Bellaghy Easter Sunday 2025

The joint Easter Sunday commemoration in Bellaghy with 1916 Societies and Éirígí which has now run for its second year went exceptionally well on what turned out to be a really pleasant day in terms of the weather. The parade was led by a solo piper followed by a coloured party, then the crowd. It made its way through Bellaghy up to Bellaghy chappel and graveyard to the graves of Francis Hughes and Thomas McElwee, Where the 1916 Proclamation and South Derry Republican roll of honour was read, alongside poems and song in dedication to the Volunteers. There where wreaths laid and lowering of the Tricolour to also honour our fallen comrades. The main oration was given by 1916 Societies Chairman Pól O’Scannell and followed by Amhrán na bhFiann sun g by Fearghal Mag Uiginn. The 1916 Societies and local 1916 Societies, (Thomas Ashe, Patrick Loughran and Sean Larkin Societies) who organised the event would like to show give our thanks to all those who helped, from the organisation, the logistics, the stewards, the speakers, the caterer and everyone who helped in any way. Your dedication helps bring about a very successful event, which can only keep going stronger each year. Beir bua. Pól O’Scannell speech is below:

Dia daoibh a chairde. Is mise Pol O’ Scanaill. Is cathaoirleach mé ar chumann 1916 as Baile Átha Cliath. Is mór an onoir é labhairt anseo inniu, sa reilig seo, choinníonn uaigheanna ár bhFíníní marbha. Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil le Seán Ó Lorcian, Padraig Ó Luchaireáin agus le Cumann Tomás Ághas 1916 as an onóir mhór seo.

My name is Paul Scannell, chairperson of the 1916 Societies from Dublin. It is a huge honour to speak here today in this graveyard in Bellaghy which holds the graves of our Fenian dead including the Hunger Strikers Francis Hughes and Thomas McElwee. I’d like to thank the Seán Larkin, Patrick Loughran and the Thomas Ashe 1916 Societies for this great honour. We gather here today to honour the men and women, who on Easter week 1916, were summoned to our flag and struck a blow for our freedom. We also honour all the men and women who served the cause of Irish freedom and in particular the men and women who rest here in this graveyard. I want to take this opportunity to send our solidarity to the people of Palestine who are undergoing genocide at the hands of demonic Zionists and imperialists. Their struggle is our struggle.

My own personal connection to the 1916 rising is that both of my grandfathers were ‘out’ in 1916. My grandfather Michael Scannell was out with Austin Stack in Tralee, Co. Kerry, as part of the contingent of Volunteers, tasked with landing the 20,000 German rifles, brought to Ireland by Roger Casement. I remember him telling the story of how he watched, as the RIC marched Roger Casement down the main street in Tralee and how they had wanted to rescue him but were ordered to stand down. My other grandfather Michael McDonnell was out at ten years old, along with his older brothers, running messages for the Volunteers, in the Watkins Brewery garrison and at the barricades on Marrowbone Lane in Dublin. I used to listen in amazement, to his stories of running through the streets of Dublin in his bare feet, getting Volunteers out, who stayed at home due to the countermanding order, and collecting weapons, ammunition and food for the Volunteers as the bullets whizzed by.It is right that we honour all the men and women who fought and died for Irish freedom, but we must also reflect on our own failure to re-establish the Republic declared 109 years ago. The graves of the brave men and women in this cemetery, and countless others around the country, bear testament to the fact that this was not due to a lack of commitment or a lack of bravery. These graves hold the remains of some of the greatest Volunteers to fight for Ireland in every generation; men like Francis Hughes and Thomas McElwee who give their young lives on Hunger strike. Yet despite the sacrifice these young men and all our fallen volunteers have made we have failed to achieve the Republic that they died for. In 1920, British Prime Minister Lloyd George stated, that if you ask the people of Ireland what plan they would accept, by an emphatic majority, they would say, ‘We want Independence and an Irish Republic.’ There is absolutely no doubt about that. The elected representatives of Ireland, now by a clear majority, have declared in favour of independence. Why then, 105 years later, does Britain still claim jurisdiction over this part of Ireland? The simple answer is that the British government does not accept the democratic will of the Irish people, not in 1920 and not now in 2025. Statistics show that the overwhelming majority of Irish people are in favour of independence and an end to the illegal partition of Ireland. However, the British have never accepted democratic principles when it comes to Ireland.

