REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS OF SIPTU, LIBERTY HALL, DUBLIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS OF SIPTU, LIBERTY HALL, DUBLIN 4 JANUARY, 2009
Dia dhíbh go léir inniu. Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh ar an ócáid speisialta seo.
Hello everyone and thank you that warm welcome, I am delighted to be here today in Liberty Hall to mark the centenary celebrations of SIPTU. My thanks to Joe O’Flynn for inviting me to this special anniversary event. We gather to step back for a moment and look back at the sweep of history that has brought us from those grim days back in 1909 when Jim Larkin founded the legendary Irish Transport and General Workers Union, the forerunner of SIPTU.
Sean O'Casey said of Larkin, "Here was a man who would put a flower in a vase on a table as well as a loaf on the plate”. Not many in Larkin’s day would have been buying scentless but perfect roses to decorate the dinner table. His was a world where the struggle was against starvation, disease and exploitation, where the lack of education of the masses was matched only by the ignorance of the economic and political elites.
Here was what Thomas Kettle would memorably describe, less than a decade later, as “the secret scripture of the Poor” that would drive tens of thousands of young Irish men into the British Army to sacrifice their lives so that their families could eat. It’s a world that still exists though thankfully not in Ireland but in many places around the world where the journey started by Larkin has not yet begun. His was a fresh and restless mind. He could see how the collective power of workers was weakened by division into separate categories, trades and crafts. He could see a time when their combined clout would exercise an authoritative voice that could not be silenced. He saw good lives and massive brainpower wasted by the indignity of second-class citizenship and worn out by the daily battle to provide the most basic of food and shelter. He saw the transformative power that education and the arts could bring to lives brow-beaten into what Seamus Heaney has described memorably as “high-banked clouds of resignation.”
Liberty Hall, 18 Beresford Place became the incubator of a new Ireland and a new way of thinking about ourselves. There were choirs and bands and lectures and Irish classes. During the 1913 strike the famous soup kitchen of Countess Markiewicz, Delia Larkin and Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington fed three thousand children each day, not to mention the nursing mothers. During the Rising, that watershed event in Ireland’s narrative, the Trade Union movement became an indispensable engine of community effort. The Citizen Army was based in Liberty Hall. In its basement, union member Christy Brady printed The Proclamation of the Republic, its seven legendary signatories met in Liberty Hall on Easter Monday morning and there they elected Patrick Pearse as President, James Connolly as Vice President of the Provisional Government. Hardly surprising then that Liberty Hall has the distinction of being the first target to be shelled and occupied by the British army.
Those of us who think we face tough times now might ponder the courage of the dispossessed that transcended 1913 lock-out and triumphed through the Easter Rising. At every hands turn they seemed to face massive odds, failure and defeat. Yet truth, justice, equality and freedom always find a space through which to let the future in if they can find champions who are not fazed by the scale of opposition or overwhelmed by the scale of the problems.
We live in an altered Ireland today thanks to those champions and to their successors for in our day that same spirit of community cooperation has been evident in the contribution SIPTU has made to the blossoming of our nation and in particular to our unique and successful model of social partnership. It too was incubated during a time of economic crisis in the 1980’s. It broke us out of a paralysing cycle of confrontation and blame and created a remarkable momentum as the diverse interest groups that make up our society united to create a consensus from which all would benefit.
Willingness to engage, to take a longer-term strategic view and to seek a shared approach to problem-solving have been the hallmarks of social partnership. The leadership and commitment shown by SIPTU representatives over many years has been crucial and will be crucially important as we face together into the economic storms that beset Ireland and much of the world. The short-term prognosis is not a pretty sight but this union has endured and survived much worse in its 100 year history. Usually Ireland has been fighting to escape from poverty now uniquely for us we are fighting to hold on to our prosperity. We have the best educated, the most successful, the most confident generation ever on the case. Larkin’s words seem apt. “By God's help, and the intelligent use of their own strong right arms, they could accomplish great things”.
With the help of SIPTU, with the help of all of us as community to one another and for one another, chastened by the moral hollowing out of rampant individualism and inspired by the altruism that brought this Union into existence, maybe this generation will dedicate itself anew to the ambition set out in the Proclamation, to create an Ireland where the children of the nation will be cherished equally. It’s the work Larkin started. It’s the work this Union has promoted for a century. It is still the only ambition worthy of us and the only way we can ever repay all those who fought for our dignity, our liberty and our equality.
Congratulations to all those involved in ITGWU and SIPTU, both today and down through the years. As we face the start of the next one hundred years with all its yet unwritten chapters may we believe that by our efforts the best is yet to come.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.