| Posted on January 5, 2012 at 7:15 PM |
Volunteer Seán Sabhat
ON Sunday, January 1, 2012 the annual Seán Sabhat commemoration was held at the Republican Plot in Mount Saint Laurence Cemetery in Limerick city which is the burial place of Volunteer Seán Sabhat who gave his life 55 years ago in the cause of Irish freedom. The event was organised by Comhairle na Mumhan (Munster executive) of Republican Sinn Féin.
Members and supporters marched from Mulgrave Street to Mount Saint Laurence Cemetery led by a colour party.
The commemoration was chaired by Geraldine McNamara, National PRO.
In her opening address she said that “Seán Sabhat was a scholar, a fluent Irish speaker and a freedom fighter and we honour him today by continuing that struggle in the same honourable way that he and his comrades did.
“It is an honour to be here amongst members of Republican Sinn Féin who have had to endure a great deal in the past for the cause for Irish freedom”
Wreaths were laid on behalf of the Republican prisoners by Adrian Haire (Mayo), on behalf of Republican Sinn Féin by Joan Kennedy (Cork) and on behalf of the Republican Movement by Donal Malone (Tipperary).
A decade of the rosary was recited by John Mangan (Kerry) which was followed by a minutes silence and the Last Post.
Tomás Ó Curráin read the New Year statement from the Leadership of Republican Sinn Fein.
Geraldine introduced Han Hoban, Mayo, an ex-internee and POW to give the main oration. Dan said in the course of his oration that he felt deeply honored to be asked to speak there to pay tribute to Seán Sabhat, “the soldier of the Irish Republican Army who gave his life in the fight for Irish freedom fifty five years ago on New Year’s Eve 1956, and who in so doing was continuing a tradition of the Irish people - those who never accepted British rule in Ireland.
“For 800 years the Irish people have resisted British rule. Seán Sabhat was part of that resistance movement and he handed on that tradition to those who came after him.
“We have a long history of battle to liberate ourselves from British rule in this country and it has gone on for over 800 years. Unfortunately we haven't been successful so far but every generation of Irish men and Irish women have come out at different times when all the forces that were against us thought they had Republicans defeated.
“We had Pádraig Pearse and his comrades who so gallantly fought in Easter Week 1916 who were executed by firing squad. At that time we had the Proclamation to which Republicans are still true today, those who believe that we will achieve that ultimate goal.
“Many have fallen by the wayside in the meantime but Republicans have stuck together and eventually will come out and achieve that goal. Recently the Patron of Republican Sinn Féin Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was asked in an interview ‘is this it, have we gone into politics now and are the McGuinnesses and the Adams and all those going to take over’. Ruairí’s answer to this question was ‘while British rule remains in Ireland there will always be some form of an IRA, somebody will take on the powers that be’.
“We had that glorious fight in 1916 and then we had the Treaty of Surrender in 1922 when Irishmen were divided over what course we should take. At that particular time people were compromised when they went to London and they signed a deal. But then there were others, true Republicans who said we will not have this deal, we will fight on. “Then further down the road we had people who had stood with the Republican cause but decided they had enough and Fianna Fáil was founded. De Valera and his cohorts said put your guns away they will be needed another time but the next time they were needed was to execute men in the ’30s and the ’40s.
“We have a long history and we have a long memory and we don’t forget and those men who were executed during that period by Éamonn de Valera and his government who knew so much about the IRA that they said they were going to defeat them for all times. “And then the men of the 1940s to whom we owe a huge deal of respect for keeping things together during those lean years. Men who lay in English jails, men who lay in the Curragh, who lay in Portlaoise and the sacrifice made by men like Charlie Kerins, Maurice O'Neill and so on and so forth; McNeela and Darcy who died on hunger strike, and all the sufferings, women in jail in England who fought on and said we will have the whole thing, the Irish Republic or nothing.
“At the end of that period when the people were released from the Curragh Concentration Camp and all the others came out of English jails, de Valera and his cohorts said we have to put the IRA down for all times. They were making a sad mistake, but I can tell you one thing, they were the nearest people who came to defeating the IRA, and they failed and when they failed nobody else will succeed.
“Then came the 1950s campaign in which Seán Sabhat paid the supreme sacrifice along with Fergal O'Hanlon in the Resistance Campaign. We had the Wexford men and Michael Watters and all those people that kept the tradition going. And when that campaign ended it was thought the IRA were gone again.
“But in 1969 when Bernadette Devlin and her comrades came to Burntollet bridge a new generation of Irishmen and women were on the march again.
“We had a glorious campaign that was fought for over 30 years, and with victory in sight, we had men who got greedy, men who wanted power, who wanted to take part of the apple, not the whole. So they had their ‘Good Friday’ Agreement and everything that went with it. They turned around and said the path of fighting is over, now we will go back to the politics that our former friends de Valera and Cosgrave and were going to free Ireland with.
“But there was only one type of politics that the British understood and that was the politics that came from the point of a gun. That was the only message that they ever answered and so McGuinness and Adams and all their friends are lying there now in Leinster House and Stormont, and they are over in London taking big salaries.
“They have forgotten about the men who died in the H-Blocks, they have forgotten about the men who have fought and struggled for the last 30 years; but there are still people who haven’t forgotten about them. And if the Republic was not achieved by a past generation, it will be achieved by a generation in the future.
“There will always be men and women who are prepared to fight and die to liberate their country and while the last generation was a great generation there will come a greater one. We have to struggle on to achieve what hasn't come to fruition.
“We have all types of propaganda now from the British and from this side and that side from former comrades, and in the last few days the British papers released on something that happened over 30 years ago.
“They have released the papers and the British version of what happened at the Hunger Strike of 1981 when ten men paid the supreme sacrifice. They are claiming that Maggie Thatcher wanted to end it, that there were attempts made to end it and that Bobby Sands was prepared, when he was near to death, to compromise and talk. In the previous hunger strike there was compromise and talk and what was promised was never given. It was agreed during the 1981 H-Block hunger strike that there would be no compromise and let not the British try to besmirch the name of Bobby Sands or Patsy O'Hara or anyone else by claiming that on their death bed they were prepared to take food.
“The British cannot take away what those men stood and fought for, they stood up and fought for political status for Irish Republican prisoners and they fought for the liberation of their country.
“We are standing here today as the true standard bearers of Irish Republicanism and we will continue to encourage and support everybody who opposes British rule in Ireland by using whatever means is at their disposal to get rid of the British forever, because there will be no peace in Ireland until the last Brit is gone.
“Finally, coming back to Seán Sabhat and Fergal O'Hanlon, Seán Sabhat was a very inspirational figure not alone to those who fought side by side with him but to those who came after him and many of the Volunteers who died in the struggle over the last twenty years.
“I am very sure that a lot of them were inspired by Seán Sabhat and I would like to say that he was an inspiration to all of us in the struggle for Irish independence. I will conclude by referring back to the opening lines in the introduction of that famous ballad that has been sung by Irish people all over the world Seán Sabhat of Garryowen;
"Sad are the homes around Garryowen, since they lost their joy and pride,
“And the Banshees cries over every vale along the Shannonside,
“The city of the ancient walls and broken Treaty Stone
“Undying fame surrounds your name, Seán Sabhat from Garryowen".
“An Phoblacht abú.”
Categories: None
