The following oration was delivered at the Workers’ Party’s 2026 Wolfe Tone Commemoration in Bodenstown, Co. Kildare by Gerry Rooney, Workers’ Party representative for Meath East.

Comrades, friends, associates and supporters,

We gather once again at the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the major figure at the foundation of Irish republicanism, to honour a man who sought to build a sovereign, democratic Ireland free from external domination and governed in accordance with the fundamental national concerns and in the interests of its people.

Tone’s republicanism was rooted in independence. He understood that a nation cannot be truly free if decisions affecting its future are made elsewhere. That principle remains as important today as it was in 1798.

For the Workers’ Party, sovereignty is not merely a constitutional question. It means maintaining an independent foreign policy, resisting military blocs and great-power rivalries and ensuring that Ireland’s voice in the world reflects the interests of its people rather than the interests of more powerful states and also billionaires who are as powerful as states.

That is why we defend Irish neutrality. It should be remembered that in 1790 Wolfe Tone specifically said that Ireland should provide no men or money to support Great Britain’s conflict with Spain. He was a very early exponent of Irish neutrality! 

Neutrality enjoys overwhelming support among the Irish people and particularly among working people and the membership of the trade union movement. It reflects a deeply held belief that Ireland should not become involved in foreign wars, military adventures or the strategic conflicts of larger powers.

Irish neutrality has not been passive. It is an active commitment to peace, diplomacy, international law and friendly cooperation between nations. It is a policy that has earned Ireland respect throughout the world.

Central to that tradition has been our relationship with the United Nations. The UN Charter remains the foundation of international law and of the principle that all nations, large and small, are equal in sovereignty. It promotes the peaceful resolution of disputes and seeks to replace the law of force with the force of law. The Irish Constitution complements this position through article 29.3, which provides that: “Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States”.

Ireland’s contribution to United Nations peacekeeping has been one of the most positive aspects of our international engagement. For generations, Irish defence force personnel have served under the blue flag of the United Nations in support of peace and stability around the world. The Triple Lock, particularly the requirement for United Nations approval, is a vital protector of that tradition. It links the deployment of Irish troops overseas to international legality and to the authority of the United Nations. It reflects the principle that Irish military involvement abroad should be based on peacekeeping, not participation in the geopolitical objectives of military alliances and large states.

The Government’s attempt to abolish the Triple Lock is therefore a serious mistake. 

It is being presented as a technical change. It is nothing of the sort. It is a political statement about the future direction of Irish foreign policy. It sends a message that Ireland is prepared to move further away from neutrality and closer to the strategic priorities of military blocs and powerful states.

At the same time, Ireland’s links with NATO continue to deepen through the Partnership for Peace programme, evolving intelligence cooperation and increasing political engagement including bilateral ‘defence’ agreements. We are told that this changes nothing. Yet every step draws Ireland further from the independent position that has been supported by the Irish people for decades. 

The Workers’ Party believes that Ireland should remain neutral and militarily non-aligned and should strengthen, rather than weaken, its commitment to neutrality and international law.

The importance of international law is also evident in Palestine.

The Irish people have consistently demonstrated solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination. They recognise the injustice of occupation, settlement expansion, ongoing aggression and the denial of national rights.

Ireland’s recognition of Palestine was an important step, but recognition must be matched by action. The Occupied Territories Bill represents an opportunity for Ireland to ensure that its economic relations are consistent with international law. It is not an attack on neutrality. On the contrary, it is an expression of neutrality because neutrality requires consistency. International law must apply equally to all states, regardless of their power or influence. On this issue, the current Fianna Fail and Fine Gael-led Government has bent to the will of NATO which is an ‘always anti Russia, always pro-Israel – in all circumstances’ organisation. Remember, Mr Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of prominent NATO member state, Canada, has admitted at the 2026 Davos Economic Forum that: We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, led initially by public service unions in new pay talks, are well placed to lead the campaign for meaningful pay increases for workers across Ireland as the cost of living continues to rise. Working people have faced years of pressure from increasing prices for food, housing, transport and everyday essentials, while energy costs remain a major burden on households. ICTU unions have the strength, organisation and negotiating experience to ensure that workers receive wage increases that genuinely protect living standards and prevent inflation from eroding incomes.

