Hiroshima remembered, 79 years on

Seventy-nine years on from the bombing of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, Irish CND commemorated the horrific events of the first use of an atomic bomb. The ceremony of words and music took place at the memorial cherry tree, planted by Irish CND in 1980, in Merrion Square Park in Dublin. 

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Lord Mayor Donna Cooney highlighted how the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock has again been set at 90 seconds to midnight for 2024, the closest to the symbolic point of destruction it has ever been. She noted that this decision was influenced by the gravity of the threat posed by both nuclear war and climate change, and called for decisive action to reverse both these existential threats: "Both nuclear weapons and climate change are manmade threats to life as we know it. The power to limit, to reverse and to undo these threats lies in our hands also."

She also stated Dublin's commitment to the vision of Mayors for Peace, chaired by the Mayor of Hiroshima. She paid tribute to Ireland's role in working internationally for nuclear disarmament, noting in particular Ireland's contribution to bringing both the Non-Proliferation Treaty (1970) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2021) into being, recognising the role of an explicit ban in "stigmatising and de-legitimising the possession of nuclear weapons." 

Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin, Donna Cooney, speaks at the Hiroshima Commemoration, watched by the Japanese Ambassador, His Excellency Mr Norio Maruyama.

Irish CND vice-president, Adi Roche (CEO of Chernobyl Children International), powerfully evoked the horrors of the bombing, and of any future nuclear conflict. She strongly criticised the obscene levels of military spending by nuclear-armed states: "The people of the world have played the ultimate price with hunger, poverty, homelessness, unemployment and of course environmental degradation, while the big powers have endless funding for militarism and the development of weapons such as nuclear weapons, while on the other hand slashing the budgets for building schools, hospitals, healthcare, housing, and creating employment." 

She praised the international contribution Ireland has been able to make as a neutral country, through its diplomatic roles and through its participation in UN peacekeeping operations, and called for the protection and constructive development of Ireland's neutrality. 

Referring to the spectre of war in today's world, she decried the disturbance caused to radioactive soil by Russian military movements through the Chernobyl region, and the potential for an unprecedented nuclear disaster through the weaponisation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. 

Irish CND vice-president, Adi Roche, addresses the commemoration. 

Despite the seriousness of the current situation in Ukraine, the Middle East and in other parts of the world torn by violence, her message concluded with an urgent positive appeal to the power of love and reconciliation to overcome even the deepest divisions: a challenge for all those present to take away and put into action. 

The Japanese ambassador to Ireland, His Excellency Mr Norio Maruyama, spoke of Japan's unique role in pursuing a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, as the only country to have suffered the trauma of atomic bombing. He received warm applause in response to his announcement that the Mayor of Hiroshima would visit Ireland in October, the first time such a visit has taken place. 

Representatives of some of Ireland's partner countries in working for nuclear disarmament were also in attendance, with diplomats from Austria, Egypt, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as from the Disarmament Unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs, present at the ceremony.  

Poet Eriko Tsugawa gave a moving bilingual performance of her poem, Hiroshima, Not This Way, and contributions from traditional accordionist Máire Ní Bheaglaíoch gave musical expression to the sombre remembrance of all victims of atomic and nuclear testing and bombing. The ceremony concluded with the laying of a wreath by Deputy Lord Mayor Cooney, and the observation of a minute's silence. 

Ambassador Maruyama, Deputy Lord Mayor Cooney, Irish CND vice-president Adi Roche, and Irish CND chairperson David Hutchinson Edgar at the memorial cherry tree in Merrion Square.