BEWARE OF THE RISEN PEOPLE

The Right2Water campaign has said,  "In a panicked response to Saturday’s Right2Water demonstration, the Government added a new anomaly to its crumbling water tax edifice by introducing a tax credit and extending the Household Benefits package. "It leaves hundreds of thousands of low earners who do not earn enough to pay tax, and will not qualify for the Household Benefits package, empty handed." Around 100,000 people marched against the water charges in Dublin on Saturday. 

The Rebel 

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow;
Who have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory of an ancient glory
My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,
I am of the blood of serfs;
The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten
Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,
and though gentle, have served churls.
The hands that have touched mine,
the dear hands whose touch Is familiar to me
Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles,
have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers.
I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone I that have never submitted;
I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people’s masters,
I that have vision and prophecy, and the gift of fiery speech,
I that have spoken with God on the top of his holy hill.
And because I am of the people, I understand the people,
I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire;
My heart is heavy with the grief of mothers,
My eyes have been wet with the tears of children,
I have yearned with old wistful men,
And laughed and cursed with young men;
Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it
Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free
Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full,
Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and their jailors.
With their Writs of Summons and their handcuffs,
Men mean and cruel.
I could have borne stripes on my body
Rather than this shame of my people.
And now I speak, being full of vision:
I speak to my people, and I speak in my people’s name to
The masters of my people:
I say to my people that they are holy,
That they are august despite their chains.
That they are greater than those that hold them
And stronger and purer,
That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their God,
God the unforgetting, the dear God who loves the people
For whom he died naked, suffering shame.
And I say to my people’s masters: Beware
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people
Who shall take what ye would not give.
Did ye think to conquer the people, or that law is stronger than life,
And than men’s desire to be free?
We will try it out with you ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed.
Tyrants… hypocrites… liars!by Patrick Pearse

UNFINISHED BUSINESS Gerry Adams

Adams: 1916 Proclamation is ‘unfinished 

business’

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has described the 1916 Proclamation as unfinished business and said his party will continue to seek “a New Republic with equality and social justice at its core”.

Speaking at the annual Provisional Sinn Fein, Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown Cemetery in Co Kildare, Mr Adams told around 1,500 supporters that Jim Larkin attended the same commemoration event a hundred years ago.

“This was in the wake of the Great Lockout and Larkin was cheered by the crowds, showing the solidarity between republicans and the labour movement,” he said.

Today’s trade union leaders need to think about “whether they have a loyalty to their own membership and to working people or to the Labour Party”.

“Trade union members also need to consider whether they should pay a stipend to the Labour Party through their trade union membership in order to be insulted by the leaders of the Labour Party,” he said.

Provisional Sinn Féin will not follow Labour’s example of going into office “to give cover to the agenda of conservative parties, repeating again the failed political history of this State over the past eighty years”, he added.

The democratic revolution promised by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition has turned out to be an act of subversion, Mr Adams said, accusing Government parties of trying to control the banking inquiry by “stuffing it with Government TDs and Senators”.

He also said it’s not good enough to blame Irish society for what has emerged in recent revelations about mother and baby homes, and that it’s too simplistic to suggest that because everyone is to blame, no one is at fault.

Councils

The “unprecedented scale” of alliances between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to exclude Sinn Féin’s 264 councillors from local council positions is wrong and it will not succeed, he said.

“People want us to do the right thing,” he said. “They’re looking to us to provide leadership, to provide hope for the future and that’s a big responsibility.”

The 1916 Rising commemorations belong to the progressive people of Ireland, not to any political party, including Sinn Féin, he said.

But he insisted his party “won’t take lectures on 1916 from those revisionists and other slibhini who abandoned its ideals decades ago”.

He accused the British government of actively undermining the political process through its unilateral decision to end the Weston Park agreement, and by failing to establish an inquiry into Pat Finucane’s murder.

He said this has encouraged some Unionists to reverse progress made since 1998 and “this cannot be allowed”.

He called on Irish and British governments to make clear that they will support the Haass propositions which provide “a very clear way forward”.

However, he said conflicts within political unionism mean there’s no evidence the DUP is willing to approach a recently agreed commitment to intensive talks in a positive or constructive way.

Because unionism has failed to face down rejectionists within unionism as Sinn Féin has dealt with anti-agreement elements on the fringes of republicanism, the UUP and DUP are being challenged by those on the extreme right, such as the TUV and UKIP.

He said Sinn Féin will stretch out the hand of friendship to unionist neighbours but will stand against bigots, racists and sectarian fundamentalists and their cheerleaders who “are on the wrong side of history”.

“They may delay change, but they cannot stop change,” he said.

Meanwhile genuine traditional Irish Republicans will gather as explained below.