TPQ reproduces an interview Huw Nesbitt conducted with Anthony McIntyre. It featured in VICE magazine on 7 July 2014.


Anthony McIntyre visits his former cell block with his son in 2007


On the 21st July 1972 the Provisional IRA detonated 19 bombs across Belfast in the space of an hour. Known as Bloody Friday, the attacks claimed the lives of nine people and injured 130 others. At the time, it was one of the most violent acts that had happened during the Troubles. If you were the one that planned it, you’d probably want to keep quiet, right?

Three decades later, the man who claimed to have done so felt differently. Speaking to researchers behind the “Boston College Tapes” who were compiling an oral history of the Troubles, Brendan Hughes, former Officer Commanding of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade admitted to being in charge.

Part of the reason for him doing so was that his interviewers – academics based at Boston University between 2001 and 2006 – had been given cast iron guarantees from their institution that testimonies from their work would not be published until after their subjects – republican and loyalist paramilitaries – were dead and that the police and politicians would never be allowed access to them. The promise didn’t quite work out.

In 2011, the British government tried to get access to 85 tapes, including Hughes’s interview, with the assistance of the US Department of Justice. They were looking for an interview that purportedly implicated Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10, by the IRA. Three years later they were successful. In April Gerry Adams was arrested on the basis of this evidence. He was later released without charge.

I spoke to one of the three men behind these tapes, Anthony McIntyre, himself a former commander in the IRA. Speaking from his home in the Republic of Ireland, he told me more about his background, and why, as a former Provo, he decided to create an archive of people admitting to committing grizzly acts of political violence in the first place.

VICE: Hi Anthony. Stupid question, but why did you join the IRA in the first place?

AM: I joined in 1973 when I turned 16. I’m from South Belfast and I didn’t come from a republican background, but I romanticised the movement nonetheless. Growing up, you’d see people being arrested or shot in the street. If a foreign army did the same in London, what people who lived there do?

VICE: Your activity landed you imprisoned in Long Kesh for 18 years, four years of which were on blanket protest, alongside the 1981 hunger strike. What did you do?

AM: I was convicted of shooting a member of the Loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1976 for which I was given a life sentence. When it happened I was the leader of the IRA in South Belfast, and I’d been given impetus to shoot this man under the auspices of senior command because our intelligence believed he was an armed member of the UVF.

VICE: What was it like in Long Kesh?

AM: It was tough. It was a battle against the prison administration. We were locked in cells 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without reading material except the bible, which was used as toilet and cigarette paper. During that time, the hunger strikes confirmed my hatred for the British, but I’ve since also learned of disputed evidence suggesting Sinn Fein had the opportunity to broker a deal, which I’m inclined to believe.

VICE: When were you released from prison?

AM: I was released in 1992 when they were releasing life sentence prisoners. Ten months later I started a PhD in history at Queen’s University in Belfast. I’d already completed a degree via the Open University while still in prison after punitive measures had eased. I also did some freelance journalism and wrote about how the republican project had disintegrated.

VICE: In an article you wrote in 2009, you said that Sinn Fein’s subsequent endorsement of the 1993 Downing Street Declaration, which affirmed the right of Northern Ireland to self-determination, marked the “capitulation” of republicanism. This declaration arguably led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which you have endorsed. Aren’t these two positions inconsistent?

AM: It was a republican capitulation, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – the IRA surrendered in 1916 as well, don’t forget. I no longer believe there’s any justification for an armed campaign, but I’m not going to pretend that the Good Friday Agreement was a victory for republicanism. It was a serious defeat. What the British government did was strategically include republicans but exclude republicanism. Today, it seems to me that all Sinn Fein have done is chase office, when what they should have done is stayed out such institutions and pursued their radical position through lobbying and protest – not by becoming the people they previously opposed, and not through armed conflict.

VICE: The Boston College project began in 2001, three years after Good Friday. Why did it start?

AM: It just needed to be done. It felt like the armed conflict was over, even though the IRA was yet to announce it, which they did in 2005. It seemed a good time to capture these people’s stories before they died and a dominant “official” history could suppress the multiplicity of narratives that these voices represent.

VICE: How did you select interviewees?

AM: Many of the people I interviewed I knew or had previous experience of. Nonetheless, whether they were pro or anti-Sinn Fein, what mattered was that I could trust them not to tell anyone about the project, particularly members of Sinn Fein’s leadership.

VICE: Who did you imagine would listen to these tapes?

AM: I hoped that whoever got access to them would use them to create a reconstruction of republicanism so as to examine its motives. Each interview we did was embargoed until after the interviewee had died, and we were given a cast iron guarantee by Boston College that they would not hand over the tapes – a guarantee that turned out to be worth fuck all.

VICE: And Gerry Adams got arrested because of that broken guarantee. How do you feel about that?

