On 12 December 65 years ago the IRA launched 12 coordinated attacks across the Six Counties.
They say that you are out of the world if you are out of the fashion. And violence was fashionable in the world at the time.
The Brits and the French and the Israelis conspired together to attack Egypt. The British and the French were already slaughtering people in Kenya and Algeria and sundry other places, and the BBC was playing the Dambusters’ March when the Dumb Bastards found themselves floundering in a sea of troubles, disowned by the Americans and dumped in the Sin Bin by the United Nations.
Hungarians had revolted against Soviet domination and their rebellion had been crushed, and the popular Communist leader, Imre Nagy killed by the Russians.
TIME MAGAZINE, a slickly produced but shallow journal, coined the term “FREEDOM FIGHTER” and named its Hungarian archetype “MAN OF THE YEAR.”
So the IRA in 1956 were less ODD MEN out, internationally, than part of the ZEITGEIST
Within Ireland, the Coalition Government led by the BLUESHIRT, John A.Costello, had appointed an advocate of military action to unify Ireland, Liam Kelly, to Seanad Eireann.
Anyhow, to this schoolboy, then approaching his fifteenth birthday the headlines were exciting.
A friend of mine, thrilled with the news, later joined the police in the Channel Island of Jersey and, when he died was the longest-serving man in that force. He had earlier proved himself a hero, by rescuing passengers from a burning plane which crashed there.
I do not think that any of my teachers, Christian Brothers or laymen, referred to these stirring events at all.
On New Year’s Day 1957 the IRA launched an attack on Brookeborough RUC Barracks. The village was a nest of armed B Specials, and the attack proved fatal for Fergal O’Hanlon, and Sean Sabhat, whose funerals drew huge crowds of mourners. I well remember one of my classmates screaming at the top of his voice that the fallen men were certainly in Hell, because they didn’t have a warrant from the Bishops. And, to all of our shame, none of us punched the blighter in his loud mouth.
On reflection I believe the IRA campaign was well-intentioned and ill-conceived, It had no chance of military success. And no chance of political success. Militarism and pacifism are equally futile.
And, the more I examine our history, the more I admire De Valera and his adherents.
Alas, the body today calling itself Fianna Fail has lost its founder’s compass.
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