Hello everyone
Hello everyone. I'm up here at St. Enda's in Rathfarnham and this is a hugely significant part of Irish history. And a place that's well worth a visit if you haven't been here already. So, try and make it up because this goes back hundreds of years even to the time of Robert Emmet who was said to have met Sarah Curran on the grounds here. Sarah Curran just lives just in the Hermitage actually just right across in that.
Direction there. And I used to have meetings here with um Robert Emmet and of course Robert Emmet was executed or beheaded at the top of Thomas Street in 1803. But also it's synonymous with the school of Patrick Pearse. That was here for many years. Actually, he first moved up here in 1910 from down in Cullenswood Cullenswood House down in Ranelagh.
And he had school here up until the time of the Easter Rising. Post Easter Rising and post the execution of Patrick and his brother Willie and number of others including Con Colbert, Joseph Mary Plunkett and Thomas MacDonagh. They all taught here. This was operated then by the British for about 5 years up until the early '20s when his mother and sister took it back over. And then it was bequeathed then to the Irish state years later. But um Pearse is a.
Beautiful beautiful bust of Patrick Pearse. John Baine was the sculptor of that. A man I believe I think he came from around the Pearse Street area as well. We look up at the Irish flag flying proudly here. Uh back at the time of the Easter Rising as well as with 16 15 16 students that were here were interned in Frongoch post Easter Rising.
And it was a great place to get so many young men in tune with their whole sense of Irishness our culture our heritage our history our language our music our poetry. And sports and nature and theater were a big part of times that were spent here by those students. And just imagine the steps that were here.
And they were family busy for many years
And they were family busy for many years. His office is just it was just in behind where the the shuttered windows are. Just there. But I'll just take a little walk around and show you some of the sites up around here. But he was big proponent of the new education system based on Oh, sorry. But um big part of it was the education system.
And he wrote about the murder machine of the British establishment where they could just try and condition people and students to become workers for the British establishment and really smacked every kind of national pride and history out of them.
And that was a big erosion through our language. Also famously he actually one of his cases as a barrister he took a case for a man from Creeslough up in County Donegal because he had his name O'Kelly in on his cart. And that wasn't permitted under the British laws at the time. I think he took a couple of cases for that man.
But again he was up against the establishment so he wasn't going to win, was he? And I'll just take a walk through here as well. Because in the last couple of weeks we've seen big moves in Ireland in terms of what's taking place with the protests. And Pearse also famously wrote about the risen people. As he stated beware of the risen people.
“But again he was up against the establishment so he wasn't going to win, was he”
Cuz people will rise and the people will have enough of the establishment. Which is the same as they took a stand just over 110 years ago. The people there were standing up and taking a stand for Ireland now. Especially in the bigger picture of globalization. Bigger erosion of our basic rights. Bigger transfer of wealth upwards in society.
Massive massive inequalities
Massive massive inequalities. So many people struggling getting by day to day barely existing. And not withstanding the pressures in society on people and the mental health strains that they bring as well not to mention the physical helps our health strains also. And in particular with the dystopian totalitarian surveillance state digital wallet identification.
And the drive towards a Orwellian dystopia. So, I wonder if Patrick Pearse and many of those would have thought about what they gave their lives for and what Ireland has become sold out by the political establishment that don't even figure a reason or have any notion of what sovereignty means. He also wrote of the sovereign people and we are ultimately sovereign as individuals.
And that cannot be taken away. That's something that was given under God and is not rights that were conditional on any establishment. That's why it's so so important change does come from the streets from the communities from our towns from our villages from our cities. It comes from Ireland. It comes from ordinary working people.
Asserting our basic rights. And not being conditioned into the uh conforming into the nonsense that they try and use with their soft power with through the media through the education system. And also in particular when that doesn't work then they crack down and use the brute force that we've seen in the streets of Ireland in the last week. And the threats of the Irish army being deployed against people who were peacefully protesting ordinary working people.
And already playing the shift of try and blame bad actors and all this type of nonsense because they can't handle anything organic that takes place in Ireland anything that's where people have enough and stand up. They can't handle if they don't go through their structured organizations that they can control and have nice cozy fireside chatting and come out patting each other on the back to say this is the best we can do. Which is the same as what the unions.
Spoke about last week
Spoke about last week. In particular Owen Reidy of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions who spoke of the fact that if they were protesting for an hour they would be taken off the streets by the Gardai and be charged and um injunctured. So um so it's to play by the rules. Owen Reidy shows how conditioned even the unions now sold out they are where they're not standing up for workers' rights and standing with people. And that was part of the whole.
Divide and rule strategy being pursued by the establishment we've seen over the last week. Which they're trying to sell work through. But more and more people are waking up to their nonsense. Standing up for basic ordinary working people's rights the real rights not rights conditional on any acts that were brought forward by the establishment that really served our interests and it really displays the myth of what social partnership was all about.
And I remember times of the Industrial Relations Act. And recently with Bertie Ahern and his government putting forward various measures in terms of the so-called right to strike and picket. So, I wonder what one of his comrades James Connolly would have thought about who's who's stood with Patrick Pearse in the GPO. Of course, they're nothing compared to that generation of men and women.
We still up for real workers' rights. We still up for ordinary working people for Ireland. We still up for our sovereignty. We still up for the real issues of class in Ireland that are blatantly on display, particularly from the media commentary over the last week to 10 days. So, uh hope you enjoyed the little walk around St. Enda's up here in my fair land. And um place well worth visiting cuz it's fantastic history. Beautiful, beautiful park.
And um it's so important to use our history and remember it, but also use it in the context of how we can advance the rights of our ordinary working people here in Ireland too as well. Now more than ever. So, thanks for the support and uh my fair land. Stronger together. See you soon. Bye-bye.
