Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfillment.

The days of humiliation, of second-class citizens and of inequality are over and gone forever.

When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.

Making peace, I have found, is much harder than making war.

The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

I was leaving the Belfast court, where I had been called to answer a very flimsy charge, later dismissed. You're relatively safe in such areas in the Irish community, but to go to downtown Belfast for me is dangerous. My appearance in court had been well advertised by the police. I think it was too much of a coincidence that the people who shot me were just passing by.

One man's transparency is another's humiliation.