14/02/2026
Copy of my speech delivered today at the rally calling for Iranian Freedom in Dublin today, 14 February
On the eleventh of February, I did what so many of us do without thinking: I switched on my phone.
And there, on a simple feed, I saw the night sky above Tehran. I saw apartment blocks silhouetted in darkness, suddenly pierced by fireworks, by defiance, by light. Then I heard a sound I will never forget as long as I live. It was the sound of people shouting for freedom—people like you, people like me—raising their voices until they cracked against the cold, iron machinery of oppression.
It was not a slogan. It was not theatre. It was primal. It was visceral. It was the cry of a nation that has endured forty-seven years of systematic darkness and is now reaching, at last, for the light. As that "living flame" of courage flickered across my screen, the tears ran down my face—not out of a lack of resolve, but out of a painful recognition: this is what freedom sounds like when it is finally, irrevocably demanded.
A Criminal Operation
We must call things by their proper names. Iran or Persia is one of the great ancient civilisations of this earth—a cradle of poetry, science, and the very dawn of human dignity. But that ancient land has been r***d by a criminal operation.
This is a regime with a long and blood-soaked history of contempt for human life. We remember how they sent children to the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war—young boys used to clear minefields with their bare feet and plastic keys around their necks, promised a "paradise" that their leaders were too cowardly to seek themselves. They had no respect for those lives then, and they have none now.
This government has murdered, r***d, and tortured its young people for decades. Credible estimates from this most recent 2026 uprising suggest that upwards of 36,000 people may have been extinguished in just the last few weeks. When you add the tens of thousands slaughtered in 1988, in 2019, and in 2022, we are looking at a regime that has claimed the lives of well over 120,000 of its own citizens.
The Hotel Event – Banquet of Blood
My friends, that same regime was "celebrated" right here in our own community. A hotel in my ward, in Bootertown, hosted a shameful celebration of the Islamic Republic this week. To see a toast raised to a tyranny that is currently hunting its own children in hospitals—turning wards of healing into chambers of execution—is a stain on this city.
Those who attended that event are a disgrace to Irish democracy; they are standing on the bodies of the fallen. They are, at best, "useful idiots"—and at worst, they are complicit. I call upon those who attended to be identified. I hope, for the sake of our national conscience, that no Irish politician was amongst them. You cannot claim to represent the Irish people while clinking glasses with the representatives of a gallows state.
The Absence of Due Process: Unjust Courts
As a lawyer, I believe in due process. I believe in the sacred right to a defence. In Iran or Persia, these concepts are a cruel joke. We see fake trials that last minutes; we see "confessions" extracted through the breaking of bones; we see a judiciary turned into a gallows.
The leadership of this regime must be toppled and brought before the world—not for revenge, but for an International Tribunal similar to Nuremberg—so that the world may finally witness the full horror of what was done to the people and how this regime has funded international terrorism. To those who trade with this regime: your profits are not worth the lives of the innocent. You cannot wash the blood off your balance sheets.
The IRGC and the Funding of Global Terror
The hypocrisy of the mullahs is staggering. While they preach austerity to the masses, their own families live millionaire lifestyles as far removed from authentic Islam as possible. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—which the EU finally, and rightly, designated as a terror organization last month—spends billions annually to fund international proxies, warring on freedom in Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond.
Yet, their families and their blood-stained money are given safe harbor in the West and Russia. They party in our capitals while their people starve!
History shows us that tyranny often wears a mask. In 1979, we saw the Red and the Green—the alliance of the radical left and the Islamists—suppress the budding democracy of Iran. Today, we see the Red and Black, doing the same worldwide. But the source is Tehran. If we cut off the head of this serpent, the funding of international Islamism will be dealt a mortal blow.
The Call to Action
The time for vague diplomatic concern has passed. This moment demands clarity. I call upon our government—upon Micheál Martin as Taoiseach, upon Simon Harris as Tánaiste, and Helen McEntee as Minister for Foreign Affairs—to lead with the courage that this hour requires.
Some European states have already begun to act. Ireland must not lag behind. We should expel the Iranian Ambassador and close the embassy of repression. We should stand, unmistakably, with the people—not the oppressors. Fully enforce the IRGC terror designation and freeze every asset linked to this regime.
And I call upon President Trump: You said "help was on the way." Now, let the world see that resolve. The people of Iran or Persia are not dying for another nuclear deal; they are dying for democracy. They are dying for freedom.
The Moral Test: The Silence
I look to our campuses and I ask: where is the outrage? Why is there such a deafening silence among our own young people? In Iran or Persia, students are at the vanguard, risking the gallows for a taste of the liberty we treat as an afterthought.
We in the centre do not tend to march. But the time has now come to fight for our values.
We must help them not just with words, but with actions. It is time for the centre to march.
This is the universal struggle—in Ukraine, across the Middle East, China and elsewhere. It is time to end the “war on freedom”. In particular, the "war on women" in Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia, to name but a few must end now. Let us stand with the people of Iran or Persia. They want freedom. They want democracy. And we shall not rest until they have it. We shall not look away.
