Hundreds attend torch lit vigil to remember fallen Volunteers

Ógra Shinn Féin in Strabane organised a well attended torch lit vigil to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the deaths of Volunteers David and Michael Devine and Charles Breslin Last Tuesday 23rd February.

The vigil took place on the exact date when the three Volunteers where executed 25 years ago, and rounded off five days of commemorative events which were a fitting tribute to the memory of the three lads.

Well over three hundred people gathered at 7:30pm at the the Breslin/Devine monument on fountain street in the ‘Head of the town’ area, on what turned out to be a bitterly cold evening.

To kick of proceedings three Ógra Shinn Féin activists symbolically lit torches from a flame in the nearby field where the three men were killed, and proceeded down the hill to the Volunteers monument where the light was passed on to the waiting crowd.

It was an emotive spectacle as the massive crowd with torches and candles alight, stood yards from that somber spot in the hilly field where our comrades were callously cut down by the British SAS in 1985.

The National flag, illuminated by a spotlight flew proudly in the evening breeze, as the hillside was lit up by the fire which was lit by the Ógra activists to mark the spot where the tragedy occurred.

In his address, Ógra Shinn Féin activist Patrick Breslin, who is a nephew of Charlie’s told the large crowd;

“25years on these three Republican activists are still held in high regard by this community unlike the cowards who carried out Thatcher’s dirty work that night. People like Charlie, Davy and Mickey who dedicate themselves to struggling against oppression will always be remembered with affection, while those who meat out the pain and hardship much like Thatcher herself, will fade away into obscurity.”

Speaking following Tuesday’s commemorative event Chairperson of the Tobias Molloy Ógra Shinn Féin Cumann, Seán Mac Giolla Easpaig said;

“It was great to see so many people assembled on the exact date when 25 years ago our friends, comrades, brothers, and sons, Charlie, Mickey, and Davy were cruelly taken away from us. All three were IRA Volunteers struggling to achieve a country where British injustice and systematic oppression is a thing of the past. Of course this brought with it the unwanted attention of the state and all three experienced harassment and hardship in their lives at the hands of the oppressor, and were eventually killed for their involvement in the freedom struggle.”

“The most fitting memorial we can build for our comrades is to achieve the Republic for which they gave their lives. We in Ógra Shinn Féin are carrying on where our comrades left off and thanks to people like Charles Breslin, David Devine, And his brother Michael, we now live in an era where freedom justice and equality are not viewed as far off unrealisable goals, but an achievable aim which we are moving ever closer to.”