AM: It’s not a good feeling. It causes me great anguish that people have been arrested, because this was not what the project was about. The project was about gathering historical evidence, not prosecution evidence. I did not want to make a political intervention. Whether other people wanted to use it for that purpose is another matter. I didn’t want to use it to have a go at Gerry Adams.

VICE: Surely you must have been aware that there was a risk of this material to be used in this way?

AM: I wasn’t, no, absolutely not. Why would I have done them in the first place if this was the case?

VICE: Sinn Fein has claimed these tapes were compiled in order to get people in trouble. What’s your response?

AM: The argument that it was “maliciously compiled” would have to show that there was some intellectual dishonesty, and that we prompted people to say things that weren’t true to maliciously present Gerry Adams as a member of the IRA.

VICE: So you didn’t do that?

AM: No. I reject the idea that people were chosen simply because they would have a go at Gerry Adams. I don’t see the historical value of doing that. Perhaps there was a structural tendency to get people who were not sympathetic to Sinn Fein, but I don’t believe that undermines their testimony, because Sinn Fein should not be allowed to determine what the truth is.

VICE: The Good Friday Agreement drew a line under crimes committed during the Troubles by treating them as acts of war, but some of the wounds haven’t healed and crimes are unsolved. Do you think this will ever be resolved?

AM: I don’t, no. There’s never going to be a way of appeasing everyone. I don’t see how it can be done. All I think you can do is recover as many narratives as possible so that historians can arrive at judgments. But a more just society has to be based on the future, because ultimately the dead don’t vote.

VICE: What do you hope happens in Northern Ireland? Are you still a republican?

AM: To me, republicanism is over, but can I see a future for republicans if they behave in a rational manner and pursue justice and politics? Unfortunately, there are still people who think that political violence is the way forward, but for me it’s an absolute waste.

VICE: Okay. Thanks for speaking, Anthony.

The ‘Boston College Tapes’ Document Northern Ireland’s Murderous Past

TPQ reproduces an interview Huw Nesbitt conducted with Anthony McIntyre. It featured in VICE magazine on 7 July 2014.


Anthony McIntyre visits his former cell block with his son in 2007


On the 21st July 1972 the Provisional IRA detonated 19 bombs across Belfast in the space of an hour. Known as Bloody Friday, the attacks claimed the lives of nine people and injured 130 others. At the time, it was one of the most violent acts that had happened during the Troubles. If you were the one that planned it, you’d probably want to keep quiet, right?

Three decades later, the man who claimed to have done so felt differently. Speaking to researchers behind the “Boston College Tapes” who were compiling an oral history of the Troubles, Brendan Hughes, former Officer Commanding of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade admitted to being in charge.

Part of the reason for him doing so was that his interviewers – academics based at Boston University between 2001 and 2006 – had been given cast iron guarantees from their institution that testimonies from their work would not be published until after their subjects – republican and loyalist paramilitaries – were dead and that the police and politicians would never be allowed access to them. The promise didn’t quite work out.

In 2011, the British government tried to get access to 85 tapes, including Hughes’s interview, with the assistance of the US Department of Justice. They were looking for an interview that purportedly implicated Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10, by the IRA. Three years later they were successful. In April Gerry Adams was arrested on the basis of this evidence. He was later released without charge.

I spoke to one of the three men behind these tapes, Anthony McIntyre, himself a former commander in the IRA. Speaking from his home in the Republic of Ireland, he told me more about his background, and why, as a former Provo, he decided to create an archive of people admitting to committing grizzly acts of political violence in the first place.

VICE: Hi Anthony. Stupid question, but why did you join the IRA in the first place?

AM: I joined in 1973 when I turned 16. I’m from South Belfast and I didn’t come from a republican background, but I romanticised the movement nonetheless. Growing up, you’d see people being arrested or shot in the street. If a foreign army did the same in London, what people who lived there do?

VICE: Your activity landed you imprisoned in Long Kesh for 18 years, four years of which were on blanket protest, alongside the 1981 hunger strike. What did you do?

AM: I was convicted of shooting a member of the Loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1976 for which I was given a life sentence. When it happened I was the leader of the IRA in South Belfast, and I’d been given impetus to shoot this man under the auspices of senior command because our intelligence believed he was an armed member of the UVF.

VICE: What was it like in Long Kesh?

AM: It was tough. It was a battle against the prison administration. We were locked in cells 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without reading material except the bible, which was used as toilet and cigarette paper. During that time, the hunger strikes confirmed my hatred for the British, but I’ve since also learned of disputed evidence suggesting Sinn Fein had the opportunity to broker a deal, which I’m inclined to believe.

VICE: When were you released from prison?

AM: I was released in 1992 when they were releasing life sentence prisoners. Ten months later I started a PhD in history at Queen’s University in Belfast. I’d already completed a degree via the Open University while still in prison after punitive measures had eased. I also did some freelance journalism and wrote about how the republican project had disintegrated.

