Galway Funeral Ceremony On the Death of Neutrality

Monday March 24, 2003 22:39

by Niall Farrell - Galway Alliance Against War

The Galway Alliance Against War held a two hour long funeral ceremony outside the constituency offices of the local Fianna Fail Minister, Eamon O Cuiv, in Galway this morning to mark the death of the De Valera & Frank Aiken tradition of Irish neutrality. There were 12 mourners in attendance as the coffin of Irish neutrality draped in the Tricolour was put on public display.

GALWAY ALLIANCE AGAINST WAR

Galway Funeral Ceremony
On the Death of Irish Neutrality

The Galway Alliance Against War held a two hour long funeral ceremony outside the constituency offices of the local Fianna Fail Minister, Eamon O Cuiv, in Galway this morning to mark the death of the De Valera & Frank Aiken tradition of Irish neutrality. There were 12 mourners in attendance as the coffin of Irish neutrality draped in the Tricolour was put on public display.

A statement from the Galway Alliance Against War was read out at today’s ceremony:
“The government’s decision to allow the US war machine to use Shannon airport and over flights of Irish territory marks the death of the fine tradition of Irish neutrality and an independent foreign policy as outlined by Eamon de Valera and Frank Aiken. Ireland’s pre-independence history was one of a people having to be coerced by force of arms or starved into being part of an empire. But now, we have witnessed with shame the so-called leaders of Ireland join without a whimper another bloodthirsty empire. History will judge them as latter-day Diarmuid Mac Murroughs, they have betrayed the Irish nation. They have disgraced the name of Ireland in the world by colluding in this illegal war against the people of Iraq. We take this opportunity to say Not In Our Name. We wish also to pay our deepest respects to those innocent people who have died at the hands of these warmongers.”

During the ceremony, while the TV cameras were present, the Minister appeared and attempted in his usual verbose manner to blather his way out of the situation and justify the unjustifiable. The hypocrisy of the man, having built a political career around his defence of neutrality, was too much for the mourners and the point was sharply made to O Cuiv that he had had his opportunity at the cabinet table and the Dail to speak in defence of neutrality and had failed to do so. It was now our time to speak and it was repeated that the government has betrayed Irish neutrality and as a consequence there is blood on the hands of those who sit around the cabinet table.
The protesters also expressed their disgust at the attempts by the government to link retrospectively Ireland to the Vietnam War, one of the vilest military conflicts of the 20th century.

To everyone’s great surprise a black cross with the words “The Innocent” had been fixed to the outer wall of the Minister’s office overnight. However, the cross, a symbol of solace to Christians, has a very different meaning in the history of the Arab peoples. And today as the killers in Washington say their prayers out loud, it has once again become a symbol of terror.