Speech delivered on the 17th May 2014 at the Independent Republican Commemoration for the Dublin Monaghan Bombings

Final Draft

 

SPEECH AT INDEPENDENT BLACK FLAG VIGIL

40^TH ANNIVERSARY DUBLIN / MONAGHAN BOMBINGS

MALACHY STEENSON   – 17/05/2014

Thank you Chairman

At 5.28 pm during rush hour on Friday, 17 May 1974, three no-warning car bombs ripped through the heart of Dublin.

Parnell Street, Talbot Street and South Leinster Street were devastated.

Twenty-six people (including a French and Italian citizen) and an unborn baby lost their lives, including in Parnell Street an entire young family.

Ninety minutes later, a fourth car bomb exploded in Monaghan town where a further seven people died.

This has been the greatest loss of life in a single day of the latest phase of conflict beginning in 1969.

The bombings occurred during the Ulster Workers’ Council strike, which brought down the power-sharing executive at Stormont established by the Sunningdale Agreement. The arrangement collapsed on 28 May – 11 days after the bombings.

The bombings on this day 40 years ago were the same in population terms as the 9/11 attacks in New York. We saw a swift response from the American Government, a response which we would argue was wrong and immoral, but their stated aim after 9/11 was to protect American citizens at home and abroad, contrast that response to the response of the quisling Dublin Government, who have failed consistently to protect Irish citizens at home and abroad from British Forces.

There was no National day of mourning as there had been for Bloody Sunday. A decision was even taken, but quickly reversed, that the National Flag should not be flown at half-mast.  

The Blueshirt Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, the leader of the Law & Order Government of Fine Gael & Labour sought to lay the blame at the door Republicans.

Speeches by Ministers Cooney; Conor Cruise O’Brien; Tully; Fianna Fail Leader Lynch and the Attorney General, Declan Costello, all gave this message loud and clear, they claimed that any Irish citizen who had even entertained the thought of supporting the continuation of the war in defence of the Republic was every bit as guilty of the slaughter of the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings as were those who had, cold-bloodedly and without any warning, planned and carried out the atrocity.

What happened on this street was an act of war and should have been dealt with as such. The targeting of civilians in indiscriminate bombings is a War Crime under the Geneva Convention, the then Prime Minister of Britain Harold Wilson should have been tried as a war criminal.

You may wonder why 40 years later we are still here remembering that fateful evening, they will tell us – forget about it, it’s in the past.

Until those who were responsible for ordering this attack are brought to Justice it’s not over. We are not naive enough to think that the current Blueshirt Government care, we know their history, we know where their loyalty lies……and it’s not to the Irish Republic.

Let us also be clear this attack did not happen in isolation Between 26 November 1972 and 20 January 1973, there were four British bombings in the centre of Dublin. Three civilians were killed and 185 people were injured

We are told that there was collusion between British Intelligence and Loyalists, let us be very clear this was a war crime carried out against a civilian population by British Intelligence services under the direct control of the British Cabinet. There have been numerous enquiries over the years but none have confronted that basic fact.

The actual group or organisation that carried out the attack is irrelevant, they were ordinary Working Class men sent out to do the dirty deeds of a higher power by those who had a very clear agenda, just as on the Republican side men were sent out to kill or die by a leadership who had a different agenda and indeed we know now that those two agendas were the same, the copper fastening of partition and the further subversion and defeat of the Irish Republic.

Let us remember that the murder of innocent civilians by the British Government is not confined to Ireland or to the past. In the past number of years they along with their American Allies and their proxies have murdered hundreds of thousands innocent men women & children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and many other places.

Let us also remember that collusion is not confined to The British, we have seen in this Bankrupt Corrupt Banana Republic the collusion between the State Police and Criminal elements particularly Drug Gangs.

This no more clearly evident than in the Kieran Boylan Case where Gardai under the direction and control of the former Garda Commissioner were controlling and importing huge quantities of heroin & cocaine which was sold to young people in working class communities like this one and others around this State, yet we see almost complete silence from the political and media class about something that should rock this state to the core.

We also now from the revelations in Leinster House this week by Mick Wallace a current assistant Commissioner appointed by disgraced former Minister for injustice Shatter was up to his neck in it.

He has claimed  that a retired Garda has submitted a 27 page dossier to the Confidential Recipient stating that there were opportunities to arrest the boss of a criminal gang but the Garda  failed to do so because he had a senior Garda in his pocket.

 

He also was aware of an incident in Rosslare when a drug runner was returning with a shipment of drugs. A customs officer stopped him and was about to search his vehicle when two plainclothes gardaí commandeered the car and drove out of the terminal at speed. Customs officers followed but the gardaí lost the pursuers.

The drug runner told Mr Doyle about bringing in cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis, and firearms.

 

He has further claimed that massive amounts of drugs were coming in and quantities were allowed to get into the hands of the criminal gang, the retired Garda claimed that the drug runner told him that  he told me how he was being well looked after financially by both the criminal gang and the gardaí.

 

The drug runner also spoke of leaving a handgun in a wooded area in Cork. He contacted a detective sergeant about the gun’s location and gardaí then added a number of firearms to “beef up the find” and the media reported it as a subversive arms find.