VICE: In an article you wrote in 2009, you said that Sinn Fein’s subsequent endorsement of the 1993 Downing Street Declaration, which affirmed the right of Northern Ireland to self-determination, marked the “capitulation” of republicanism. This declaration arguably led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which you have endorsed. Aren’t these two positions inconsistent?

AM: It was a republican capitulation, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – the IRA surrendered in 1916 as well, don’t forget. I no longer believe there’s any justification for an armed campaign, but I’m not going to pretend that the Good Friday Agreement was a victory for republicanism. It was a serious defeat. What the British government did was strategically include republicans but exclude republicanism. Today, it seems to me that all Sinn Fein have done is chase office, when what they should have done is stayed out such institutions and pursued their radical position through lobbying and protest – not by becoming the people they previously opposed, and not through armed conflict.

VICE: The Boston College project began in 2001, three years after Good Friday. Why did it start?

AM: It just needed to be done. It felt like the armed conflict was over, even though the IRA was yet to announce it, which they did in 2005. It seemed a good time to capture these people’s stories before they died and a dominant “official” history could suppress the multiplicity of narratives that these voices represent.

VICE: How did you select interviewees?

AM: Many of the people I interviewed I knew or had previous experience of. Nonetheless, whether they were pro or anti-Sinn Fein, what mattered was that I could trust them not to tell anyone about the project, particularly members of Sinn Fein’s leadership.

VICE: Who did you imagine would listen to these tapes?

AM: I hoped that whoever got access to them would use them to create a reconstruction of republicanism so as to examine its motives. Each interview we did was embargoed until after the interviewee had died, and we were given a cast iron guarantee by Boston College that they would not hand over the tapes – a guarantee that turned out to be worth fuck all.

VICE: And Gerry Adams got arrested because of that broken guarantee. How do you feel about that?

AM: It’s not a good feeling. It causes me great anguish that people have been arrested, because this was not what the project was about. The project was about gathering historical evidence, not prosecution evidence. I did not want to make a political intervention. Whether other people wanted to use it for that purpose is another matter. I didn’t want to use it to have a go at Gerry Adams.

VICE: Surely you must have been aware that there was a risk of this material to be used in this way?

AM: I wasn’t, no, absolutely not. Why would I have done them in the first place if this was the case?

VICE: Sinn Fein has claimed these tapes were compiled in order to get people in trouble. What’s your response?

AM: The argument that it was “maliciously compiled” would have to show that there was some intellectual dishonesty, and that we prompted people to say things that weren’t true to maliciously present Gerry Adams as a member of the IRA.

VICE: So you didn’t do that?

AM: No. I reject the idea that people were chosen simply because they would have a go at Gerry Adams. I don’t see the historical value of doing that. Perhaps there was a structural tendency to get people who were not sympathetic to Sinn Fein, but I don’t believe that undermines their testimony, because Sinn Fein should not be allowed to determine what the truth is.

VICE: The Good Friday Agreement drew a line under crimes committed during the Troubles by treating them as acts of war, but some of the wounds haven’t healed and crimes are unsolved. Do you think this will ever be resolved?

AM: I don’t, no. There’s never going to be a way of appeasing everyone. I don’t see how it can be done. All I think you can do is recover as many narratives as possible so that historians can arrive at judgments. But a more just society has to be based on the future, because ultimately the dead don’t vote.

VICE: What do you hope happens in Northern Ireland? Are you still a republican?

AM: To me, republicanism is over, but can I see a future for republicans if they behave in a rational manner and pursue justice and politics? Unfortunately, there are still people who think that political violence is the way forward, but for me it’s an absolute waste.

VICE: Okay. Thanks for speaking, Anthony.

31 comments:

  1. AM: To me, republicanism is over

    Im never sure whether to take it seriously, that need for humans to bear witness to something, it quite often it leads to incorrect and premature declarations. Its probably the same mindset of Adams etc watching Berlin Wall fall,Oslo Accords,Mandelas freedom and needing to bear witness to their own certainty, instead of fighting on in the uncertain hope the Tony Catney spoke of in recent articles on this site. Why does republicanism need to be pronounced dead ? You could argue its taken a kicking, but death implies permanent dormancy. The ideal remains, and is being fought for militarily right now in uncertain hope (given what opposes it). As ever it will until victory, via more prosaic interludes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DaithiD,

    there is nothing new in this view. I have held it and stated it for years.

    Republicanism is dead in my view because it lacks the capacity to overcome the bedrock of partition - the refusal of the unionists to consent. Republicanism as we knew it had a coercive attitude to unionism. Republicanism sought to coerce the Brits out of Ireland and the unionists into a united Ireland. It failed absolutely and nobody yet has put forward a plausible strategy for making coercion work. And once republicanism abandons coercion and acquiesces in the consent principle it is no longer republicanism, but merely embracing the Brit/unionist/constitutional nationalist means of getting the Brits to leave and getting the unionists into a united Ireland.

