8 January 1997 Edition

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Sean Sabhat commemorated in Limerick

Up to 500 Republicans from all over Munster were not deterred by the inclement weather or the huge Special Branch presence at the annual Sean Sabhat commemoration in Limerick last Sunday. As is usual, well over a dozen carloads of the unwelcome observers, complete with video and still cameras, monitored the march and commemoration from start to finish and harassed participants as they left the graveyard where the patriot is buried.

A colour party and the Cork-based Ahern-Crowley Memorial Fife and Drum Band led the hundreds from Bedford Row to the graveyard a mile away, where Kerry Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle member, Martin Ferris delivered the oration.

Pádraig Malone chaired the ceremony, and formally introduced Jenny Shapland, who is the Sinn Féin candidate in the forthcoming by-election in Limerick East. She pledged that she would proudly represent the party's objective of attaining a 32 County Democratic, Socialist Republic during the campaign, and expressed confidence of gaining extra electoral support for Sinn Féin. To the large presence of Special Branch in the graveyard she said that ``Republicans are not going away and we will not be bullied or intimidated by you. We have a voice and will be heard.''

In his address, Martin Ferris said that Sean Sabhat, like volunteers Ed O'Brien, Diarmuid O'Neill and Limerickman Packie Sheehy, took the fight to the heart of the British presence, and their sacrifices have led to the present climate ``whereby the Republican Movement is now at the negotiating table confronting the British politically about their illegal presence in our country'' and he was confident that the republican objectives will be realised. ``We will continue with our struggle in whatever form is necessary until such time as we achieve and arrive at our destination of an independent, united Ireland, free form British interference'', he said.

Contrary to media speculation, Martin Ferris asserted that the Republican Movement is united and disciplined, and British strategy has always been to divide. ``They will not succeed, nor will they ever deter Republicans from working towards our goals'', he assured the attentive hundreds.

On the issue of consent, he asked, given the Unionist intrepretation of it, if the consent of the people of Fermanagh, Tyrone, Armagh and Derry, who all have nationalist majorities mattered din the eyes of unionism. True consent, he said, is the consent of all the people of Ireland - national self-determination. The attitude of the participants in the negotiations to this question will determine if they are sincere about them.

He said that the hundred gathered at the graveside of Sean Sabhat are ``a tribute and a credit to Irish Republicanism'', who remember their patriot dead. He praised their steadfastness in the face of the Garda beatings, searches, intimidation and harassment by the state forces, and appealed to Republicans from all over Munster to support Limerick Sinn Féin in every was possible in the upcoming by-election.


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