Tipperary TD Seamus Healy welcomes government "capitulation" on RIC commemoration event

Tipperary TD Seamus Healy has described the decision of the government to defer a controversial RIC commemoration event as a "victory for people power".

Deputy Healy, who last Sunday , issued a statement condemning the government for organising the event on January 17 inDublin Castle and called for a boycott of the event, thanked members of the public for supporting the campaign that opposed the commemoration.

Deputy Healy said commemorating "our oppressors" would dishonour  patriots who fought and died for the Irish people in the War of Independence.His great grandfather  Michael Healy was convicted for his role in the burning of Roskeen RIC barracks during the Fenian Rebellion of 1867.

Deputy Healy,following the announcement of the government to cancel the commemoration , said that whatever way Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan and the government or the media wish to present the  capitulation on the RIC commemoration, it was a definite victory for people power.  

"I watched the  Six One interview on Tuesday with Minister Charlie Flanagan with a mixture of disgust and awe:  disgusted by his cowardice in merely deferring the RIC Commemoration, I was equally in awe of his outstanding and continued arrogance in the face of a groundswell of public and political opposition to it.While another may have admitted the poor judgement exercised in the decision to commemorate the RIC, the Minister said he is determined to go ahead with it this year.  With a look of condescension, disdain and regret, he pleaded with us, mere plebs, to “broaden our sympathies” and be “mature”.Minister Flanagan, let us be clear:  We are not immature; we are not lacking in empathy and neither are we fools" said Deputy Healy.

Deputy Healy said Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan  was given free rein to yet again distort reality and present an alternative truth by painting people who have opposed the RIC Commemoration as either unreasonable, emotional types or hard-liners incapable of empathy. 

"He credits us with no intelligence, no clarity of thought and no emotion whatsoever. A very dangerous underestimation indeed" said Deputy Healy.

“Broadening our sympathies” to include paid members of an armed, para-military militia created by the British in Ireland to supress the democratic outcome of the 1918 general election in this country and who murdered and tortured many Irish freedom-fighters and civilians while doing so, would amount to treason.  But Flanagan is not the real issue here.The real issue of concern is the hundreds of others like him in positions of power in this country who rather than acting as custodians of the past are manipulating it to re-tell the story as they would like it told.  What other parts of our national story will they try to erase, revise, edit or sanitise during this all-important “Decade of Centenaries”?  We must unite to ensure that this proposed Commemoration never takes place and plan for a mass people's commemoration of the War of Independence in 2020" said Deputy Healy.

Last Sunday Deputy Healy issued a statement calling for a boycott of the planned commemoration and said he would not be attending and would not apologise for not doing so.Deputy Jackie Cahill ,Deputy Mattie McGrath and general election candidate Martin Browne also issued statements highlighting their opposition to the planned commemoration.

 Deputy Healy, last Thursday said,for the government of this country to celebrate the memory and the actions of RIC and DMP officers who implemented martial law in Ireland and attempted to suppress the Irish Freedom Movement as authorised by the First Dáil of Ireland in 1919 is quite frankly both egregious and outrageous.

"By attending such a commemoration, I would be directly dishonouring my great grandfather and great-grandmother, Michael & Margaret Healy of Upperchurch.  During the Fenian Rebellion of 1867, my great grandfather Michael Healy was convicted, along with his brother-in-law Thomas Whelan and many neighbours, for their part in the burning of Roskeen RIC Barracks.  My great grandmother Margaret Healy, (nee Whelan of Shefferoy) along with other women walked the 30 miles to Nenagh and back each week to bring them provisions while they were jailed there" he said.

"This commemoration must be seen for what it is: A deliberate attempt to redraw and rewrite the history of the Irish people and the birth of the Irish state and it must be resisted.To participate in this sham commemoration is to support the blatant political revisionism behind it.  Unbelievably, it puts our oppressors, the RIC, the DMP, the Tans and the Auxiliaries in the same category as those who died for the creation of the Republic" said Deputy Healy. 

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