    If coercion can't win and embracing the Brit perspective is not on what can republicanism do? The options are limited to assuming a non coercive stance which avoids acquiescence in the consent principle. And that makes republicanism oppositional (sound in and of itself) but lacking serious sovereignty changing potential.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AM

    My belief is that the current policy of sinn fein is the alternative that republicanism requires to reach the goal of an all Ireland. Coercion was never going to work and they are definitely looking at the bigger picture and playing the long game.
    The biggest mistake their current stand point is making is to have Adams and McGuiness at the forefront. Unionism will never be part of anything they are involved in but by removing the violence it is possible to make their aims attractive to all the communities of Ireland.
    Cross border cooperation is expanding, more and more businesses state their location as Ireland all over the north so the steady creep is already taking place but the sticking point will and has always been Adams, McGuiness and the historical violent strategy to reach that goal.
    If republicanism is looking for a way forward, it should look no further than to remove the green and struggle from their politics, and make the alternative to what the country has now attractive to all no matter their class, colour, religion or creed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Anthony, of course I know your provenance in this theme ( I have your book) , I think that merely confirms my point. And I understand as a writer you are meant to propose the avant garde, I'm just trying to add my own contextualising to it, and it happens in every field . My own view on the unionist question, is that it's a question that doesn't need answering initially. They have convinced me of their immutable Britishness,but it doesn't follow where they plant their flag is British soil, so why should they feature in Irish considerations? Consent seems a Sinn Fein preoccupation ,which isn't the same thing as a republican one.

    ReplyDelete
  5. DaithiD,

    I don't write to propose the avant garde. People who do that end up being different just for the sake of it: forever trying to say something new to stay ahead of the pack. They end up not writing to clarify but to be apart. Be a hippy or join a cult if that is what they want.

    Writing is thinking. How many times do we sit down with an idea in mind just to see it shred to pieces by the process of writing alone, just as a solitary process without even having to exchange a real time single thought with another person? Sharon O'Brien got it in one 'Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say.'

    The unionist question is the central question and one that can't be wished away. The unbridgeable cleavage between the British state and republicanism was not on whether Ireland should or should not be united. It was on the terms it would be united. The Brits insisted on the partition/consent principle. Republicanism dissolved itself in order to acquiesce in the Brit position. Once the consent principle is accepted it is an acknowledge that partition has a democratic basis and is therefore legitimate. That is something which is irreconcilable with the republicanism we knew.

    Justin,

    I see no grounds for such optimism: While the unionists find the two characters obnoxious (Adams more so than McGuinness) and they could deal much easier with people who never served as PIRA chiefs of staff, that does not mean they would cross the Rubicon that is the border so to speak. But even if they did it would be on the British terms of consent, not the republican terms, which of course have long since been abandoned in favour of the British ones.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sure, I sound patronising when you put it like that, I really don’t mean to.
    The unbridgeable cleavage between the British state and republicanism was not on whether Ireland should or should not be united. It was on the terms it would be united.
    It will be on republican terms, if you doubt the strength of the republican position, then simply observe the perversity of the united forces of occupation, and the lengths they have gone to suppress it. That is a measure of fear. Nothing so un-natural can be sustained. I don’t accept the consent principle (if you carry Palestinian flags you shouldn’t either),and in terms of the GFA I don’t accept the legitimacy of a first past the post vote carried out under such manipulated circumstances and under occupation.In any case 30% voted no in the North. Is their opinion undemocratic because of a choice of voting method? Unlike that other democratic vote,the Lisbon treaty, this is one vote that wont be revisited I think.

    ReplyDelete
  7. DaithiD,

    It will be on republican terms.

    I have found no substance that would support this.

    if you doubt the strength of the republican position, then simply observe the perversity of the united forces of occupation, and the lengths they have gone to suppress it.

    States all over the world stir up some moral panic to allow themselves more latitude. Any state claiming a monopoly on the use of legitimate force will face a problem of legitimacy if confronted with force. If there is a serial killer on the loose with absolutely no intention of altering the status quo the state will mobilise massive resources to halt it and head off a crisis in confidence. It is not an indication of the transformative power of the serial killer.

    I don’t think any republican can accept the consent principle. But it does not follow from this that it is proper to challenge the consent principle through the application of military force.
    The 30% that voted in the North is democratic but democracy has at its core an inescapable majoritarian principle. The GFA as much as we might oppose it is underpinned by Irish society.

    And at all times we are confronted with the clearly stated opposition of the demos to the use of political violence to sort out what it might well see as a problem.

    Republicans are then faced with a dilemma: how to assert the right of the Irish people to be free of partition but deny the Irish people’s right to be free from republican armed force aimed at removing partition. It leaves republicans in the position of saying the Irish people only have the right to be free from republicans say they can be free from.

