National Hunger Strike Commemoration

national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Saturday August 20, 2005 23:48 by IRSP - Irish Republican Socialist Party dublinirsp at hotmail dot com

Photos of todays parade will be posted in the coming days. The parade itself was the largest IRSM event in Derry in years. The three bands deserve great credit, the Belfast RS Matyrs, Strabane/Derry RSM Memorial Flute band and the Kevin Lynch Memorial Flute Band were all excellent, as was the Colour Party. The weather was superb, too hot for some, and the turnout surpassed expectations. A big thank you to all who turned out to make this event special and onward to next year which marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the hungerstrikes.

Martin McMonagle Speech at Derry Commemoration

Friends and Comrades,

I am honoured and humbled to be asked to speak here today at this commemoration marking the 24th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike.

Occasions such as today are for us to gather and pay a humble homage to the valour shown by our comrades who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their beliefs. We have a duty as republicans who honour all of the dead hunger strikers, to use today’s commemoration to motivate ourselves for the challenges of today’s struggle.

It can never be over emphasised what a difficult period the 1981 hunger strike was for Republicans. What at times can seem a world away, or a dark day that has just come to pass, the world in which we now find ourselves in, hasn't changed that much in the intervening 24 years. The primary cause of the conflict remains. the British rule of our country.

Our people are still oppressed, divided and partitioned and no amount of spin can alter that fact. When we say 'our people' let us be totally clear we refer to all the people on the island of Ireland –Catholic Protestant, dissent and migrant workers. Black skinned white skinned, brown skinned gay or straight they are all our people.

Republican prisoners are still being mistreated in Maghaberry as the British attempt to re-impose their failed policy of criminalisation. From this platform today we salute the courage and determination of those prisoners, who are fighting against injustice just as the hunger strikers showed their resolve to defeat that same policy of criminalisation.

There is a duty on all who honour the men of the 81 hunger strike and who call themselves republican, especially if they are elected representatives to take up the case of the present day republicans in jail. Let us hear not only about the Columbian Three, or the Castlerea republicans.


Let us also hear about the case of Dessie O’Hare and all the genuine republicans in for political offences in Maghaberry. The Republican Socialist Movement stands shoulder to shoulder with all prisoners. We do not pick and choose.

The men of 1981 are a shining example to us all. Those were men who selflessly laid down their lives for their comrades, true revolutionaries motivated by feelings of true love for their class and their country. They wanted nothing from the struggle except freedom for their country and their class, for them there was no material gain when they were lying with nothing but a dirty blanket in the hellhole that was Long Kesh.

We in the Republican Socialist Movement salute their courage and resolve in the face of massive oppression and brutality. They are the people that our young people should be aspiring to emulate rather than helping to demoralise their community through the ever increasing anti-social behaviour. Joyriding, or more appropriately death driving, as we seen in Galliagh recently when five year old child was seriously injured by the criminal recklessness of these people. We can tell these people that their communities have had enough and that their activities are totally unacceptable. We cannot and will not allow them to further demoralise the working class people.

I would also like to use this occasion to call for an end to all sectarian attacks. These attacks in Ahoghill and the wider North Antrim area are nothing more than ethnic cleansing and we call on all political and community leaders to unequivocally condemn these attacks and to do all they can to bring them to an end. Yesterday the RUC/PSNI alluded to disputes between neighbours as the reasons why ordinary Catholics were being targeted by UDA/UFF thugs. This clearly shows that the RUC/PSNI are still the sectarian force that they always were and again demonstrates that they can never be acceptable to republicans.

I would equally condemn the sectarian attacks on people and property in the Fountain Estate here in Derry. There can be no equivocation.

These attacks are wrong and anti-republican in nature. They go against everything that the hunger strikers fought and died for. There should be no hiding places within republican communities for sectarian bigots and we demand that their activities cease immediately.

Let us state clearly that sectarian actions and words are the weapons of the oppressor. Sectarianism is a tool to divide workers, spread hatred and fear and plays into the hands of all who rob steal and exploit the working class. What better way to keep wages down than by pitting worker against worker using sectarian hatred. Sectarianism is the weapon of the bosses. No republican worthy of the name can be sectarian.

