Government Chief Whip speaking in London
As Chairman of the Irish Government's 1798 Commemoration Committee, it gives me great pleasure to be here in London tonight. I want to assure you that the Taoiseach and the new Government are fully determined to actively develop the commemorative programme, building on the work of my predecessor as National Chairman, Avril Doyle, to whom I would like to pay tribute for her excellent contribution.
The 1790s is considered by many to be the crucial decade in the evolution of modern Ireland. It witnessed the first fully-fledged development of popular republicanism and Loyalism, of the Orange Order and Maynooth College, of separatism and armed insurrection: it culminated in the Act of Union of 1800, which defined the political architecture of these islands for generations to come.
The 1790s is also the definitive moment at which the two strongest political traditions of Ireland, nationalism and unionism split. A proper understanding of the 1790s therefore provides a crucial context for the current peace process, which broadly speaking can be seen as an effort to create a lasting accommodation between these two traditions within an agreed political framework.
In the spirit of the Peace Process, I want to assure you that the Irish Government's Commemorative programme will be positive, inclusive and dignified. It will emphasise that 1798 belongs to all traditions in Ireland and that the United Irish initiative, and the core strength of the movement, originated within the Presbyterian communities of Belfast and east Ulster. The Republican politics of the late eighteenth century was essentially a Presbyterian phenomenon, entrenched east of the Bann in Antrim and Down. We will pay particular tribute to that Ulster dimension, stressing the distinguished contribution of the Presbyterian tradition, with its enlightened emphasis on civil liberty, justice and political equality.
Like the United Irishmen, we do not see religious, ethnic and political diversity as a disabling problem, but rather as an opportunity to construct a wider, more tolerant and generous political vision, which is capable of representing and sustaining the diverse traditions of Ireland in all their inherited complexities.
We will not adopt a cabbage-patch approach to 1998. Our commemorative programme will view the 1798 Rebellion within the context of the Atlantic Revolution of the 1790s, when what happened in Ireland was of a piece with what had happened in America and France. We will also explore the impact of 1798 on the evolution of the Irish diaspora, notably in France, Australia and America. The United Irish émigrés, for example, were crucial to the founding of the American Republican party.
Tonight, we are launching the programme of Wexford commemoration next year, and in particular the innovative idea of reconvening the Wexford Senate, an exhilarating example of representative Government and direct democracy in action. I want to assure my Wexford friends of the commitment by the Government and myself personally to this highly appropriate event.
Let me conclude by once more emphasising that as a Government, we intend to build a positive and inclusive commemoration, which reaches out to all strands of Irish opinion, and to the Irish public in general. We will be looking to the future as much as to the past, and we approach the commemoration in a mature and dynamic, rather than a merely nostalgic spirit. I want to encourage you to join with us in ensuring the success of this important commemoration.
16 July 1997