This piece was passed to me by Manus O’Riordan on New Year’s Eve 4 years ago.
Manus, the most scrupulous of historians, and an architect of trade union/employer/government
partnership when Haughey was Taoiseach, which still endures and transformed the economy.
He died last September aged 72. There is a good Wikipedia summary of his splendid life.
A man for all seasons.
The “Times” (UK) issue of this New Year’s Eve, as part of its “on this day” archives series in both the print and online editions, has carried its New Year’s Eve 1918 response to the Sinn Fein General Election victory. The online edition has posted this article under the continuing logo of its ‘Times’ “BRITAIN AT WAR” series. Quite appropriately so, as Britain would proceed to suppress Dáil Éireann and wage a war with the objective of negating that vote of Irish democracy.
– Manus O’Riordan
‘Sinn Fein strike threat’ – from ‘The Times’, December 31, 1918:
Today the eyes of all Ireland are turned on Sinn Fein. Everybody wants to know what the new party of 73 men will do. Most of them are so obscure that the newspapers found difficulty in giving them biographical notices. All, however, seem to belong to the class which in Russia is called the intelligentsia. There are doctors, journalists, assistants in country shops, solicitors’ clerks, university lecturers, and organizers of the Gaelic League. They share two things in common — youth and almost absolute inexperience of public affairs. A large number of them fought in the Irish Rebellion and some are alive today through the clemency of the British Government. This new party is expected to find a practical Irish policy without delay to secure representation for Ireland at the Peace Conference and to make Ireland an independent Republic within the next couple of years. It is a large task, and already Sinn Fein begins to realize the fact. Sinn Feiners tell me that the party is embarrassed by the magnitude of its victory. It would have preferred the survival of at least a score of the Nationalist members, on whom it could have put the blame of its own mistakes. Today no such evasion is practicable. The Nationalist Press, of all parties, looks to Sinn Fein for a lead. The ‘Freeman’s Journal’, now the official organ of six members of Parliament, says, with sinister politeness: As democrats, Nationalists are bound now to give the Republicans a fair field. Any other course would simply enable the Republicans to repudiate their responsibility. All the burden of fulfilment is theirs, and the consequences must also be theirs.
These words express a national mood, and Sinn Fein must begin to justify its victory without delay. Its plans, so far as they have been formulated, are as follows: The 73 members will assemble in Dublin and appoint delegates to attend the Peace Conference on behalf of the Irish people. They think that this action will force President Wilson’s hand. They propose also to insist on the immediate release of the interned Sinn Feiners. It is rumoured that they will present a demand on this point to Dublin Castle, and if it is rejected will call a general strike of Irish labour for several days.
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Funny how history sometimes repeats itself. Sinn Fein we were told was also embarrassed in February 2020 when it didn’t run enough candidates in the general election, and to today its the old scribes of the Dublin conservative establishment newspapers who are now writing daily columns telling us how Sinn Fein won’t be able to live up to its responsibility to run the country and at the same time bring about all the change they insist Ireland needs right now. An Irish Times headline today “be careful what you wish for”, in relation to SF’s continuing lead in the opinion polls – might well have been written by the Times of London in 1918.