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The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence - Sylvia Plath

I am deeply honoured that Ausubo Press felt strongly enough about my writings to want to put them out as a book. It is not just an acknowledgement of the effort I put in to writing them against a background of stress, ostracism and intimidation but is also recognition of those republicans who spoke to me and allowed me to bring to public attention their views and concerns.

At those times none of us were remotely concerned with books. Nor had I any desire to write one. Today, after the publication of Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism, I don’t claim to have written 'a book'. At different times over the past ten years I wrote articles which evolved into a book. Perhaps it is best described as having put a book together rather than having written one.

For long I had been pressed by many in the academic and journalistic world to publish my doctoral dissertation on the formative years of the Provisional Movement. I suppose it is par for the course with PhDs. While I thought it was probably worthwhile to pursue such a venture, a number of reasons militated against it. Having become a walking footnote in the final months of my PhD in 1999, I have never yet managed to return to it. Even now the thought of having to read it again seems a chore for another day. Ultimately, I had no inclination to put the effort in that would turn it into a book.

Holding it together in a coherent and integrated manner was never the challenge, as was demonstrated by the writing of the PhD. On occasion I would produce chapters for academic publications, providing they did not take up too much of my time and the subject interested me sufficiently. There were other book offers which did appeal to me but time constraints prohibited any serious pursuit of them. On one less than memorable occasion myself and a friend started writing a history of the Northern state for a British publisher only to find that neither of us had the time to complete it within the terms of the contract.

One academic suggested that publication of the thesis would allow me to make the breakthrough into mainstream academia. Even being a close personal friend failed to assist him in understanding me, at least on that. The academic mainstream where I had many friends and colleagues had no attraction for me. Having tutored at Queens in 1994, I gratefully chalked up the experience but declined offers to do any more. Teaching was not what I wanted to do. Occasionally I would guest lecture on a masters course or deliver papers at Irish, British and European universities. Yet overall, I never longed for the conventional academic life and was mildly surprised to read in a 1994 issue of the Guardian that I sought a career in academia! It fitted the narratorial schema of the Guardian piece better than it would ever fit me. Outside of researching and procuring new knowledge which could be placed in the public domain, the centre of gravity in academia had little in the way of drawing power for me.

In a sense the choice was made for me rather than by me. Given the demands of an already pressing work schedule combined with the deep felt need to give attention to my young children, born after the completion of the PhD, I was confronted with decisions that had to be made about my time. I opted not to write books in deference to the regular churning out of short pieces that would explain events as they were happening. I informed my academic friend of this. He did not agree but remained supportive throughout.

With time to reflect I now think the decision was the correct one. While there are some great works analysing the peace process, none better than Ed Moloney’s critically reflective A Secret History of the IRA, there is a drought of critical republican voices speaking in raw event-induced tones irrigating this under-worked field; the outcome of spontaneous heated involvement rather than cold detached reflection. Were it otherwise, the idea for this book would probably not have gestated to the point of delivery. In any event it is now here and readers can make their own minds up.

The articles in it will not constitute a blockbuster but even at my most hesitant I could not deny that they were part of a blockade buster. And the blockade they helped bust was that old anti-intellectual cudgel called censorship. In spite of everything that has happened to republicanism, the element that reviled me most was the brazen censorship employed by Provisional leaders against their own republican kith and kin, equalled only by the ease with which those being led acquiesced in their own silencing. My unassailable belief in the right to express a political opinion had been forged in the crucible of Dublin’s Section 31 and London’s Broadcasting Ban. I could never reconcile myself to the notion that anyone had the right to bully another into withholding expression of their political opinion. I became steely in my determination that it would never work with me. Armed with the unstinting support of my wife and a small band of redoubtable friends, some of whom remained within the Provisional Movement, I would not be moved in the slightest by thought police, street thugs, unsolicited visits from the sinister, hectoring bullies, anonymous maligners, house picketers, ostracism, whisper weasels, vexing editors, enraged columnists, whoever. It simply did not matter. The censor, not I, would skulk away tail buried between legs.

A movement that had been the victim of state and media censorship should never have allowed itself to be become an unrelenting practitioner of the same dark art. But history is replete with examples of former revolutionaries moving from positions of seeking to expand freedom to positions of seeking, often brutally, to curb it. For this reason, although Good Friday, like other books over the past ten years, may add something to our understanding of the peace process, in many ways the classic work on that phenomenon was written long before the Provisional IRA ever formed: George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
‘as the animals look from Napoleon to Pilkington, from man to pig and from pig back to man, they find that they are unable to tell the difference.’

