SEAN SABHAT COMMEMORATION

 

FERMANAGH SPEAKER CALLS FOR
REDEDICATION TO THE CONTINUITY OF
THE REPUBLICAN STRUGGLE

The 49th anniversary of the death of Sean Sabhat was held in Limerick on New Year's Day. Attended by upwards of 100 people, the march to the Republican Plot in Mount at Lawrence cemetery was preceded by a lone piper, a Republican colour party and 20 Fianna Eireann from the Sean Glynn Slua.

The commemoration was chaired by veteran Limerick Republican Des Long and a decade of the Rosary was recited by Gearoid O Brinn from Tipperary who asked all present to remember Limerick Republican John O'Halloran who died recently in Portlaoise prison and who had attended the Sean South commemoration every year before his imprisonment.

A wreath on behalf of the Republican Movement was laid by Mickey Lavelle from Fermanagh, a member of the Republican Sinn Fein Ard Comhairle.

A wreath on behalf of the Sean South Commemoration committee was laid by Willie Goode from Cork.

 

 

A statement from the Continuity prisoners in Portlaoise jail was read by Joe Lynch from Limerick. In it the prisoners expressed their support for the leadership of the Movement and stated: "Today the example of Sean South is an inspiration to all those who disagree with the failed Stormont Agreement and who continue the struggle for national self-determination.

"We also wish to express our continued and wholehearted support for the leadership of the Republican Movement at this crucial time when former comrades have taken the Queen's Shilling and betrayed our traditional ideals and engaged in what can only be described as treachery.

"Against the background of the sell-out and surrender by the Provisionals, we pledge our allegiance to the leadership of the Republican Movement, secure in the knowledge that the Republican constitution will be upheld and the Republican position advanced and defended in the difficult times ahead."

The oration was given by former Independent Republican Councillor Tony McPhillips from Fermanagh who stated: "It is an occasion which for me as both an Irish Republican and a Fermanagh man has considerable significance. For we gather to pay tribute to Sean Sabhat a republican icon who fell in action in my native Fermanagh. Although not even born at the time of these tragic events I have always been conscious of the great sacrifice
Made by Sean and his comrade Fergal O'Hanlon through republican folklore and of course through those haunting ballads, Sean Sabhat of Garryowen" and "The Patriot Game."

"Their actions were the actions of an army engaged in a war of national liberation and that is the most important and only description which can be according to republican actions throughout the years. The campaign then as it is still today is a campaign of national liberation, it is not today, nor it never was, a campaign of parity of esteem, for equality, or for anything else under British rule.

Tony McPhillips said that Republicans recognise that the core cause of conflict and instability on this island or ours, it was then and it is today, the continued illegal and immoral colonial occupation of the 6 North eastern counties of our county.

"We who remain faithful to that analysis are the continuity of that Republican struggle," he said to loud applause.

"It may not be an exaggeration to state that today the enemies of Irish republicanism have practically succeeded in buying 90% of our people whilst they are engaged in attempts to intimidate and suppress the other ten percent. Well I am proud to be one of that ten percent who will neither be bought nor broken.

 

"I do not propose to labour upon the difficulties which have become publicly apparent within the Provisional organisation in recent weeks. However I feel we need to emphasis one very important point. It is now perfectly clear that those who directed the split in the Republican Movement in 1986 and who derided those of us who refused to walk away with them, and who have brought their organisation to the point of ridicule were wittingly or in some are possibly unwittingly being directed by the age old enemy Perfidious Albion.

"It is however important to also point out that we should take no pleasure from these events since many volunteers lost their lives in the years subsequent to 1986 under the direction of a political and military leadership that clearly chose to ignore the infiltration that had occurred.

"To those who sought to demonise and slander faithful republicans, to those who referred in recent years to faithful republicans as micro groups without strategy or support infiltrated by Special Branch and MI5, to him, who stood on the platform in the Mansion House in 1986 and told us that we were going nowhere but home , I have but one message today, go home and wipe the egg from your face!

"Republicans today should not feel immune from attempts at infiltration, therefore I would urge all republicans to be wary of those who seek to stir trouble and create dissention around issues, which have a clear way of resolution where there are genuine difficulties.

