BALLISODARE BRIDGE NAMING
YOUNG MARTIN SAVAGE’S ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR FREEDOM RECALLED BY PRESIDENT HIGGINS
BALLISODARE village never looked prettier in the spring sunshine last Friday as the local community turned out in their hundreds to welcome the President of Ireland Michael D Higgins to the ceremony re-naming their bridge in honour of the 1916 Volunteer and War of Independence solider Martin Savage.
President Higgins and his wife Sabina were greeted on their arrival around 4.30pm by Cathaoirleach Seamus Kilgannon, County Council Chief Executive Ciarán Hayes and Councillor Thomas Healy. The couple were then introduced to members of the Savage family - niece Rita, nephews Michael and Kevin and the extended Savage family.
Sabina Higgins was presented with a bouquet of flowers by St John’s National School pupils Briana Ganley and Darragh Morrissey.
President Higgins was presented with a Ballisodare United Football Club jersey with the word ‘Uachtarán’ on the back by members of the clubs.
The couple then me with members of Ballisodare community - the local Fishing Club, Ballisodare Tidy Towns, Civil Defence, Ballisodare Cubs and Scouts and local politicians.
Dermot Glennon of Ballisodare Fishing Club presented the President with a tasty catch of the day - a fine salmon from the river below.
Chloe O’Beirne played the National Anthem on violin and after hearing a few bars, the entire audience broke into song unprompted.
Scoil Mhuire and Iosaf Collooney and Ballisodare Foroige Youth Club then per- formed musical pieces before President Higgins took to the podium.
Martin Savage was one of thirteen children born to Michael Savage and Bridget Gildea in Streamstown, just outside Ballisodare in 1897.
President Higgins told the assembled crowds that it was a period he had studied as his father was born in 1894 and he found many parallels between the two men’s circumstances - they were both apprentices to bar and grocery and went on to work in ‘ the shop trade’.
The President said Martin Savage grew up in a county known for its activism not only in relation to freedom (with the Irish Republican Brotherhood) but also the brief victory of General Humbert when he defeated British Forces at the battle of Collooney.
“From the very beginning (Martin Savage) was regarded as a person of the utmost trustworthiness,” said the President. Martin Savage took part in an ambush in West Dublin in 1919 and was mortally wounded in the neck.
“I can only imagine the loss felt by Mar-
tin’s family and so I’m honoured to see members of his family here today and to have met Rita, Michael and Kevin,” he said.
President Higgins then went on to talk about the importance of radicalism and paid tribute to another distant relative of Martin Savage, the NUIG academic Professor Angela Savage who was also present in Ballisodare last Friday.
“The name is great and the name has gone on through the generations and you can be proud of her too,” he added.
“What a terrible price we paid for our Civil War and as we start to commemorate it is important that we do so in a spirit of generosity.
“If they had not answered that call for freedom, freedom would not have dropped from the sky and you would not have an independent President standing in front of you rather than a Viceroy,” he said.
“Today we attach the name of Martin Savage to a crossing in his native land, as a permanent reminder of his great sacrifice and of the sacrifices of so many brave Irishmen and women who strove to establish an independent Irish republic, one dedicated to vindicating the promises of the Proclamation and the first programme of Dáil Eireann.
“I think we will all stand when we go out and invoke all of this and as an inspiration to all of our future generations and to our capacity to imagine and to bring into being the fully inclusive republic which those who signed indentures for servants and all those who ought to be free, those who want gender equality and those who want to forgive without being required to forget and those who want to responsible sustainable futures in a global interdependent world, to continue to build a republic of which our forebears would be proud. One rooted in solidarity, compassion, courage and generosity.
“In all of this, when we think of the very young man in whose memory the bridge is named, let us think of the sacrifice that he made. We enjoy freedom because of those who gave their lives so that we might all be free,” he concluded.