Sinn Féin Commemorations - VOLUNTEER CHARLIE McGLADE

Volunteer Charlie McGlade

The struggle is not over yet

‘Charlie McGlade was not afraid to take up arms to oppose the enemy but he was not a militarist. He had a social conscience and he understood that the struggle to end British rule and create a New Republic on this island required much more than just a change of flags, a lick of green paint on the post boxes and a series of self-serving conservative political hacks who administered government for the benefit of the few’

TORRENTIAL RAIN in Dublin on Saturday, September 18th, did not deter a substantial crowd from marking the 28th anniversary of the death of Belfast-born Volunteer Charlie McGlade.
A colour party and the Dublin Republican Flute Band paraded to Charlie’s house in Drimnagh, south-west Dublin City, where flags were lowered and a minute’s silence observed.
Moving on to a ceremony in Errigal Field chaired by Ian McBride, the crowd heard the Dublin Roll of Honour read by Vinnie Birch before Dublin South Central Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh gave an update on political events and urged everyone to get involved in the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes commemoration events.
Wreaths were laid on behalf of the local Charlie McGlade Sinn Féin Cumann by Mary O’Rawe and the Republican Movement by Seanna Walsh, the main speaker.
Seanna, himself a former H-Blocks POW, echoed Aengus Ó Snodaigh’s appeal for people to become active in commemorating the prison struggle.
“We aim to furnish another generation of young Irish people - and maybe some not so young - with the story of the extraordinary sacrifice of this group of people who forged an amazing bond in the crucible of the prison struggle and led to them facing down the torture within the prisons and defying Margaret Thatcher and her government as they sought to criminalise our resistance to British rule in Ireland.”
Below is the bulk of Seanna’s address, one in which he shows the links between what Charlie McGlade fought for and the struggle we continue today.

"CHARLIE McGLADE was born in 1909 into an Ireland as yet undivided by the British and their unionist garrison. He lived and grew up in the Bone area of Belfast on the fringe of Ardoyne and surrounded on three sides by a hostile unionist population.
He joined Na Fianna Éireann during the years of the Tan War and opposed the partition of this island. As the reality of the Orange state ravaged the ordinary working people of his native city, Charlie understood that the way to end British Government rule in Ireland was to join the Republican Army, which he did in 1927.
For the next 55 years, right up until the year of his death in 1982, Charlie opposed British interference in Irish affairs. He was involved in organising, in training and lecturing, acquiring arms and munitions, preparing new generations to play their part in the freedom struggle. He was still a member of the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle when he died.
Charlie was arrested, he was interned and he was sentenced to years in prison but he survived it all and, despite the hardship to his family, the ill-treatment and deprivation he suffered himself, he remained strong and true to the Republic.
He was active across this island and was also instrumental in taking the war to Britain in the Thirties and Forties. He was shot and captured by the Special Branch in Dublin in 1941 and then interned in the Curragh till the end of World War Two but he survived to fight another day.
Charlie McGlade was not afraid to take up arms to oppose the enemy but he was not a militarist. He had a social conscience and he understood that the struggle to end British rule and create a New Republic on this island required much more than just a change of flags, a lick of green paint on the post boxes and a series of self-serving conservative political hacks who administered government for the benefit of the few.
Charlie opposed the establishment of both conservative states on this island and he fought to break the connection with England and to smash the Orange state.
Well, a chairde, today that Orange state is gone. What we have in its place is still not the Republic that our friends and comrades fought for, that Charlie McGlade fought for, but then the struggle is not over yet.
We fought our way to the negotiating table, we’ve splintered the unionist monolith and their paramilitary wing, and we’ve initiated a dialogue with unionism which we expect will usher in a new dispensation.
We are a patient people. Níl deifir ar bith orainn, ní miste linn fanacht.
Having said that, how patient do you have to be in this part of the country before you get the governance you deserve?
The new Budget for the 26 Counties will soon be upon us, detailing over €3billion in cuts. Who will this affect most? Who will the Government target? The people who Charlie McGlade lived amongst and fought for as he strove to deliver a New Ireland, the ordinary working people.
It will be their jobs, their houses, their services in health, education and welfare that will suffer. Meanwhile, NAMA and the Bank Guarantee Scheme marches on, protecting the money men and the money women at an ever-increasing cost to the taxpayer.
We in Sinn Féin share the ideals of Charlie McGlade. We find the current approach to politics across the island short-sighted and costly. In the North, unionism is prepared to roll over and take whatever cuts are coming from the British Exchequer, while services and government departments are duplicated in the border corridor, wasting scarce resources.
In the South, we see a mirror image. In the 1990s and early 2000s the politics of the ‘here and now’ drove the economy. Tens of billions were spent, not on developing infrastructure or improving health and education services but on lining the pockets of a golden circle, regardless of the need to invest in the people of Ireland. During this time, Sinn Féin were slated as ‘economic illiterates’ with no clue about what we were warning about.
Time has shown who was right and who was wrong.
Let us redouble our efforts and let us build a fitting monument to Charlie McGlade and all the tens of thousands of Charlie McGlades who have dedicated so much and sacrificed so much to create An Phoblacht Úr.
Ar aghaidh linn le chéile, beidh ár lá linn
Tiocfaidh ár lá!"