Frankie Quinn ✒ In light of the recent Kenova report, there is a crew of individuals and organisations who are keen to label every IRA activist as a tout or compromised in some way.
As an ex-POW and a republican activist my whole life I can not allow this to continue without comment.
The war against the imperialist occupation of Ireland by British troops and their economic counterparts was justified and the correct thing to do. For many Volunteers of the IRA this was the honourable course to take. As under international law an occupied country has the right to try as best it can to achieve freedom and sovereignty. This includes the use of armed struggle.
The historical context for such action lays deep within the Irish psyche, when presented with discrimination, harassment and outright murder of one’s families, friends and comrades, when the law makers become the law breakers then there is no law. Hundreds of young and not so young men and women took up that challenge to serve their people and the cause of Irish independence. Reluctantly a generation of Irish people decided to become part of the Republican Movement. By far, most of these ordinary people were involved for the right reasons.
Of course, the longer the war went on the more the Movement was infiltrated by agents. The lowest of the low human beings. These few who secreted themselves into the heart of the Irish Republican Army were to become part of its demise. There is no doubt some of these agents were known and even promoted to higher ranks within the IRA. By whom and why?
At a very early stage the British intelligence services had established who they could manipulate at a high level within the IRA. There is no need to go into this to deeply at this stage - there are plenty of books referencing these individuals.
The war against the imperialist occupation of Ireland by British troops and their economic counterparts was justified and the correct thing to do. For many Volunteers of the IRA this was the honourable course to take. As under international law an occupied country has the right to try as best it can to achieve freedom and sovereignty. This includes the use of armed struggle.
The historical context for such action lays deep within the Irish psyche, when presented with discrimination, harassment and outright murder of one’s families, friends and comrades, when the law makers become the law breakers then there is no law. Hundreds of young and not so young men and women took up that challenge to serve their people and the cause of Irish independence. Reluctantly a generation of Irish people decided to become part of the Republican Movement. By far, most of these ordinary people were involved for the right reasons.
Of course, the longer the war went on the more the Movement was infiltrated by agents. The lowest of the low human beings. These few who secreted themselves into the heart of the Irish Republican Army were to become part of its demise. There is no doubt some of these agents were known and even promoted to higher ranks within the IRA. By whom and why?
At a very early stage the British intelligence services had established who they could manipulate at a high level within the IRA. There is no need to go into this to deeply at this stage - there are plenty of books referencing these individuals.
The narrative that the whole organisation was rotten is not correct. The hundreds of young men and women who give their lives so we might have the 32-county socialist republic were certainly not rats or agents. They were the cream of their communities and deeply embedded within those said communities.
Today we have ex comrades trying to distance themselves from these brave comrades. Why?
These are political opportunists who will exploit any situation to farther their personal careers,
This is evidenced by their attendance at the King of England’s crowning, the passing out parade of those employed to uphold British rule in Ireland to name but a few incidences. They call themselves the Good Friday generation of republicans. Firstly, they are not republicans. Fact, one cannot call oneself a republican and then endorse a king. Never mind an Irish republican.
To quote a revolutionary of the highest regard Bernadette Mc Aliskey “the litmus test for any political party was to boycott genocide Joe Biden in the USA”. This they could not do. Disgraceful and totally wrong. While children ate grass, they ate steak with their imperialist masters. When they couldn’t stand up for the poor Palestinian people under such circumstances, how can anyone involved hold their head up? Or expect them to pursue a 32-county socialist republic?
So they try to delegitimise our fallen friends, families and comrades. The very people who got them there in the first place. The thousands of years spent in prisons all over the world by Irish republicans now has to be criminalised, so they can cosy up to their masters. Well, this will not be permitted to happen while there are genuine republicans alive who will maintain their memories with dignity and pride.
The British manipulated this situation to murder what they call their own citizens. They allowed RUC members, ordinary working-class soldiers and civilians to be murdered by their agents. Their agents under the control of the British security services. The report has pointed to countless murders they could have prevented. They choose not to by protecting agents. They are the culprits in this situation and the law makers again become the law breakers. As for the minority of members of the Republican Movement who became British agents they are to be condemned as what they are - informers and the lowest of the low in betrayals of their fellow republicans.
But the majority of people who joined and helped the Republican Movement during the war were and are the salt of the earth, they give everything for that cause in which they one hundred percent believed. These were ordinary people placed in an extortionary situation not of their making. I would pay homage to these brave people and many families destroyed and broken as a result of the war. We will not stand idlily by and allow people to condemn the courageous volunteers of the Irish Republican Army. We salute them and all those who played any part in the struggle for freedom independence and the 32-county socialist republic. That struggle continues in a different way today and for this past 20 years.
In conclusion, the presence of agents within the ranks of the IRA does not condemn the men and women of the IRA who were prepared to lay down their lives, not for a corrupted and infiltrated leadership but for the people of Ireland. For this we will forever be in your debt and we will never condemn you or your sacrifice and commitment to the cause of Irish freedom, and the establishment of the 32-county socialist republic.
East Tyrone Remembers.
⏩Frankie Quinn is the National Organiser for the 1916 Societies.
Today we have ex comrades trying to distance themselves from these brave comrades. Why?
These are political opportunists who will exploit any situation to farther their personal careers,
This is evidenced by their attendance at the King of England’s crowning, the passing out parade of those employed to uphold British rule in Ireland to name but a few incidences. They call themselves the Good Friday generation of republicans. Firstly, they are not republicans. Fact, one cannot call oneself a republican and then endorse a king. Never mind an Irish republican.
To quote a revolutionary of the highest regard Bernadette Mc Aliskey “the litmus test for any political party was to boycott genocide Joe Biden in the USA”. This they could not do. Disgraceful and totally wrong. While children ate grass, they ate steak with their imperialist masters. When they couldn’t stand up for the poor Palestinian people under such circumstances, how can anyone involved hold their head up? Or expect them to pursue a 32-county socialist republic?
So they try to delegitimise our fallen friends, families and comrades. The very people who got them there in the first place. The thousands of years spent in prisons all over the world by Irish republicans now has to be criminalised, so they can cosy up to their masters. Well, this will not be permitted to happen while there are genuine republicans alive who will maintain their memories with dignity and pride.
The British manipulated this situation to murder what they call their own citizens. They allowed RUC members, ordinary working-class soldiers and civilians to be murdered by their agents. Their agents under the control of the British security services. The report has pointed to countless murders they could have prevented. They choose not to by protecting agents. They are the culprits in this situation and the law makers again become the law breakers. As for the minority of members of the Republican Movement who became British agents they are to be condemned as what they are - informers and the lowest of the low in betrayals of their fellow republicans.
But the majority of people who joined and helped the Republican Movement during the war were and are the salt of the earth, they give everything for that cause in which they one hundred percent believed. These were ordinary people placed in an extortionary situation not of their making. I would pay homage to these brave people and many families destroyed and broken as a result of the war. We will not stand idlily by and allow people to condemn the courageous volunteers of the Irish Republican Army. We salute them and all those who played any part in the struggle for freedom independence and the 32-county socialist republic. That struggle continues in a different way today and for this past 20 years.
In conclusion, the presence of agents within the ranks of the IRA does not condemn the men and women of the IRA who were prepared to lay down their lives, not for a corrupted and infiltrated leadership but for the people of Ireland. For this we will forever be in your debt and we will never condemn you or your sacrifice and commitment to the cause of Irish freedom, and the establishment of the 32-county socialist republic.
East Tyrone Remembers.
⏩Frankie Quinn is the National Organiser for the 1916 Societies.