Sinn Féin honoured the Easter Rising of 1916 and those who gave their lives for an Irish Republic by organising a series of Easter Commemorations at the weekend.
Republicans gathered at a number of locations across the county, the main event however being at the Liam Mellows statue in Eyre Square, where former Dublin mayor, Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha was the principal speaker.
Councillor Mairéad Farrell, a Galway West General Election candidate, was the MC for this commemoration. She told the large attendance that the vision of equality advanced in the Proclamation of the Republic was not realised in the Ireland of today with the level of homelessness on the streets. She also mentioned the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil, 100-years-old this year and largely ignored and unrealised today.
65 Galway volunteers
Cllr Mark Lohan then read the Galway Roll of Honour in tribute to the 65 Volunteers from Galway who gave their lives for an All Ireland republic.
Cllr Mícheál Mac Donncha spoke about Galway's role in republican history, particularly referring to Liam Mellows who, in the Treaty debates, warned of the tragedy partition would bring to the country. He said that partition led to a sectarian Orange state in the North and a conservative state in the South. He said Irish unity for Sinn Féin did not mean an extension of the 26 counties - 'a 32-county Free State' as he put it, rather a new All Ireland republic with equality for all its citizens. He also referred to the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil and how it said the land and resources of Ireland should belong to the people of Ireland.
Cllr Mac Donncha strongly condemned the murder last Friday of the journalist Lyra McKee in Derry, saying those responsible should not be called Irish, let alone 'republican'.
