Des Dalton’s Remarks at the funeral of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh[i]
“Irish. Before I begin today, I cannot let it go without comment the disgraceful scenes which we witnessed both last night (cheers) —which we witnessed last night as we bore the remains of our chief into the church of Roscommon and again this morning at the church and here again in St. Coman’s cemetery where complete and utter disrespect was shown to the Ó Brádaigh family by the forces of the state. In fact, we can take it as a testament to Ruairí, that even in death, that same state still fears him today (applause and cheering). The scenes witnessed here today are unprecedented in the west of Ireland, since those witnessed at the funeral of the hunger striker Frank Stagg and it is clear and evident that the same mentality still exists in Leinster House and the Heavy Gang are alive and well. Well, let this message go out here today from the gravesite of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, that the Republican Movement is alive and well and (applause and cheering).
We came here today to support the Ó Brádaigh family, to bury Ruairí with dignity and respect, and it is the forces of the state who brought scenes of violence here to the graveyard—who brought weapons of violence, carried openly on the streets of Roscommon town today. It is they who have shown disrespect to the people of Roscommon, to the people of Ireland, and to the Ó Brádaigh family.
Speaking at the gravesite of O’Donovan Rossa, Pearse restated the principles which had fired the soul and intellect of O’Donovan Rossa and restated the determination of his generation to take up the torch of freedom from Rossa and the generations that had gone before. And I quote those words, “I propose to you, then that here by the grave of this of this unrepentant Fenian, we renew our baptismal vows. That here by the grave of this unconquered and unconquerable man, we ask God, each one for himself, such unshakeable purpose, such high and gallant courage, such unbreakable strength of soul, as belonged to O’Donovan Rossa. Deliberately, here we avow ourselves, as he avowed himself in the dock. Irish men of one allegiance only. We and the Irish volunteers and you others who are associated with us in today’s past and duty are bound together and must stand together hence forth in brotherly union for the achievement of the freedom of Ireland. And we know only one definition of freedom: it is Tone’s definition, it is Mitchel’s definition, it is Rossa’s definition. Let no man blaspheme the cause that the dead generations of Ireland served by giving it any other name and definition than their name and their definition”, end quote. Those words are appropriate here today at the grave here of our own Fenian Chief. For Ruairí Ó Brádaigh there was but one definition of Irish freedom. For him there was but one straight and true path leading to the all-Ireland Republic of Easter Week. We come here to mourn the loss of Ruairí, but we also come to celebrate his long and rich life. It was a life marked by unselfish devotion to the cause of Irish freedom. It was a life set apart by his sense of duty, honor, and the intellectual rigor that he brought to the Republican Movement. Indeed, often would Ruairí quote these lines from Louisa May Alcott which are inscribed in the headstone of the tireless champion of Republican prisoners and the working class, Charlotte Despard, and I quote, “I slept and dreamed that life was beauty, I woke and found that life was duty,” end quote. But coupled with all of this was Ruairí’s deep humanity. He was a man whose empathy and compassion for the downtrodden and oppressed knew no boundaries of race or creed. In his biography of Ruairí, Professor Robert W. White of Indiana University, described Ruairí Ó Brádaigh’s life as and I quote, “a window for understanding his generation of Irish republicans and how they received the values of a previous generation and are transmitting those values to the next generation,” end quote. In an introduction to the same book, the journalist Ed Moloney described Ruairí as, and I quote, “the last, or one of the last Irish Republicans,” end quote. Whilst this tribute was well intentioned and in good faith, the case is quite different. It is because of the life’s work of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh that he is not the last Republican but has rather ensured the continuity of Irish Republicanism, passing on the torch to succeeding generations.
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was a towering figure of Irish Republicanism in the latter half of the 20th century. He came to embody the very essence of the Republican tradition, setting the very highest standards of commitment, duty, honor and loyalty to the cause of Irish freedom.