In honouring in particular our three dead hunger strikers but also honouring their seven dead IRA comrades, this movement at times like this needs to reflect on what has been gained and what has been lost. In the light of that it is clear that radical republicans need to change tactics to stay relevant. Hence the turn by the Republican Socialist Movement towards political action on the ground. There is much to be done. Comrades and volunteers today need to turn to the class. That’s now the battlefield.

And in turning to the working class we maintain the core principles upon which this movement was formed; the same core political values laid by Connolly, forwarded by Seamus Costello, and many others. We stand by the same principles that Kevin Lynch, Michael Devine and Patsy O'Hara stood for in 1981.

It is our duty today to find ways to present these same principles in a clear, relevant manner to the Irish people in as many spheres of society as possible.
We must as a movement survey the tactics available in order to do this and use those that serve our purposes best. Presently armed struggle is not a viable means to achieve political goals. Having said, we do not however see a necessity to disarm the working class. Today, we do not see the necessity in handing in weapons as bargaining chips in fruitless political negotiations.

For let us be totally clear the current peace process is going 90 miles an hour down a dead end street. We argued from the outset that the Good Friday Agreement not only copper-fastening partition-itself a crime against the Irish working class but institutionalised sectarianism. Those who argued about the progressive nature of the Good Friday Agreement and who say it is a stepping stone to a Republic could not be more wrong. Ahoghill, North Antrim, The Fountain, North Belfast, the Lower Shankill- these and many more areas stand testimony to the sectarian nature of the state. The GFA only perpetuates, not destroys, sectarianism.

UVF thugs walk the streets with impunity on an arm in arm relationship with the PSNI/RUC. Unionist leaders mutter softly about loyalist attacks on Catholics and justify these attacks by roaring shouting and blaming a republican march in a nationalist area of Ballymena. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. In July alone there were over 60 incidents of loyalist murders, intimidation, petrol bombing, pipe bombing, attacks on catholic schools, churches and brutal assaults on individual nationalists.

Against such a background how can any republican accept that only our enemies should be armed? We do not accept the monopoly of force being granted to our enemies- British colonialism and Irish capitalism. Such actions would mean us accepting a position of blame for the recent period of armed struggle. The INLA and for that matter the different IRAs were never a cause of the conflict here. The cause of the conflict here was a direct result of 800 years of British Imperialism here in Ireland. Patsy O'Hara, Michael Devin and Kevin Lynch as INLA volunteers were not a cause of the strife here. We refuse to make them so with our actions today.

Our so called Government in the South mocks Irish neutrality by allowing the USA war machine to use Shannon airport as a stage post on the way to crush, not so called” terrorists”, but the Iraqi people. From this platform we express full solidarity with the armed Iraqi resistance.

The IRSP and the working class from across Ireland will not be lectured and moralised at by either the British or US governments whose hands drip with the blood of innocent Iraqis. To Britain – To America our message is clear- Out of Ireland – Out of Iraq – No war, but the Class war!

In order to move from this period of setback that republicanism is now in to one of progress we need to identify with the day-to-day aspirations of our class. While the working class is divided you can be sure that the supporters of capitalism in Ireland are not. North and South of the border the dismantling of the public services continues. Bin charges water charges, medical charges etc etc etc. All of the main parties seem to have settled for the neo liberal economic model imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The trade union leadership has settled for a cosy partnership with the bosses and the Government. That is not our way. We support all manifestations of class resistance against exploitation. In particular we send our warmest greetings to the Rossport Five who are jailed by Shell. This multi-national is using Irish courts to crush resistance to their greed

We believe that the destruction of the existing sectarian states on the island and the creation of a socialist society is the only way to overcome sectarian divisions, end poverty and discrimination and awaken the real human potential of all our citizens. Our task in the republican socialist movement is to radicalise the working class and for that we need a strong working class revolutionary party. All of you here today can contribute to that by getting involved in the daily struggles of our class.

All socialists and republicans who seek a way out of the impasse that the broad republican tradition is in have a choice before them. Repeat the mistakes of the past and remain disillusioned. Or else throw your weigh into the struggle for class and national liberation like Patsy O’Hara, Kevin Lynch and Michael Devine. Take the class road with the IRSP, ditch sterile nationalism and put your energies and efforts into the radicalisation of the Irish working class. It is the only viable alternative for republicans and socialists and it is called socialism.

On to the Socialist republic!