Sinn Féin to hold public meetings on 'new republic'

As part of a campaign to promote wider debate on Irish unity, Sinn Féin is holding two public conferences this month in Dublin…

As part of a campaign to promote wider debate on Irish unity, Sinn Féin is holding two public conferences this month in Dublin and Cork under the heading Towards a New Republic, reports DEAGLÁN DE BRÉADÚN.

“Sinn Féin is looking for a national conversation on the type of Ireland that the people of the island want,” party president Gerry Adams said at Leinster House. The conferences will be held on June 18th in Dublin and on June 25th in Cork.

Similar events are planned for Belfast and Galway in the autumn. Speakers at the Dublin conference will include Ulster Unionist and former Belfast mayor Ian Adamson; author and former Beirut hostage Brian Keenan; and former loyalist politician and regular Irish Timescolumnist David Adams.

Speakers in Cork will include sports broadcaster Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh; historian Dr Ruan O’Donnell; and Fionnuala MacCurtain, granddaughter of Tomás MacCurtain, former lord mayor of Cork who was murdered during the War of Independence.