At the same time, there should be no sanctions imposed on Aughinish Alumina. The plant is a strategically important industrial employer that supports hundreds of direct jobs in Clare and many more indirectly throughout the region. Any measures that threaten its future would have significant consequences for workers, their families and the local economy. Industrial employment should be protected and workers should not bear the costs of geopolitical disputes beyond their control.

Tone, and all the great revolutionary leaders since his death, have put their faith in the “men of no property” – the Irish working class. But the two states on this island have never prioritised the needs of that class. The governments, both in Stormont and Leinster House, have always been the puppets of the monied class, bourgeoisie, the gombeens and the speculators – both native and foreign.

In every decade over the last century the working class have had to suffer either a financial crisis, an unemployment crisis, a housing crisis, and sometimes had to face all three simultaneously.

This decade is one of those when we have been faced by this crisis in triplicate, and particularly with a housing crisis in the Republic with which the government has totally failed to resolve. And the government will continue to fail because their policy is driven by the ideology of the so-called free market. The ideology of prioritising and deifying the private sector. The ideology that states that if the private sector can make enough profits, tax-free of course, that it will solve the housing crisis.

Rubbish. Total rubbish. The private sector does not exist to provide answers to social problems. The private sector exists to make profits for the private sector: for the speculators; the investors; the hedge-funds; the multinational financial cartels. To solve the housing crisis would kill the golden goose that provides all that profit. So the private sector will never solve the housing crisis because it is against their most basic interest to do so.

We know that only the public sector can solve the housing problem. Yes, our view is coloured by our ideology, but it is supported not only by common sense but by the cold facts of history. In the Republic the housing crisis has never been solved, but has only ever been seriously tackled, by massive State-funded building of Local Authority owned and managed homes. This was evidenced in the 1930s, the ‘50s, the late 60s, and right up until the government stopped building council houses in the early 1990s. A similar situation existed in Northern Ireland. Its housing crisis was even worse than the situation in the South and the failure of the state to tackle the problem was one of the major factors leading to the creation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

The NICRA campaign led directly to the creation of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive – NIHE – a 100% state owned entity which took charge of all public housing in Northern Ireland. It built the houses, it owned them, and it allocated them on the basis of need rather than on a sectarian head count. Clearly the Housing Executive mdke mistakes; at times very silly mistakes. But it was a major leap forward and for some time it had solved the historic housing crisis in Northern Ireland. Sadly in recent years the Thatcherite policy of privatisation, the policy of selling off the publicly owned housing stock, and the reappearance of sectarian thinking deriving from the politics of Stormont have largely eviscerated the NIHE.
So our message is simple. Only public housing, owned and managed by the local authorities and built by a state construction company can solve this problem which is not only a problem for thousands of people – young and old – in this country; but it is a problem which is being militarised by right-wing elements to stoke up communal division and racial division.

Easter 2028, less than two years away, will mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Belfast Agreement. Undoubtedly the great and the good will be out in their finery congratulating themselves on this historic milestone. They might even dig up Bono to perform an open air concert outside Belfast City Hall. And all their celebrations, all their jollity, all their false bonhomie will not improve the lives of the people of Northern Ireland one iota. The issues of structural sectarianism, economic stagnation, a collapsing health service, an education service that has been unfit for purpose for two generations still lurching from crisis to crisis because no one in the executive has the courage to tackle the root problem and attack the vested interests of the churches and other school patrons, and also to take on that self-perpetuating elite that have done very well from the present system.

The problems of Northern Ireland can only be solved when they are approached from a class perspective rather than the old and failed sectarian perspective. As in the Republic, and indeed in every other country of the world, the priorities of a Workers’ party has to be the perspective, the needs and the interests of the working class. That is an objective for which we changed and revolutionised the Republican Movement 60 years ago, and if we are still to be relevant it is the objective to which we must continually adhere.

Republicans have always understood that there can be no lasting peace without justice. As we stand here today, we should remember that Tone’s vision was not only national but democratic. He sought to unite people across religious and political divisions in pursuit of a common future. In our own time, that means building an Ireland that places the needs of working people first, defends public services, protects democratic rights and pursues an independent course in international affairs.

The Workers’ Party remains committed to that vision.

We stand for Irish neutrality.

We stand for the Triple Lock.

We stand for the primacy of the United Nations and international law.

We stand for Palestinian self-determination.

And we stand for an Ireland that makes its own decisions, in the interests of its own people, free from military alliances and great-power pressures.

That is a republican position worthy of Wolfe Tone’s legacy.
Go raibh maith agaibh.