 

This was done to “further their careers”, the drug runner told the retired Garda.

 

 Mr Wallace said one of the Garda involved is now an assistant commissioner. He was appointed by the former minister, Alan Shatter. This same individual has been involved in the Boylan case.

 

As we stand in this part of Dublin ravaged for decades by unemployment, drug addiction and poverty, we know only too well the truth of these claims.

Let us compare that to the demonization of Republicans when they stand up against those who ply death on our Streets.

So corrupt is this State that it will allow its own agents to be killed, it is now widely believed that those who killed Garda Adrian Donohoue last January were and are allowed carry out their drug dealing and other criminal activities as they are valuable assets to both the British & Irish Intelligence services.

But let us be clear this State could never have ended up in any other way that than the bankrupt, immoral ruin that it is, it was born not out of the sacrifices of the leaders of the revolution but out of their defeat. This State was born in the corruption of the will of the people. It needed for its survival to deny the very existence of the Republic and the corruption of its administrators.

Remember it’s the very same parties in Government now as in 1974.

As we begin the decade of centenaries we will see an increase revisionism and rewriting of history, a new version will show that we the Irish people were the guilty ones, and that those who carried out attacks against the Republic and attacks like the one we remember today were the good guys.

Earlier today the families of the victims held a wreath laying ceremony at this spot, and a wreath was laid by current Taoiseach Edna Kenny the current leader of Fine Gael whose party stood by and covered up a war crime committed in this street, he and others attended on this spot as hypocritical as usual, having welcomed the war criminal commander in chief of those who carried out this attack to this city three years ago and have invited them back in 2016 for the centenary celebration of 1916.

They recently dined at Royal Palaces in England and I think the last thing on their mind was the innocent civilians butchered on this street by those operating under the command of the British Royal Family.  

They don’t appear see any contradiction in their quisling position

 

They fail to see that by their activities and those of their predecessors that they are just as guilty as those who directed this operation, by their silence they are culpable.

They think that they can stand here and remember the dead and ignore their own role, but then we know that those in power in Ireland only care about themselves. By their presence here they are adding further insult onto the bereaved.

The families have this week announced that they are bringing a Civil Action against the British Government because they have failed to have the files opened and disclosed. Unfortunately this type of case can only award financial damages. This War Crime must be prosecuted in Geneva and the government of this quisling State should immediately do so. But they will not, they are incapable of standing up against the Imperialist power and will carry on in their subservience.

If the same thing were to happen again their response would be the same.

It is important those of us here today particularly our young people learn our history and study these events and are then in a position to counteract the new revisionism which is increasing around us daily. We must ensure that they are educated in history and Republicanism and ignore what they read in the establishment media.

It is up to us all here today to keep the truth alive and to spread it as widely as possible, our revenge on those who carried out this attack will be the re-establishment of the Irish Republic coupled with the implementation of the Proclamation and of the democratic programme of Dáil Éireann, it is then that we can say that the innocents taken on this day 40 years ago did not die in vain.

And finally while our numbers are small here today, it is important that people of honour and principal remember these events and correct the political narrative written by others and let us end remembering the words of hunger striker Terence Mc Sweeney when he said-

 “If but few are faithful found, they must be all the more steadfast for being a few.”

We are that few we must be resolute in our determination we must be active on a daily basis to defend and re-establish the Irish Republic.

 

Go raibh maith agat.

 

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Speech at Independent Republican Commemoration Arbour Hill

SPEECH DELIVERED AT INDEPENDENT  EASTER RISING COMMEMORATION

ARBOUR HILL 3^RD MAY 2014   BY MALACHY STEENSON

 

A CHAIRDE,

 

Firstly I want to thank the organisers for arranging this event and for asking me to speak at this hallowed place.  As republicans we are often asked why do we go to places like this, why do we attend at graves so regularly, why can we not move on, the past should be left where it is and all of that kind of nonsense, We attend at the graves of our martyred dead all around the Country, at different times of the year at Easter in particular we do that for a number of reasons one is to remember the sacrifice that those who lie in these graves made in order to ensure a free and independent Ireland, we also come to hear speakers tell of the previous year’s activity relevant to Republicans but most importantly we come here to  Rededicate ourselves to the goals and objectives set out by those who have gone before us, we come to say to the world that we will continue to strive to re-establish the Republic.

 

We have no need to define our Republicanism our definition is that of Tone and Emmet, of Pearse & Connolly and of Mellows.

We must however consider where we are today we must ask ourselves not what our objectives are, because they have always been clear, it is not the establishment of a 32 County Democratic Socialist Republic but the re-establishment of our Republic.

 

Those of us who oppose the current so called Peace process are continually told that we have nothing to offer other than a return to war, it is important that we therefore address that head on, we defend the right of any group of republicans to used armed struggle in defence of the Republic and we will not join in the ritualistic condemnation of attacks on crown forces however we do say to those who engage in armed conflict that whilst the Irish people have a moral right to use whatever means they want to defend the Republic we must see the use of arms as a tactic and not as a principle. If a military war is to be waged it must have a reasonable chance of success, it cannot be used in the absence of a clear politicisation of those involved.

