Kerry Sinn Féin launches 1916 centenary events at Banna Strand

SEVERAL HUNDRED PEOPLE gathered on Saturday at the beach at Banna Strand in County Kerry, where Roger Casement came ashore on Good Friday 1916 with the aim of landing arms to support the planned Easter Rising.

The large crowd heard Kerry TD Martin Ferris – who was himself jailed in 1984 for ten years after being captured off the coast of Kerry trying to land arms and other equipment for the Irish Republican Army – say that the vision of Roger Casement and his comrades “was not just about freeing us from British rule – it was about freeing us from poverty and from the clutches of the elites who ruled for their own selfish interests”.

He said those elites were “the very same people who betrayed the causes of Volunteers when they allowed the partition of our country, the same people ruled over two sectarian states after 1922, the same people who colluded with the Catholic Church to rule over our people with fear”.

He recalled James Connolly’s words:

“If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the socialist republic, your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.”

How right James Connolly was, Martin Ferris said.

“It is no wonder that the paper of William Martin Murphy, the so-called Irish Independent, called for the executions of the leaders of the Rising. Two days before the wounded James Connolly was executed in his chair, on 12 May 1916, by a British Army firing squad, the editorial of the Irish Independent, with a picture of Connolly beside it, demanded that “the worst of the ringleaders be singled out and dealt with as they deserve”.

The Sinn Féin TD said:

“But the ghosts of William Martin Murphy live on today. They live on through the Denis O’Briens of this world, who seek to manipulate public discourse for their own greedy self-interest.

“The same paper that sought to demonise republicans 100 years ago continues to demonise republicans today. But they have failed and will continue to fail because we are stronger than them and we have faced far greater threats than the poisoned pens of their journalists.”

● Sinn Féin County Councillor Pa Daly chairs the event at Banna Strand

Turning to the centenary events this year, the republican Dáil deputy concluded:

“It is not good enough for us to just commemorate and remember, because the work that the men and women started 100 years ago remains unfinished.

“They did not go out and fight and die so that corrupt politicians could line their own pockets from brown envelopes of developers and rich businessmen.

“They did not fight for a state that allowed thousands of its children to be imprisoned in industrial schools.

“They did not fight for a country that bails out bankers and developers while citizens are evicted from their homes and are forced to carry the debt for those same bankers and those same developers.

“They did not die so that our young people would be forced to leave their country to seek meaningful work.

“They did not die so that our elderly would be left languishing on trolleys in hospital corridors.

“They did not die for a country of haves and have nots.

“They died for a Republic. A real Republic.

“They died for independence from foreign rule and corrupt rule. They died for the promise of the Proclamation that guaranteed equal rights and equal opportunities.

“This is the time to rededicate ourselves to the goals of Wolfe Tone and James Connolly, Austin Stack and Roger Casement, and Constance Markievicz, Bobby Sands and Mairéad Farrell.

“We need to believe in a future that would do justice to these great men and women but not just believe – we have to fight for it.

“So let us remember with pride and thanks but let’s finish the work they started.

“Let’s build the Republic.”