Ruairí Ó'Brádaigh Debates Eoghan Harris

cork | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Sunday January 27, 2008 22:20 by Lomansney - none

'That This House Believes That Irish Republicanism Has No Future'

Proposition: Senator Eoghan Harris, columnist and lecturer
Opposition: Ruairí Ó'Brádaigh, President of Republican Sinn Fein
Kane G19 U.C.C.
(Directions can be got at the gate to U.C.C. from Security)
Monday January 28th - 7.30pm

U.C.C. Philosophical Society

'That This House Believes That Irish Republicanism Has No Future'

Proposition: Senator Eoghan Harris, columnist and lecturer
Opposition: Ruairí Ó'Brádaigh, President of Republican Sinn Fein
Kane G19 U.C.C.
(Directions can be got at the gate to U.C.C. from Security)
Monday January 28th - 7.30pm

Ruairí Ó'Brádaigh joined the IRA in 1950 - since then he has been a major figure in the Struggle for Irish Freedom and the Republican Movement. A veteran of the Border Campaign, a former Chief of Staff of the IRA, the first leader of Provisional Sinn Fein, and now President of Republican Sinn Fein.

Eoghan Harris was a leading ideologue for Official Sinn Fein in the 1960s; since then he has abandoned the Republican Movement, acting as the first Catholic to advise a leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and now a Senator appointed by Bertie Aherne.

These two veterans of Irish politics and Republicanism are coming to Cork next Monday to debate the future of Irish Nationalism.

In the world of the Good Friday Agreement, a world without Articles 2 and 3, do the Irish care about nationalism anymore? Should they? Surely after thousands of deaths and a hard won peace the time for the old tribalism is gone? Is not cooperation more important than division? Or can the divisions be ever overcome until nationalism reaches its climax? Does not every nation desire to be free, united and self-ruling? Why should the Irish be any different?

These are the questions that face Ireland now in the first period in history when the national question seems like it can be ignored? The UCC Philosoph and its guests will be asking what the direction that Irish politics should be taking is. Are we tired of the old rhetoric or do we still want a united Ireland more than anything? Come along to the Philosoph on Monday 28th to see two of the most interesting and controversial politicians in modern Ireland have their say and to have your own.