McDonald calls for Citizens' Assembly on reunification at Liam Lynch centenary
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald at the centenary commemoration ceremony for General Liam Lynch at the memorial in Anglesborough. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
Some 500 people marched up a winding country road to mark the centenary of the death of Irish republican Liam Lynch at his home under sloping mountains near Anglesborough, Co Limerick.
The Chief of Staff of the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army was shot 100 years ago while on a secret mission in the Knockmealdown Mountains in Tipperary.
His death effectively ended the civil war as weeks later, IRA units were ordered to cease operations under his successor, Frank Aiken.
“Change is made and history happens because people rise to challenges, rise to the occasion and meet the needs of their people,” Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said at the commemoration.
“The landscape of Ireland is imprinted with the legends and legacy of our revolutionary patriots. Those who took on the might of the British Empire and who fought with great honour for the freedom of Ireland and her people. For the Republic.”
Ms McDonald said that Lynch’s dream of an Irish Republic has “never been closer.”
“Together we will realise the Irish Republic in our time. Now is the time to write the next chapter — the reunification of our country.
“I believe that the Unity Referendums provided for by the Good Friday Agreement will happen in this decade.
“It is therefore vital that the Irish government establishes a Citizens’ Assembly to advance an inclusive, all of society national conversation, vital that government plans and prepares for peaceful, democratic constitutional change. To prepare for Irish Unity.”
She said that Mr Lynch “lamented” the bitter and bloody civil war and he had worked hard to avoid a split in the Republican movement.
But he viewed the Treaty as a betrayal of the Republic.
Mr Lynch refused to see “the dream of the Republic traded for a partitioned, conservative Ireland in which working people were kept down and impoverished, where equality would be denied, and the status quo maintained,” Ms McDonald said.
“When Free State bullets pierced the body of Liam Lynch, on that faithful morning, 100 years ago, they pierced the heart of the resistance.
“A few short weeks later, the order was given for Republican volunteers to dump arms and to stand down. The fight for the Republic was laid low.”
Today also marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and Ms McDonald called for all parties in the North to draw on that spirit that drove the Good Friday Agreement and Liam Lynch and to make things better for future generations.
“Thanks to courageous peacemakers, an entire generation has grown up free of conflict.
“Today’s political leaders owe it to a new generation to recapture the spirit and determination of 1998.
“We owe it to our young people to make progress happen.
“The true test of political leadership is to make things better for our children. It is a test to which we must all rise.
“We need decisions, we need Government, and we need the DUP to respect the result of the last election and to come back into the executive with the rest of us and let’s make politics work for everyone.”
Kieran Edwards attended the commemoration to remember Mr Lynch and his own grand uncle, Joseph Murphy, who died in Cork Gaol after 76 days of hunger strike on October 25, 1920.
“He died on hunger strike on the same day as Terence McSweeney," Mr Edwards said.
“In July 1920, 140 prisoners were ordered off huger strike, but Joseph Murphy and Liam Lynch’s good friend Michael Fitzgerald refused. They spent their last 67 days in a cell together.
“Terence McSweeney joined their hunger strike and died on Brixton Prison.
“It’s fantastic to come here today to remember. These people died for their beliefs. Padraig Pearse said it was a blood sacrifice.”
But Mr Edwards said that people should not have to die for their beliefs and politics rather than bloodshed was a better vehicle for change.
“There is a better way. Communication has to be very important and back then, there was no communication. Politics is the only way forward, we don’t want to see people killed anymore.”
Lelia Beechinor said that she was attending the commemoration to support Ms McDonald, who she believes will soon become Ireland’s first female Taoiseach.
“I think she’s a very practical woman and her time has come,” she said.
Zuzana Sourkova from the Czech Republic attended the event to learn more about Irish history and to pay respects to Mr Lynch who died for his country.
“People like Liam Lynch shouldn’t be forgotten, they sacrificed their life for the people and for the country and they should be remembered.”