Revolutionaries, with a few notable exceptions, it is invariably the same with them. They promise so much, deliver so little, and end up trying to conceal the unbridgeable chasm between destination and terminus. For the Provisional Movement hiding the gap between the destination of Irish unity and the terminus of partition depended on a regime of silence. Against that backcloth the writings that went into Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism, were a noisy protest that disturbed the stultifying calm.




Good Friday, The Death of Irish Republicanism
is available at these online outlets:
Ausubo Press; Online Bookshop at Queens, Small Press Distribution.

You can also order directly from Gill & Macmillan:
Email: sales@gillmacmillan.ie

Are you a bookseller looking to stock Good Friday?
Call or Fax your order to: Tel: +353 1 500 9500 or Fax: +353 1 500 9599

Gill & Macmillan is now the exclusive distributor in Ireland and the UK If the book is not on the shelves of your local bookstore,
ask them to order it for you!

No Minute Silence

Joe Graham, Davy Carlin, Malachi O Doherty, Ruth Dudley Edwards and Richard English weigh in on Good Friday.

"A fascinating insight into politics in the six north eastern counties of Ireland, some times referred to as "Northern Ireland". There is perhaps no better person to write about the death of republicanism through the post "Good Friday" agreement than Anthony McIntyre, a man who courageously voiced his opinion throughout, and in the face of, many threats directed against him and his family. To not have this book on your "Irish" book shelf is to have an incomplete understanding of The Belfast Agreement, alias, "The Good Friday Agreement"."
- Joe Graham, Rushlight Magazine and author of Show Me The Man

*

"McIntryre’s writing and vision over the last decade of the Irish Peace process, indeed puts him up there with the likes of Swift, Shaw and Behan, as stated.

In addition to that, McIntyre was key to facilitating debate and discussion at this time when others attempted, and succeeded on many occasions, in closing down any alternative view or dissent from a particular line.

McIntyre’s understanding through his writing of what was to come to pass long before it had happened had made both him a target for those who had shouted Never Never, and those who had wanted a lid kept on the fact that it was actually happening.

And through all of that, he and others had stood their ground on that understanding, while providing and protecting a platform for many alternative views, and those wishing to express them.

And whether he agreed or not with such views, he and The Blanket nevertheless supported the right for them to be aired, discussed and debated.

This book will be essential reading, as had been The Blanket site, for those looking a fuller understanding of the Irish Peace process, and what that had taken it there."
- Davy Carlin
Belfast

*

"I have been familiar with Anthony McIntyre's journalism for many years. Though I am not a republican I have been struck by the integrity and insight of his writing. Anthony McIntyre was right when many were wrong, for instance when he confidently predicted that the IRA would disarm, even while the IRA leadership was saying it would not.

His own position is that the republican movement has betrayed its historic cause. He is right in that, though this is hardly a matter of great sadness to those who did not endorse that cause.

There is a human aspect to this too, that even an outsider can acknowledge; Anthony was one of those armed by the IRA and urged to kill others in the pursuit of political goals that have proven unattainable. With the political compromises, he is entitled to ask: what was it for? He is entitled to feel that his bloody investment in a Republic has been betrayed. He is entitled to marvel that those who armed him can now deny that they had ever played a part in the IRA campaign and have built political respectability for themselves on that lie.

For historians and other journalists, the writings of Anthony McIntyre are an invaluable resource. Here we have the counter record of republican peace processing, the cynical view from the inside. No future histories of the period and the process will have any credibility if they don't draw on it."
- Malachi O Doherty is the author of four books on Irish political and cultural issues; the latest of which is Empty Pulpits: Ireland's Retreat from Religion (Gill and Macmillan).

*

"Although Anthony McIntyre and I are poles apart politically, I admire his fine, incisive, honest and brave journalism. Anyone who truly wants to understand the underbelly of the Irish peace process should read Good Friday."
- Ruth Dudley Edwards, journalist

*

"Highly intelligent, honest and original. McIntyre's book should be read by anyone with an interest in modern Irish republicanism."
- Richard English, author of Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA

*



Good Friday, The Death of Irish Republicanism
is available at these online outlets:
Ausubo Press; Online Bookshop at Queens, Small Press Distribution.

You can also order directly from Gill & Macmillan:
Email: sales@gillmacmillan.ie

Are you a bookseller looking to stock Good Friday?
Call or Fax your order to: Tel: +353 1 500 9500 or Fax: +353 1 500 9599

Gill & Macmillan is now the exclusive distributor in Ireland and the UK If the book is not on the shelves of your local bookstore,
ask them to order it for you!

Good Friday Reviews: What people are saying

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