    I can see no way republicanism as we practiced it can succeed. And I do not intend beating its drum so that others might march to it and lose their lives or end the lives of others.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Daithi, Irish republicanism may not yet be dead for you; it seems to me you believe, that though seriously and catastrophically injured another heroic recovery possible.
    Though totally in disagreement, I respect your right to hold and express such hopes and opinions.

    While I cannot definitively refute the possibility that another phoenix will not arise from the ashes, I believe it most unlikely in the extreme.
    So improbable that I wouldn't wager anything, even of insignificant worth on such occurring.
    I certainly wouldn't risk anything of value. I wouldn't risk my peace of mind, my freedom, my health, I will never again make the egregious errors of the past in pursuit of any mythical and romanticised Irish republic.
    Indeed I will quietly do all that I can, to the degree that I hold any influence, to protect those that I care about, my children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews from the pernicious romanticisms of unrealistic and often delusional Irish republican ideation.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I appreciate your help on this AM.Whatever drum beat I may make is but a leaf falling to the floor compared to the cacophony created by a repressive state.

    Henry Joy, it's hard to separate the success of republicanism as practiced by Anthony, from actions of its leadership. Even that aside ,for corporations of equivalent size to the Provos, to have a static leadership for nearly 20 years, would inevitably lead to failure. It's the absence of these factors that gives me hope going forward.

    ReplyDelete
  10. In hindsight,it seems to me armed republicanism was never going to defeat unionists, and thus force them into a 32 county republic against their will. The organisers of 1916 understood this would be problematic to say the least, hence the order that the rising would not include the north.

    Surely if anything the Provo insurgency was an aberration due to historical circumstances, not the benchmark for Irish Republicanism.

    However a 32 county socialist republic is a perfectly honorable thing to call for and work towards, surely? Is it not a republican aim, something republicans can work for in all conscience by political means alone? It seems to me only if this is not the case would we have to accept Irish Republicanism is redundant.

    If armed struggle in the foreseeable future is no longer a viable option to end partition, etc, Republicans have two options, endure and await better days, or adapt republicanism to the prevailing political wind.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Organised Rage,

    However a 32 county socialist republic is a perfectly honorable thing to call for and work towards, surely?

    Undoubtedly. But how does it strategically overcome the structural barrier of the consent principle? It could sign up to the Brit state/unionist/constitutional nationalist position of trying to persuade unionists and which it lambasted as a partitionist fudge. In my view as strategically unproductive as armed campaigning.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Daithi D, a little further elucidation on "the success of of republicanism as practised by Anthony" please.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Henry Joy, I guess I am mangling AM’s prior comment :

    I can see no way republicanism as we practiced it can succeed

    I meant the ultimate lack of success of the Provisionals brand of PFR.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Organised Rage,

    The Provo insurgency was the normative response of Irish republicanism ... insurrection, rebellion, blood-letting and blood sacrifice being their standard operating practice.

    It would have been an aberration if they had responded non-militarily ... even politically ... and sought positions of influence in the trade union or civil rights movement ... and dare I say the emerging social democratic and labour party ... (they ended up stealing their clothes anyway; and after 25 years of further futile warfare implemented the upgrade on Sunningdale).

    I fully agree with your hindsight position that Irish republicanism could never have over-ridden the wishes of Ulster Unionism ... and that said and once again from the vantage of reading history backwards I propose that Irish republicanism achieved little over and above of what in all probability would have been achieved eventually by peaceful constitutional means.
    Had the enacted third Home Rule Bill of 1914 been implemented in any shape or form it would have been introduced with some form of partition and thus in all probability an independent southern state would have emerged anyway.
    Irish Republicans haven't achieved anything more despite all the bloodshed and suffering... waste of life, wasted effort over-all.

    Call Irish republican aspirations noble if you will ... nobleness like most qualities is ultimately subjective ... from a different perspective (Unionist)... surely it was equally as noble of those who considered themselves British, who wanted to protect their standard of living and way of life to take a stand in their own interest.
    Wouldn't it have been a tad ignoble for them to have just rolled over to the wishes of Irish nationalists?

    Any political ideation that denies such realities is both delusional and dangerous ... and alas ultimately doomed to failure.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Daithi thanks for clarifying.

    Going back if I may to that same comment where you said,

    " Even that aside, for corporations of equivalent size to the Provos, to have a static leadership for nearly 20 years, would inevitably lead to failure. It's the absence of these factors that gives me hope going forward."

    If a corporate organisation continued to gain substantial market share year on year, as PSF has done election after election north and south, I don't realistically believe that the CEO or the Board chairman would have any great concerns as to their security of tenure nor to the on-going viability of the enterprise,

    Yes, Adams and McGuinness have kept a firm hand on the tiller for many years but they have managed to attract a capable crew, a capable crew they have developed and groomed for leadership ... I predict that when the time eventually comes for succession, as with everything else with this well oiled machine, it will be choreographed and successfully managed to the last.

