In defence of Irish Republicanism

I am adding this month the editorial from the October issue of SAOIRSE as I feel it is important to share it with as wide an audience as possible:

"Many will find the following uncomfortable reading while more will argue the issues dealt with here should be avoided at all costs in the interest of ‘unity’. I believe that to brush these issues under the carpet instead of confronting them head on would be to do a disservice to Irish Republicanism. I would go further and say that to confront these issues is a duty that can no longer be ignored. A time comes when certain things must be said and placed on the public record.

Irish Republicanism is possibly one of the oldest revolutionary traditions in the world. Its roots reach right back to the end of the 18th Century and the foundation of the Society of United Irishmen in 1791.

Throughout that long history it has faced many threats and at certain periods it appeared that it had been extinguished – in the 1940s 26-County Justice Minister Gerry Boland boasted that the IRA was dead and that he had killed it. Boland was no more successful than many who went before or would come after him, despite centuries of coercion the revolutionary flame has been kept alight. Republicanism has survived the gallows, the firing squad, internment camps, and prisons.

The full panoply of draconian laws and repression has been employed by Westminster, Stormont and Leinster House in an attempt to extinguish that flame. That they have not succeeded in doing so can be put down to a number of reasons. However one reason that stands out over all others is the simple fact that Irish Republicanism has commanded, at the very least, the respect and regard of large sections of the Irish people.

Even those who would declare themselves as opponents of the revolutionary Republican tradition have admitted to a grudging respect for the idealism and integrity that underpins it. Writing in the Irish Times on September 14 John Waters, whilst dismissing the organisations to which Bobby Sands and Patsy O’Hara belonged to in withering terms he still acknowledged: 'there was something noble and redemptive about the conviction and sacrifice of these men'.

Today the ranks of the enemy have been swelled with erstwhile comrades now prepared to administer and enforce British rule, but a new threat has emerged in recent years and in many ways one which is potentially the most serious of all that Irish Republicanism has faced throughout its long history.

The emergence of groupings styling themselves as ‘Republican’ but who in reality are merely using that noble title to mask their real purpose of extortion and racketeering. In some cases such groupings masquerade as anti-drugs activists, posing as ‘champions of the community’. These gangs are an insidious threat to the very survival of the Republican ideal.

These pseudo-Republican groups seek to control their communities through fear. Posing as revolutionaries hides the grim reality that the only war they wage is not one of national liberation but instead a war on the youth of their own communities. The forcing of a father to present his son for a punishment shooting as happened in Derry is medieval and far removed from any ideal of progressive Republicanism.

The drugs’ gangs who peddle their wares in communities throughout Ireland and across all classes are enemies of the Irish people. The community and political activists who oppose them deserve our full and active support. Irish Republicans are rightly proud of the part they played in groups such as Concerned Parents Against Drugs in the 1980s, and today it is vital that Irish Republicans continue to stand by their communities both urban and rural in opposing these dealers of death and social destruction.

However the pseudo-Republican groupings that take money from the drug dealers are no less parasitical than the drug dealers themselves. In many ways they are worse in that they leech from the communities they purport to defend – in effect they are drug dealers by proxy with the added insult of sullying the noble name of Republicanism in doing so. The activities of these pseudo-Republican gangs have the potential to eat away like a cancer at the very heart of Irish Republicanism, leaving in their wake an empty husk with neither relevance nor credibility.

The duty to halt this slide lies with those who claim the title deeds of Republicanism.  We have a bounden duty to hold out against this hijacking of the Republican ideal; we must lead by example in ensuring that authentic Irish Republicanism continues to live in the hearts of the Irish people.

It is not enough to claim those title deeds without acting on them. To do so we in Republican Sinn Féin must ensure that a clear distinction can be made between what represents true Republicanism and those who instead provide a perverse and twisted parody of it. Over the past two years Republican Sinn Féin have been direct targets of such activity. A Limerick led grouping has attempted to steal our identity and good name in order to cloak their criminal activities. This particular gang meet the criteria of the classic black operations or ‘black ops’ engaged in by state forces whereby a shadow grouping is set up which is a perversion of everything that the legitimate revolutionary movement represents. The purpose of these bogus groupings is to sow confusion, lower morale and discredit the genuine revolutionary movement.

In the past, Republican Sinn Féin has been accused by its opponents of being “elitist”. I believe this is an accusation we should not be afraid of but indeed embrace. When it comes to ensuring our movement is a credible, motivated revolutionary political organisation to be described as elitist should be considered a badge of honour.

The Republican Movement throughout its history has prided itself on attracting the most idealistic, sincere and able of each generation. In his seminal history of the IRA The Secret Army writing of the Republican Movement in the 1920s, J Bowyer Bell had this to say: 'The army council meetings and GHQ conferences seethed with ideas, disputes, options and suggestions; despite the attrition of time and politics, there remained within the leadership as much talent as could be found within one group in Ireland.'  Thomas Davis sets out the what is required in forging a national movement: 'We must be disciplined – disciplined in rigorous virtue and made strong in a sense of justice, truth and national trustfulness.'Terence Mac Swiney too sets a high standard: 'We must get a proper conception of the great cause we stand for, its magnitude and majesty, and that to be worthy of its service we must have a standard above reproach'.  In the Ireland of the 21st century that should be the bar we aim for. It is from such material that revolutions are fermented and through whom ideals and a cause live on.

To do other wise is to surrender a revolutionary tradition - which has survived the best efforts of both the British and 26-County states to destroy it – to dark forces dancing to the twitch of many puppet-masters.

I believe it is fitting to finish with the words of the 1916 Proclamation; these are words which all who seek to take up the standard of Republicanism should ponder long and hard: 'we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine.'"

