Delaney Brothers Commemoration
Cork 2010
Failte a Chairde agus Comradai go leir agus failte arais aris go dti on ait seo, at go honna stairiuil.
Friends Comrades welcome, and welcome back again to this most historic place, for it was here on this very day the 12th of December, 90 years ago during the war of Independence that the house of the Delaney Brothers was raided by members of what was then the Royal Irish Constabulary or R.I.C as they were better known. They were both dragged out and brutally shot down, Jeremiah died instantly and Corneilius died some days later in the Mercy Hospital Cork from the wounds received.
We as Republicans have been fighting their battle ever since, culminating in the sell out of this states financial Sovereignty by the self claimed Republican Party in Leinster House. It is not true Republicans that should be incarcerated in Portlaoise Prison but the liars, wasters and cheats who are presently ensconced in Kildare Street.
The magnitude of the sell-out by the Dublin Government is best viewed from the graves of our patriot dead. The magnitude of the sacrifice by the men and women of no property in pursuit of Irish freedom is the perfect counterpoint.
The Delaney brothers are but two of our patriot dead and standing here demands that we ask: For what died the sons of Roisin?
In trying to answer for the sacrifice of Roisin’s children we must not allow ourselves to fall into a revisionist trap. From the outset let us make one thing clear; it’s not just the behaviour of the Dublin Government which is an affront to the Proclamation but its very existence also. Jeremiah and Con, along with their comrades, did not fight for a partitioned Ireland, good, bad or indifferent, but for a free and sovereign Ireland for all the people of the thirty two counties.
The actions of the Dublin government are an affront to its citizens, to its provenance, to those who believed in the stepping stone theory. For ninety years later the state has merely stepped back into the British and European imperial exchequer.
Throughout those ninety years it has murdered, executed and imprisoned fellow Irish people who dared to question its right to exist. It has colluded with foreign powers to extradite Irish people to foreign jails. Only recently, whilst it was selling its soul to the bankers of Europe, an Irish citizen, Kieron Doran, was brought under armed guard to an airport and handed over to French authorities for extradition. His crime, as they saw it, was the upholding of the Proclamation. For what died the sons of Roisin?
Freedom is a beginning; it is not an end. All those clamouring for change need to heed this. There can be no change unless freedom is achieved. Freedom from partition, freedom from the servitude of capitalism, freedom from the West Brit revisionists and freedom from the gombeen political class that brought their parliament back to Lloyd George’s table.
As republicans we need to speak as plainly as the Delaney brothers acted. We need to say to the one hundred thousand who marched in Dublin that Roisin does not stop at the border. That Roisin demands that all her children be cherished equally. That she demands that the Proclamation be the foundation stone of the Irish nation.
Partition and the Proclamation cannot be reconciled with each other. Capitalist exploitation cannot be reconciled with social justice. The horse trading of our natural resources cannot be reconciled with the well being of the Irish people. All this the Dublin government has tried to do in a desperate bid to paint over the rust of its abject failure.
The time has long passed for tinkering with partition. Both states on either side of the border have failed. Hope and history can only rhyme when partition is finally obliterated from our country. When Pearse stood in front of the GPO he offered a clear choice to our people; to be Irish you must first fight for her freedom, if not, you can die on the Somme in a uniform which will not honour your death. That choice remains with us today; fight for our freedom or capitulate and die in the financial Somme’s of Europe.
We did not hear this message outside the GPO last Saturday. The Trade Union leadership allowed themselves to be subsumed into the mire of Free State politics. They had nothing to say to the citizens who gathered to hear them. If the workers of Ireland want change they must make these changes themselves. They must be their own leadership and deploy their influence. The 32 County Sovereignty Movement have called for a National Strike throughout the 32 counties. Both states need to be closed down so that the clarity of what is truly required for change can be made apparent.
Jeremiah and Con Delaney gave their lives as an act of clarity and sacrifice. Kieron Doran and countless other republicans today are doing likewise. For what died the sons of Roisin?
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