When I did my interview with Enda Kenny for the book Whose Past Is It Anyway? (compulsory Christmas reading), he urged me at the end of the interview to get in touch with his minister Jimmy Deenihan, who is in charge of all matters relating to ‘the decade of centenaries’. As it happened I didn’t, but it did seem reasonable to have someone heading up government response to the many centenaries that started with the commemoration/celebration of the Ulster Covenant last year. There is linkage between the Ulster Covenant and the First World War, between the First World War and Easter 1916, between Easter 1916 and the creation of the first Dail, and so on.
In Thursday’s Belfast Telegraph, there is a report on a “poppy row” that has broken out in Craigavon Borough Council. The DUP councillor Carla Lockhart was behind a motion passed by the unionist majority that poppy seed should be sown on council-owned land to mark 26 July next, the date on which the First World War started. Sinn Féin and SDLP councillors were opposed to the measure. They said it was because unionist members earlier this year rejected a proposal that a committee be establisht to look at “shared history 100 year anniversaries”, including the Dublin Lockout, the creation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and the Easter Rising. Clearly Jimmy Deenihan and Craigavon nationalists/republicans may be keen to mark all centenaries, but the unionists of Craigavon are going to commemorate only those events are anchored in unionism.
Is this surprising? No. What would have been surprising would have been if the Craigavon unionist councillors had agreed to mark all of the centenaries. When we compare their attitude with that of their nationalist/republican fellow-councillors, and in the south with Jimmy Deenihan’s commemoration committee, it becomes clear that while nationalist Ireland is ready and willing to incorporate and mark all centenaries in this decade, unionist Northern Ireland is determined to mark only those events which carry their red-white-and-blue imprimatur
However, before we clap the Craigavon nationalist councillors and Jimmy Deenihan on the back, we should maybe consider if commemorating nationalist dates provides any problems for nationalists. The answer, I believe, is you betcha.
It is important for the southern government – and maybe some SDLP people in the north – that Easter 1916 isn’t given exclusive or even superior focus. If it were, the contradictions between what the Easter Proclamation declared as its goal and the present state of Ireland would be more than a little embarrassing. If on the other hand Easter 1916 can be really tightly linked with all the other anniversaries, it may help glide over the ghastly contrast between what was hoped-for in 1916 and what has transpired since.
Besides, for the south’s government linkage can only be allowed to go so far. It’s one thing to commemorate/celebrate the courage of the men and women of Easter 1916 right through to independence for the twenty-six counties; it would be quite another if that linkage were to extend through to the 1970s and 1980s and show the parallels between that period and the centenary events we’re now marking.
Because just as the Craigavon unionist councillors want to highlight ‘their’ centenary events, so likewise Fine Gael and Labour in the south are desperate to limit too-close scrutiny of the Easter Rising. Otherwise the republican violence of 100 years ago and republican violence in the north some forty years ago might begin to look dangerously similar. And that would be an appalling vista.
Not to mention Republican violence against British state forces yesterday and today, Or is shooting at police officers employed to uphold British Rule in Ireland today different than it was in 1916, 1921, 1970, 1996 etc? Me, I see no difference, if you want to know. What is your opinion Jude?
I see a considerable difference – this state in no way resembles the state I remember in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. And there is a road open which can lead (depending on how people act) to a reunited Ireland, which as a nationalist would like. The people who are shooting at policemen – and you – see no difference. I don’t deny them their sincerity of vision. But it’s wrong.
It might look similar but the justification was not similar because there were other options 40 years ago and an elected Dail that didn’t sanction armed struggle. If you disagree with that then Colman is right
“An elected Dail that didn’t sanction armed struggle” – pu-lease. The Dail’s jurisdiction stopped with the border. Irish rebels who’ve resorted to violence have never, to the best of my knowledge, conducted a poll to establish public sympathy or otherwise, or asked permission. Yes of course, people had other options, but the option republicans chose in the 1970s/1980s was violence. Anyone who thinks we would now have power-sharing in the north and Britain’s agreement to abide by the wishes of the populace regarding constitutional change if there had not been violence is, frankly, delusional. ‘Sunningdale for slow learners?’ The remark of particularly obtuse student.
Jude
We will never know if we would have reached the same point by now through peaceful means, but I fail to see why you would label people (like me) delusional for so believing.
I find it impossible to believe in the context of the upheaval in Eastern Europe,the end of apartheid, and increasing access to media outlets that such change could have been resisted for 40 long years in the face of continued civil rights campaigns.
That is why I and the vast majority of people on this island would have preferred the bold IRA to give up their frankly delusional and grandiose notion of bombing their way to a united Ireland.
But you are coming close to saying that you yourself believe that campaign was justified.