Éire Nua would give practical benefit to Ulster’s growth in population

The latest census figures for the Six-County State (Irish Times July 17) puts the population of the Six Counties at 1,810,900, while the other three counties of Ulster have a combined population of 204,803 giving a nine county Ulster a total population of 2,105,803 out of  an All-Ireland population of 6,399,152. What this means is that Ulster accounts for 32.91%  or one third of the total population of Ireland. In practical terms for unionists this means that under the proposals for a Federal Ireland contained in the  Éire Nua programme a nine county Ðáil Uladh would have considerable clout within a New Ireland along with the regional assemblies which come a level below that.

The Éire Nua proposals allow for the maximum devolution of decision-making to the four provincial parliaments - with the exception of overall financing, defence and foreign affairs. Key areas such as health, education, social and economic development etc would be under the control of regional assemblies all elected according to local majorities. This would be real empowerment for all sections of the people within the nine counties of Ulster unlike the present arrangement where the people of the six counties exist as a mere region within a highly centralised British state while Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan are relegated to the margins of the 26-County state both politically as well as economically.

As we approach the centenary of the 1916 Rising Éire Nua would harness the power inherent in the population growth and turn it to the advantage of the people of all four provinces creating in turn a truly democratic All-Ireland Republic worthy of ideals set out in the 1916 Proclamation.

Martin Corey: Exposing the truth behind Britain’s role in Ireland

The actions of the British Government’s Northern Ireland Office (sic) and the British Direct Ruler Owen Paterson in overturning a decision of the Belfast High Court to release veteran Republican Martin Corey underlines the fact  - as was pointed out last year with the imprisonment of the seriously ill Brendan Lillis – that the default position of the British Government when dealing with Ireland is naked repression. All the fine talk of the rule of law upon which the British state is supposedly based counts for naught when it comes dealing with  those in Ireland or elsewhere whose only ‘crime’ is to seek to break away from that state and assert the independence of their respective nations or engage in political activism on issues which the British establishment deems inimical to its ‘national interests’ . In this case the British state has subverted its own courts in order to block the release of an Irish Republican. What the imprisonment of Martin Corey has done is to lift the veil on the Six-County state and what is revealed is a state where there is no rule of law, where a person can be locked up on the secret evidence of a shadowy and hidden intelligence agency such as MI5. Nobody is safe in such a state and those foolish enough to dismiss Martin Corey’s case as relevant only to ‘Dissident Republicans’ would do well to remember the words of the German anti-Nazi theologian Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

“Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

“Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me”

What has happened to Martin Corey constitutes not only an attack on Martin’s human and civil rights but are an attack on the human and civil rights of all people within the Six Counties. The continued imprisonment of Marian Price on trumped up charges coupled with the vindictive imprisonment of Gerry McGeough tell us much about the true nature of British involvement in Ireland. The apologists and cheerleaders for the Stormont Agreement and the political arrangements it has led to propogate the big lie that everything is, if not normal, then is  rapidly approaching normality. They trumpet the new ‘human rights’ agenda of the Stormont Regime with its new police force etc. Strip away the spin and the dross and what remains is the same discredited, sectarian undemocratic and colonial statelet with its special courts, special laws and its re-packaged colonial police force, the RUC/PSNI to enforce the writ of the British Crown. Nothing has changed in terms of the relationship of the British state towards the Irish people or indeed any other people or groups who dare to step outside the conventions set out for them by the state. Ample illustration of this is to be found in Britain where the muslim community are being subjected to a campaign of demonisation and criminalisation, where arbitary house raids and arrests coupled with detention without-trial are the norm. Again this merely echoes the experience of the the Irish community in Britain throughout the 1970s and 80s.  Off course by and large the subverting of the judicial process within the Six Counties this week has largely been ignored by the media particulaly in the 26 Counties and within Britian itself. Where it has been written or spoken about in the media the emphasis has been on the background to Martin’s previous 19 year sentence in Long Kesh prison. Again to do otherwise would be to shine a light on the abnormality of the Six-County state and that is a political boat which the establishment simply will not allowed to be rocked. People need to organise around issues such as the internment without-trial of Martin Corey. One does not have to travel far to find injustice and inhumanity they are to be found right on your own doorstep.

Ninety years since the shelling of the Four Courts

 

                                                                         

                                                                                              

 Yesterday marked the 90th anniversary of the shelling of the Four Courts with borrowed British artillery by Free State forces so I thought it was timely to post this lecture I gave in 2002:

A nation sundered: Ireland's counter-revolution

The title I have chosen for my lecture tonight is ‘A Nation Sundered’, for this in effect was the consequence of the bitter Civil War, or more correctly Counter-Revolution into which Ireland was plunged 80 years ago.  The sundering of Ireland not only geographically but politically, the sundering of the wonderful sense of national unity which had galvanised a Nation during some of the most momentous years in its history between 1916 and 1921.To fully understand the past 33 years of conflict in Ireland, indeed to have any understanding of political development in Ireland North or South an understanding of 1922-23 period is essential. The signing of the ‘Stormont Agreement’ in April 1998 was but the latest in a series of attempts by Britain to consolidate the political structures which it imposed on Ireland by means of the Westminster ‘Government of Ireland Act’ in 1920 and the ‘Anglo-Irish Treaty’ of 1921, and its effect was similar in yet further dividing Republican\Nationalist opposition to British Rule in Ireland. 

During the 1916-21 period Ireland enjoyed an unprecedented unity of purpose, particularly following the executions of the leaders of the 1916 Rising.

The mass of the people for the first time since the Land War of the 1880s or more particularly since 1798 threw their weight behind the forces of revolution, transforming Sinn Fein from a fringe organisation with the limited of aim securing self-government within the British Empire, into a nationally organised revolutionary body, adopting at it’s Ard Fheis of October 1917 the aim of: “Securing of International recognition of Ireland as an Independent Irish Republic”, Sinn Fein had, as the historian Brian Murphy put it, “a new Republican reality” . Likewise the months and years, which followed 1916, saw the rapid development and growth of the Irish Republican Army and other national organizations such as Cumann Na mBan , Na Fianna Éireann etc. All of this culminated in the historic 1918 General Election, which must be pointed out was the last All-Ireland Election, and which was in effect a plebiscite on Irish National Self –Determination, which saw Sinn Fein sweep to a dramatic and overwhelming victory, something which had been signposted in a series of by-elections during 1917, banishing the old so-called ‘Constitutional Nationalist’ Irish Party to the annals of history.

