Republicans urged to follow example of Kevin Lynch

Kevin Lynch

North Antrim Sinn Féin MLA Daithí McKay made the keynote address at the Kevin Lynch Commemoration in Dungiven last Sunday. This week marks the 26th Anniversary of Kevin Lynch’s death on hunger strike and the commemoration was part of a series of events held in Dungiven over the weekend to commemorate the anniversary.
McKay said the large crowd at the commemoration demonstrated that the wider republican community in County Derry and beyond had not forgotten the sacrifice that Kevin Lynch and his nine comrades made.
He said it was worth remembering that there were still political prisoners in jails around Ireland and this remained an issue that needed to be resolved.
McKay said the courage and selflessness of male and female republican prisoners in the early 1980s had touched a nerve with people who had previously little or no knowledge of the conflict in Ireland.
“It is worth remembering that the Hunger Strikers of 1981 were ordinary young men. Seven out of the ten were aged just 25 and under. When Kevin was arrested and brought from his home here in Dungiven to Castlereagh, and then to Long Kesh, he was merely 20 years of age.”
The actions of Lynch and his comrades, he said, was an extraordinary act of selflessness that not only stirred the emotions of many Irish men and women, but repopularised the republicans struggle.

British policy failed
“The British Government tried to crush Irish republicanism through the H-Blocks and the Diplock Courts and they failed. Their Criminalisation and Ulsterisation policies failed. Today the UDR and now the RIR have been disbanded, much of the British Army has gone and the old RUC is gone. There is an element of the RUC remaining in the PSNI and it must be stymied, it must be blocked and must be taken on to ensure that the abuses that were dealt out to members of this community, some of which are still taking place here in Dungiven, are never repeated again.
 “And although it has been good to see the British Army packing up and leaving South Armagh and other parts of the North, recent months has seen an increase in British Army activity in Counties Derry and Antrim. That is unacceptable and we as republicans must continue to work to bring about a situation when the British Army, in its entirety, has left this part of Ireland”, McKay said.  
The North Antrim MLA said that republicans needed to continue to organise, be disciplined, build political strength and remain focussed on achieving their primary objectives.
“That does involve taking difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions, but sometimes it is those decisions which will benefit our struggle more in the long term and it takes leadership, it takes foresight, and it takes courage to make and follow through on those decisions.

Courage and discipline
McKay concluded: “It is said that when Kevin Lynch made up his mind to do something there was no changing it.  And that was certainly the case during the Hunger Strike. Kevin was motivated by supreme unselfishness when he decided to take part in both hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981.
“The motto adopted by Kevin Lynch’s Hurling Club is one befitting of the man it is named after –  ‘Misneach is Dilseacht’ – Courage and Loyalty.
“It is that same selflessness, that same unwielding commitment to republican objectives, the will to better the lives of people rather than oneself, which will see this struggle through to its successful conclusion. It is those values that have brought us to where we are today.
“The only monument worthy of the ten men who demonstrated such selflessness, and the hundreds of others who endured the brutal prison regimes throughout Ireland, is a free and independent country based on equality and justice. We can settle for nothing less.
“Beidh an Phoblacht again. Beidh ár lá linn”