    It's all like a re-run of an old movie, in the old movie the leads were played by De Valera, Tod Andrews, Frank Aiken and Sean Lemas. (Fianna Fáil; The Republican Party. ffs)

    Want to know what the future's like Daithi ... it's much the same as the past ... unless of course you're prepared to change?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Henry Joy, you ignore the most nihilistic facet of Unionism, that it sets itself antipodal to anything resembling republicanism, even when to its own detriment. A United Ireland clearly cannot come from SF political agitation; its growth is just a ruse in that respect.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Wake up Daithi, drop your illusions.
    The all-Ireland utopian republic is unachievable now, and in truth never was.

    The mythical all-Ireland republic was never a realistic goal, t'was nothing more than a romanticised construct in the minds of the deluded, a romanticised construct whose edifices were buttressed with deceit and propped up by denial; the yellow haired woman that maddened many's a mother's son.

    Time to carry water and chop wood!

    ReplyDelete
  18. AM

    I'm not convinced it does entail 'signing up' to the Brit state/unionist/constitutional nationalist position in the manner you imply, ie sellout? Republicans can accept the reality of the position on the ground and work within its structure until other avenues of struggle either open up, or emerge through hard work.

    It's what lefties like me have been doing all our lives over here, yet we no more accept the writ of the British monarchy and the ruling class, than Irish republicans do.

    We understand armed struggle is not a viable option so we use what political options are open to us to exploit. Amongst them trade unions, parliamentary forums both local and national, NGA and the new and old media.

    For many storming the winter palace would be the easy option, but we know we would be crushed and defeated, as would those we lead. Why volunteer to place your head on the ruling classes chopping block, that’s for the ruling class to do as you well know.

    Its true working towards a 32 county socialist republic cannot guarantee to strategically overcome the structural barrier of the consent principle, but withdrawing from struggle will not either, and if 30 odd years of armed struggle failed in its aim, just one more heave militarily is unlikely to prevail.

    The seeds of the Provos failure lay in its isolation from the south of Ireland. The British government and its southern accomplices managed to quarantine the Provo insurgency to the north. The fact the leadership were willing accomplices in this when the moved the leadership north, hardly helped. Surely the lesson is Irish republicanism must be intrinsically part of an all Ireland struggle or it will fail.

    If this all Ireland context can be rebuilt, and to be fair to Sinn Féin they are giving it a good go, then the Unionist veto will be diminished in its importance, it may not disappear, but it will increasingly be seen as a minority voice, unlike today when it masquerades as a majority.

    Comradely regards

    ReplyDelete
  19. Organized rage

    Think you've absolutely nailed it there. Republicanism must become viable for all, both north and south. It has a way to go before it can fully remove the shackles of the past which its opponents use at every opportunity to create fear amongst the population.
    It also needs to ensure its message is clear of what is next, what does it offer that's a more viable and attractive option to what there is now?
    Unfortunately the dissidents are ensuring the status quo continues with their counterproductive actions playing straight into the hands of the nay sayers.
    Sinn feins actions in the last 10 years has taken a lot of criticism from the grass roots; however, all it takes is a step back to see exactly what their game plan is and either help promote it or create an alternative with sustainable socially democratic policies that runs along the same lines of unity.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Organised Rage,

    There are only two ways to unite the country: coercion of the North or consent. The republican position is one of coercion. The British state’s position is one of consent.

    The coercive position does not have to be one of armed struggle. The Brits or the international community could arrive at a conclusion that the six counties are Irish territory and should therefore be returned. And before people start complaining about it being wrong to coerce, there is not one law in this country or any other that is not based on coercion. Break a red light and that much becomes evident. In the north those who want unity are coerced by a majority there to live under British rule. The same principle can as easily apply within a UK context and the unionists have no argument. If it is ok for a majority in the North to use coercion to achieve its way over a minority within the Northern territory, then it must be ok for the UK majority to coerce a minority within so called UK territory
    Republicanism can do everything you suggested apart from signing up to the consent principle which legitimises partition. The entire philosophical basis of republicanism is that there is no minority on the island has the right to rupture the national unity and that to recognise the consent/partition principle is to give them that right.

    Now for people like me who value the concept of dissent there is an additional problem posed: do people have the right to dissent from the nation? Should nationalism be obligatory? Should it have any greater a call on a person’s allegiance than religion? But what I might think hardly invalidates the republican position.

    It's what lefties like me have been doing all our lives over here, yet we no more accept the writ of the British monarchy and the ruling class, than Irish republicans do.

    But if you administer the state apparatus which the capitalist class subcontracted out to you and you jail say the Yorkshire miners for continuing to strike on behalf of the state, support the police that frames them and jails them, supports the prison service that holds them, then claiming not to accept the writ of the British ruling class is vacuous.

    and if 30 odd years of armed struggle failed in its aim, just one more heave militarily is unlikely to prevail

    Agreed. Hence you will never hear me advocating that.

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  21. Organised Rage,

    The seeds of the Provos failure lay in its isolation from the south of Ireland.

