Gerry Adams Presidential address – Ard Fheis 2012
An excerpt from Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams’s address at this year’s Ard Fheis:
“Our history is replete with challenges, adversity and great injustice.
But our people have come through it all.
And in every generation brave men and women have come forward.
From 1798 to 1847, from 1913 to 1916 to 1981.
Visionaries have shown the way.
They made a stand.
Today workers at Vita Cortex in Cork, La Senza, Wilsons, in Game shops, and at Irish Cement have made a stand.
Today Lagan Brick workers are 164 days on strike.
Parents defending their children with disabilities, hospital campaigners, carers, teachers, health workers, defenders of our schools, turf cutters, citizens who are standing up for themselves and their families and communities, are showing the way.
So too are citizens who work in the community and voluntary sector, in our sporting organisations, in the arts, in environmental groups, in defence of our language, in support of our young people and our senior citizens.
Citizens who are supporting victims of abuse, including drugs and alcohol misuse and suicide prevention, are holding our communities together.
These active citizens, compassionate carers and community activists are the real Ireland.”
For the full speech, visit the Sinn Fein Web site: http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/23519