"In the case of welfare of Republican POWs we have Cabhair and the Republican Prisoners Action Group both of whom I commend for the sterling work they are doing in this field.

"The year ahead must be a year of building, developing and reasserting the continuity of the republican struggle. Neither the British nor the Freestaters have learned anything from history, but we have, because our history tells us that so long as there remains a colonial occupation in any part of our country then there will remain controlled and disciplined resistance to that rule.

"Go back to your home areas this evening and rededicate yourselves to the work that lies ahead. The continuity of the struggle is assured in your hands."
  

 

 

 


 

 

SEAN SOUTH FROM GARRYOWEN


It was on a New Years Eve as the shades of night fell down a lorry load of Volunteers approached a border town the stirring opening words of Sean Costello's song, Sean South of Garryowen captures the image of dedicated men setting out to challenge the might of British occupation in the Six Counties.

Sean Costello was a Limerick songwriter from Janesboro and his tribute to this fellow Limerick man has a gained a treasured place in the musical history of Republicanism. The song tells the story of the failed IRA raid on the Brookeborough RUC Barracks on New Year's Eve in 1957. The Volunteers were seen approaching the barracks and the RUC men inside opened fire. Sean South and his comrade Fergal O'Hanlon from County Monaghan were killed in the ensuing gun battle.

When word of the operation and the deaths of the two men spread throughout both the Six and 26 Counties huge crowds turned out and lined the streets as the funerals made their way back to Monaghan and Limerick. All along the route thousands of people watched in silence as the hearse bearing the remains of South made the long journey home to Limerick. At every town and village the people stood in silent tribute.

The funeral of Sean South in Limerick attracted the largest crowd the city had ever seen and flanked by men wearing black berets the procession moved through a closed and silent city to Mount St Lawrence cemetery where South was buried in the Republican Plot. The outpouring of national grief once again highlighted the ongoing occupation of part of Ireland by foreign forces and brought to attention the divisions and evils forged by the unjust partition of our country.

Many years later one of the men on that raid, the late Daithi O'Conaill spoke about the night and recalled that before setting out on the trek to Brookeborough the men had enjoyed a convivial evening of Irish song and music. When he spoke at the graveside of Sean South, huge green cypress tress had grown up around the plot and O'Conaill remarked: "What if we had had such cover on that fateful evening."

 

Another more recent speaker asked those present to "pause for a moment to recall why we are here....let us remember for a minute why we stand at this graveside today. It is to honour a young man from Limerick - Sean South from Garryowen who also opposed British rule in Ireland.

The cause that inspired Sean South to join the resistance movement and take part in the Brookeborough Raid of 1957 is still relevant today even if British occupation in Ireland has become more sophisticated.

The Six Counties are still under British rule and the presence of Crown forces continues to cause conflict. Sean South was part of an All Ireland tradition of opposition and resistance to British rule in the Six Counties.

Today that opposition is still strong and active even though former Republicans are in the pay of the British and there is ongoing harassment of those who oppose British rule in Ireland. The present collaborationist activities of the Provos are an insult to the memory of Sean South and all those who died in the cause of Irish freedom.

The British still occupy part of our country and the same ideal of a new and united Ireland that inspired Sean South is still relevant today. The reality is that the British presence is the real cause of conflict in our divided country and until that presence is removed, there can never be a real or lasting peace in Ireland.

We shall remain true to the memory of men like Sean South who did not die for an assembly in Stormont - he did not die for parity of esteem or new houses or increased social welfare - he did not die to put a cynical leadership into positions of power - he did not die to dine in the White House - he died for the ideal of a new and united Ireland - we must now pledge ourselves to continue that political struggle!

In 2007 the 50th anniversary of that famous raid will be remembered and a local Republican Des Long who is also chairman of the Sean South Commemoration Committee is researching a new booklet for publication to co-incide with the event. Any one with pictures or recollections of Sean South is asked to contact him by telephone or at lris@eircom.net

The stirring words of Sean Costelloes ballad still re-echo after all this time and pay testimony to the ongoing nature of the struggle because there were men from Dublin and from Cork, Fermanagh and Tyrone, but the leader was a Limerick man Sean South from Garryowen.