    I don’t believe it did. The death rattle is to be found in the birth pangs. It was not the British being here that energised the Provos but how they behaved while they were here. A change in behaviour, not a withdrawal was all that was needed to bring the Provos to heel.

    The British government and its southern accomplices managed to quarantine the Provo insurgency to the north.

    The Provos were essentially a northern phenomenon: thrown up by conditions in the north and not the absence of unity per se. There were structural limitations on the expansion of the Provo struggle. This is why O’Bradaigh and the Provos were an ersatz alliance – he was a republican and his politics would always see him stranded on a republican path once the Provos abandoned it. O’Bradaigh’s republicanism predated the Provos and outlived their republicanism.

    If this all Ireland context can be rebuilt, and to be fair to Sinn Féin they are giving it a good go

    I recall being told that under Gorbachev socialism was consolidating and advancing. I never really buy into that type of reasoning. Billy Hutchinson said to me many years ago, the Provos were after power North and South, not a united Ireland, not an end to partition, just office and as much of it as they could get. I think your take completely ignores just how much the Provo leadership actually shafted the republican project and allows it to masquerade as another form of republicanism rather than an abandonment of it. When I accused a senior British official at a conference in England of having shafted republicanism he smiled and said to me ‘republicans shafted republicanism’.

    Even if we choose to ignore all the organised lying of the SF leadership and give the benefit of the doubt to their reformist strategy to achieve a UI, we can hardly claim it is a republican strategy. It more or less says constitutional nationalism was right all along: their persuasion as opposed to republican coercion.

    My point for some years has been that the transformative moment for republicanism has passed if indeed it ever existed in the circumstances of partition, or if it did it was never worked to its maximum potential. Republicans don’t have to withdraw from activism. You need only look around to see that they are heavily involved in radical issues – Gaza, anti-censorship, community empowerment, prisoners’ rights, anti-racism, etc. I think the limitations are on republicanism, not republicans who will always have progressive issues to work on. But if they go for a meta republican strategy or try to integrate what has little organic potential for integration they need to coldly look at the limitations so that it does not sap energy from other single issues that might have a chance of success.

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  22. "But if you administer the state apparatus which the capitalist class subcontracted out to you and you jail say the Yorkshire miners for continuing to strike on behalf of the state, support the police that frames them and jails them, supports the prison service that holds them, then claiming not to accept the writ of the British ruling class is vacuous."
    -------------

    AM
    Agreed, and its not something I would even consider, but I am not a politician. What some might claim, and I'm thinking mainly of the shiners here, although not exclusively, "If we do not occupy this space who will?" "If we do not hold this ground it’s a dead cert our enemies will."

    As to nationalism. For someone like me who lives in a country which has not been militarily occupied for 1000 years, nationalism and the nation state is not something I would give my loyalty to. However for someone whose country still suffers from occupation it may be a different story. As too may the debate about signing up to the consent principle which legitimises partition.

    As you know the PLO faced a similar dilemma over the recognition of the state of Israel, and their decision to concede to this demand, for that is what it was, has cost the PLO and the Palestinian people dear. It's hardly surprising this is not a Rubicon Hamas is willing to cross.

    What I do know is by SF turning the signing of the GFA into a victory celebration was an error of judgement which may still come back to bite them.

    In many ways the six-county state-let and the occupied west bank and Gaza are not really states as most folk would recognises them, but a creation of the occupying powers and their main allies.

    On the question of republicanism, I do not feel Billy Hutchinson was being especially astute when he said the Provos were after power North and South, not a united Ireland, not an end to partition, just office and as much of it as they could get. For it is what politicians do, how else can they gain a crack at implementing their program unless they gain political power.

    The question is were Sinn Féin's leadership sold a pup when they signed up to the GFA etc, as the PLO undoubtedly were when recognizing Israel and signing up to the Oslo accords. Time alone will tell.

    As you correctly say Republicans are heavily involved in radical issues – Gaza, anti-censorship, community empowerment, prisoners’ rights, anti-racism, etc. But little of this will actually change the laws, alter the economic system within Ireland so it's no longer a country in which suffers from gross inequality, where the rich can commit massive fraud and raid the public purse at the expense of the poor and the majority of the people. Nor will it bring about the completion of the Irish national revolution first set out on by the likes of Wolf Tone and the heroes of 1916 and the Provo insurgency.

    I have concluded single issue politics without a left political party to the fore can often sap the energy from the progressive movement. Besides, if it cannot defeat them the capitalist state has sadly been able to incorporate many of these organisations into the system. Neoliberalism has been especially astute at doing this in the field of human rights, the aid agencies, and the environmental movement.

    Dare I say it but most ordinary folk don't much care what the kernel of Irish republicanism is, they reach out to it if they feel it will serve their best interest. That is why generations of young people in the north joined the PIRA to hit back at their oppressors, its why Sinn Féin is on the rise in the south and it partially explains its growth in the north from being a minor player.

