As another year comes to a close Lasair Dhearg sends revolutionary greetings to all of our members and supporters across Ireland and internationally. We extend our solidarity to all like-minded Socialist Republican activists and organisations, and our thoughts are with those anti-imperialists currently held in imperialist jails across Ireland and beyond.
This past year has been a notable one for Lasair Dhearg as an organisation and indeed for the broader struggle in Ireland.
Over the last twelve months the capitalist crisis has deepened significantly. The ongoing so-called ‘cost of living crisis’ has exposed class lines and laid bare the divisions in our society for all to see. There is a growing consensus across Ireland that we exist within a very broken system, designed for the enrichment of a very small class of people.
At present, both failed statelets on this island would have you believe that peace has been achieved and therein lies our salvation, the facts however would tell us otherwise. The Ireland of today is one firmly wedded to imperialism and the capitalist economic system.
Thousands of British combat troops continue to occupy the Six Counties, supported by over 7,000 members of the paramilitary police and hundreds of British military intelligence agents. Combined, there are over 20,000 British security personnel maintaining Britain’s occupation of Ireland – fuelled by a yearly security budget of Billions from the British exchequer.
Dozens of republican political prisoners continue to be held in prisons where they are regularly beaten and strip searched. Denial of visits is a common occurrence. And the prison regime in the Six Counties continues Britain’s policy of criminalisation.
A British Tory government, ably assisted by the Stormont puppet parliament when seated, continues to impose a regime of real-term wage cuts, poverty, and a declining health service.
International military flights continue to ship soldiers, machinery and heavy weaponry through Irish airports on their way to other global conflicts.
Hundreds of thousands are living without a home as hundreds of thousands of homes lie empty.
Poverty, food banks, hunger and malnutrition. Capitalism. This is the Ireland of today.
Since our inception just five years ago Lasair Dhearg had taken the decision to slowly but surely build an organisation from the ground up; one that would make no empty promises but seek to create something credible and capable; capable of one day bringing about the conditions for the creation of a 32 County Irish Socialist Republic.
As we brought that first five years to a close in November, our members agreed to lay forth a new five year plan for consolidation and national growth, building upon our previous successes. Our broader Movement, having only a handful of activists in one corner of Belfast in late 2019, now has a growing presence across Ireland and Internationally. We hope that our activism and our methods of organising inspire other like-minded comrades to join us in the building of this project.
These past twelve months have seen our activists engage in a number of campaigns and many forms of activism; from targeting housing profiteers and landlords, to tackling the continued normalisation strategy of the PSNI; from shutting down state security forces recruitment campaigns, to campaigning against the ‘cost of living crisis’; from standing on picket lines with striking workers and facing down fascists when they attempt to organise. We are proud that a significant number of our activists stood with many other anti-fascists from a range of organisations and none, as we confronted a noteworthy gathering of fascists at Fermanagh’s Lough Erne resort in November. The unity of those gathered with a single and agreed focus is a lesson for the future.
Looking ahead over the coming year we will reach a new landmark; 25 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. A whole generation has been born and raised into an Ireland living under the boot of a capitalist system that does not allow them to flourish and to prosper; born instead to create wealth for others and to be expropriated by an all too willing state within which they barely make a living. The year ahead provides us an opportunity to reflect on that ‘agreement’ and its consequences for the Irish working class.
As 2022 comes to a close, we reflect upon the centenary of the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which occurred on the 30th of December in 1922, and we are reminded that only a mass movement of the working class can build a force with the necessary strength to bring about the creation of a 32 County Irish Socialist Republic. To this end, we will continue to build upon current alliances and collaborate with like minded comrades where common ground can be sought to advance our aims and objectives.
The struggle continues; and it is leading to one inevitable conclusion, the liberation of the exploited and the expropriation of the oppressor.
Beirigí bua! Bígí Linn. Join us.