Armed with this mandate the newly invigorated forces of Irish Republicanism set about giving substance to and making a reality of the Republic proclaimed in 1916. On January 21 1919 24 of the 73 Sinn Féin Deputies elected in December 1918 came together in Dublin’s Mansion House, formally convening the first meeting of an independent All-Ireland Parliament, Dáil Éireann, the 26 Unionist and six ‘Irish Party’ deputies refused to take their seats.

Those assembled issued a ‘Declaration of Independence’ adopted a ‘Democratic Programme’ which declared that the:” The Nation’s sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the Nation, but to all its material possessions; the Nation’s soil and all its resources.”  An “Address to the Free Nations of the World” was also read. What all of this meant was summed up by Cathal Brugha, who had just been elected acting President in place of the imprisoned Eamon De Valera, when following the reading of the ‘Declaration of Independence’ he declared: “ Deputies, you understand that from what is asserted in this Declaration that we are done with England. Let the world know it and those who are concerned bear it in mind.” Britain’s answer to this manifestation of the democratic will of the Irish people for national self-determination was even more coercion as they attempted to militarily suppress the newly declared ‘Republic’.

Over the next two and a half years Ireland was locked in a life and death struggle with what was then the world’s leading power .In fact on the same day that the Dail met for the first time, a small band of IRA volunteers led by Dan Breen and Sean Treacy, at Soloheadbeg, Co Tipperary fired what were for all practical purposes the first shots of the ‘War of Independence’ or ‘Tan War’.

All the while the newly established Dail Eireann set about constructing what the historian Arthur Mitchell has described as a”counter-state”. During the ‘Treaty Debates’ and subsequently it was the contention of those who supported the ‘Treaty’ that the ‘Republic’ never really existed. In fact the ‘Republic’ established its own functioning Government departments, covering all areas of the nation’s life, such as ‘Finance’, Justice or ‘Home Affairs’, Foreign or ‘External Affairs’, which had accredited representatives in a number of countries throughout the world. Its law courts and police had supplanted the British legal system in the people’s eyes by the time of the Truce in July 1921.The Dail also created a propaganda Department and established a committee assigned with the task of formulating “a general scheme of National Education.” Whilst also enjoying the support of the vast majority of local government bodies in the country.

What is clear is that the ‘Irish Republic’ was not merely aspirational but a living and functional reality, leading Dorothy MacArdle to write in her history of the 1916-23 period The Irish Republic: “Whether the Irish Republic ever existed has been disputed not only by jurists and not only with words. For the Irish people the Republic was, for a few tense years, a living reality, which dominated every aspect of their lives. Its existence was a fact of human history, if not of logic or of law.”

Britain reacted not only militarily to this ever growing demand for Irish Nationhood but also introduced its ‘Government of Ireland Act’ in 1920 which partitioned Ireland, establishing Northern and Southern Parliaments with jurisdictition over the Six North Eastern Counties of Ulster and the remaining 26 Counties respectively, under a form of Dominion Home Rule. All of this was simply ignored by the Dail as it set about its task of supplanting the British system of Government in Ireland. By the early summer of 1921 the British Government had come to the realisation that it was not possible to pacify Ireland militarily without alienating world opinion, particularly the United States.

And so on July 11 a truce was finally agreed as a prelude to negotiations.

The complex series of talks and negotiations which led ultimately to the signing of the ‘Anglo-Irish Treaty’ or ‘Treaty of Surrender’ on December 6 1921 would be the subject of a lecture in themselves and so I do not intend to deal with them tonight.

From a British perspective the ‘Treaty’ was a masterstroke, as the historian Michael Hopkinson points out in his history of the Civil war or Counter-revolution:” The Treaty’s signing was the decisive event which led to the Civil War. No document could have more effectively brought out into the open divisions in the philosophy and leadership of the Sinn Fein Movement. If it had offered a little more or a little less, it may well have unified opinion for or against it.” As I pointed out at the beginning the effect was to sunder the nation, driving a wedge through the forces of revolution behind which the people had united since 1916, divisions which remain with us to this day.

Immediately following the Dail’s narrow ratification of the ‘Treaty’ by seven votes in  

January 1922 a situation was created which was in the words of Dorothy MacArdle: “Intricate and ambiguous.” She goes on: “To do more than approve the Treaty and thus recommend its acceptance to the Electorate was not within the competence of the Dáil. No mandate had even been given to Dáil Éireann by the Irish people to abdicate or to transfer its functions or to organise any other governmental authority on Irish soil. It was obligatory upon Dáil Éireann to continue as far as possible, to function in accordance with its mandate, its oath and its Constitution, as the Government of the Republic, unless and until people should disestablish the Republic by their vote. No other government could have any democratic sanction in Ireland until a general election had been held.

“The Treaty, however made no allowance for an appeal to the electorate before the Governmental change, no acknowledgment of the democratic position of the Government of the Irish Republic: on the contrary, its terms regarded that Government as non-existent, Article 18 requiring that the Treaty should be submitted forthwith to a ‘meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland.’ That assembly was, under Article 17, to elect the ‘Provisional Government’ to which the British Government should transfer certain powers and machinery. Dáil Éireann was ignored.

“In consequence of its vote, Dáil Éireann had placed itself in an impossible position; whilst continuing to function as the Government of the Republic and to safeguard the Republican position until an election could be held, it had to countenance the summoning of a rival assembly (which would mainly, in personnel, be a portion of itself); countenance the recognising of one government in the North and the setting up of another government in Dublin, both with the subversion of the Republic and the supplanting of Dáil Éireann as their immediate aim.”

