Patrick Moran 1916 Society Strabane

05/09/2026

A compelling piece by our National organiser, Pól Scannell
"It’s 3.30am here in the rehabilitation ward in Navan Hospital. I’m awake after being woken by a patient with Down syndrome being gently brought to the toilet by a Filipino male nurse. He treated him with patience, dignity and genuine compassion.
I arrived here in the early hours of Saturday after suffering a brain aneurysm and a blood clot that caused a TIA. I’m lying here tonight typing this because a doctor, who I believe was from either India or Pakistan, acted with extraordinary speed and professionalism. His intervention may have saved my life and certainly spared me a potentially devastating, life-changing stroke.
Since arriving, I’ve been cared for by people from every corner of the world. Filipino, Indian, Pakistani, African, Arab and Eastern European nurses, doctors and healthcare workers working alongside Irish staff, some from our LGBTQ community, under enormous pressure, yet showing all patients dignity and humanity.
An elderly man with dementia became aggressive and abusive towards the nurses. They didn't respond with anger or contempt. They responded with compassion.
One nurse doing my blood pressure noticed the tattoos on my arm, told me she loved them, then leaned over and whispered: “Up the Ra.”
The CT and MRI teams treated me with the same professionalism and kindness. The two women who brought me for my MRI scan were Irish, with parents from Africa and Eastern Europe. Thank you for looking after me.
The cleaners, tea ladies, receptionists and support staff, Irish and immigrants alike, keep this place functioning. Some of the doctors are Muslim women who wear the hijab. When they noticed my Free Palestine band, they sometimes gave me a knowing smile. No speeches. No grandstanding. Just a quiet understanding.

With so much time on my hands I actually watched a video on Facebook of the grotesque spectacle on O’Connell Street, a so called, Cost of living crisis rally organised by GoFundMe scammer Michelle Keane, the woman who desecrated the GPO, the birthplace of our Republic by previously bringing woman abuser and self confessed UVF/MI5 agent Mark Sinclair to speak at the same spot where Padraig Pearse read the Proclamation in 1916.
The self-styled patriots who claim to speak for Ireland, while directing hatred at Muslims and migrants. The racists, conspiracy theorists and far-right opportunists who dress their prejudice up as concern for the “cost of living”. The usual suspects of lunatics and conspiracy theorists, gombeens like Tom McDonnell demanding that Irish women “breed more” because Muslims are supposedly outbreeding us.
I've spent these past few days being cared for by the very people they tell us to fear.
While they stand on O’Connell Street spewing hatred and lies about migrants destroying Ireland, immigrants are here in Navan Hospital helping to keep sick Irish people alive.
While they preach division, these healthcare workers practice solidarity.
While they talk about who belongs and who doesn't, these men get on with caring for everyone.
This is the Ireland I believe in.
An Ireland that doesn't judge a person by their skin colour, religion, accent or birthplace.
An Ireland that " Cherishes all the children of the nation equally ".
An Ireland where the vulnerable are cared for and where solidarity matters more than hatred.
I have spent my lifetime believing in an Ireland based on equality, justice and solidarity. Watching what has happened in this hospital has only strengthened that belief.
So to those calling for a race war, I have a simple answer,
You don't speak for me. You don't speak for Ireland.
I know which side I'm on.
The side of the immigrant nurse comforting the vulnerable patient.
The side of the doctor who acted when my life was at risk.
The side of the workers who care for us regardless of who we are.
The side of solidarity, equality and humanity.
And to every doctor, nurse, healthcare assistant, receptionist, cleaner, catering worker and member of staff who has looked after me.
Go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh.
An Phoblach Abu. 🇮🇪
Pól."

05/09/2026

Get your ‘Britain Out Of Ireland’ t-shirt today! |

All proceeds go straight to our fighting fund !

Available in a range of sizes! Order yours now at the link below👇

eirigi.org/siopa-1/britain-out-of-ireland-for-a-new-republic-tshort

05/09/2026

05/09/2026

Coming soon to Siopa16, card holders made by former P.O.W. can also be made to order personalised.

