MURDER MOST FOUL .......
By Joe Egan .
A lecture delivered to Dublin Republicans by Joe Egan on 26th November 1989 : I have had the following document for the past 16 years ; it was given to me by its author , a friend and true Irish Republican and deserves a wider readership - John Horan .
" During his last speech from the dock , Wolfe Tone stated - "... I mention this for the sake of others , for me I am indifferent to it . I am aware of the fate which awaits me , and scorn equally the tone of complaint and that of supplication .
Whatever be the sentence of this court , I am prepared for it . Its members will surely discharge their duty ; I shall take care not to be wanting in mine . " Tone's use of the word eternal and his duty are obvious references to God and posterity and he would have been fully aware and very careful about their use .
Any study of the man and any understanding of him as a person to those who wish to see the truth can only draw the one conclusion . To quote just a line or two from his last letters to his wife ....... "
(MORE LATER).
WOMEN IN IRELAND'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM .
By the late Cork Republican , Gearoid MacCarthaigh .
" This article is written as a tribute to all those Irish women who , in every generation , have played a part in Ireland's fight for freedom . Often they have not been appreciated for the part they played . ' Behind every great man is a great women ' is a very old saying and it is well known - but I do not agree with it !
I claim it should read - ' At the right-hand side of every great man is a great woman . ' In many cases she is far ahead of him , but never behind ! In the earlier days when women were not as emancipated as they are today , women did not always get the opportunity to play their full part in the fight but there are exceptions to this and such names as Ann Devlin and Sarah Curran stand out in Irish history .
During the 1798 Rising and later during Robert Emmet's time women often acted as scouts and look-outs for the men ; there were cases where they participated in the actual fighting and of course they took care of men who were wounded in the fighting ....... "
(MORE LATER).
INCITEMENT TO COERCION : DEMOCRACY IN DANGER .......
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper , Aibrean [April] 1957 , page 1.
(IML. IX. UIMHIR 4 - price Tri Pingin [Three Pennies].
Thanks to my late friends Christy and Theresa L. for giving me this 48-year-old newspaper ; this thread published in memory of those two old Fenians ! - John.
' In advocating this policy and in presenting it to the Irish people , Sinn Fein is simply exercising a right accorded to citizens of a democratic State . Is the exercise of this right to be denied now that Sinn Fein entered the contest of the recent elections and secured for its policy a surprisingly large vote of endorsement ? Is the organ through which expression is given to the policy and programme of Sinn Fein to be suppressed or otherwise forced out of existence ?
Apparently our boasted democracy is to go by the board , and methods substituted for it that are the recognised practice of full-blooded authoritarian States should the leader of the opposition in Leinster House succeed in his very obvious effort to goad the new governmet into a continuance , or perhaps an intensification , of the most recent phase of coercion of members of Sinn Fein which he initiated . Why Mr. Costello's further statement -
- " This is a very serious situation which all parties in this House and all individuals must co-operate together to end for all time . "
For the employment of coercion measures against members of the Republican Movement no member of the government , or of the opposition , sought or obtained a mandate from the electorate in the recent elections . Neither did they seek or obtain from the electorate a mandate to hamper or prevent Sinn Fein from exercising its fundamental and democratic right to put its policy before the people of Ireland in its own way and through its own selected media .
Should the new government allow itself to be goaded into a denial of this democratic right then , indeed , will a very serious situation have been created ....... '
(MORE LATER).
BEANNACHTAI NA FEILE PADRAIG ! : HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY !
