Good evening, comrades and friends,

The title of our talk, lecture, discussion, call it what you will, is "on being a Republican". Although this is a very serious topic, I don't intend to bore you with a lengthy Fidel Castro type marathon speech.

Some weeks ago my wife was in hospital for a check up and we nipped outside for a quick nicotine fix. There was a lady there puffing away greedily and after a few minutes she looked at me and said "I know you". She was from the Markets and very much a supporter of the Party. This was the third or fourth time in a matter of weeks that she had been in hospital and she seemed to know a lot of staff, porters etc. who were also outside like lepers, having a smoke.

Suddenly she spoke out in a very loud voice- "Aye, Dessie, they all want to be Stickies now, when only a few years ago they were shooting and killing our members".

I don't know who the statement was directed at but there were a number of nearby onlookers who looked decidedly uncomfortable. She obviously knew her audience.

Naturally I agreed with her.

But then walking back up to the ward, it suddenly struck me. No, that's not right. It's too glib, too shallow. Apart from the fact that the word Stickies is meant to be abusive, it ignores and demeans our history, our struggle and our continued struggle and future struggles. I'm not saying that she meant this. In fact I know she didn't. She wanted to express her disgust for those who masqueraded as Republicans but in reality were sectarian bigoted armed Catholic nationalists.

(Years previously in the 1920s the Donegal IRA and revolutionary socialist leader, Peadar O'Donnell would say something similar after a visit to Belfast: "there is no battalion of the IRA in Belfast, only a battalion of armed Catholics”). He would not have been able to say that of the ‘70s onward because we existed.

Let no one ever tell you that our history is not central to what we are today or that the creation of the Workers' Party is just a story like any other party. We will come to a deeper discussion of this. But let me say that one of the most stupid statements ever made by anyone was by the American car manufacturer, Henry Ford, "History is bunk". He may have been a smart capitalist but he was a bloody buffoon. At the same time we cannot measure our present existence solely in terms of what we were in the early and late seventies or Long Kesh or Crumlin Road. Even though those experiences cannot be minimised or dismissed - they are not "Bunk". As already stated they are central to what we are and we do not and should not forget.

That is not nostalgia or sentimentality; it is a serious appreciation of our history.

In this context let us also remember with pride and sadness those who gave their lives in defence of the Party that we could continue to build. Without them it is very unlikely that we would be gathered here tonight. That is no exaggeration. Let us stand, for a moment, in silent contemplation of their heroism and sacrifice.

Thank you, comrades and friends.

We must also never forget the comrades who lost their jobs, damaged their health or often saw their families disintegrate because they were loyal to the Party and its values. There are, indeed, many on that roll of honour. Coming here tonight led me down memory lane to the time, immediately after internment when I reported back in Dublin and Cathal Goulding asked me to take on the job of internal party education.

The unlamented former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was much praised when he first came out with the slogan - Education, Education, Education. Well, Cathal was the first person I ever heard talking like that but more importantly in it was always terms of revolutionary politics. While Mornington was the key centre of education for the Party, at the same time we held local schools in different parts of the country - from Donegal down to Kerry, the Midlands, specifically Athlone and Mullingar, and from Belfast down the East Coast to Cork. Cathal attended many of these schools often accompanied by Sean Garland and Tomas MacGiolla.

Let us be very clear about Cathal's purposes.

From his release from prison after Arborfield he set about the reorganisation of the then Movement. Many times on the road we discussed the difficulties that he faced. Many of his associates were reactionary - Stephenson, Ó Brádaigh and O'Connell, as they were subsequently to prove, and he knew that. In effect he sidelined them by ensuring that the IRA executive (which elected the Army Council), had a majority which agreed with him that serious political class struggle was the way forward. Cathal was not a pacifist, by any means. But for him and for those around him revolutionary violence was subject to political direction and should further the interests of the working class; he also recognised that violence could be absolutely counter productive. As for example when Ranger Best was shot; White, McCourt and others defended it with the remark that he was a British soldier. Cathal told them bluntly that they hadn't killed a British soldier they had shot a neighbour's son. Many of you will remember that that was the only time ordinary citizens demonstrated against us. Let me also remind you that a major in the UDR also in Derry was shot around about the same time. He is never mentioned.

During that period we also held a school in Mid Ulster before travelling on to Belfast for another school. Cathal's justifiable anger with Dominic McGlinchey, if my memory is correct, stands out in my mind. He wanted to attack Protestant farmers many of whom, he claimed, were police informers telling tales on their Catholic neighbours. Cathal convinced the meeting that this was the road straight into sectarian killings. McGlinchey was silenced but you know where he went subsequently.

Through contacts in the UVF, UDA and Provisionals - Jim Hanna, Sammy Smyth and Frank Cahill - we had earlier sought to persuade them to end their sectarian terrorism - we warned that it would lead to greater than ever divisions in the working class and the real danger of outright sectarian civil war. They refused to listen.

Many years later Billy Mitchell who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of two UDA men said at a joint meeting in Belfast, "It is a great pity that we didn't listen to Cathal Goulding at the time".

The kernel of Cathal's thinking and teaching was that a socialist revolution in Ireland could only be achieved by a unified conscious working class led by organised professional revolutionaries - in our case The Workers' Party. In other words his views were a modern reworking of the ideals of Tone and Connolly. This understanding did not come overnight, there was no miraculous conversion, but was grounded in his experiences in the IRA, his social background, his working class roots, his political contacts and his reading which was deep and comprehensive.

If someone were to write a book entitled The Complete Republican then the model would have to be and could only be Cathal Goulding. That is not to say that Cathal did not have his faults, he was human. But he persisted right up until his death convinced that loyalty to the concept of Republicanism demanded total commitment to the democratic anti-sectarian socialist revolutionary politics of The Workers' Party

At the most difficult time he never wavered in that conviction. Even when De Rossa, Lynch and company betrayed the socialist ideal and sought to liquidate the Party he was never pessimistic. Like Sean Garland he knew that they would within a short time disappear into the Labour Party and ultimately become simply a footnote in history

Comrades and friends,

About a fortnight before his death at Christmas 1998 we were having a drink in his local out at Sutton and I was giving out about the difficulties we had faced and our continued problems. "What did you expect", he said, "that capitalism would roll over and surrender without a bloody struggle and that there would never be anyone who would betray us?" There wasn't much that could be said in reply.

And that's how it remains. People walk away, grow tired or disillusioned, that's part of the human condition.

We’re not perfect.

But the real revolutionary seeks to rise above that and the real revolutionary Party seeks to help. There are no easy answers, no short term fixes, no instant revolutionary solutions. We are still learning the lessons of history and Goulding's history, a history of The Complete Republican, is a formidable part of our arsenal. Let us build on it as together we face the difficult years ahead.

Thank you, comrades and friends, for your attention.