05/09/2026

Twenty-eight-years after being halted from having their annual hate fest, forces within Orangeism and unionism are still desperately striving to place ‘Orange feet’ on Garvaghy Road in a supremacist attempt to assert unionist dominance in Portadown.

The Orange Order organised stand-offs at Drumcree (particularly in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998) were regularly used by unionist death squads as a rallying cry and pretext to launch attacks, block roads, and intimidate Catholic families. Numerous murders were carried out in Portadown and other areas during this period by those same death squads.

This is the real human cost of the Orange Order’s attempts to subject the Garvaghy Road Community to their sectarian hate marches!

Michael McGoldrick - 8th July 1996
Dermot McShane - 13th July 1996
Darren Murray - 10th October 1996
Robert Hamill - 8th May 1997
Sean Brown - 12th May 1997
Gregory Taylor - 1st June 1997
Bernadette Martin - 15th July 1997
James Morgan - 24th July 1997
Gerry Devlin - 5th December 1997
Seamus Dillon - 27th December 1997
Philip Allen - 3rd March 1998
Damien Trainor - 3rd March 1998
Adrian Lamph - 21st April 1998
Ciaran Heffron - 25th April 1998
Richard Quinn - 12th July 1998
Mark Quinn - 12th July 1998
Jason Quinn - 12th July 1998
Frank O'Reilly - 6th October 1998
Brian Service - 31st October 1998
Rosemary Nelson - 15th March 1999
Elizabeth O'Neill - 5th June 1999

05/09/2026

05/09/2026

No Bigotry on the Garvaghy Road

The 1916 Societies stand in unwavering solidarity with the residents of the Garvaghy Road and with Breandán Mac Cionnaith in their ongoing resistance to sectarian intimidation.

The Orange Order, by seeking to force a supremacist parade through a community that has clearly and consistently rejected it, is deliberately stoking the flames of sectarian hatred. Their actions are not merely provocative; they are a calculated assault on the peace and dignity of the area.

Having undermined a ruling by the Parades Commission on a technicality, the Orange Order is now with the complicity of the establishment media are attempting to drag the Six Counties back to the darkest days of the late 1990s. That was a period when this very dispute saw twenty nationalists murdered by loyalists, including the three young Quinn children. To evoke that era is to court tragedy.

In a recent podcast, Breandán Mac Cionnaith rightly described the Orange Order as “Ireland’s first hate group” and it is difficult to argue that their character has evolved since their founding in 1795. Their rhetoric of reasonableness rings hollow, particularly when they call for mediation with residents while refusing to entertain Mac Cionnaith’s constructive proposal that nationalist children be allowed to march in GAA jerseys alongside their parade. The Orange Order’s refusal is telling: a body that prohibits its own members from marrying Catholics is hardly in a position to champion reconciliation.

01/09/2026

WHAT NOW FOR SINN FÉIN?

For years, Sinn Féin’s standard response to republicans who challenged its constitutional strategy was simple, “What is your alternative?” Today, that question must be thrown back at Sinn Féin. What is now your alternative?
For decades, Sinn Féin placed the Good Friday Agreement and the British Government’s promised border poll at the centre of its strategy for achieving Irish unity.
Republicans warned that placing Ireland’s future in the hands of Westminster was a profound strategic mistake.
Now London has effectively pulled the rug from beneath that entire strategy, declaring that a border poll is “off the table.”
This is the consequence of putting British permission at the centre of Irish democracy. The failed strategy of waiting for crumbs off Westminster's table has been exposed.
Sinn Féin can no longer tell republicans to wait patiently for a border poll controlled by the British Government.
So what is the alternative?
The answer cannot be more waiting, more delays, more sham Stormont politics or another appeal to Westminster.
The 1916 Societies One Ireland One Vote campaign offers a democratic republican alternative, an all-Ireland vote, determined by the Irish people themselves, where every Irishman and Irishwoman, North and South has an equal vote on Irish unity.
The British Government has closed the door, we must stop knocking. Ireland’s future belongs to the Irish people, not Westminster.