National Hunger Strike Commemoration 19th August 2001
Main Oration:
Comrades,
On behalf of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, I would like to say
that it is an honour to welcome you all here today as we gather to remember the
sacrifice of I.N.L.A. Volunteer Mickey Devine and that of all his
comrades. In doing so I would like to pay tribute and give thanks to the
representatives of the Lynch family, the O'Hara family and the Devine family who
have daily remembered with pride the sacrifice of all those young men and women
who took part in the 1981 prison struggle.
It is now twenty years ago this very week since we gathered here to lay to
rest I.N.L.A. Volunteer Mickey Devine. It is equally fitting that we have with
us on this day our comrades and friends from PCE (r) the Communist Party of
Spain (Reconstituted) to share with us our pride and sorrow at this moment.
It gives strength and encouragement in our politics that we are not alone in
this class war, it proves that we are truly internationalists. It is therefore
vital that we remember the sacrifice of their comrades imprisoned, tortured and
murdered by the facist state of Spain. Their struggle is our struggle.
Likewise as we stand here today to pay tribute to those who gave theirlives
on hunger strike to the death, we renew our commitment and solidarity with our
comrades who at this very moment are fasting to the death in the nazi death
camps in Turkey. To date 31 brave men and women have given their lives for the
right of political status in a struggle against F-type prisons. To those brave
comrades who continue their just fight, their death fast, we say "WE ARE
WITH YOU - WE ARE RIGHT - WE WILL WIN!"
Today, twenty years on, as republicans and socialists, we look back and
remember the significance of such a sacrifice that Mickey and his comrades gave
in the facist death camps of Long Kesh. To that end we have created a fitting
project aptly titled Celebration of Resistance, for that is what it was, a
celebration of their resistance within those prison walls and beyond them with
the rest of our class in the streets of this fascist state. We can take pride in
the fact that we have successfully honoured and remembered our comrades of 1981
and their republican socialist class politics.
We have remembered the mass movement that arose from their fight and that of
it's strong working class support base. Throughout the past number of months we
have remembered the nature of that movement and it's distinctive class politics
and internationalism as republican socialists.
Symbolically we conclude this series of events, public meetings, debates and
protests on the anniversary of the death of the last young man to die on hunger
strike, Mickey Devine by honouring all those men and their families and stating
"We remember you with pride, Your strength has given all of us the strength
to carry on the class war in which you played such an important role."