On January 21st, 1919, Dáil Éireann met for the first time and ratified the Irish Republic, declared in arms on Easter week 1916. They declared Ireland as a sovereign, independent nation to the world. The British government’s response to that expression of Irish self-determination was to ban the democratically elected government of the Irish Republic. This coincided with the unleashing of British state terrorism against the Irish people. Elected representatives were jailed and/or assassinated, homes and businesses burned, prisoners tortured and our people murdered, martial law declared and censorship imposed – this has always been the British way. Iron rule by brutal force because it has never had the legal nor moral authority to rule Ireland. They then partitioned our country through the totally undemocratic Government of Ireland Act in December 1920. The partition of Ireland was done without the consent of the Irish people, yet to undo partition, the British tell us that this can only be achieved with the consent of unionists. The illegal partition of Ireland has been a disaster, both economically and socially. Our people were treated as second-class citizens, in an orange state that gloated that it had a protestant parliament for a protestant people; the reality being that Irish Catholics had no political status in this partitioned state. When our people rose up demanding basic civil rights of housing, employment and one man one vote, the state cudgeled them into the ground on Burntollet Bridge. Britain’s response to demands for civil rights was violence, Gerrymandering, civil strife, internment without trial, torture and death of prisoners on hunger strikes, shoot-to-kill, censorship, institutionalised sectarianism, State collusion with loyalist death squads controlled by British military intelligence.

Local people here in Bellaghy are well aware of that collusion and those cover-ups, a prime example being the murder of Sean Brown, abducted while locking the gates of the Wolfe Tones GAA club, taken away and murdered by the LVF with British state agents having been linked to the murder. Last March, the coroner was unable to continue the inquest into Seáns murder due to confidential material being withheld and redacted by the British government, on the grounds of national security. The coroner wrote to the British Secretary of State requesting a public inquiry into the case, and their own high court ruled that Hillary Benn must set up a public inquiry. His refusal has been ruled unlawful by their own court of appeal. The British state-sanctioned murder of Sean and the ongoing cover-up sums up British injustice, its dirty war in the 6 counties and the contempt in which it holds the Irish people. It is time for a public inquiry and justice for the Brown family, The economic consequences of British interference have been just as atrocious. In a study by economist Michael Burke entitled ‘The economic case for Irish unity’, presented to the European parliament in 2016, he claimed that, “the economy of the North is in stagnation and it would remain so until reunification.” He also stated that “‘No one, charged with the creation of the optimal economic entity on the island of Ireland, would dream of separating the north-eastern corner from the rest of the country, imposing two different currencies, legal and tax frameworks and two different legislatures on either side of that border’. There are no positive benefits of partition; only child poverty, homelessness and food banks. This week, an ESRI report highlighted the widening wealth divide and stronger economic growth in the South. The most shocking difference is that a child born in 2021 in the South can expect to live two years longer than a child born in the North; 82.4 years in the South, 80.4 years in the North – that is a damning indictment of partition. The injustices under partition led to 30 years of war between the Irish people and the British state alongside its unionist proxies, while the Free State establishment stood idly by. With men and women of the caliber of those resting here in this graveyard, the British knew they could never defeat us. How could they, with men and women who were prepared to fight and die on hunger strike, if necessary, for an ideal?So, unable to defeat the Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army in the field, they returned to Lloyd George’s playbook from 1920, the old ruse of the pacification of Ireland again. Several attempts have been made, from Sunningdale, the Anglo-Irish agreement, the Good Friday, St Andrews, Hillsborough castle, Stormont house, Fresh Start, New Decade, and New Approach agreement. It is virtually impossible to keep track of all the British pacification strategies, or as they call it, the Peace Process. Gerry Adams stated in 1988: “Since Sunningdale in 1973 the British have repeatedly attempted to establish an internal governmental arrangement involving unionists and nationalists. Our struggle and strategy has been to close down each option open to the British until they have no other option but to withdraw… Sinn Fein is totally opposed to a power-sharing Stormont assembly and states that there cannot be a partitionist solution. Stormont is not a stepping stone to Irish unity. “ That statement was correct in 1988 and it is correct in 2025. Stormont is not a stepping stone to Irish unity and it is definitely not a stepping stone to the Irish republic. If only he had heeded the warning of Jeremiah O’ Donovan

Rossa when he wrote….“It is in that English Parliament the chains for Ireland are forged, and any Irish patriot who goes into that forge to free Ireland will soon find himself welded into the agency of his country’s subjection to England”. That unfortunately, has proven to be the case. Those who went into Stormont to implement the Good Friday Agreement and its numerous tweaks have found themselves welded to Britain’s continued subjection of this part of Ireland and of our democratic rights. The call for Irish unity and the Irish Republic has been diluted to a call for an agreed Ireland or shared island with the very real prospect of the return to membership of the British Commonwealth for all 32 counties.