What this all meant in effect was a reversal of what had occurred between 1919-21,the creation of a rival state to that of the All-Ireland Republic. Despite frantic efforts by some on both sides of the ‘Treaty’ divide to preserve some semblance of unity both politically and within the Army of the Republic, the IRA, the insistence of the British to strict adherence to the terms of the ‘Treaty’ most pointedly in the drafting of a constitution for the new 26 County State made armed conflict almost inevitable. The reluctance to face this inevitability of armed conflict was most evident with those who remained loyal to the All-Ireland Republic, writing of this period Ernie O’Malley had this to say:” there was no attempt to define a clear cut policy. Words ran into phrases, sentences followed sentences… A drifting policy discussed endlessly in a shipwrecked way.” The result of this was to allow the emerging Free State to consolidate itself, with the active assistance of the British Government, both politically and militarily. As with the ‘Stormont Agreement’ all the forces of the of the establishment from Church Hierarchy to the national and provincial media, rallied in support of the ‘Treaty’. Support for the ‘Treaty’ was most evident in the more prosperous eastern half of the country, whilst in contrast opposition to it was most marked in the West and South West. This is reflected in the strong support for the ‘Treaty’ amongst the moneyed and propertied classes. The “stake in the country people” as Liam Mellows described them. Indeed Mellows was to the fore in the Republican leadership in seizing on the importance of this. Peadar O Donnell in his book There Will Be Another Day alludes to this: “For a little while on the morning of the attack on IRA Headquarters, Four Courts, Dublin, 28^th June 1922, Liam Mellows and I shared vigil at one of the barricaded, upper windows and watched the city bestir itself, within our arc of vision, to the noise of rifle and light artillery fire. We thought our thoughts. Two men, obviously workmen making their way along the quays to their jobs, started us speculating on what role the trade unions would have been guided into were James Connolly alive and the Republic under attack. It was the first time I heard Mellows on the play of social forces in the crisis of the Treaty.  I was present at the Dáil Éireann session when he made his speech against the Treaty, but while what he said impressed me greatly it gave no indication of the pattern of ideas he uncovered now.” In his ‘Notes from Mountjoy’ written in the weeks leading up to his execution in December 1922, Mellows was to more fully develop these ideas.

“In our efforts now to win back public support to the Republic we are forced to recognise – whether we like it or not – that the commercial interest, so called, money and gombeen men are on the side of the Treaty, because the Treaty means imperialism and England. We are back to Tone – and it is just as well – relying on that great body ‘the men of no property’. The ‘stake in the country’ people were never with the Republic. They are not with it now – and they will always be against it – until it wins. We should recognise that definitely now and base our appeals upon the understanding and needs of those who have always borne Ireland’s fight.”

The slide into war was accelerated when Collins at the insistence of the British broke the ‘Pact’ or voting arrangement which had been agreed with De Valera in the lead up to the election called for June 16, between a panel of candidates put forward by the Pro and Anti – Treaty wings of Sinn Fein. And so on June 28 the opening shots of what was to be a savage and brutal war of brothers were fired from artillery borrowed by the Free State from the British Army, on the Four Courts in Dublin, which had been occupied and used as their Headquarters by the Forces of the Republic since the previous April. It was a war that would prove costly to Ireland on a number of levels, materially the damage caused would amount to £30 million, and on a deeper level it would rob Ireland of the brightest and best of a unique revolutionary generation.

Men such as Liam Mellows, Rory O’ Connor, Liam Lynch, Erskine Childers, Cathal Brugha and Harry Boland. On the Pro – Treaty side Michael Collins. All of them left an indelible mark on Ireland and still had so much more to contribute.

Following the surrender of the Four Courts garrison and the end of the battle for O’Connell Street, in which most notably Cathal Brugha was to lose his life, the fighting cantered on Connacht and Munster. In Munster a line from Waterford to Limerick would mark the boundary of the last bastion of Republican resistance to the Free State, the so – called ‘Munster Republic’. Following the deaths of Griffith and Collins in August 1922 the Free State under the leadership Cosgrave, Mulcahy and O’Higgins prosecuted the war in new and more ruthless fashion. Dropping all pretence of operating as a normal democratic government they set about using every and all means at their disposal to crush  resistance to the Free State, including the torture and mutilation of prisoners, summary executions, in many cases without even the semblance of a trial or court martial as in the case of Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Joe McKelvey and Dick Barrett. Despite being prisoners of war for almost six months the four men were executed on the orders of the Free State cabinet on December 8 1922, as a reprisal for the killing of a Free State TD the previous day. By May of 1923 the Free State had executed 77 Republican prisoners, Brian O’Higgins in his ‘Wolfe Tone Annual’ of 1962 lists 113 “unauthorised  murders” or executions carried out by the Free State. In Kerry , at Ballyseedy, Countess Bridge and Baghas , unarmed prisoners were tied to mines and blown up. The prisons and internment camps were swelled with 12000 Republican prisoners. Following the death in action on the Knockmealdown Mountains of IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch on April 10 1923, the remaining IRA Executive under its new Chief of Staff Frank Aiken decided further military resistance under the prevailing conditions was impossible. And so on May 24 the order to ‘Dump Arms’ was issued. In contrast to the decision of the Provisionals to ‘Decommission Arms’ over the last number of months, the decision of the Republican leadership in 1923 was guided purely by military considerations and in no way constituted a political surrender.

The Counter – Revolution like all such wars was marked by its sheer brutality, leading

the Commander of British Forces in Ireland  General Neville Macready to comment that Republican Resistance had been crushed “by means far more drastic than any which the British Government dared to impose during the worst period of the rebellion.”

Yet despite all of this in the 26 County elections of August 1923,  in the face of censorship and  coercion and despite the fact that the majority of its candidates and election workers were imprisoned or on the run, Sinn Fein had 44 candidates returned, polling a total of 286000 votes. As Michael Hopkinson observed : “The election results demonstrated the continuity of Republican support which had been obscured by the war’s unpopularity.”

