Remember James Connolly through protest and action

éirígí is to mark the ninety-fourth anniversary of James Connolly’s execution with two public events in Dublin city over the weekend of May 15 and 16. The first will be an anti-NAMA protest outside of Anglo Irish Bank on Stephen’s Green in the city centre at 2pm on Saturday May 15. This will be followed with a commemorative wreath-laying ceremony in Arbour Hill at 12noon on Sunday May 16.

Announcing the weekend’s events Rúnaí Ginearálta éirígí Breandán Mac Cionnaith said, “This is the fifth year that éirígí have marked the anniversary of the execution of James Connolly and the other leaders of the 1916 Rising. Over the course of the upcoming Connolly weekend éirígí will hold an internal meeting to discuss policy and strategy as well as the anti-NAMA protest and wreath-laying ceremony. This mix of political theory, action and commemoration represents a fitting memorial to the legacy of James Connolly.

“In previous years éirígí’s commemoration in Arbour Hill has formed the centrepiece of the Connolly weekend. This year, however, we are breaking with that tradition and making the protest at Anglo Irish Bank the main focus of the weekend’s events. In the context of the current economic catastrophe we believe that there could be no more fitting tribute to the memory of James Connolly than the organisation of resistance to NAMA, the bank bailout and the savage cutbacks of the Dublin government. Connolly himself was a firm believer in the street politics of protest and demonstration.

“I would encourage republicans and socialists from across the country to join our protest at Anglo Irish, to bring the politics of Connolly out of the graveyard and onto the streets. In particular I would implore the tens of thousands of unemployed young people who have been abandoned by the Dublin establishment to join our protest, to become politically active and take back control of their own country.”

On April 24 scores of people joined a demonstration in support of six éirígí activists who staged a symbolic occupation of the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank. For a full report on that demonstration and occupation please click here.