You’ll have to listen more carefully, Gio. My point is that given what happened in the early 1970s when Sunningdale sailed forth (and sank), I don’t believe for one moment that unionism, especially Ian Paisley, would have ever agreed to share power with nationalists/republicans. As a prominent SDLP man once said to me, politics is about power. People don’t do things because they’re nice and fair-minded (people in this case = politicians), they do them because they have or have not power to make them happen or stop them happening. Nobody will convince me that Ian Paisley and the DUP woke up one morning and thought it would be a good idea to go into power-sharing. I believe that a major factor in bringing things to that point was republican violence – and I think any detached observer would arrive at the same conclusion. I am NOT saying that therefore IRA violence was justified. As my old classmate Eamonn McCann so eloquently put it once, “I am by instinct if not conviction a pacifist”. I can’t imagine myself taking or trying to take another human being’s life, and I certainly don’t want anybody to take or try to take mine. But any country that has an army believes in violence for political ends. And virtually every country in the world has an army. So republican violence, no matter what we may think of it, is by no means unique.
Jude
Fair enough,I’m glad you feel that way.
I would note in passing that;
“NOT saying that IRA violence was justified”
is slightly different from;
“saying that IRA violence was NOT justified”
Were you schooled by the Jesuits by any chance?
On the point about Paisley and the DUP, I agree of course they would always have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the negotiating table.
I just think a sustained organised campaign of civil disobedience would have got them there faster and with nothing like the same loss of life.
But of course we can never know now.
And I think ‘obtuse’ and ‘delusional’ is a bit unfair.
Whatever about the rights and wrongs of violence being used for political purposes, aren’t you repeating the same platitudes as those panelists you argued with the other night on Prime Time who said that there is no equivocation between those who were prepared to use violence against British Rule in Ireland in 1916 and those using violence against British Rule in 1986? I think if you asked Republicans shooting at police officers today if there is a difference between a British ruled six north eastern counties today and a British ruled six north eastern counties in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s, they would argue that British Rule is British Rule, regardless of the conditions the British Government afford their subordinates to live under. I imagine those Irish Republicans who believe that Ireland unfree will never be at peace would also disagree with your viewpoint that there is an open road to a United Ireland. At heart of their argument would be the question, when did the struggle for Irish Freedom and Irish Unification ever depend on the gift and generosity of the British Government to extend to a section of the Irish people? The open road Sinn Féin speaks of depends on the British Government permitting a vote on Irish Unification ONLY when the British are assured that the outcome will be decided in favor of a Yes; don’t hold your breath and good luck with that one; that they alone will bear responsibility for calling for the vote, that they alone will decide the wording of the vote, and then for the final hurdle, they will seek support from their colleagues in the English parliament to ratify the decision should it be made in favor of Unity. Given Britain’s past history of rigorously dismissing the democratically expressed wishes of Irish voters, it is understandable that Irish Republicans would be distrustful of any British Government to behave honorably, particularly when all the current British leaders are on record as professing their support and favor for the continuation of the Union. While we all may wish things were different and political violence was indeed a thing of the past, the fact is that those shooting at police officers employed to uphold British Rule in any part of Ireland are only doing what Irish Republicans have always done while Ireland has been under British rule. And to say otherwise is hypocritical.
Excellent post.
Thanks for detailed thoughts, Colman – even for your last sentence. I think to say people are doing the same as other people did and therefore it must be equally justified/wise/moral/whatever doesn’t stand up. If you come at me with a knife, it’d be reasonable for me to stop you using force. If someone else came at me without a knife but with extended hand and I used force on them, that wouldn’t be right. You’re right that dissident republicans using violence are doing what the IRA did in the 1970s and 80s, and what republicans did in the early part of the century. But the circumstances now – in my opinion – are radically different and therefore I reject their use of force. Anyway, the one thing that sort of depresses me at times doing this blog is that people either agree with you or disagree with you, regardless of what you ( I mean I) say. What I mean is, we (and I’d include myself) virtually never move from the position we’ve held all along. Maybe I’m expecting too much (of myself as well as others)
The real IRA don’t ask permission to use violence, you’re on a dangerous road there Jude
I’m not so sure I am, TD. My point is that people who resort to violence in any age, whether that violence is successful in achieving its ends or not, whether it is morally justifiable or not – none of them seeks a mandate first. Because dissident republicans are using similar tactics to the IRA of the 70s – on and because neither group asked for a mandate first doesn’t mean that you can’t draw distinctions between them.
“The state in no way resembles the state I remember in the 50s,60s and 70s” .Am I correct in understanding that you were out of the North for most of the 70s and only returned in the early 80s.Were there no changes that you noticed on your return?
You are quite right Argenta (almost): I was out of the north from late 1970 until mid-1979. I did notice changes – there was a lot more violence going on, with guns and explosives rather than stones and what we used to call Molotov cocktails.