The ‘Treaty of Surrender’ and the war of Counter-revolution which it spawned has served to retard the normal social, economic and political development of Ireland North and South. In the Six North Eastern Counties, and due to the promises made in the ‘Treaty’ about the role of a ‘Boundary Commission’ all of which  served to relegate regime and the question of partition in the ‘Treaty’ debates to a side issue,   it put in place a state, whose foundations were naked sectarianism, discrimination and bigotry, all of which have only been further entrenched by the ‘Stormont Agreement’ , as evidenced in the streets of Belfast, Portadown and Lurgan. Meanwhile the 26 County State in its 80 years of existence has been characterised by its endemic corruption, failing in its primary duty to provide for the mass of its citizens, for many years using , just as the British had done before, the emigrant boat and plane as its safety valve. It also fulfilled the prophecy made by Liam Mellows during the Dail ‘Treaty’ debates when he forecast the the Free State Government would become the “barrier government between the British and the Irish people.” In decades which have followed it has continued to use the gallows, the firing squad, the internment camp, political police and censorship to suppress the Irish people’s legitimate demand for National - Self Determination. Again as Mellows pointed out, the ‘State’, for those who have supported it came to surpass Nation as the ultimate expression of Irish identity, and its defence and preservation more important than Ireland’s inalienable right to unfettered Nationhood. If Irish history teaches us anything it is that a British withdrawal and the dismantling of both ‘Treaty’ states are essential steps

in the building of a New Ireland based on the All-Ireland democracy as embodied in the All – Ireland Republic.

The Centenary of 1916 has real relevance for the Ireland of today

Speaking at Republican Sinn Féin’s seminar to launch its build-up to the Centenary of the 1916 Rising in 2016 entitled Who Fears To Speak of Easter Week which took place at the Ireland Institute’s Pearse House on Pearse St on Saturday April 21 the President of Republican Sinn Féin Des Dalton said:

“The build-up to Centenary of the 1916 Rising is rapidly developing into a battle over not only how we view our past but also the vision we have for our future. The purpose of today’s seminar is to begin the countdown to 2016 and in doing so set out the  relevance of 1916 for the Ireland of today. The other speakers will cover aspects of the Rising such as the idea of the ‘prophetic shock minority’sparking the flames of revolution, and the 1916 Proclamation and its place in the Irish Republican tradition. Ruairí Og Ó Brádaigh is the editor of SAOIRSE. He is someone who has given much of his adult life in Republican activism and journalism. Ruán O’Donnell has brought to the study of Irish Revolutionary history great scholarship and attention to detail as evidenced in his numerous published works notably his masterful biography of Robert Emmet and most recently the first of his three volume study of Irish Republican prisoners in English jails from 1968 to 1998. On the basis of the first volume we eagerly await the next two!

“Speaking in UCD on May 20 2010 the then head of the 26-County administration Brian Cowen accused Irish Republicans of seeking to ‘hijack’ the centenary of the 1916 Rising. It is an accusation that has been oft repeated by other members of the 26-County political class, but it is an accusation that does not stand up. Republicans cannot hijack something they have never abandoned. Irish Republicans will commemorate the centenary of 1916 as well as the anniversaries of the other landmark events in Irish Revolutionary history, just as we have in the past.

“Each year Irish Republicans both in Ireland and abroad have commemorated 1916 without fail. The 26-County state on the other hand has alternated between ignoring the anniversary and banning any commemoration of it. 1916 commemorations throughout the 26 Counties were banned by the Dublin administration in 1937. In 1966 Republicans were baton charged in Dublin by the 26-County police. In 1976 Republicans were prosecuted – including Fiona Plunkett sister of Joseph Mary Plunkett - and some jailed for their participation in a banned commemoration at the GPO.  Each year Republicans face the prospect of prosecution for the distribution of Easter Lilys. Despite this repression and repeated attempts at airbrushing the very spirit of 1916 from the collective memory a poll taken on the 75^th anniversary of the Rising in 1991 showed 65% of people believed it should be commemorated.

“For forty years the 26-County administration ignored the anniversary of 1916 but since 2006 it has opportunistically seized on it in order to sell the big lie that history has come to an end and British rule in Ireland is now accepted.

“This is the crux of the issue, 1916 is not merely an historical event which can be taken down from the shelf every few years and dusted off like some neglected family heirloom, admired and then conveniently shelved again for another generation or two. It is an event which still speaks to the Ireland of the 21^st Century. It is this fact which most unsettles the chattering classes in Leinster House and elsewhere. The speech by Stormont First Minster Peter Robinson marking the centenary of the signing of ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ in 1912 in the 26-County Department of Foreign Affairs on March 30 is the first step in a campaign to dilute and sanitise the Centenary of the 1916 Rising. The political establishments in Stormont, Leinster House and Westminster have signalled their intention to suppress any meaningful commemoration of the 1916 Rising by burying it in a celebration of the imperialist carnage of the First World War.

