Ahern defends re-burial of Independence War heroes

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern tonight issued a strong defence of day-long ceremonies in Dublin to honour 10 men executed by Britain for their part in Ireland’s war of independence more than 80 years ago.

But he dismissed any connection between the actions of the men involved and the Northern Ireland-linked violence of the past 30 years.

Mr Ahern delivered the graveside oration in Dublin’s Glasnevin cemetery at the re-burial of nine of the 10 victims of the executions following their exhumation earlier this month from the grounds of Mountjoy jail, where they were hanged in 1920 and 1921.

The 10th victim was buried separately in his native Co Limerick at his family’s request.

The group included Kevin Barry, one of the best-known figures to emerge from the war of independence.

Barry, an 18-year-old medical student, was one of the youngest men - and the first - to be executed for taking part in the rebellion and is remembered today in a still-popular song that bears his name.

The decision to exhume and rebury the men ran into a barrage of criticism on both sides of the border.

In the south, the plan was slammed by Labour leader Ruairi Quinn, mainly because the reinternment ceremonies have been scheduled to coincide with this weekend’s Fianna Fail Ard Fheis, which ended last night

And in Northern Ireland critics have focused on claims that the Irish Government has chosen to pay tribute to men regarded by some as the terrorists of their day at a particularly sensitive period for the current Northern Ireland peace process.

Mr Ahern insisted, though, that the reburials, which followed a Requiem Mass in Dublin’s Roman Catholic pro-cathedral, concelebrated by former church primate Cardinal Cahal Daly and attended by President Mary McAleese, amounted to "the Irish state discharging a debt of honour that stretches back 80 years".

He added: "Although we have difficulties of our own time, there is no fair person in this country that thinks it is anything but good that we bury these men with State honours - and indeed that it is time we did so."

Mr Ahern also said, though: "The memory of the volunteers of 1920 and 1921 does not deserve to be burdened with responsibility for terrible deeds or the actions of tiny minorities that happened long after their deaths.

"People of common sense and goodwill understand all of that perfectly."

The Taoiseach said: "There is neither need nor excuse for the extra judicial use of force by anyone today.

"The same is true of Northern Ireland, and beyond dispute since the Good Friday Agreement."

Earlier, Cardinal Daly also referred to the present day political position in his address at the mass, appealing for understanding all round in Northern Ireland.

He said the true inheritors of the ideals of the "men and women of 1916 to 1922 were those who were explicitly and visibly committed to implementing all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement to leaving the physical force tradition behind them."

The cardinal called for Northern Ireland’s unionists to have their rights and identity respected, declaring: "The Irish majority neither wishes to, nor could absorb into itself an unreconciled, unwilling and recalcitrant unionist community, and no one should wish to see the negative aspects of Northern Ireland’s past repeated in an all-Ireland context.

"A united Ireland remains a legitimate and a noble ideal, but the people of this island have repudiated physical force or coercion as a means to attain it.

"It can be attained only by persuasion, not by force, only by consent, not by constraint - only by creating conditions and building relationships, which make the attainment of a united country no longer repellent for unionists, but acceptable."

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Dublin to watch the cortege of 10 coffins, all draped with green, white and orange Irish tricolour flags, pass through the city escorted by marching Irish Army soldiers. The crowd, lined several deep in some places, maintained a respectful silence, broken by applause as the hearses passed by.

Kevin Barry was hanged on November 1, 1920; the other nine - Thomas Whelan, Patrick Moran, Patrick Doyle, Bernard Ryan, Frank Flood, Thomas Bryan, Thomas Traynor, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher - the following year.

They were all sentenced to die by military courts martial after being found guilty of murder and or high treason and, until their exhumation, six lay together in one of the prison graves.

Patrick Maher was buried in Co Limerick.