Vision of 1916 as relevant 100 years later – Martin McGuinness at GPO on Rising centenary

DELIVERING the oration at a Sinn Féin commemorative event at the GPO in Dublin on Sunday to mark the actual anniversary of the “Easter Rising” on 24 April 1916, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness said the work in achieving the goals of the heroes of 1916 was epitomised for him by young primary school children in Newry on Friday.

He said he was delighted when they presented him with a copy of their 2016 Proclamation which includes:

We demand that all people of Ireland have a safe and warm home as every person deserves.

Homelessness MUST come to an end. All families should have a nice warm meal every night.

We demand that all children have the highest standard of education possible.

The former Education Minister added:

“Those primary school children have more political principle and maturity than many of our self-serving political parties.”

The famed Derry republican resistance leader began the event by declaring that that it was a great honour to be asked to deliver the oration at the very place where Pádraig Pearse declared “the birth of the Irish Republic” on this day 100 years ago.

“On that day, a small group of men and women took on the military might of the British Empire and struck a blow for freedom that would reverberate across the globe and down through the generations,” Martin McGuinness said.

They knew their likely fate but still they stepped forward for freedom “with a calm courage and determination that even 100 years on is awe-inspiring”.

They were workers, thinkers, poets and teachers, he noted. “They were patriots and visionaries. They were republicans and socialists who saw all around them in the tenement slums of Dublin the deeply destructive effects of British rule. And they decided to act – not in their own self-interest but in the interests of the Irish people and of future generations.”

Their mission statement was the Proclamation, read for the first time at this very spot, he said.

“That mission statement was far ahead of its time, offering equality, democracy and social justice when the world knew little of these concepts.

“The Republic that they declared that day is still to be fully realised. The completion of the struggle which began on this spot 100 years ago remains the most urgent work facing this generation of Irish republican activists.”

For Sinn Féin, the work of building a new, inclusive and progressive Ireland is a work in progress and republicans reiterate their commitment to securing, in the words of the Proclamation, “the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies”, the senior Sinn Féin figure said.

And the greatest fracture in securing that right remains the partition of Ireland, the Derryman insisted.

“For 100 years, the established parties in the South not only failed to address this fracture in the Irish nation but, disgracefully, they abandoned Northern nationalists to a sordid sectarian state.

“Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments in Dublin did stand idly by when repression, inequality and sectarianism was visited on Irish citizens in the North.

“But the days of second-class citizenship are over and gone forever, not because of anything the political establishment in Dublin has done but because of the sacrifice, courage and determination of this generation of Irish republicans.”

Sinn Fein is the only party on this island working to end that fracture in our nation and to achieving the republic set out in the Proclamation, he said.

“The vision of 1916 is alive and well here today and right across this island.

“The challenge for all of us in the months and weeks ahead is to complete the work set in motion when Pearse and Connolly, Clarke and Ceannt, Mac Diarmada, MacDonagh and Joseph Mary Plunkett signed their names to that seminal document 100 years ago today.

“Irish republicans are determined to deliver on the 1916 Proclamation. We also need to deliver on the innocent but insightful proprieties set out in the Proclamation written by those young children in Newry in 2016.”

The spirit of 1916 is also as relevant and inspiring today as it was a century ago, he said, quoting some of the words of the ballad The Foggy Dew, “The world did gaze in deep amaze,” and adding “at those who stood against the might of the British Empire on the streets of this city.”

He said that republicans have an enormous responsibility to deliver on the optimism of the heroes of 1916.

“Today, in this place that still resonates with the bravery and vision of the rebels, we are sending a clear message that the spirit of freedom embodied in the 1916 Proclamation is alive and well in cities town and villages across this island.

“In 2016, let us all join the Rising – Up the Rebels!”