“The choice of the  ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ to begin the ‘decade of commemoration’ the two partition states is in many ways quite apt as it symbolises the fundamental difference in the vision for Ireland held by Irish Republicans as opposed to the forces of represented in the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’. The ‘Solemn League and Covenant’  is written in the narrow, sectarian and patriarchal language of empire, while the 1916 Proclamation addresses itself to ‘Irishmen and Irishwomen’ in the inclusive language of democracy, progress and human freedom. A kind of state sponsored amnesia is employed in an attempt to erase the more uncomfortable aspects of our history. Those very aspects of 1916 that serve as a reminder of how far short the political establishment and the state over which they preside falls short of the ideals set out in the 1916 Proclamation. There is nothing new in this, writing about the 26-Couunty state’s attitude to the Golden Jubilee of the rising in 1966 Declan Kiberd observed that 1966 represented: ‘A last, over-the-top purgation of a debt to the past.’ The former curator of Irish Art at the National Gallery of Ireland Dr Sighle Bhreathnach-Lynch writing in History Ireland in its Spring 1997 edition said: ‘By concentrating solely on glorifying the past it could be quietly forgotten that the aims of those who had sacrificed their lives in the Rising had not yet been properly achieved. Leaders like Pearse and Connolly were promoted only for their military exploits. Their radical ideas on education and justice, as yet unattained, were not mentioned. This kind of simplistic approach, largely fostered by politicians and propagandists, did not encourage much critical exchange of ideas and as a result a mood of disenchantment quickly set in.’ The role of historians such as Ruán O’Donnell will be vital in the coming years in the battle to ensure a new generation is not robbed of their history or collective memory as a nation.

“Over the next four years the centenaries of the founding of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan will be marked. Next year we will remember with pride the heroic 1913 Lockout. Therein is a message to the trade union leadership of today – another stark reminder of how far removed they are from the founding ideals of the trade union movement at precisely the moment when a vibrant and radical trade union movement is most required. Other anniversaries including the landing of the arms off the Asgard in 1914 and Pearse’s oration at the grave of O’Donovan Rossa act as milestones on the road to the centenary of the Rising. The years after 2016 will bring the centenaries of the historic 1918 General Election – the last occasion in which the Irish people acted as a unit in a single vote on the question of Ireland’s right to national independence. The Tan War, the British Government of Ireland Act which partitioned Ireland, the Treaty of Surrender and the subsequent Civil War or Counter-Revolution all will be reminders of where we have come from and how far we have still to travel.

“Irish Republicans unapologetically declare that 1916 will remain unfinished business while Ireland’s historic right to nationhood continues to be denied by either the old imperialism of British occupation or the new imperialism of the EU and IMF. This is the unpalatable truth that the establishment most fear in the message of 1916 and it is what gives 1916 its continued relevance for a new risen generation. 1916 remains unfinished business while Britain holds any part of Ireland.

The message of 1916 could not be clearer; ‘Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’. Starting today let us embark on a commemorative journey that rekindles the fires of revolution; political, social and economic, ideals and ideas which inspired the revolutionary generation of 1913-23. Let us proclaim to all that we still believe in the ‘The right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland.’”

1916 remains unfinished business

 Apologies for the lack of posts over the last few months, hope to rectify that from here on in. Anyway just to start off again here is my Easter oration.

Speaking at the Republican Sinn Féin 1916 commemoration at the Republican Plot in Donaghpatrick cemetery, in Co Galway on Easter Sunday, April 8, the President of Republican Sinn Féin Des Dalton said:

“As Irish Republicans we are proud of the long tradition of revolutionary endeavour from which we draw our inspiration and guidance in matters of principle. The 1916 Rising is a pivotal event in that history, providing us with the founding document of the All-Ireland Republic, the Proclamation of Easter Week. It is upon this historic declaration of the ‘right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland’ that we take our stand, and it is from Ireland’s historic right to nationhood that we draw our mandate. That right to nationhood can never be extinguished ‘except by the destruction of the Irish people.’

“Here in Co Galway there is a proud tradition of resistance to the forces of the British Crown, it was in Aughrim in 1691 that the forces of Gaelic Ireland took their last major stand against the Sasanach. It was in Ballymoe in East Galway that Éamonn Ceannt one of the seven signatories first saw the light of day. Outside of Dublin Galway witnessed one of the more significant actions against British forces during Easter Week, 1916. With Liam Mellows in command the forces of the All-Ireland Republic ensured that in the words of C.Desmond Greaves: ‘From Oranmore to Ballinasloe, from Tuam to Kinvara, the King’s writ no longer ran on 600 miles of Irish soil.’ Through the following turbulent years of revolution more of Galway’s sons would make the supreme sacrifice in the cause of Irish Freedom, including the Loughnane brothers of Shanaglish, An t-Athair Micheal Ó Gríofa, at the hands of British forces. Later at the hands of the Free State the six martyrs at Tuam and Tony Darcy, who along with his comrade Séan Mac Neela of Co Mayo, died on hunger strike in Arbour Hill in 1940. All of these men died in defence of the All-Ireland Republic of Easter Week and in defiance of its enemies.

“In four years time we will be celebrating the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The speech by Stormont First Minster Peter Robinson marking the centenary of the signing of the so-called Ulster ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ in 1912 in the 26-County Department of Foreign Affairs on March 29 is merely the first step in a campaign to dilute and sanitise the Centenary of the 1916 Rising. The political establishments in Stormont, Leinster House and Westminster have signalled their intention to suppress any meaningful commemoration of the 1916 Rising by burying it in a celebration of the imperialist carnage of the First World War.

“The 1916 Proclamation and the so-called ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ symbolise the fundamental difference in the vision for Ireland held by Irish Republicans as opposed to the forces of imperialism. The ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ is written in the narrow, sectarian and patriarchal language of empire, while the 1916 Proclamation addresses itself to ‘Irishmen and Irishwomen’ in the inclusive language of democracy, progress and human freedom. In many respects the build-up to the Centenary of the 1916 Rising has become a battleground in the war between these competing visions of Ireland, between the imperialist past as represented by partition and increased subjugation by London and Brussels or the vision of hope and aspiration to a new and better Ireland as represented by the Proclamation of the All-Ireland Republic. Instead of the failed and corrupt Ireland of the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals or the institutional sectarianism of Stormont, 1916 represents an Ireland which guarantees religious and civil liberty and equal opportunities, an Ireland that cherishes ‘all of the children of the nation equally’. We in Republican Sinn Féin have the blueprint for such a New Ireland and it lies in our proposals for  federal Ireland, ÉIRE NUA , providing for a truly demcratic and inclusive Ireland with maxium decentralisation of power and decision-making from national, right down to local and community level. Taken together with our social and economic programme SAOL NUA they  contain the basis for making the All-Ireland Republic of Pearse and Connolly a reality for all of the Irish people. For Irish Republicans the 1916 Rising is much more than an historical event, it symbolises the highest ideals of human and national freedom. While any part of Ireland remains under British occupation or any vestige of our sovereignty is claimed by an undemocratic European superstate 1916 will remain unfinished business.

