15 June 2006 Edition
Morrison praises the 'Risen People' at commemoration
A large crowd attended the opening of a new memorial garden on Sunday, 4 June dedicated to those republican activists from the mid Falls area who died in the course of the present phase of the struggle for national liberation.
While most of those attending were from Belfast, there were also Sinn Féin representatives from Dungarvan, Waterfiord City and Kilkenny. Among the invited guests was Dublin City Councillor Larry O'Toole whose electoral area is twinned with the mid-Falls.
The memorial which is the result of years of fund raising by the mid-Falls Commemoration Committee is located on Beechmount Avenue. It has inlayed marble memorial plaques inscribed with the names of local IRA Volunteers who died during the war. The centrepiece of the memorial garden is a marble plaque inscribed with the 1916 Proclamation.
The main speakers of the day were former political prisoners Danny Morrison and Pat Sheehan who spent over 50 days on the 1981 Hunger Strike.
In his speech Morrison praised the people of the area who he said, "didn't ask for loyalists to come in and murder our people. This area didn't want the British army and so we slowly turned to the IRA and Sinn Féin for leadership. In the end the conflict produced a risen people who know what they want."