Liam O Ruairc reviews Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism for The Sovereign Nation."[...] what can be done? For McIntyre, repeating Vaclav Havel's call to speak truth to power and Milan Kundera's point that 'the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting'. The articles contained in this book are an excellent instance of speaking truth to power and a poignant example of “the awesome power of Republican memory to triumph over those who wish to forget what they inflicted and those who conveniently want us to forget what it was all about.”"
"Speaking Truth to Power"
Liam O Ruairc,
The Sovereign Nation,
May, 2009
For Ed Moloney, former IRA lifer turned writer Anthony McIntyre is “the most persistent, thoughtful, incisive, troublesome and penetrating” critic of the peace process. The vast majority of the articles contained in this book first appeared on the now defunct The Blanket website. As the backcover description of the book accurately and succinctly puts it:
“It is a contemporaneous commentary on the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement, before the spin masters could have their version of history received as the established wisdom. (It) challenges the standard (Provisional) Republican narrative and is a much needed historical document for anyone wanting to understand the Irish peace process from an Irish republican perspective.”
As McIntyre makes it clear on a number of occasions, it is not the 'peace' he is opposed to, but the 'process'. The peace process might include republicans but from the very beginning excluded republicanism. The Belfast Agreement does not represent some 'stepping stone' to a united Ireland, “on the contrary, it is a stumbling block to the unification of the country”, as Provisional republicans now officially accept that there will be no change in the constitutional position of the six counties without the consent of a majority there. The whole thing is less a case of chickens coming home to roost and more one of Turkeys celebrating Christmas, and therefore McIntyre is adamant that “Turkeys should not be celebrating Christmas”.
For McIntyre the difference between what Good Friday Republicanism achieved and the objectives Easter Sunday Republicans died to secure is the difference between the politics of a Free Ireland and the politics of Free Presbyterianism. “We are all Sticks now,” concluded the late John Kelly, as republicans without republicanism simply are constitutional nationalists. In the 26 counties, the choice is between Provisional Fianna Fail and Real Fianna Fail, and people in the 6 counties can now choose at Easter between two sticky parades shouting 'Up Stormont !' at each other.
That does not mean that McIntyre is advocating the continuation of armed struggle.
“Genuinely taking the gun out of Irish politics would be a step forward. Taking the dignity and defiance out of Irish republicanism is a step too far.”
That step too far is analysed at length throughout the book.
“A revolutionary body that settles for and then seeks to legitimise the very terms it fought against simultaneously delegitimises and arguably criminalises its own existence.”
By accepting the Good Friday Agreement, the Provisional movement settled for less than what had been offered to Nationalists at Sunningdale in 1973, an offer Republicans had rejected then.
Therefore not only has the Provisional campaign ended in strategic failure, but it raises the question of what has it all been for.
“Not only will Republicans be consigned to administer British rule for the foreseeable future, the acceptance by them of the principle of decommissioning has served to delegitimise and criminalise the previous Republican resistance to that rule. It also elevates to a higher moral plateau British state weaponry. Basically Republicans are being told that the weapons used by Francis Hughes, the deceased hunger striker, to kill a member of the British SAS death squad are contaminated in a manner which the weapons used to slaughter the innocent of Bloody Sunday and the victims of shoot to kill are not. Replacing the slogan 'SS RUC' by 'Yes, Yes, RUC - It's the force to set us free!'”
is the humiliating consequence of the Provisional's acceptance of British policing.
“Things have been inverted so much that those who once called Pearse Jordan 'comrade' have no destination but that certain day when they shall address those who killed him as 'colleague'.”
This was inevitable given that the Provos could not have ministers making laws while at the same time refusing to recognise the force supposed to implement them.
That also means that the Provisionals will have to support the repression and criminalisation of Republicans still engaged in physical force resistance against the British state.
“Activities Sinn Fein previously demanded be rewarded with political status will now have to be termed criminal in order to maintain the fiction of the PSNI as a service engaged exclusively in civic policing. From shouting 'Up the Ra! Jail Paisley!' the Provos are now shouting 'Up Paisley! Jail the Ra!”
As all the above illustrates,
“no informer throughout the course of the conflict has been able to deal such a blow to the military capacity of the IRA as its own leadership has: At the risk of oversimplifying, the minister's job is to shaft republicanism; that of the agent is to shaft republicans. While few outside the ranks of the purists would call McGuinness a rat on this basis, there is no clear blue ideological sea between minister and agent.”
Republicanism has been destroyed from within. How was this possible? The leadership of the Provisional movement has been very skilled at managing its base. As Ed Moloney reminds us in his foreword, it was through “secrecy, lies and duplicity” that Adams was able to manoeuvre his base.
Brendan Hughes bitterly remarked in his interview with McIntyre: “The political process has created a class of professional liars and unfortunately it contains many Republicans.”
Before it was about dying for Ireland, now it is about lying for Ireland. In this context, McIntyre emphasises that “it is important that we continue to reassert what we believe to be the truth”.
But if grassroots Republicans are 'the most politicised community in Europe' as they allege, how were they not able to see through the lies and duplicity?
Secrecy, lies and duplicity have been facilitated by the fact that people are more loyal to the movement than to the aims of the movement. (“The Republican leadership has always exploited our loyalty,” remarked Brendan Hughes); therefore republicanism is whatever the leadership says it is. 'Loyalty to the Big Lad' is stronger than ideology and political consciousness. It is an instance of the old social democrat maxim that 'the movement is everything and the principles nothing'.
