Madam, – There is no image from this State’s painful birth more poignant than that of the trade unionist and patriot James Connolly strapped to a chair for execution. It is disgustingly ironic, therefore, that those who would claim the inherited right to clothe themselves in his mantle should be the ones to sully and defile it.
No one should claim the right to place a picket on Dáil Éireann. The next time trade unionists take to the streets of Dublin they would do well to study the inscription on the Parnell Monument: “No man has a right to say to his country: thus far shalt thou go and no further.”
The refusal of Sinn Féin TDs to pass the CPSU pickets outside Dáil Éireann last Thursday was a cheap publicity stunt and a gross insult to the State and to those who paid in blood for this nation’s right to self-governance. The right of TD to take their seats in Dáil Éireann, and the price paid for the noble privilege to do so, impose a duty of obligation that no cause or principle be considered so worthy as to obstruct them in fulfilling that right and honouring that duty.
We are perilously close to a stage where the freedom to manage our own affairs may no longer be ours. The time has passed when we can afford to stand still, pointing the finger of blame. Nor can we afford to let selfish individualism take precedence over the national interest.
This country is in urgent need of firm leadership. It is incumbent on those whom we have charged with the task of providing it to ensure that it is not led, through a sense of inequality, anger and despair, to follow the blind direction of a visionless trade union leadership into the cul-de-sac of industrial chaos. – Yours, etc,