Anthony McIntyre spoke at an Irish republican hosted event last Saturday.



I am not sure why I continue to come to these events. Before I folded tent in Belfast, and at the last meeting to discuss republicanism that I had attended in the city, there were two things I committed myself not to repeating: turn up at either a mass or another republican meeting. By that stage in my life I had concluded that both possessed equal ability to change material circumstances – none. I have remained faithful to neither commitment, but as I picked up from a Mexican television drama the other evening, not being able to keep promises is a realisation that comes with age.

Having breached both undertakings, I haven’t turned up at either type of event for reasons of belief in anything that was being said, but more out of courtesy. I have no more belief in the afterlife than I have in "The Republic." I would much prefer "The Republic" if it could ever be delivered, but I have as much expectation of seeing that as I have of seeing Heaven.

And no more would I turn up at a funeral mass to tell those there that I have come to share in their hope, than I would turn up at an event like this professing a sharing in the hope of those present, presuming they all do actually think "The Republic" has a future.

I thank the organisers for inviting me and I have no intention of besmirching their efforts. But I am a firm believer in ideational creativity and part of that creativity is the ability of ideas to navigate their way through difficult terrain. The challenge lies in hearing what some holders of ideas do not want to hear: alternative viewpoints, which if pushed to their limits might just pose an existential threat to the belief system which is home to the those ideas the householders seek to promote and protect.

I attended an Independent Workers’ Union meeting in Dublin last night, the body which asked me to appear here today. I do not speak on its behalf nor shall I attempt to lay out its vision for the future of "The Republic." In fact, I don’t think it has a collective vision of the future, members being left to think pretty much what they want on the matter. There are serious disagreements within the IWU but what struck me about last night’s meeting is that despite the clash of ideas, the trenchantly held positions, after the initial butt of heads many people retain a capacity to do business in the midst of a battle of perspectives without personal rancour or spite. I say this to capture a sense of the Camus sentiment and transpose it from the war of military battlefields to the war of ideas, that "even in destruction there is a right way and a wrong way – and there are limits." The limit has to be that we do not seek to annihilate our opponents nor their personal character while we are in the midst of seeking to destroy their ideas. People have rights, opinions do not.

I know there has been some online concern about inviting a member of Sinn Fein to today’s discussion about the future of "The Republic" when so many republicans with good reason think that the umbilical cord tying Sinn Fein to "The Republic" has long since been cut by the party’s leaders in pursuit of political careers. No-Platforming is an alarming and censorious position and should be robustly opposed. It constitutes a serious assault on freedom of inquiry and undermines public discourse. I am less concerned with defending Sinn Fein’s right to speak than I am with defending the right of others to hear what Sinn Fein has to say - even if for no reason other than impaling, discursively of course, the speaker.

For this reason, the organisers of today’s conference deserve credit for having invited a speaker from a party that RSF probably is more ideologically averse to than any other. It should also be said that it deserves credit in equal measure for inviting me, who has not the slightest contribution to make to its vision of a new Ireland. While I continue to self-define as a republican, it is of minimal interest to me how others might choose to view that definition. I am not a republican because I think it has a future but because it was part of my past. If Germany for example were to sink beneath the waves never to re-emerge, the inhabitants of the territory would not cease to be Germans: just Germans with no Germany to relate to. Pretty much as I see my relationship to republicanism.

There are of course aspects of republicanism that continue to inform how I think: the most prevalent being secularism, where I think the society in which we live has made great republican strides, but not ones fuelled by republicans. Nationalism, I have not the faintest interest in. The notion of obligatory nationalism no more appeals to me than the notion of obligatory Catholicism.

And so, to the meat of today’s event. Republicanism has failed. It is incapable of providing an answer to the question of partition that satisfies anyone other than the small coterie of true believers. The late Taoiseach Charles Haughey took to describing partition as a failed political entity. This has proven to be a wholly inverted reading of the issue that has so taxed republican minds since its inception. The failed political entity is republicanism. Merely look at its moribund state, flailing and marginalised while partition remains solid, threatened only by constitutional nationalism and then only in a limited way. Partition has survived and in my view is likely to continue doing so well beyond the foreseeable future.

