Sometimes the lessons of history can lead us in the right direction, that is, good works can yield good results.  And then there are the lessons of history which reveal the devastation wrought by unjust and evil regimes and their allies.

Today as we remember our dearly departed who lie within this ground, we are immediately aware of the distain with which our relations were treated.  The disparagement, the injustices they endured in life pursued them even into the grave. They were cast unceremoniously into pits, without shroud or bell and as you can see not a single name is recorded.  This lack of recognition that the deceased were members of the human race and indeed of our Gaelic race is another aspect of the cruelty that was foisted on them.  There are innumerable numbers of these pits throughout the country.  Appallingly some people while still alive were placed in these trenches.  It is impossible to calculated the total number of dead. Whole families died within their cabins which were tumbled down upon the deceased and that became their grave. 

Countless numbers died in ditches or in some remote cave. The Colonial regime responsible for this atrocity succeeded for a number of reasons, but principally because the people they targeted for extermination were defenceless against the English armed forces.  These forces were weaponed-up and  gunned up against  an unarmed and vulnerable people.  Just imagine hard working men women and children living in cabins within hamlets, tethering on the knifes edge of life because of starvation,  being descended upon by the vampires of the crown armed to the teeth and endorsed by their judiciary, judges, politicians etc.,

Viewing the fertile pastures of Ireland, our abundant fishing waters a stranger may ask how could a “famine” with such calamitous effects strike a people in a land bursting with food resources.

 And of course what is called “An Gorta Mor” or genocide was an organised, orcastrated assault on the demographic strength of the Irish people. It was another offensive by the enemy power on our Nation which was centuries old by the 1840s.

The colonial regime did not rule Ireland for the betterment of our people.  It operated to force us into subjugation, thieve our resources and crush our culture.  It employed many tactics in this endeavour, including slaughter and extermination policies.  The culture of treating the Irish as less that human was deeply imbedded in its regime and  its permutations.  But in actual fact that regime, its enforces and allies demonstrated their barbarity continuously with a sadism that marks them with eternal shame and condemnation.  

The English monarch Elizabeth 1^st (1558-1603) chief advisor Chichester wrote“ I have often said, and written, it is Famine which must consume [the Irish] our swords and other endeavours work not that speedy….for their overthrow”.

Further back in 1339   Dermod, [Diarmaid] heir of the clan MacCarthy More,  was slain at a assize court in Tralee  by the Anglo-Norman FitzNicholas.  As Dermod MacCarthy was Irish, the crime was to pass without further notice.  And when we arrive in 1848 as our people Irish are being  ravaged by an imposed starvation Nassau Senior, advisor to Victoria (Famine queen) announced “the famine of 1848 in Ireland will not kill more than a million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do much good”.  While the [English] Times crowed (editorial 1848) “ A Celt will soon be as rare a sight on the banks of the Shannon as a red man on the shores of Manhattan”  Punch magazine weighed in with its anti-Irish racist propaganda, portraying the Irish as animals, ignorant with ape-like features.  A cunning endeavour to validate, to justify the abominable savagery forced on the Irish.

While the cataclysmic events of the 1840s  had delivered immeasurable destruction.  Prior to this period there were outbreaks of localised starvations in 1800. 1817, 1822, 1831, 1835  and 1842.  So Ireland and the Irish people were constantly battling with the evils of colonialism and its consequences.   The sheer press of the people during the 1798 Rising prompted the enemy to ensure the population would be reduced numerically to diminish its potential to afford resistance to English rule.

We have repeated here on this site, the burial ground of our people who while suffering unto death the agony of “An Gorta Mor” in  what O’Donovan Rossa correctly described as “as inflicted starvation” that Ireland was producing torrents of the most nutritious, best quality food through the industry of our people. 

This food including Beef, pork, bacon, butter, hams, butter, pigs, cattle, lambs, calves, wheat, eggs,  whiskey, porter, lard etc., etc., was repeatedly loaded onto ships and removed at gunpoint, under military escort from Ireland and from the mouths of the people.

Chris  Fogarty’s research reveals an army of 67 British regiments (amounting to 200,000 soldiers) were stationed in Ireland during this period.  They were reinforced with 12,000  RIC constables, 38 armed regiments of Warlord/Landlord militias, resident magistrates and judges, Dublin Castle Police, DMP. Revenue Police, Home demolition squads, English warships united in forcing through the starvation, evictions and oppression.

Eviction was a death sentence for multitudes. Whole families and hamlets flung out of their homes to die in ditches.

The barbarous Gerrard evictions demonstrates deliberate destruction.  Gerald Keegan who lived during 1847  and kept a diary records  “fairly comfortable families in Ballinlass, Galway were living on a stretch of land they  had reclaimed and improved by dint of their hard labour an eviction squad descended on them drove them out their homes and destroyed all buildings and  furniture.  The women and children ran into hiding in the ditches.. while the outraged men tried to make a last stand.  The eviction squad was well armed and several of the men were shot down.  The survivors built shelters along the roadway but these too were smashed to the ground”

It is important to recount his account because it has relevance for us today and in our recent history.  He reveals  “Those who officially declare themselves members of the State Church are well supplied with food and protection”.( that is in 1847/48) Today if we agree with demonstrated anti-Irish discrimination we will be applauded and possibly rewarded by administrations that are providing accommodation and assistance to non-Irish.  While at the same time Irish people can languish on a housing list for years.  The modular homes, furnished and equipped materialised with speed for Ukrainians because of the willingness of Government administration.  This is in stark contrast to lengthy wait Irish people contend with when seeking housing.  The English Times boast of “the Celt” being removed from Ireland  comes to mind.

