Our People, Our Future: What Éire Nua Means

Many thanks to the person who forwarded this to the Archive.

This publication, produced in 1973, despite its sub-title, brings together a selection of essays and articles written by then Uachtarán Sinn Féin, Ruairi Ó Brádaigh. These include pieces on ‘What is Irish Republicanism?’, ‘Restore the Means of Production to the People’, ‘An Ulster Parliament’, ‘Suspension of Stormont’ and many others. There is a ‘Reply’ addressed to Cardinal Conway and an ‘Answer to Mr. Childers’. There is also an assessment of ‘E.E.C. referendum Result’. The articles were published from 1970 through to 1973, and include pieces first published in the Irish Independent and the Irish Press.

All told it makes for an interesting insight into not merely what Ó Brádaigh sought to write but what he thought was significant in compiling this collection.

Notably it also includes the full text of the ‘Presidential Address to the 69th Ard-Fheis’ from October 1973. And it includes a response to Sunningdale.

The first piece ‘What is Irish Republicanism’ – published in the Irish Independent in December 1970, notes:

There are many calling themselves Republicans who would be perfectly satisfied with the name of a Republic for all 32 Counties while leaving the present social, economic and cultural system unchanged – or worse still, integrating it with the rampant capitalism of the E.E.C. They are deluding themselves and deluding others.

For the Republican Movement only a struggle on many fronts will achieve the Republican objective of restoring the ‘ownership of Ireland to the people of Ireland (1916 Proclamation). Such a struggle inevitably gets bogged down in parliament, be it Westminster, Stormont or Leinster House, and those attempting it get absorbed into the imperial system.

And he concludes:

We have outlined clearly in policy statements and through our official monthly, ‘An Phoblacht’, the nature of the social and economic system – based on the right of worker ownership and the native Irish tradition of Comhar na gComharsan – which we seek to establish in a free Ireland.

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