Robin Wilson when editor of Fortnight once quipped that in the North no pessimist was ever proved wrong. Guided more instinctively by that thought rather than it being constantly at the fore of my mind, I have - with minimum effort expended - not faltered in my resolve to refrain from paying the admission price to the club of the incurable optimists: the abandonment of a reason, forged by the tempered steel of experience. True, it is impossible to make a stable prediction from the insanity of instability that the right wing Priti-Boris gang has engineered through in the interests of self-aggrandisement, but the most cohesive bloc in the North vis a vis the existence of partition, shows not the slightest inclination of weakening the power of its veto. It remains more opposed to Dublin than it is enamoured to Brussels. That is the status quo and no amount of republican rain dancing or praying at the abstentionist altar is going to fracture that monolithic core belief. The power of partition lies not in its desirability but in its strategic capacity to impose serious limitations on the options available for subverting it.

The partition moulded model for ushering in any substantive transformation in the constitutional status of the North is the suggested border poll. That it is the seemingly unassailable hegemonic model rooted in the partitionist consent principle is a damning indictment of republicanism, which seems to make nothing happen. Despite today’s event being plugged as the Way Forward, too often republicanism is seen as being intent on finding the way back, on occasion embracing strategicless militarism, an escalatory but regressive culture of honour, a monolithic nationalism.

Marisa McGlinchey’s striking book Unfinished Business could as easily have been titled Unfinished Business to Remain Unfinished. While the scholarship was excellent, too often, to my ear at any rate, the contributors sounded like Plymouth Brethren: devout and unswerving in their belief but without a spare sixpence of an idea to fumble for, in that memorable phrase of a Sean Ó'Faoláin character.

Republicans can find many ways to be politically productive, and many of them indeed do, without compromising their republicanism. But it comes with the rider that if they forever seek to have their actions guided by the holy grail of the core republican tenet of "The Republic", they will continue as equally to experience the limiting effects of worshipping such a god: small groups like ourselves meeting in small numbers, exhibiting the strategic sterility of those cows in a French field watching a train go by but without having an ability to do anything other than watch: strategically inconsequential, politically irrelevant.

Republicanism should not be a cultic idea where the gratification of cult leaders is the measure of success rather than republican goals and objectives; where rights against republicanism are given equal validation as the right to be a republican. If today’s event is the same old, same old, it prompts me to reflect on a quote by the late Mohammed Ali: A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

Failed Political Entity

Anthony McIntyre spoke at an Irish republican hosted event last Saturday.



I am not sure why I continue to come to these events. Before I folded tent in Belfast, and at the last meeting to discuss republicanism that I had attended in the city, there were two things I committed myself not to repeating: turn up at either a mass or another republican meeting. By that stage in my life I had concluded that both possessed equal ability to change material circumstances – none. I have remained faithful to neither commitment, but as I picked up from a Mexican television drama the other evening, not being able to keep promises is a realisation that comes with age.

Having breached both undertakings, I haven’t turned up at either type of event for reasons of belief in anything that was being said, but more out of courtesy. I have no more belief in the afterlife than I have in "The Republic." I would much prefer "The Republic" if it could ever be delivered, but I have as much expectation of seeing that as I have of seeing Heaven.

And no more would I turn up at a funeral mass to tell those there that I have come to share in their hope, than I would turn up at an event like this professing a sharing in the hope of those present, presuming they all do actually think "The Republic" has a future.

I thank the organisers for inviting me and I have no intention of besmirching their efforts. But I am a firm believer in ideational creativity and part of that creativity is the ability of ideas to navigate their way through difficult terrain. The challenge lies in hearing what some holders of ideas do not want to hear: alternative viewpoints, which if pushed to their limits might just pose an existential threat to the belief system which is home to the those ideas the householders seek to promote and protect.

