DEV SPEAKS AT EASTER COMMEMORATION IN GALWAY

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday April 20, 2003 17:29 by Galway Alliance Against War

PEACE: AN ACT OF SEDITION IN IRELAND

De Valera came back from the grave in Galway on Easter Sunday to voice his support for Irish neutrality at a “counter- Fianna Fail Easter Commemoration” in Galway’s Eyre Square. The organisers, the Galway Alliance Against War, had the actor Brendan Murray, formerly of Ros na Run, to play the part of Dev, while an original soundtrack of one of de Valera’s pro-neutrality speeches was played over loud speaking equipment.

OLD DEV SPEAKS AT GALWAY EASTER COMMEMORATION

De Valera came back from the grave in Galway on Easter Sunday to voice his support for Irish neutrality at a “counter- Fianna Fail Easter Commemoration” in Galway’s Eyre Square. The organisers, the Galway Alliance Against War, had the actor Brendan Murray, formerly of Ros na Run, to play the part of Dev, while an original soundtrack of one of de Valera’s pro-neutrality speeches was played over loud speaking equipment.

There was an added bit of drama to this colourful, but highly political event, when the Gardai threatened to tow away the car containing the speakers because it was parked on a double yellow line. Indeed, as Dev’s speech progressed more and more Gardai, uniformed and plain clothed suddenly appeared, with the latter openly filming the hundred or more people participating in the event. Unable to tow the car away, the uniformed Gardai slapped a parking ticket on the car’s windscreen – “Ah, we’ll have our day in court” was the rye comment from one peace activist.

It led Niall Farrell, the chairman of the commemoration, to conclude in his contribution that: “Peace is an act of sedition in Ireland today. While armed Irish soldiers protect the killers of Iraqi children, peace activists are the victims of harassment by the Gardai. And those who have gone airside in Shannon in an attempt to save the name of Ireland internationally face the full rigour of the law.”

Nevertheless, all at the commemoration heard De Valera’s famous reply to Winston Churchill. In this speech the Fianna Fail leader dealt with “Britain’s necessity” becoming a “moral code. And when this necessity was sufficiently great other people’s rights were not to count. It is quite true, that other great powers believe in this same code and have behaved in accordance with it. That is precisely why we have the disastrous succession of wars: World War number 1, World War number 2 and shall it be World War number 3?”

Afterwards Niall Farrell of the Galway Alliance Against War explained why this alternative Fianna Fail 1916 commemoration had been held: “It was to highlight the fact that Fianna Fail have not only discarded their policy of maintaining Irish neutrality but have no longer any links to the aims and ideals of those men and women who took part in the Rising.
“The 1916 Rising had to do with Irish independence and an independent foreign policy, in particular it was to prevent the use of conscription in Ireland during World War I. This stands in stark contrast to present Fianna Fail policy, which has been assisting the US in its invasion of Iraq – an invasion that the ideologues in the Bush administration have described as the start of World War number 4.”