Tributes paid to hunger strikers

Posted by Jim on October 8, 2016

A large crowd turned out in tribute to the H-Block Martyrs of 1981 when
the 1916 Societies held their annual National Hungerstrike Commemoration
on Sunday last, October 2nd, in Galbally, County Tyrone.

Thousands travelled from across Ireland travelled to the republican
heartland, where a march and commemoration to the graveside of Volunteer
Martin Hurson was held for the ten men who laid down their lives on the
1981 hungerstrike, for their fellow prisoners, their ‘Five Demands’ and
ultimately for Irish freedom.

Local republican Noel McKeown chaired proceedings, which opened with a
song in memory of the hungerstrikers and a reading of the 1916
Proclamation in Irish.

Wreaths in memory of the hungerstrikers were then laid on the grave of
Martin Hurson, with Joe McNulty from Dungannon, who shared a cell with
Martin during the Blanket Protest, laying a wreath on behalf of ‘Friends
and Comrades’.

Tommy McKearney, a former Blanketman who himself endured the horrors of
H-Block and spent 55 days on hungerstrike in 1980, gave the main
oration, speaking of a need for republicans to challenge modern
imperialism, which continues to blight Irish society not only in the
north but across all of Ireland’s 32 counties.

Describing the Stormont Assembly as ‘a symptom of British imperialism’,
with the ‘shoneen parliament’ in the south ‘which trades on Ireland’s
sovereignty for its own narrow purposes’, he appealed for republicans to
‘take inspiration from the hungerstrikers and their legacy, which
continues to show for all the nobility of our cause – a cause we must
see through to the end’.

He told those gathered to “rally the forces” against British
imperialism.

Branding Stormont a “venial, futile, powerless institution”, he also hit
out at the Dublin parliament, which he said was “devoid of character”
and “trading on the sovereignty of its people”. In an attack on Sinn
Fein he told the men, women and children gathered that republicanism is
a cause “that stands above and beyond the selfish pursuit of self
aggrandisement”, adding that a “genuine republican” would “give what
they have without concern for personal safety, personal advancement or
personal career”.

“We are challenged to find the unity of purpose and bring together the
currents, forces and streams of people,” he added.

“We must rally the forces and rally the people that will break the
chains that bind us. We can do it and we will do it. We have the ability
and let there be no doubt this can be done.

“And where there is doubt let us draw inspiration from those not only
buried in this graveyard but the living who stand among and beside us
here today – you the republican people of Ireland, who have stood
fearlessly in the face of opposition and remain determined to accomplish
the Irish Republic for which so many gave of their lives, among them
Martin Hurson and his comrades who died on the hungerstrike.”