I attended an Independent Workers’ Union meeting in Dublin last night, the body which asked me to appear here today. I do not speak on its behalf nor shall I attempt to lay out its vision for the future of "The Republic." In fact, I don’t think it has a collective vision of the future, members being left to think pretty much what they want on the matter. There are serious disagreements within the IWU but what struck me about last night’s meeting is that despite the clash of ideas, the trenchantly held positions, after the initial butt of heads many people retain a capacity to do business in the midst of a battle of perspectives without personal rancour or spite. I say this to capture a sense of the Camus sentiment and transpose it from the war of military battlefields to the war of ideas, that "even in destruction there is a right way and a wrong way – and there are limits." The limit has to be that we do not seek to annihilate our opponents nor their personal character while we are in the midst of seeking to destroy their ideas. People have rights, opinions do not.

I know there has been some online concern about inviting a member of Sinn Fein to today’s discussion about the future of "The Republic" when so many republicans with good reason think that the umbilical cord tying Sinn Fein to "The Republic" has long since been cut by the party’s leaders in pursuit of political careers. No-Platforming is an alarming and censorious position and should be robustly opposed. It constitutes a serious assault on freedom of inquiry and undermines public discourse. I am less concerned with defending Sinn Fein’s right to speak than I am with defending the right of others to hear what Sinn Fein has to say - even if for no reason other than impaling, discursively of course, the speaker.

For this reason, the organisers of today’s conference deserve credit for having invited a speaker from a party that RSF probably is more ideologically averse to than any other. It should also be said that it deserves credit in equal measure for inviting me, who has not the slightest contribution to make to its vision of a new Ireland. While I continue to self-define as a republican, it is of minimal interest to me how others might choose to view that definition. I am not a republican because I think it has a future but because it was part of my past. If Germany for example were to sink beneath the waves never to re-emerge, the inhabitants of the territory would not cease to be Germans: just Germans with no Germany to relate to. Pretty much as I see my relationship to republicanism.

There are of course aspects of republicanism that continue to inform how I think: the most prevalent being secularism, where I think the society in which we live has made great republican strides, but not ones fuelled by republicans. Nationalism, I have not the faintest interest in. The notion of obligatory nationalism no more appeals to me than the notion of obligatory Catholicism.

And so, to the meat of today’s event. Republicanism has failed. It is incapable of providing an answer to the question of partition that satisfies anyone other than the small coterie of true believers. The late Taoiseach Charles Haughey took to describing partition as a failed political entity. This has proven to be a wholly inverted reading of the issue that has so taxed republican minds since its inception. The failed political entity is republicanism. Merely look at its moribund state, flailing and marginalised while partition remains solid, threatened only by constitutional nationalism and then only in a limited way. Partition has survived and in my view is likely to continue doing so well beyond the foreseeable future.

Robin Wilson when editor of Fortnight once quipped that in the North no pessimist was ever proved wrong. Guided more instinctively by that thought rather than it being constantly at the fore of my mind, I have - with minimum effort expended - not faltered in my resolve to refrain from paying the admission price to the club of the incurable optimists: the abandonment of a reason, forged by the tempered steel of experience. True, it is impossible to make a stable prediction from the insanity of instability that the right wing Priti-Boris gang has engineered through in the interests of self-aggrandisement, but the most cohesive bloc in the North vis a vis the existence of partition, shows not the slightest inclination of weakening the power of its veto. It remains more opposed to Dublin than it is enamoured to Brussels. That is the status quo and no amount of republican rain dancing or praying at the abstentionist altar is going to fracture that monolithic core belief. The power of partition lies not in its desirability but in its strategic capacity to impose serious limitations on the options available for subverting it.

The partition moulded model for ushering in any substantive transformation in the constitutional status of the North is the suggested border poll. That it is the seemingly unassailable hegemonic model rooted in the partitionist consent principle is a damning indictment of republicanism, which seems to make nothing happen. Despite today’s event being plugged as the Way Forward, too often republicanism is seen as being intent on finding the way back, on occasion embracing strategicless militarism, an escalatory but regressive culture of honour, a monolithic nationalism.

