Cumann na nGaedhael outlines political programme at founding convention in Dublin

Dublin, 28 April 1923 - A new political party, Cumann na nGaedhael, has been launched. A historic convention was held in the Oak Room of Dublin’s Mansion House yesterday.

The Convention attracted representatives from across the country who came to endorse an organisation that has been founded in support of the pro-Treaty membership of the Dáil. 

The objectives of the party are set out in a political programme that commits:

(i)  To secure the territorial unity of Ireland, and to combine the divergent elements of the nation in a common bond of citizenship.
(ii) To preserve and foster the national language, literature, games and arts, and every element of national culture and custom which tends to give Ireland distinction as a nation.
(iii) To stimulate and safeguard the development of manufacturing industry, fisheries, and natural resources.
(iv) To make the whole soil of Ireland available for the use of the people, by completing land purchase and by utilising the depopulated grass lands in accordance with a broad national plan.
(v) To obtain the provision of adequate national scheme of housing, urban and rural.
(vi) To substitute as far as possible for the unemployment dole, national schemes of useful work, including arterial drainage, re-afforestation, improvement of roads and waterways.
(vii) To encourage the proper physical development of the children of Ireland.
(viii) To promote the extension of education facilities by easy access from primary to higher schools, so that all children shall have opportunities for the fullest training of their mental powers.   

Addressing the Convention, President of the Executive Council of the Free State government, William T. Cosgrave said that looking over the programme outlined for the new organisation,
‘one can rest perfectly satisfied that if it be adhered to, the country is saved. We are now passing through, perhaps, the most difficult period of our history as a nation. ’

President Cosgrave, to applause, also went to laud the actions and judgements of the current Executive given the difficulties it has faced:

‘I do not claim that the judgement of the Executive has been at all times a perfect judgement, I do not claim that there are Solomans in the Executive, but I do claim that, faced with the difficulties of the time, the nation cannot be ashamed of the men who did this work.’

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]