As an Irish Republican, he believed passionately in Theobald Wolfe Tone’s vision of substituting the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter with the common name of Irish man and Irish woman. He played a leading role in formulating the Éire Nua proposals for a four province Federal Ireland, which was based on the principles of true decentralization of decision making and full participatory democracy, involving all sections of our people as CHECK trust founders of a New Ireland. Such a democratic template would provide the Unionist minority within a new Ireland, with real political power and decision-making. He was among the Republican leaders who met representatives of loyalism and unionism at Feakle, Co Clare in 1974, and later strongly supported the MacBride/Boal talks, which were eventually sabotaged by the 26-County Government Minister Conor Cruise O’Brien. Such was Ruairí’s commitment to the principles of a non-sectarian and a pluralist Ireland that he and Dáithí Ó Conaill stepped down from the positions of President and Vice-President respectively of Sinn Féin when Éire Nua was dropped as policy to further the narrow agenda of a reformist clique operating within the Republican Movement in the early 1980s.
Standing here by Ruairí’s graveside we can only truly honor him by turning our eyes to the future, because that was Ruairí’s watch word—the future. By pledging ourselves to once more take up the fight for a New Ireland. Today our country is being assailed by the twin imperialisms of British military and political occupation in the 6 counties and the economic and social oppression of the EU/ECB and IMF here in the 26 counties. These represent the old and new imperialisms. They represent a threat to the very existence of the Irish nation. In the Six Counties, political repression remains the norm and the very fact that there remain political prisoners in Maghaberry, the internment without trial of veteran Republican Martin Corey, and until recently of Marian Price, the presence of an armed colonial police force using the same methods of repression, drawing on the same draconian laws to enforce the writ of the British government, all of these things point to the abnormality of the Six-County State. British rule in Ireland will never be either normal or acceptable and the lesson of Irish history remains, as Ruairí continually pointed out — as long as there is a British military and political presence in Ireland, there will always be a section of the Irish people determined to resist it in arms.
In the 26-County State our people are being robbed of the very markers of a civilized society, the ability to care for our sick and old, to educate our young and to provide for those on the economic margins of society. All of this is being imposed on our people in order to prop up the undemocratic EU super state and its banking system. The Irish people are merely fodder to be sacrificed on the high alter of EU finance capitalism. But not only are our people being plundered financially, but also culturally. It seems that the denizens of Leinster House, Stormont and Westminster, and indeed Brussels, are intent in robbing us of our identity as a separate people and nation. Writing recently Sunday Business Post, Tom McGurk wrote that because the Irish people are being thought that it is wrong to take pride in our history of resistance, our distinct culture and identity, today they are being denied the very tools of a strong sense of national identity required to stand up to EU troika in contrast to people’s across Europe who have heroically defended themselves and their societies from the grip of the financial and banking elites. With Thomas Davis, as with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, we believe, “This country of ours is no sand bank, thrown up by some recent caprice of earth. It is an ancient land, honored in the archives of civilization,” unquote. The Irish nation is not bound by the artificial borders of the two partition states. The philosopher Dr. Mathew O’Donnell writes that nations rather than states, which are simply units of political organization, bring people together and I quote, “For people are not brought together by a state; the state is the subsequent organization of people who already possess some kind of unity. It is with the nation that one’s loyalty lies. There is no disowning it, no alternative to it. There should be a feeling for the nation, for it is one’s own people. This is the origin for the effective element in patriotism.”
In the early 1890s the Irish Revolution began in earnest, and speaking in 1892 the founder of Conradh na Gaelige Dubhghlas de Híde, spoke of the need to reverse the process of de-Anglicizing Ireland and I quote him, “When we speak of ‘The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation’, we mean it, not as a protest against imitating what is best in the English people, for that would be absurd, but rather to show the folly of neglecting what is Irish, and hastening to adopt, pell-mell, and indiscriminately, everything that is English, simply because it is English.” The process that we encountered today is an attempt to reverse that revolution initiated by people like Dubhghlas de hÍde. It is something that Ruairí himself resisted strongly. Gael go smior ab ea Ruairí. Óna chuid ama i gColáiste Mel is i gConamara, d’éirigh leis an teanga a thabhairt leis go han-líofa. Ar feadh a shaoil sheas sé go daingean le cúis na Gaeilge agus d’fhéach chuige go raibh Gaeilge ag an gclann ar fad.
The Irish Language has always been dear to Ruairí’s heart. He spoke it on every possible occasion and he saw to it that his children were all immersed in it. Unfortunately, during the last 50 years the Irish language has been marginalized, neglected and downgraded in every possible way. The people of the Gaeltacht have been bullied by the politically-powerful and by international consumerism. This bullying has undermined their way of life. The neglect in the education system now means that Irish is being denied to them and hidden from hundreds of thousands of Irish children.
