Mickey Kearney and Patrick Campbell Commemoration

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday January 22, 2003 12:23 by Harry McShane

Speech Delivered by IRSP Ard Comhairle Member Terry Harkin at the Unveiling of a Plaque to Commemorate Mickey Kearney and Patrick Campbell, Two INLA Volunteers Killed on Active Service

Speech Delivered by IRSP Ard Comhairle Member Terry Harkin at the Unveiling
of a Plaque to Commemorate Mickey Kearney and Patrick Campbell, Two INLA
Volunteers Killed on Active Service

Friends and Comrades:

It is an honour to be asked to speak at this unveiling of a memorial plaque
to the memory of two volunteers of the Irish National Liberation Army who
hailed from this district. Mickey and Patrick were two fine young men cut
down in their prime of life for standing up for what they believed in.

In today's hectic world with everything happening so fast it is little
wonder that the youth of today, spoon fed on a continuous diet of
wall-to-wall trash TV and designer music to deaden the soul have swallowed
whole the manufactured cardboard heroes, held up by a partisan mass media
for them to admire. So who cares if Westlife endorse "Poppies" to remember
with pride the army that tied Connolly to a chair and shot him. Who's
Connolly? Where did Article's two and three go? What where Article's two
and three anyway?

As our children walk past this plaque many of them will be more concerned
with "Rave" culture than the plight of the community in North Belfast,
where kids of the same age or younger are blackmailed into spying on their
defenders.  They'll stand under it and talk about "Big Brother" as their
every move is observed by the Ascendancy's cameras. They would be wise to
emulate both Patrick and Mickey, look beyond the hype and have something
more to believe in.

I knew Mickey Kearney in life, gave the oration to him in Miltown the day
we buried him. I could not do justice to his character then, nor can I do
it now. 16 years have not diminished my inability to articulate the
multi-faceted character that was Mickey Kearney.

Mickey died at the hands of fellow Irishmen who were duped into doing the
work of the British Imperialist war-machine and trying to wipe out the
Republican Socialist Movement. He died in defence of this movement and our
presence here today and our unveiling of this plaque shows he did not die
in vain. We did not, go away you know.

The Republican Socialist movement today is as strong if not stronger than
it has ever been. Our policies and politics are today even more--if that
were possible--relevant to the lives of our young people as when Seamus
Costello set about re-establishing the tradition of Republican Socialism.

The philosophy of Republican Socialism is based on the needs aspirations
and hopes of the Irish working class. That class that labours, North and
South, Prod and Taig, to produce all of the wealth of the country, but only
receive a pittance from the boss's table. It encompasses the republicanism
of Wolfe Tone, the socialism of James Connolly, the radicalism and
militancy of Liam Mellows, the humanity of Peadar O¹Donnell and the vision
and passion of Seamus Costello.

It was this set of beliefs that attracted both Mickey and Patrick to the
banners of this movement. Often there is a tendency within the broad
republican tradition for people to sanitise the memory of those republicans
who were killed in action. Patrick and Mickey were no saints ­ they had the
same faults habits and customs of thousands of other young men living
through a war. In short, they were just two working-class lads. But both
also had something else, something special. They had beliefs, courage,
commitment and dedication. That is what made them different from the
thousands of others. They looked deeper than the gloss, pushed themselves
to the front and said, enough.

Take young Paddy Bo, I didn't have the privilege to know Paddy-Bo, he was
born the year Seamus Costello, founder of the INLA was assassinated at the
hands of the Official IRA. He grew up in troubled times and saw what was
happening to his own land and to his own people. When able, he joined the
INLA, to play his part in liberating his class and country. Unfortunately
he died at the hands of the drug dealing scum he was defending his adopted
community from.

Both deaths weigh heavily on the living. Families are left with memories of
the good and bad times. Friends may remember the pranks played and the days
of craic and laughter. Comrades may remember the days of training and
operations carried out.

But what will future generations walking under this plaque know? Will they
know that these volunteers were heroes of the working class? Will they look
at these plaques with pride or just shrug their shoulders and walk on by?

The answer to these questions lies with this generation with you, with me,
with us all today.  For, to make meaning of their sacrifices and deaths, we
must strive to build a better world for our children. As I look around this
gathering today I see many comrades of Mickey and Paddy-Bo, past and
present, some still active in the movement, some not active in politics,
some fell out with us for past decisions. To them we say, your home is with
us, as it always was, in trying to bring about this new world both
ideologically and politically.

Unfortunately we cannot say that what is now passing for politics on either
side of the border will build a better world. Stormont is a farce, a
charade, joke! A place for place-seekers, for the gin and tonic set--for
the great and the good-­for the wannabes and for the has-beens, a place for
the small minded,for the YES men and women to swan about in. It is an
obscenity for any self-respecting republican to give credence to that
administration in the White House on the hill.

And, as for the Dail - the stench of corruption both from the body politic
and the body holy is reaching to high heavens.  All the great institutions
of that ill-begotten and bastard-born state, are corrupt, venal and
pathetic.

In 1969 Seamus Costello clearly laid out what attitude should be adopted by
elected republicans to the existing parliamentary institutions.

He said:"Breaking the confidence of the people in the existing
Parliamentary institutions should be one of the main functions of our TD's.
They should be full time Revolutionary Organisers in their own areas.

"The attitude of Sinn Fein councillors should be to avail of every possible
opportunity to demonstrate that we are fundamentally different from all of
the other parties and we should not yield to the temptation to let up on
the attack, either for some short term advantage, or because some of them
just happen to be nice people."

Seamus believed that the republican should enter the partitionist
assemblies with the intentions of Guy Fawkes and, "Use it as a forum from
which to advance our revolutionary ideas thereby creating a lack of
confidence in the whole system".

That's why we are republicans. And more importantly today that was why
Paddy-Bo and Mickey were republicans. Corruption and capitalism go hand in
hand and neither can be reformed. They must be destroyed.

Neither Stormont nor the Dail but the Republic is what we demand, the
Republic of Connolly of Costello and of Kearney and Campbell.