YFU bring the Irish Unity message to the Tyneside Working class

Miner’s strikers support Irish Unity!

‘Yes For Unity’ – The Working Class campaign for an Irish Unity referendum – this weekend re-commenced what had been an ongoing schedule of speaking tours which were unfortunately stalled due to the Covid Pandemic.

Links between the Tyneside working class Irish and the struggle for Irish freedom and Socialism are long established and recognised. In 2016, Tyneside veterans of the 1984 miner’s strike travelled to Dublin to march alongside the Irish Republican Socialist Party on the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising, walking with their famous ‘Connolly/Lennon’ banner from Liberty Hall to the GPO, along the same route taken by the Irish Citizen Army on Easter Monday.

On Saturday evening, Republican Socialists returned the compliment and attended Tyneside Irish Centre at the invitation of the veterans of the 1984 strike and for the annual Tommy Hepburn memorial lecture.

Ciaran Cunningham of Yes For Unity began by reminding those in attendance of the very real connections (both ideological and physical) between the struggle for workers rights in Britain and the struggle for National rights in Ireland.

Commenting on the prospects for future Irish Unity given the now well acknowledged demographic shifts, Ciaran stated…. “There will be a United Ireland, the question is what it will look like. Without a strong working class input from the outset, there are strong forces who will pull it as far away as they can from Connolly’s ideal of a 32 County Socialist Republic. Yes For Unity are determined that that goal will be at the front. Not somewhere on a shelf”.

A long evening of debate, song, story and craic was had. And not even the unwanted arrival of some anti-social miscreants could put a dent on what was a great night.

Yes For Unity has for some years spent time networking with likeminded working class and progressive groups in Scotland, Britanny, Catalonia and in the United States. The addition of further networks amongst the Irish community in Britain will ensure that our exiled children there, can play a real part in the liberation of their home country in the future.