at Bodenstown in Ireland the Republican Movement holds a commemoration at the graveside of Wolf Tone. Tone and the United Irishmen were Influenced by and part of the international convulsions inspired by the revolutions in America and France at the end of the eighteenth century, Tone wanted democratic Ireland with a secular state that was free from British rule. And he saw the struggle for this based on 'the men of no property'. The United Irishmen led a rising that was brutally put down, resulting In the formal colonisation of the Island by Britain.
Sinn Fein - who won 42 per cent of the nationalist vote at the see themselves as the inheritors of the Wolf Tone tradition.
The annual commemoration - an Important event in the Republican calendar - centres on a polley speech by one of the movement's leaders. This always been the signpost to the direction andstrategy adrocated by Sinn Fein and the IRA. This year's commemoration was held on 19 June and the speech was by Gerry Adams, newly elected MP for West Betfast, We reprint his speech below:
IN 1795, Wolfe Tone his Belfast friends of the United Irishmen met at Mac Art's Fort on the summit of Cave Hill. Most of the inner circle of that revolutionary movement were present and they pledged themselves never to desist in their efforts until they had subverted' authority of England over our country and asserted their independence.
Today 188 years later, we are gathered here at Tone's grave, to renew ourselves in our republican faith and to pledge ourselves, like those on Cave Hill, 'Never to desist in our efforts until we have subverted the authority England over our country asserted our independence'. That is the message which goes from Bodenstown graveyard British government today.
We unapologetically without reservation deny the right of the British parliament to make law for Ireland. We assert that the British government has no rights to Ireland or rights in Ireland. declare that our independence must be had at all hazards and we defend the right of all Irish people to engage in armed struggle pursuance of that independence and in resistance to the British presence in our country.
First Wolfe Tone was the first to preach revolution in Ireland. He was not and will not be the last. He articulated the necessity of breaking the British connection, the right of our people to be free, the need for unity of Catholic, Protestant Dissenter gospel of anti-sectarianism and Irish seperatism. was a radical and a revolutionary. His work remains unfinished and his theories have yet to be implemented and thus it is important, and customary, for us to examine how far along the road we have travelled since we last assembled here at Bodenstown.
Tone's philosophy and the evolution of republicanism since his time, and this cannot be stressed enough, is only relevant to Ireland today insofar as we can make it so. Unless we make republicanism living philosophy capable of meeting the needs of our people, our struggle and legacy of Wolfe than the academic hieh-minded visions of yesterday or yesteryear.
While the fundamental tenets of republicanism valid, we have a duty to interpret and to develop our republicanism so that it meets today's political conditions and so that it becomes a coherent social and political philosophy. There no such thing as theology. We need a living political ideology, based firmly on republican principles and always open to refinement, re-appraisal and self-criticism. We make our polities the polities of ordinary people. the of vastly different conditions which exist in both partitioned parts of this island - the direct effects of partition itself - and the uneven development and the politicisation of our own movement.
are hurdles which we have to surexample from the people of the North - and I suggest this not from any because that is where our successes We cent electoral support amongst nationalist voters and the gains we made in dramatically by a massive 60 per cent both these election campaigns under harrassed on a daily basis by the RUC and the British army, a number of us were arrested, our stand in the election was condemned by the British of the Catholic hierarchy, by all ProDemocratic and Labour Party.
Unionist parties organised electoral the pacts against us, the Alliance party order to maximise the anti-Sinn Fein vote, our polices were misrepresented acclulale moral pressures and condemnations unprecedented since the Civil War. It was Sinn Fein versus everyone else. Despite this we set as our primary tactical objective the winning of 90,000 votes. On 9 June we secured 102,701 volts. I would like on your denall lo congratulate all our election workers on their victory and I would like to to the freedom fighters of the IRA. By their determination and courage the women Volunteers of Oglaigh na hEireann have won the admiration of progressive nationalists throughout Ireland and of freedom loving peopic mougaoul lue world.
They have assured by their tenacity and resilience that they, and thus we. can never be defeated and that for as long as the British government maintains its presence in our country, they will be faced by armed The IRA is the assertion and the guarantee that our will as a people to be free is stronger than the British government to armed struggle is one used especially in the 26-counties by the establishAll of the Dublin parties paint a horscrambling into the Freestate to create 26 counties need no reminding thai eveat comore mad em th poticians themselves know full well, as does any against Freestate forces and instituthe six counties against a governmen part to play in the development of the people here is of colossal importance 32-county wide political movement -capable of linking the local struggles farmers, women and gaelogoeri with counties need to be matched by a British government cannot exist ir Ireland without Dublin collaboration and that the Dublin government has In regard, but we have also to realise that enough, accept Freestate institutions republican politics, to undermine the development of our struggle and is to has to be stressed that the people o the six counties cannot secure Irish i dependence and the conditions of ou Irish Republic, on their own. A fir foothold and a living, versatile relevant organisation in Souther politics is vital. We must appl ourselves to that objective.
We know, as Tone declared, tha 'We have no national government: » are ruled by Englishmen and the ser vants of Englishmen, whose object the interest of another country, whos instrument is corruption and who strength is the weakness of Ireland.
Leinster House with patronage, double standards and co ruption has become the Tamman Hall of what passes for Irish politic As unemployment figures increa and the dole queues lengthen, as sma farmers and consumers, the old an socially deprived bear the brunt Dublin parties by way of tempora diversion from the effects of the are engaged in th farcical Dublin Forum.
Forum peop 26 counties increases we must stru strugg With all this in mind, the drawi CICH facil firm foothold and a strong organis ber developed by the Dublin establis it applies itself, is our organisation We can be assured if Wolfe To firmly with us — and leader writers but we can be assured also that would stay with us only for as long the task before us.
also, and this is his message to us. I strategi and revolutionary tactics to comb tions and their statements, that well in the six counties will spread the whi realist principled leadership at all levels do anything less is to shirk our de the also and most importantly of the of republican faith. There is work to done. Let us do it.
sin, mor a duirt na fir pluid agus mna Ard Mhaca, Tiochfaidh ar la