Political statement.
National Executive Committee, Communist Party of Ireland.
6 April 2016.
At its regular meeting in early April the National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland evaluated the present political situation and the tasks facing both the communist and the wider working-class movement and progressive forces.
The CPI welcomes the massive turn-out of working people around the country to celebrate the 1916 Rising. Tens of thousands attended both the official government commemoration and the hundreds of locally organised community-sponsored events.
This was a very positive development, considering the decades of sustained criticism and attempts by the political establishment, the establishment media and a large section of academia to undermine and discredit the 1916 Rising as well as the long democratic struggle of the Irish people to achieve independence. Their campaign has failed, and the centenary celebrations have awakened renewed interest in the Rising, those who led it, their motivation, the goal that inspired them, and the legacy of the 1916 Proclamation’s vision of an independent Irish republic.