    If Sinn Féin turns out to have feat of clay folk will look elsewhere, whether they call themselves socialist, communist or republican or an amalgamation of all three is not the point for me, its what they stand for and what they say and do, I have longed believed the old beards slogan No gods no masters' is the only appropriate banner a radical socialist can march under.

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  23. The all-Ireland utopian republic is unachievable now, and in truth never was.

    Henry Joy, if thats truly the case the only state which the Irish will call their own, is a medicated state. What is more important than opportunity is the correct position, and history arcs towards the republican one.

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  24. Daithi, haven't you noticed the extent that they (the Irish) are medicated, Valium, Vodka or both, legally take your choice ... or if you're prepared to go the illegal route then there are endless choices to self medicate.
    Of course you don't necessarily have to introduce external chemicals to successfully mood alter ... compulsive exercise, work or sex addictions and fixation to any of the 'ism's' (including republicanism) will ameliorate your angst too.
    In the past, religion may have been the opiate of the masses but today I believe this can include any 'ism' that's clung to unquestionably and unthinkingly.

    Daithi, can you cite some evidence that history arcs towards a republican position, I'd be happy to discuss this further. Certainly here in the 26 counties I don't see any manifestation of that. In fact the way the people down here have reacted to savage budgetary cuts (they obediently sucked it up) to bail out speculative bankers contests your supposition.

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  25. Henry Joy, most recently the Arab spring removed privileged minorities from power (probably less egalitarian end results), but even in purely British terms, its post war trend is away from decolonisation, that must be realised by its first colony too. (You could counter that people sacrifice their freedom on the altar of the EU, and id agree, but at least there is some semblance of free choice there.)

    In terms of the bank bailouts : socialism sucks a*s, you don’t need to tell me. The state shouldn’t own private banks, they should have been left to fail, I don’t see how this is a counter republican choice though? It was done over a terrorised peoples heads.

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  26. Daithi,

    popular uprisings in developing countries cannot be compared with what might unfold in a developed one (Ireland north and south).

    The point I was attempting to communicate re the banking crisis was (that) the conditions necessary for significant politicisation of the masses, never mind popular uprising, for something more akin to the type of society envisaged in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, to emerge potentially existed ... but nothing emerged and people sucked the hardship up ... they maintained the status-quo despite all the hardships imposed to finance a debt that was in truth not theirs.

    How you can reconcile such actions with a trajectory towards an enhanced republican positioning baffles me.

    Regrettably the only probable changes in such a well embedded system, as we now find ourselves, will be evolutionary and conservative rather than radical and revolutionary.

    Failure to embrace such current realities can only lead to further frustrations, to unnecessary self-created pain and hardship.

    In such circumstances republicanism has little if anything to offer save it's romantic escapist ideation.

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  27. Mick/OR For many storming the winter palace would be the easy option, but we know we would be crushed and defeated, as would those we lead. Why volunteer to place your head on the ruling classes chopping block, that’s for the ruling class to do as you well know.

    Why does the left allow the loony left let stormtrooper to run mad in super markets while parents are shopping in Tesco's and basically terrorize women and kids who are doing nothing more or less but trying to feed themsselves? They may not be intrested in Iraeli goods...

    If the left have some, all, or part of the tade unions in their pockets why don't simply demand their members not to unload or touch Irraeli or American goods once they reach port?

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  28. Henry Joy, of course they can be compared for similarities. Are the squares of Tahrir and the Maidan so distinct as to be alien to each other? I have outlined what I think is the common theme in the Arab spring with republicanism in very broad terms, it matters not the developmental stage of a country (which is more a factor in how it progresses and what comes after, and is a separate issue)
    I don’t think people could engage with the reasons for the financial collapse, that is why no political insurrection followed. Many commentators were quite happy to peddle the myth of a greedy fat cats conspiracy, but it bore no resemblance to reality and that is why they couldn’t forge a alternative beyond more rounds of name calling.

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  29. Daithi I'll keep an eye out for similarities in Eyre Square (sigh)!

    Off topic but I was touched by the poignancy of the photo of Anthony and his son which features with this article; have you written anything of your thoughts and feelings around this image? What did your visit to your cell evoke? What does looking at that picture today evoke? Of course there's a lot of implicit connections running through your work (at least in my imagination) but I was wondering if you'd written anything on parenthood and how becoming a parent shapes and changes one's world view, one's hopes and aspirations, one's behaviour?

    If anything comes to mind I'd appreciate a link Anthony when you have a moment.
    HJ

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  30. Henry Joy, how prescient,I will be over to Galway next weekend!

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  31. Dáithí,

    is é an taobh thiar is fearr.
    Tá súil agam go mbeidh deireadh seachtaine siamsaíocht agat i nGaillimh.

    Tóg go bog é (agus tóg go minic é nuair a bhíonn tú ag fáil é).

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