 

The lack of a clear political ideology amongst some of those involved in Republicanism has led us to the current cul de sac we are now in. It allowed the emergence of cult leaderships whose word was accepted without question and we see on a daily basis the statements emanating from Parnell Square each more hypocritical than the last.

 

This week alone we heard claims of political policing, yet those us here involved in prison campaigns know only too well that those same individuals claimed that the RUC were reformed, that Nationalist should support and join them, that when Marion Price was interned it was not political policing, when Martin Cory was interned it was not political policing when Ivor Bell was recently charged it was not political policing but now it suddenly is. They should at least be consistent in their lies.

 

One of the key challenges facing Republicans is how to get the message of Irish Republicanism out to a wider audience, in a society of mass media where people demand instant information it should not be difficult one would think. The State and Private sector media are all opposed to Irish republicanism; they are following the position put forward by the establishment since the foundation of this State, both in its overt public acts and its more covert policies like the education system.

 

The State has brought about a position where most people through no fault of their own fail to understand the difference between the Republic of Ireland and The Irish Republic. They are bombarded with messages that the issue of Sovereignty is dealt with, that there is really no difference between the two islands and indeed fighting for Crown Forces 1913 was no different than fighting to establish the Republic in 1916. Similarly those who are currently members of the Crown Forces either in Ireland or Iraq are treated as heroes.

As we approach the centenary of 1916 we will see an avalanche of hype, indeed it has already begun, to portray the conflict in Ireland through the centuries as being the fault of a few misguided Irishmen and that the British Government was an innocent bystander trying to keep the “Paddy’s” from killing each other.

 

We must look at the terminology that we use we must redefine how we address issues, we must state quite clearly that the Irish Republic was established, by the Irish Volunteers and The Irish Citizen Army along with their comrades in Cumman na mBan and we paid tribute that that unflinching organisation who celebrate their centenary this year we recognise and acknowledge their defence of the Irish Republic,  and was proclaimed to the world by the reading of the Proclamation by the head of the Provisional Government Padraig Pearse it was thereafter defended in arms until the unconditional cessation was called by the Government of the Irish Republic. In 1918 the Irish People ratified by universal suffrage that Republic thereafter we had what many describe as the War of Independence,  as the Republic was in being we should describe this for what it was, it was the first defence of the Republic by Dail Eireann, later on we had the so-called Civil War, there was no Civil War in Ireland there was a counter revolution – the second defence of the Republic.

 

It is only when we use the correct terminology that we can be confident in our own arguments and hoe then to educate others.

 

It is a sad reality that the whole concept of Republicanism is a dirty word to many, the mass media have no hesitation in running baseless stories concocted by the Hans Christian Andersons of today, we rightly blame the media for peddling these stories which are design to demand republicans and Republicanism is the minds of ordinary people. Often Republicans contribute to the creation of these stories by their own actions.

 

Irish Republicanism is not something you switch on and off, you are a republican full stop, all of your actions in your daily life reflect on the Republicanism is the minds of those watching. Republicans must be proud and stand on a higher moral plane than others, none of our individual actions should besmirch that ideal which we represent. The Irish Republic lives in our hearts and minds and we must expound that at every opportunity.

As Republicans how do we confront this naked revisionism, we must firstly educate ourselves, we must be confident on all aspects of Republicanism, we must be able to confidently argue and debate our position in every forum, we must seek to educate others in our family and in our communities.

This State and the British State are afraid of the message of Irish Republicanism they are afraid to educate the people to make up their own minds, they know the Irish Republicanism as put clearly in the Proclamation of 1916 and the Democratic Programme for Government of the First Dáil is a powerful one and its adaptation would lead to the collapse of this morally and financially bankrupt State, they are so afraid of our message that they continually seek to demean it.

 

In every generation Republicans have saw the necessity of communications and have recognized that we are in a propaganda war and it was vital to have our own newspaper, it is now well past the time that we should have our own radio and TV stations and these are now possible with the advent of the internet. It is vital that every one of us use the mediums that are available to us to promote the concept of Irish Republicans to a wider audience. We owe it not just to our own generation and generations past but to the generations coming behind us to put firmly in place the correct historical narrative, we must convince people tough our word and deeds that we seek not the creation of a 32 County Democratic Republic but its re-establishment.

 

We saw the wall to wall coverage recently of the visit by the President of the 26 County States along with the British Governments administrator in the North of Ireland to the Royal Court and the fawning by all and sundry. The subsequent invitation to the Commanders of the British Army to attend at our graves in 2016 will be rejected. When we leave this hallowed ground we must dedicate ourselves to resisting this attempt to deny our past and our continued occupation. As someone who is the grandson of some of those who established The Republic and whose family have been involved in every decade since they do not invite them in my name.

We must leave here re invigorated and ready to carry on the struggle until such time as we re-establish the Republic till we can say that we have a country run for the benefit of the majority of its people and not for the benefit of a few.

 

We must show that we are that beacon of light, for the Irish Republic through our deeds and our actions.