Republican hunger strikers 20 years ago raised their movement's struggle against the British presence to a "moral threshold", Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said today.
The West Belfast MP said at a tree-planting ceremony in his constituency to commemorate the 10 hunger strikers who died in the Maze Prison in 1981 and two IRA members who also starved to death in hunger strikes in English jails in 1974 and 1976 that their actions brought into sharp focus the problem of the British presence in Northern Ireland.
"When asked what is the legacy of the hunger strikes, when asked where are we 20 years on, there are more republicans on this island today than there were 20 years before," he told around 100 people gathered in the grounds of the Roddy McCorley Club on the Glen Road during the ceremony.
"We are blessed to even have known, even to be remotely associated with these men who died on hunger strike because they brought our struggle to a moral threshold.
"They brought the entire struggle to a platform from where it was clear to see that the fundamental issues have been as they have always been since the conquest - the presence of British government control on this island, the partition of the island and the denial of our people of their freedom."
Mr Adams told republicans their struggle was still taking place.
But he added: "The struggle, if it is to be successful, is about building an Ireland of equals, building a national republic.
Relatives of some of the 10 hunger strikers as well as prisoners who took part in the 1980 hunger strike which preceded it and Sinn Féin politicians participated in the tree planting ceremony.
Singer Christy Moore also sang his hunger strike lament "The time has come" at the climax of the ceremony.
Among those taking part in planting oak trees were Sinn Féin MLAs Gerry Kelly and Michelle Gildernew, 1980 hunger strikers Leo Green, Mary Doyle and Pat Sheehan and relatives of the 1981 hunger strikers Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Kieran Doherty and Kevin Lynch.
Stormont Health Minister Bairbre de Brun also attended.
PA