“The 1916 Rising represents a spirit of idealism and self-sacrifice that has rarely been more needed than in the present time. The Irish people are held in the grip of two imperialisms. In the Six Counties the old imperialism of British occupation and in the 26 Counties the new imperialism of the EU/IMF. Despite the best efforts of the apologists for British Rule in Stormont, Leinster House and Westminster to portray it otherwise, the reality of British Rule on the ground in the Six Occupied Counties as experienced by the nationalist community has not changed. The nationalist people of Lurgan and Craigavon live under a state of siege from the RUC/PSNI. Arbitrary house raids and arrests are the stock-in-trade of these latter day ‘Black-and-Tans’ as they enforce British Rule on the ground with the active support of the Provos. The revelation on Good Friday that four members of the British Colonial police were being suspended for the use of racist and sectarian language should not surprise anyone. The RUC/PSNI remains an institutionally sectarian force. Changing its name and cap badge does not change the nature of the RUC/PSNI, no more than the changing of the RIC to the RUC did in 1922. In Maghaberry prison young Irish Republican prisoners are locked in a struggle for the same right to political status for which Bobby Sands and his comrades died on hunger strike thirty-one years ago. The fact they have been forced to sustain a dirty protest for more than a year because of the intransigence of the Stormont regime, constitutes a gross violation of even the most basic of human rights. Today we salute the POWs in Maghaberry and pledge them our continued support and also we remember their comrades in Portlaoise prison who too are imprisoned because of their loyalty to the All-Ireland Republic. ‘We love them yet, we can`t forget, the Felons of our Land.’

“In the 26 Counties the political and finiancial elites of the 26 Counties are lining up with their masters in the EU/IMF to sacrifice their own people in order to bail-out the failed and undemocratic EU and its currency. The political elites of Leinster House and the EU have set the tone for the forthcoming referendum on the EU Austerity Treaty by threatening people with the supposed dire consequences of a rejection of the treaty. Fear and intimidation it seems are again to be the employed by the 26-County Administration and the EU as they attempt to steamroll the Irish people into giving away the last vestiges of independence. Off course we have heard it all before during the referenda on the Lisbon and Nice treaties. And on both occasions people were forced to vote again for treaties they had already rejected. The power elites of the EU are not interested in the will of the people but instead are intent on grabbing even more power using the fear of the people. In this they have willing collaborators in the political establishment of the 26-County State.

“Since the first referendum on joining the the then EEC in 1972 Republican Sinn Féin have warned of the consequences for Irish people of becoming entangled in this club of former imperial powers. Unfortunately what we warned of in terms of the consequences for our farming and fishing have been realised with the almost total loss of our fishing industry and the forcing of thousands of our people off the land. Today people are even being denied the right to cut their own turf. We salute and support the communities who are defying the dictats of Brussels in upholding the centuries long tradition of turf cutting in rural Ireland. The people of Ireland are beginning to stir themselves as we can see in the campaigns against the Septic Tank charge - in which our County Councillor here in Co Galway Tomás Ó Curraoin has splayed a leading role –as well as the campaign against the household tax. Again we salute all of those people who refused to be intimidated into registering or paying this unjust tax. It is time we all stood together and fought back, the old and the young, the employed and the unemployed, urban and rural Ireland. On May 31 we can send a clear signal to the political establishments in Leinster House and Brussels that we still believe the right of this and future generations to the ownership and sovereignty of our country by voting No to the Austerity Treaty.

“The attempted Anglicisation of Ireland is being stepped up. Last year we witnessed, at a cost of over €30 million, the visit to the 26 Counties of the Queen of England while this year it was announced that Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann would be used next year to promote the designation of Derry, the historic Doire Cholm Cille as a ‘UK City of Culture’. Irish Republicans would welcome the holding of the Fleadh in Derry but not for the purpose of normalising British Rule. It is evident that the British state is now attempting to co-opt the three strands of a distinct Irish culture, our games, our music and our language in order to prop up British rule in Ireland. It has also been mooted that the Oireachtas festival –celebrating the Irish language – will also be held in Derry next year. In Newry recently the RUC/PSNI held an Irish language public meeting, using the language as a recruiting tool. However former British Secretary of State Peter Hain let ‘the cat out of the bag’ regarding the British governments real attitude to the language. The newspaper Gaelsceal reports Hain as admitting that the promises of an ‘Irish Language Act’ for the Six Counties was off set by moving its ratification from Westminster to Stormont where, Hain proclaimed there would be an ‘inbuilt majority’ against it. The Irish News columnist Patrick Murphy hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that while constitutional nationalism has now fully embraced British rule and thus is drifting from cultural nationalism, which still extols a sense of Irish separateness from Britain, the British Government recognises this: ‘If you were in Whitehall today trying to bed down the latest British victory in Ireland, you would bring cultural nationalism into line with political nationalism. That explains the political pressure to bring the Fleadh to a British government event in Ireland.’

“However in Derry on January 29 this year an alternative message was delivered loud and clear to the political establishments in Stormont, Westminster and Leinster House. People from Derry and throughout Ireland defied the political establishments of partitioned Ireland when they came out on to the streets of Derry to mark the 40^th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Three thousand people according to the Irish Times of January 30 made their presence felt in a dignified display of solidarity with the survivors and families of the victims of the British army’s massacre of civil rights marchers in Derry on January 30 1972. Their very presence tells us that the pulse of Irish nationality still beats strong despite the censorship and repression of Britain and its surrogates. Despite everything there remains ‘The risen people who shall take what ye would not give.’

