The following address was delivered by a member of Anti Imperialist Action to the 100th Anniversary Commemoration of Volunteer Joe Leavy organised by the Spirit of Irish Freedom Republican Society on April 24 in Mullingar, Westmeath. We thank the organisers for the invitation and commend them on an excellent event.
It is a great honour to be speaking here on behalf of Anti-Imperialist Action and we would like to thank the organisers of this commemoration for the invitation. Independent republican commemorations such as this one are important opportunities for republicans to remember with pride our martyred dead, engage in comradely debate and discussion on the way forward for our movement, and to openly celebrate and demonstrate that which unites us – the ongoing struggle for national liberation, the people’s movement to end imperialist domination in Ireland by any means necessary. The struggle continues, and those of us who support the resistance and the All-Ireland People’s Republic proclaimed on this day in 1916 must stand together.
One hundred years on from 1922, when Irish republicans like Joe Leavy sacrificed everything in defence of the Republic, we find ourselves in a similar position. Our country is divided, partitioned along an artificial border intended to secure a sectarian majority in the north-eastern counties. Six counties remain under Britain’s colonial rule while twenty-six counties remain a semi-colonial dependency of imperialism. In 1922 the southern garrison class acted directly in Britain’s interests. Today it works for British imperialism, Yankee imperialism and German imperialism, alongside any other gang of monopoly capitalists they can sell out our country to. The present drive to draw the Free State into NATO and EU militarism is part and parcel of this oppressive semi-colonial process. NATO already uses the six counties and Shannon for their bloody wars and their presence must be resolutely opposed.
Today, as in 1922 the revolutionary forces are scattered and confused, reeling from a betrayal by former comrades. Those who once were comrades are now jailers. Those who once fought against Empire now slavishly serve the interests of Empire. Those who once united with and guided the Irish people to independence now do all they can to confuse and obscure the question of national liberation and thus trick our proud people into despondency and servility. Imperialism’s goal, of normalising occupation, of substituting imperialist culture for Irish culture, of criminalising and pacifying nationalist resistance, has not yet been achieved, even after many centuries of immense efforts to that end – this gathering alone standing as testament to that. In collusion and contentions with the imperialists of Europe and North America, Britain also has a key ally in Provisional Sinn Féin. Advocating for a British-imposed border poll, promoting the idea that there is in fact a British “community” among the Irish people, sitting in imperialist puppet parliaments, supporting Ireland cosying up with NATO and imperialist militarism – all of this serves to legitimise imperialism and throw disgrace on volunteers like Joe Leavy and so many others. The Free Staters murdered Joe Leavy in cold blood as he surrendered – their ruthless callousness against former comrades, against their fellow Irishman, should serve as a reminder of the need to draw a sharp distinction between those who serve Empire and those who oppose it.
The objective conditions for revolution are ripening, the crisis of capitalist-imperialism is worsening and the reality of Ireland’s oppression is becoming ever more apparent to all. Unionism is in complete disarray as the six-county statelet continues to decay and lurch deeper into crisis, demonstrating before the whole world the irreconcilability of British rule in Ireland. As Sinn Féin hope to assume the position of Britain’s chief colonial administrators in the six-county statelet next month they too will fall deeper into crisis, further exposing themselves as servile lackeys of imperialism, as their equivalent traitors in the south, Fianna Fáil, have long since done. They will also demonstrate, as the Irish people have been shown to their detriment again and again and again, the complete impossibility of negotiating with imperialism by any other means than revolutionary violence, and that attempts to operate within their system serves only to benefit and strengthen imperialism and to undermine and weaken the republican movement.
At Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland’s Easter commemoration in Dublin last Sunday, the main speaker pointed out the necessity of daily sacrifice for the Republic, which a volunteer like Joe Leavy exemplified. Perhaps the greatest leader of the heroes of ’22, Liam Mellows, drew attention to the oft-forgotten efforts of those who organised and pushed forward the republican movement in the long years of drudgery and sacrifice leading up to 1916. He said:
“A minority… still stood true… It is to these, who… considering neither their size nor their influence, nor shrinking from the terrible outlook that confronted them, stood out for principle first as against ‘safety first’, that Ireland is indebted for her salvation as a Nation. Had they, acting along the lines of least resistance, adopted an attitude of expediency, no matter with what ulterior motive, all would have been lost and the final object of England’s Irish policy accomplished.”
Mellows, Leavy and many others found themselves again in such a minority in 1922. In 2022 we are still in such a minority but our strength and influence is growing day-by-day. The republican movement is seeing a new wave of revolutionary youth join the struggle, eager and ready to do what they can for Ireland’s freedom. Greater unity, politically and organisationally, is needed among revolutionaries if we are to harness the irrepressible strength of the risen people towards the aim of their struggles – the All-Ireland People’s Republic. Every flare of discontent, every manifestation of the wickedness of the present system, must be seized on by republicans in order to unite with the Irish people and guide them to power. The inherent link between Ireland’s national oppression and the pain and suffering inflicted on our people must be exposed and made clear in order to unite all strands of popular struggle towards the end of national liberation. With this goal in mind, of uniting the Irish people under republican leadership, Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland is working diligently to build the Anti-Imperialist Broad Front, in order to unite all genuinely republican forces against our common foes.
Let us honour Joe Leavy by taking up his struggle today, casting aside half-measures and concessions, and lead the fight to rebuild our Republic. Traitors suppressed it a century ago but so long as every true Irishman and woman carries its flame in their heart, and does all they can to make it a reality once more, the Republic will rise again as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow morning.