éirígí slam dublin government commemoration of First Dáil as "revisionist charade"

Sligo éirígí activist Gerry Casey has described the Dublin Governments ceremony at the Mansion House commemorating the First Dáil as a "revisionist charade" and an "attempt to gloss over the abandonment of both the national and social ideals contained within the Declaration of Independence and Democratic Programme."

He was speaking after éirígí activists had breached a Gardai security cordon and unfurled a banner from the roof of the Mansion House where the ceremony was taking place. The banner read "- "90 YEARS ON – NO CLOSER TO FREEDOM – END THE OCCUPATION!"

Casey said: "On January 21 ninety years ago the elected members of the First Dáil defied the British occupation forces and assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin to reassert the Irish peoples right to Independence and freedom."

"The Dublin Governments ceremony at the Mansion House commemorating the First Dáil was a revisionist charade. It was an attempt to normalise the continued occupation of part of our country by the same forces that occupied it ninety years ago and to gloss over the abandonment of both the national and social ideals contained within the Declaration of Independence and Democratic Programme adopted at that sitting of the First Dáil.

He concluded: "Unlike the political class in the twenty six counties who have betrayed the ideals of the First Dáil, éirígí remain committed to actually bringing about the First Dáils core demands – an end to the British occupation and the radical overhaul of the social and economic order in Ireland."