“I can think of no more fitting way to conclude in this sacred place than with the words of Pádraig Mac Piarais. Speaking at the grave of O’Donovan Rossa he warned the occupiers of our country: ‘Rulers and Defenders of Realms had need to be wary if they would guard against such processes. Life springs from death: and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! — they have left us our Fenian dead, and, while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.’”

An Phoblacht Abú

The ‘Treaty of Surrender’ and its legacy

This month marks the 90^th anniversary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on December 6 1921. It was renamed the ‘Treaty of Surrender’ by faithful Irish Republicans because its terms subverted the All-Ireland Republic established according to the democratic will of the people of All-Ireland as expressed in the historic 1918 General Election – the last occasion in which the people of Ireland have been allowed to vote as one unit. That election led to the convening of the First 32-County Dáil Éireann on January 21 1919 and the setting up of a functioning Irish Republic.

The All-Ireland Republic quickly established active government departments and maintained a standing army in the field - the Irish Republican Army. Through its Department of Local Government it secured the allegiance of the vast majority of the county, town and city councils and other layers of local administration throughout Ireland. It also established its own policing and court system while internationally envoys and diplomatic missions were set-up.

The British Government’s response to this democratic expression of self-determination by the Irish people was to intensify its repression by introducing martial law in large swathes of Ireland including the entire province of Munster. From England it recruited extra RIC divisions, the notorious Black-and-Tans as well as the Auxiliaries.

This sets the backdrop to the negotiation of a Treaty, which would overturn the democratic will of the people of Ireland as well as partitioning the historic Irish nation. In his authoritive history of the Civil War or Counter-Revolution Green Against Green the historian Michael Hopkinson said of the Treaty: “No document could have more effectively brought out into the open divisions in the philosophy and leadership of the Sinn Féin movement. If it had offered a little more or a little less, it may well have unified opinion for or against it.”

Realising they could not defeat the Republic militarily, the British Government showing all the darks arts of intrigue and manipulation sharpened over centuries of empire building decided on a strategy of division and subversion from within.

Following the calling of a Truce on July 11 the British Government opened a dialogue with the Government of the All-Ireland Republic leading ultimately to the opening of formal negotiations on October 11 1921. The delegates chosen by the Government of the Republic were led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins and also included Eamonn Duggan, George Gavin Duffy and Robert Barton. According to Liam Mellows speaking during the Dáil’s Treaty debates, they had clear instructions as to any proposed treaty. Item three of the instructions given to the delegates quoted by Mellows stated: “It is also understood that the complete text of the draft Treaty about to be signed will be similarly submitted to Dublin's and a reply awaited.”. This was disputed by Collins and Griffith who claimed they had full plenipotentiary powers to negotiate and sign. 

Within the negotiations themselves the British played their hand well dividing the Irish delegates up and concentrating in particular on Collins and Griffith. Thus they ensured that whilst their decisions and actions were tightly coordinated and carefully though out the Irish delegation was in disarray. Duggan, Barton and Gavin Duffy were in the dark regarding much of Collins’ and Griffith’s secret talks with Winston Churchill and British Prime Minister Lloyd George. In the introduction to the Whitehall Diary of Deputy Secretary to the British Cabinet Thomas Jones historian Nicholas Mansergh wrote that the negotiations involved: “concessions wrung by devices, some of which can be described at best as devious…”The care taken by the British in the negotiation is illustrated by a comment by Thomas Jones, in his diary: “….every word used and every nuance was so important.”  When the leadership of the Republican Movement were about to engage in talks with the British Government in 1972 for the first time since the Treaty negotiations of 1921 they turned to Seán MacBride for advice as he had been part of the staff attached to the Irish delegation during the Treaty negotiations. His most important piece of advice was not to allow their delegation to be separated.

These were the circumstances in which the hard fought for and fully functioning All-Ireland Republic was undermined. The past 90 years of war and conflict in Ireland has flowed from the decisions made in those fateful months of late 1921 and early 1922. Speaking in the Dáil debate on the Treaty on January 4 Liam Mellows prophetically set out the consequences of abandoning the Republic and setting up a 26-County Free State: “The Government of the Free State will, with those who support it now liking it or not, eventually occupy the same relationship towards the people of Ireland as Dublin Castle does to-day, because, it will be the barrier government between the British and the Irish people. And the Irish people before they can struggle on will have to do something to remove that Free State Government. That, I think, has been the history of this country most of the time, as it is the history of most countries that go the way now urged by those who support the Free State. If the Free State is accepted and put into operation it will provide the means for the British Government to get its hold back again.”

The conspiratorial “internal methods” used to coerce and cajole deputies into voting for the Treaty in the Dáil as well as within the army of the Republic –the IRA – by the Irish Republican Brotherhood would be adopted by others in the years ahead to similarly divert the Republican Movement away from the path to the full freedom of Ireland.

Its legacy was a vicious civil war or more accurately counter-revolution, which robbed Ireland of some of its brightest and best political leaders. It poisoned politics in Ireland dividing families as well as territory. And in buying the pup of the Boundary Commission which in 1925 copper-fastened partition those who supported the Treaty condemned the nationalists population of the Six Counties to decades of sectarian Unionist domination and discrimination and British rule. It is a legacy that we remain burdened with today.

Its is best to leave the final word to Brian Murphy in his excellent book Patrick Pearse and the Lost Republican Ideal: “The Treaty, hailed by those who accepted it as a victory for democracy, has to be accessed in the knowledge that those who advocated it, be they from the ranks of the IRB or the Catholic clergy, were influenced by secret manoeuvres which were hardly compatible with the democratic process. If the Treaty was a victory for anyone, it was for the policy of the British administration.”

References: Brian P. Murphy: Patrick Pearse and the Lost Republican Ideal.

Thomas Jones: Whitehall Diary.

Dáil Éireann: Official Report of the debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland