HUNGER STRIKE VIGIL AT KILCOOLE 20/08/2013- BY SEAN DOYLE WICKLOW INDEPENDENT WORKERS UNION AND CLANN EIRIGI. “TO LIVE IN SUCH A STATE OF RIGHT AS THIS”. Thank you for joining us this evening to honour ten young men who made the ultimate sacrifice of a hunger strike when faced with, for them the unthinkable acceptance that Irish peoples’ struggle for freedom throughout the centuries and blood sacrifice was and is no more than a criminal act as decreed by Thatcher and the British army of occupation supported by the 26 county government. I have no doubt due to the long protracted painful days of the hunger strike it surely focuses the mind and their resolve not to succumb to criminality of their right to fight for freedom both national and social. They did not undertake this extremity just to change masters. Their vision was not to change an Orange State to a sectarian state or to change from the H-Blocks to Maghaberry Gaol for the continuance of human rights violations, mirror searches, beatings going to court and returning. The creation of another rich middle class or to have people singled out for selective internment like Stephen Murney. Roger Casement on the 29th of June 1916 in the High Court in London part of his speech from the dock I believe is appropriate and sums up our struggle. “If it be treason to fight against an unnatural fate as this then I am proud to be a rebel and shall cling to my rebellion, with the last drop of my blood. If there be no right of rebellion against the state of things that no savage tribe would endure without resistance then I am sure that it is better for a man to fight and die without right, then to live in such a state of right as this. Where all your rights become only an accumulated wrong, where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to garner the fruits of their own labour and even while they beg to see things withdrawn from them surely it is braver a saner and truer thing, to be a rebel in act and deed, against such circumstances as these than tamely to accept it as a natural lot of men”. I’m sure these young men have uttered these words and had these thoughts and those of Lalor, Tone and Connolly when they needed sustenance and strength during their selfless act. What more can any man do than give his lifeblood to improve the lot of others? We owe it to them and those gallant heroes throughout our history to continue the struggle for national and social freedom. Pledge ourselves to tell our young people the true history of those who made the extreme sacrifices who can no longer speak for themselves. We must challenge and silence the revisionist victors. Connolly spoke of this he said of Tone “Many hypocrites will pay homage at the grave of this great man but if he were alive today they would treat him as a dangerous malcontent”. Don’t allow the pariahs to feed off our dead sacrifices engage young minds and inspire them to take up the task and take back what was stolen.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:25:34 +0000
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