Keegan also recounts  during  1840s “in the southwest a group revolted [against the tyranny]…eleven were hanged”

Today when Irish people, who are perturbed at the influx of unvetted, military aged men into communities, bring their concerns onto the public street they are ridiculed, subjected to vilification and insults. The riot squad is marshalled against them to intimidate and suppress  their voice.  We witness the attempts to demolish the voice of those who are identified as  not wielding sufficient  legal, financial or political clout to have their concerns addressed through  avenues other that the public arena.

There are repeated similarities in the regime which presided over the “inflicted Starvation” O’Donovan Rossa deserves to be quoted again, and the current Government in relation to adoption of the attitude of “shut up and put up” “croppy lie down” mentality.

State oppression has a purpose we can see that in our history. It is very apparent to us Irish having endured it for centuries.

It has been revealed that approximately 75%  of laws operating in Ireland are directed by an outside power called the EU.  We initially joined the EEC not the EU but through the machinations of Politicians and their pursuit of the gravy train quest they presume they have an entitlement to surrender our Sovereignty.  Well they don’t,  because our Sovereignty is inalienable as the 1916 proclamation states. 

We have centuries of  bad experience by outside powers ruling us for their benefit and not for ours.  We Irish had established trade with foreign countries way back in the midst of time, in the centuries before and after the birth of Christ and we didn’t need to surrender our Sovereignty, our Nation to do so. 

There are valuable, indeed crucial lessons to be learnt from history.  Even a cursory look at history  reveals a repeat of strategy designed to inculcate a belittling, a humiliation of our people.  I have mentioned the Punch magazine which brings to mind a recent  SPHE handbook used in schools . A section of it is described as “a vile portrayal of the Irish Family”.  If an Irish family practices Irish culture, likes hurling, Irish dancing and music.  If they attend the Fleadh cheoil and GAA games, eat Irish food,  and God forbid if they have fair skin and hair somehow that qualifies them to be insulted. ( Penal Law  stance)

The handbook is an insidious, sneaky but deliberate endeavour  to hold “Irish Families,” by that they insinuate indigenous Irish families, to ridicule.  Such was the furore it caused, it was withdrawn. But, only because of objections by concerned people.  Now imagine what the reaction would be if an Indian family, an African family was portrayed in the same light. “There’d be immediate uproar and a Late Late national examination of conscience, ultimatums as to how we need to atone for our wrongdoings by wearing ashes and  oh yes banishment to Antarctica without a coat.

There is an ongoing struggle to maintain our identity.  Even when Ireland appeared to have utterly collapsed under the weight of centuries of colonialism, and the 1840s  genocide seemed to sound the final death knell for our Nation.  Phenomenally   the red flame of freedom still blazed in Irish hearts and phoenix like it rose from its ashes through the Fenian movement.  They planned to establish an Independent Irish Republic. In 1867 Fenians gathered here in Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, Limerick and Dublin to overthrow English rule.  Though the rising did not succeed, largely due to the lack of weapons and the English use of informers, and traitors, it did have symbolic importance. It emboldened Irish resistance to English dominance. The Land league founded in 1879  and  CLCG which came into existence in 1884 further invigorated the Nationalist movement and cultural revival

The astonishing resurrection of our Nation towards the end of the 19^th century and into 1916 and the freedom campaign of 1918-1921 is truly astounding.  It was driven by the committed defenders of our Nation, our best and our bravest, our greatest of all treasures.  Any freedoms we now enjoy were won through their heroic sacrifices. 

Still in Ireland the legacy of anti-Irishness lives on.  Only in our recent history a member of a SAS Death Squad who operated in the partitioned 6 counties in the 1970s for the purpose of assassinating Irish men suspected of being Nationalists records in his writings that he was informed by his superior “as long as you don’t think of them as human beings you’re all right , got it” (Nemises p 28).

Through our history our defenders did not battle, for an African, Ukrainian, English, German etc., Ireland.  Just as other countries are entitled to preservation of their identity and territory so are we entitled to the preservation of an Irish Ireland.  There seems to be a glorification among the political classes and their allies that Ireland is multi-cultural.  That means,  areas where our indigenous people previously lived are now populated by non Irish.  Cromwell’s infamous policy of removing Irish people from their lands, comes to mind.

Ireland’s population is a  miniscule 0.06% of the world’s population.  We live on a tiny Island, are we now to become a minority even within our own country.

There are numerous incentives Government can undertake to promote the Irish demographic.  But its loyalty is not to an Irish Ireland, in fact it seems determined to advance an ethnic replacement policy.  We are lectured on moral and international responsibilities by a regime who lacks a  moral compass and  Furthermore, whose first and foremost duty is to the protection and preservation of our Irish Nation.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  This is especially relevant as lawmaking, the administration of a country’s affairs cannot be entrusted to persons, to groups who have displayed and more crucially acted in a treasonous and unjust manner. Without awareness of past outcomes, people may recreate circumstances that bring about negative and unjust results. Within which, particularly the just and the poor suffer the most. 

There is an onus on us all, a societal duty to learn from history.  Societies that ignore historical injustices can provide fertile ground for more injustice. 

As we stand here today we realise because of the political cover-op of the genocide, the inflicted starvation that stole the lives of millions of our people and drove millions from their native land to foreign shores,  it took well over a hundred years for the truth to emerge to a wider public.   Only in relatively recent times are people becoming aware that the Irish had abundant food supply to sustain a multiple of her population in the 1840s and that the Gorta Mor, the Starvation was a wilful extermination policy enacted with unbounded brutality.

Today as we remember the innocent souls buried here, again  Padraig Mac Piaras comes to my mind and I speak to the martyrs who lie here and say  “You are greater, You are purer, you are more august”  than the tyrant, the persecutor and those who presumed to be your master.

End.