Who then is responsible for this obliteration of people’s languages and cultures worldwide, including our own Irish language? There is no place for our own heritage in this neo-liberal agenda, the EU won’t allow it. The two states, even the 26 counties states, the Department of Education, work against the Irish language. ‘Death by a thousand cuts’ is the effective state policy on Irish whatever niceties may be uttered. To the Irish language organizations, many of whose representatives are here with us today, we say, Be very careful in your dealings with the Northern and Southern states. Stop cozying up to these false promises. They’re only trying to buy you off. 90% plus of the Irish people dearly love our language. They want it passed on properly to our children. They want it central to Irish life not neglected and marginalized. The Irish people need leadership, the Irish language agencies need to give sustained, determined leadership and we, as Irish Republicans, need to centrally retain our commitment to the Irish language and culture at all times.
As we approach the centenary of the 1916 Rising, we have the opportunity to stoke up (13:10) once again our national consciousness, to awaken our people to the possibilities and the high ideals which have in the past inspired us to greater things and a vision of a new and better Ireland. As we approach that centenary, a battle has commenced for the hearts and minds of the Irish people. The legacy as well as the essential message of 1916 is at stake for this and for future generations. The resources of both partitionist states, as indeed we can see here today, are being employed in order to sanitize our history to the point that it has been robbed of any meaning. The 1916 Rising for Irish Republicans is not only an important moment in our history but a beacon of light to light our way forward. It is an event that not only continues to occupy a central place in our history but also remains relevant to the simple fact that it remains unfinished business. The 1916 Proclamation sets out clearly the principles upon which the All-Ireland Republic should stand. It takes no great examination to see that both the Six and 26-County states fall far short from that definition of freedom and democracy. This would be and remains the abiding message of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh. In carrying on the work of which Ruairí dedicated his adult life we must bring to it the same high standards, the same commitment to truth and honor which guided him. We must never lose sight of the high idealism of 1916 because it will always speak to us of a new and better Ireland and with it the possibility of revolutionary social and economic change. And should note well the words of Brian Ó hUuigínns[ii], and I quote, “Keep close to them on the road they walked without flinching, the road whose signposts, as Liam Mellows said, are unmistakable, the road of truth and honor and earnestness and courage, the road of no wavering, of no compromise with wrong, of no surrender, the only road that leads to the freedom and happiness of the indivisible Republic of Ireland,” end quote.
Finally, as we prepare to turn from this place, we remember, and I remember personally, a man who remained a giant on my shoulder. We, and the republican movement, remember with pride our fallen chieftain, our Fenian Chief, as Desmond Ryan described James Stephens. I think it is appropriate to conclude with some words penned by John Fisher Murray entitled, “To the Memory of Thomas Davis.” And today we dedicate them to the memory of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh:
“How hapless is our country’s fate, –
If heaven in pity to us send,
like thee, one glorious, good and great —
To guide, instruct us, and amend.
How soon thy honored life is o’er.
Soon Heaven demandeth thee again.
We grope on darkling as before,
and fear lest thou hast died in vain.
In vain, – no never! O’er thy grave,
Thy spirit dwelleth in the air;
Thy passionate love, thy purpose brave,
Thy hope assured, thy promise fair.
Generous and wise, farewell! Forego
Tears for the glorious dead and gone;
His tears if his, still flow
For slaves and cowards living on.”
Unquote.
To Patsy, Mait, Ruairí Óg, Conor, Deirdre, Eithne and Colm, his grandchildren and great-granddaughter: On behalf of Republican Sinn Féin I extend our deepest sympathies and our gratitude to you and the extended Ó Brádaigh family for the life of Ruairí and his unparalleled contribution to the cause of a free Ireland.”
Ar dheis dé go raibh a anam dílis. An Phoblacht abu. Go raigh maith mile agat.”
[i] Portions of the orations of Des Dalton and Dan Hoban are found in, “Armed police harass mourners at Ruairí Ó Brádaigh’s funeral”, Saoirse, July 2013, pp. 20, 19.
[ii] Brian Ó hUuigínns (Brian O’Higgins, 1882-1963) was elected to the First and Second Dáil Éireann and opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921). He served as President of Sinn Féin (1931-33) and edited the Wolfe Tone Annual (1932 to 1962).