Thursday January 01 1970
Is This The Republic We Fought For?
cork |
rights, freedoms and repression |
event notice 
Wednesday March 22, 2006 20:41
by Irish Freedom Campaign
Public Meeting to address the crisis in Republicanism
Since the signing of the Good Friday agreement in 1998 republicans have been divided and ineffective in all efforts to bring about the “Republic”. Those who backed the agreement have sunk deeper and deeper into reformism and the embrace of both states. Those opposed are splintered and factionalised. The security of the British imperial project has never been stronger in the last thirty years. Capitalism is entrenched north and south and seems unassailable. All this in a country where the obvious division between rich and poor seems to grow daily.
Nonetheless the desire for something better is obvious to many people. In the last number of years we have seen hundreds of thousands of people mobilise around the Iraq war and Irelands participation, in support of the Irish Ferry workers and most recently a strong countrywide campaign in support of the people of Rossport. These are but a few of the more headline examples of a vast swathe of agitation and struggle occurring throughout the land. How do republicans propose to address this? How do republicans make it plain that all these struggles are but one struggle for a common objective of defeating imperialism and capitalism and building a Workers Republic?
Socialist Republican ideas still have great currency and many people look to them for inspiration and guidance. But the movement is failing to fight its corner in the battle of ideas, still languishing in the aftermath of defeat. Some have even capitulated to the system they were pledged to fight.
It is in this context that the Irish Freedom Campaign invites you to this meeting. We hope a process of discussion can help break the logjam and aid the revitalisation of our movement. Even if you don’t fully agree with these sentiments surely you will see the need to have this debate.
When Thursday April 6th 8.00pm Where Metropole Hotel Mac Curtain Street Cork
Who Tommy McKearney (Former Hunger Striker, editor Forthwright) Gerry Ruddy IRSP
Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3Any debate planned for Dublin?
Big question -
How do you convince those who never fought anyone for anything, that the republic is worth obtaining?
=
back to the drawing board and drawing room.
What is the Republic?
Its such a trite word which has been abused since its invention by greek sycophants who spoke of rights and equality but never dreamed of extending such to their wives, concubines, slaves or even neighbours. And how does a republic fit into a solely "Irish context" considering that before the IRB most republicans also wished see established republican government in the other "countries" of the islands? I see this as one of the fundemental problems with Irish political development. The problem of sentimentality and "false beginnings". No-one wished a republic in 1169, not one of the taoisighi or earls who fled in 1609 wished a republic. It is as much as symptom of colonialism and destruction of our own cultural awareness that we have never generated a "monarchist movement" in contrast to the Scottish i.e. the Bruces, the Stuarts (both of whose claims we accepted). Not because we had no heirs to the thrones of Ireland or the high throne, (as we still do). But of the 9 claimants to the Irish crown, only one would ever dream of taking it. Which would lead us to the other question - "where did the effin crown go? anyone seen it around for the last few hundred years?"
Back to basics. Please.
Honestly were all those who "fought" really fighting for the same thing?
Was it the black hills of Shancoduff? or half a rood of Armagh's fields? or the Divis flats?
Was it the equality and liberty and fraternity of all Irish men and women regardless of race, creed, faith, class and wealth before a common constitutional framework? Would the 1916 lot really have wanted De Valera and his God in the rolls royce? Were they all fighting for the same thing? If we examine what really occured between 1913 and 1916 it seems they most definitely were not. When Haughey burnt the brit flag on VE day in 1945 and ensured his FF backing, was he engaging in self-agrandisement or patriotism? Why have there been and still are so many groups claiming the same "republican" legacy? Because quite honestly Ireland boasts the most "splits".
Which "we" is the real "we"?
Blah Blah Blah-. lose your faith in Gortin!
I hope you maybe make a transcript or audio recording of this discussion.
I'd like to listen to what you have to say.
The Republic isn’t achieved yet. Not until there is unity in Ireland i.e. 32 counties free from British interference can there be an Irish Republic, so in that sense the title is inaccurate.
what presently exists in the 26 counties is a flawed capitalist Irish free state
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