McIntyre is very angry at what Ed Moloney calls “the bovine complacence” of the Provo rank and file for staying silent in the face of such outrageous and obvious deception. McIntyre proposes that the IRA rename itself the IBA - 'I Believe Anything'.
As for those who do not believe anything but remain silent, McIntyre notes: “We live in a world where many are more afraid of being isolated than they are of being wrong. Consequently, they take the easy option and are content to be wrong.”
Critical questions will lead to social ostracism, as Richard O Rawe can testify after he challenged the Provo's version of the 1981 hunger strikes. “To his credit, being wrong was more repulsive to him than being isolated.”
The same goes for McIntyre and his partner: for speaking out and defending critical thought, they were vilified, shunned by the community and a mob of Provos picketed their home. He documents at length cases which show that when isolation and ostracism by the community are not sufficient, it is suppression and intimidation that the Provisionals will use against those opposed to their political project.
“Rite of passage from a position of radical critique to one of conservative entrenchement involves undergoing a certain ritual. Stamping out former comrades is like a symbolic public act if circumcision whereby the radical boy becomes a conservative man -- the bloody and sharpened knife has to be brandished in order to demonstrate that the snip is complete.”
The book is strong when challenging some of the dominant interpretations of the political developments of the last ten years and offering an alternative perspective informed by what the author believes are the core values of Provisional republicanisn: “defence, defiance and dissent”.
However McIntyre's contention that republicanism is a spent force is more debatable. For McIntyre, it was particular British policies, not the British presence in itself which fuelled the development of provisional republicanism. While the book is a clear product of “defeat, decommissioning and disbandment”, it is much too early to say that it is the “death of Irish Republicanism”. There is still political space for Republicanism, even if it is reduced from what it once was.
Viewed from a longer historical perspective, it is possible to make the case that it could grow if the conditions are right. Until that moment what can be done? For McIntyre, repeating Vaclav Havel's call to speak truth to power and Milan Kundera's point that 'the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting'. The articles contained in this book are an excellent instance of speaking truth to power and a poignant example of “the awesome power of Republican memory to triumph over those who wish to forget what they inflicted and those who conveniently want us to forget what it was all about.”
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!
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!
Sam Millar reviews Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism for Verbal Magazine."Despite its academically-inclined leanings, readers should not be put off, as the book is compulsive reading and offers at times a very accessible insight to the key events and personalities which have shaped the contemporary history of the Republican Movement from the early 70s to present day."
They haven’t gone away, you know…or have they? Sam Millar finds out in this insightful new book by a former Republican prisoner.
Verbal Magazine
When a book boasts a monumental declaration such as the death of Irish Republicanism, it had better stand up to scrutiny.
And so it was with relish I tucked into Anthony McIntyre’s Good Friday, seeking not a full dinner, but at least some tasty morsels. McIntyre is a former republican prisoner, imprisoned for killing a loyalist paramilitary. He took part in the Blanket Protest against the criminalisation of political prisoners in the H Blocks. Upon his release, he finished his PhD at Queen’s University, Belfast, and went on to become the blogger of the now defunct The Blanket. It’s from this website that most, if not all, the contents of his book - or diary - originate. For his outspoken and mostly articulate comments against the leadership of Sinn Fein, he was hounded, ostracised and even had his house picketed on numerous occasions, sometimes by former comrades, other times from rent-a-mob gangs – most of whom had never got their hands dirty during the bloody conflict.
The book starts rather shakily with a foreword from Ed Maloney in ‘New York’ dubiously informing any uneducated observer that the war waged by the IRA lasted for the best part of three decades and ‘produced a death toll of over 3,500…’ Puzzlingly, there is no mention of loyalist or security force involvement in that grisly death toll.
Thankfully, once Ed is sent back to ‘New York’ and McIntyre takes the helm, the sailing becomes a bit smoother – albeit not for republicans, I should hasten to add.
Despite its academically-inclined leanings, readers should not be put off, as the book is compulsive reading and offers at times a very accessible insight to the key events and personalities which have shaped the contemporary history of the Republican Movement from the early 70s to present day.
The book is most absorbing when it details happenings we think we’re familiar with: The Hunger Strikes, the brutal murder of Robert McCartney, Decommissioning, The Colombia Three, Stakeknife and, of course, The Good Friday Agreement. They are all there, critically analysed in a concise voice.
At times the book reads like a Shakespearean tragedy peppered with Greek irony; other times it reads like The Diary of Samuel Pepys or Orwell’s prophetically brilliant Animal Farm. Granted, the heroes are few in the inner pages, but there is a grand mix of Machiavellian villains headed by ‘The Big Lad’ and ‘Tombstone Tom’, respectively better known by their nom de plumes, Brownie and Liam Og. I will leave it to the discerning reader to uncover their true identities.
The author’s opinions will interest those looking for an alternative to the uncritical party voice of Sinn Fein, or those wishing to gain an insight into the machinations of life inside that organisation. Some within the breathing republican family will no doubt scoff at the idea of being classified as dead. Only time will tell if Doctor McIntyre’s grim prognosis of The Republican Movement is accurate or if, to paraphrase Mark Twain: its death has been greatly exaggerated, once again…
Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism is an important book, gripping, honest and revelatory, it’s one that probably will not find it’s way onto Gerry Adams’ must-read list. It should, however, be on yours.
Read more by Sam Millar at http://www.millarcrime.com.
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!
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!
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