Pictured at the Irish CND’s Hiroshima Day commemoration in Merrion Square are (from left) Cllr Eoghan Murphy, Toshinao Urabe and Canon Patrick Comerford.The Church of Ireland Gazette carries the following half-page news report and photograph on page 3 in today's edition [Friday 27 August 2010]:
The President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Canon Patrick Comerford, has criticised the world’s governments for their investment in nuclear arms.
Speaking at the Irish CND's annual Hiroshima commemoration in Merrion Square, Dublin, on the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, Canon Comerford, who is Director of Spiritual Formation at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, said: “Sixty-five years later, we are still building more and more terrifying weapons of mass destruction.”
He continued: “Great Britain is one of the smallest nuclear powers in the world today, but its Trident force alone has the capacity to destroy Hiroshima 7,296 times over.
“It has become difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between war and mass murder because any respect for the rights of civilians has been discarded and the accepted principles of the just war theory have been ignored.”
Canon Comerford said he believed that, by ignoring the just war principles enshrined in international law, the real danger was that the conflicts of the 21st century turn into perpetual war.
Councillor Eoghan Murphy, representing the Lord Mayor of Dublin, laid a commemorative wreath at the memorial cherry tree which was planted on Hiroshima Day –6th August 1980 – in Merrion Square Park.
“A fact of humanity is that we’re determined to learn through making mistakes. The great tragedy behind that fact is that some people do not learn at all,” Mr Murphy said. “In remembering this, we remind ourselves that this actually happened, and it is not just some story.”
Also present was the Japanese Ambassador to Ireland, Toshinao Urabe, who expressed his gratitude to the Irish CND for organising the event, and praised Ireland’s perseverance in laying the foundations for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
