glory, old George, and open heavens to all your men, the cause that called you may call tomorrow in another cause for the Green again.”