I want to state very clearly here today, we will never, ever accept the British Commonwealth. This shared island concept is the polar opposite of Republicanism. It sets a dangerous precedent of accepting the British narrative that there are two separate nations on this island. It gives legitimacy to the British government’s analysis that unionists are the British presence in Ireland. So-called Republican ministers groveling to the British monarchy and standing for God save the King at Northern Ireland football matches only reinforces that analysis. Roddy McCorley was hung 5 miles away from here; he died to unite the whole people of Ireland, to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and dissenter; he died as an Irishman attempting to break the connection with England, and in the 225 years since his death, a second nation has not been established on this island. Shortly, we will honour his sacrifice by unveiling the refurbished monument at the bridge at Toome, and I want to commend the local society for the work they’ve done on the project. That analysis was also rejected by the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation when they proclaimed that they were ‘oblivious to the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which had divided a minority from the majority in the past’.A chairde, the Good Friday Agreement has failed to deliver any tangible progress towards an all-Ireland Republic. That was its raison d’etre – to yet again pacify Ireland. The British have always been masters of co-opting former adversaries into administering their colonial rule on their terms and in doing so, they have converted former Irish Republicans into constitutional puppets. It is a fallacy to believe that a British-controlled border poll will secure Irish freedom. We, who assembled here today, reject Britain’s latest pacification strategy. We have a moral duty to renounce a process that cannot lead to the objectives the men and women resting here in this graveyard fought and died to achieve. So where do we go from here?

We in the 1916 Societies believe that the tarnished status quo does not have to remain in place. We believe we have a better way forward with our One Ireland One Vote campaign. We believe that the Irish people and the Irish people alone must decide our own future without interference from the British. We believe that the votes of people from Kerry to Derry and Antrim to Wexford should count equally in a people’s referendum. Our OIOV campaign rejects sectarianism and any attempt to divide the Irish people on ethnic or religious grounds. Britain should not be allowed to control who votes in a referendum on Ireland’s future, let alone be able to veto the vote. That is where the OIOV campaign differs fundamentally from a border poll. The title border poll is in itself misleading, as it suggests that it’s a poll to remove the border. What it actually means, is that only the people here in the occupied six counties can vote in that poll, thereby excluding the people in the rest of Ireland. I, being from Dublin would not have a say on the future of my country. A border poll completely disenfranchises the majority of the Irish people, who, as we know, want a united Ireland. It is really a simple choice; a British-controlled border poll where they completely control – if and when a poll will be called, the wording of said poll, and who can and who cannot vote. Even in the unlikely event of the British granting a poll, the result would have to be ratified in both British houses of parliament, and they would have the final say. Who, here, would trust the British to be honest and treat Ireland with fairness?

The British Labour party, who co-signed the GFA, with war criminal Tony Blair as leader, declared that they would be neutral on the issue of Irish unity. Now, under genocide enabler Keir Starmer they have produced a policy document entitled ‘strengthening Northern Ireland’s position in the UK’ and have stated that they ‘will never be neutral on the issue of Irish unity’. The policy further states that, ‘On the basis of all recent polling, the government sees no realistic prospect of a border poll leading to a united Ireland. We believe that, following the restoration of the devolved institutions, Northern Ireland’s future in the UK will be secure for decades to come and as such the conditions for a border poll are unlikely to be met.’ British Secretary of State Hillary Benn, who has refused a public inquiry into the murder of Sean Brown, said ‘there is no prospect of a border poll for decades’. He does not have a single vote on this island, he has no mandate to dictate anything to us .We call on the people to reject the offer of crumbs off Westminster’s table at some unspecified time in the future and to reject the democratic deficit and sectarian dynamic of a British-controlled border poll. Join us as we aim to re-establish the Irish Republic of 1916, and reinstate the Proclamation as the template for equality for all the people living on this island. We respectfully request your endorsement and support for an All-Ireland referendum on Irish unity. I will finish with the words of one of Ireland’s greatest fighting sons Francis Hughes

“I have no prouder boast to say I am Irish and have been privileged to fight for the Irish people and for Ireland. If I have a duty I will perform it to the full with the unshakable belief that we are a noble race and that chains and bounds have no part in us”.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh. Saoirse don Phalaistín agus Saoirse na hÉireann! An Phoblacht abú!