Marisa McGlinchey’s striking book Unfinished Business could as easily have been titled Unfinished Business to Remain Unfinished. While the scholarship was excellent, too often, to my ear at any rate, the contributors sounded like Plymouth Brethren: devout and unswerving in their belief but without a spare sixpence of an idea to fumble for, in that memorable phrase of a Sean Ó'Faoláin character.

Republicans can find many ways to be politically productive, and many of them indeed do, without compromising their republicanism. But it comes with the rider that if they forever seek to have their actions guided by the holy grail of the core republican tenet of "The Republic", they will continue as equally to experience the limiting effects of worshipping such a god: small groups like ourselves meeting in small numbers, exhibiting the strategic sterility of those cows in a French field watching a train go by but without having an ability to do anything other than watch: strategically inconsequential, politically irrelevant.

Republicanism should not be a cultic idea where the gratification of cult leaders is the measure of success rather than republican goals and objectives; where rights against republicanism are given equal validation as the right to be a republican. If today’s event is the same old, same old, it prompts me to reflect on a quote by the late Mohammed Ali: A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

15 comments:

  1. Amen, amen ... and amen again.

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  2. I'm sure that went down like a lead fart with the Shinner. Articulate, reasoned and balanced logic. Great speech Anthony.

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  3. Great speech delivered with your customary wit and erudition, Anthony!

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  4. I'm sure you will regain the faith and find yourself teleported to Anfield in the near future 🔮. 😀

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  5. AM, it’s such a convincing argument it needs to be put out regularly. Directly or indirectly, I’m sure this framing has saved many from the same prison regime you faced. Are gruelling as it may feel, it’s saving potentially wasted lives. Maybe you deduced this already!

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  6. Not sure it is that convincing at all - is there any evidence anybody is listening? You agreeing is only me preaching to the converted. Thanks for the comment and it would be nice to think it were spot on but ...

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  7. I spoke to a guy the other day who is hugely sympathetic to what I see as the malaise - it was a sharp exchange in which he told me Lyra was the cause of her own death by trying to get a story! It is impossible to reason with that logic. At the end the two of us shook hands and went on our separate ways but it left me thinking as to why some are not thinking

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  8. AM,
    a convert l, but one that you had baptised!

    In terms of thinking , or lack there of, isn’t this why fascism is always maintains an appeal to some? Some people can’t handle thinking for themselves and thus welcome the pressure of choice being taken from them. I’m assuming the more complex our societies becomes , the greater this allure will be.

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  9. growing up and living on an island that often mimics its nearest neighbour; surrounded by huge propaganda outlets and indeed numerous indoctrination schools, propped up by armed thugs can make one very pessimistic indeed. This potent mixture can even make one believe in things they really shouldn't entertain. Funnily enough I aspire to see the end of world poverty and cancer, and I am often encouraged by these potent outlets to keep giving my money everywhere I go despite my heart and head telling me there's no chance of that happening.......and yet a more achievable goal of a genuine irish republic is somehow unachievable? Did I mention btw I was a bit of a pessimist!

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  10. I thought your contribution was very much a useful one, Tony, though I heard a few groans and noted some shaking of heads. As you’ve often spoken of in our exchanges here on TPQ, if Republicanism is to have a future beyond exile in its own purpose built ivory tower then it must overcome the criticisms fired at it here. Unlike yourself, I am a perennial OPTIMIST and can see circumstances coming into play that will pull change in their wake. Republicans must engage in the ‘war for ideas’ as it here relates — that is the battlefield in the here and now.

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  11. Thanks Sean - never heard the groans but I am not surprised. What I was surprised at was the comments from the floor where there seemed to be some appreciation of where things were at.

    I don't mind going although I realise it would not be of much use. I am friendly with Des and would always speak if he asked. Just hope he doesn't ask again!!!

    Thought he spoke well too.

    Much of it is republican theology to me but sure we talked the whole way home about it so no point in going over it all again

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  12. Anthony,

    The Irish Republic was Proclaimed in 1916 and later again in 1949 by Sean McBride and company.

    https://www.britishpathe.com/video/irish-republic-proclaimed

    And as always, just like other republics, it’s been a work in progress.

    If you really don’t think it has a future, then what does?

    Monarchy? Theocracy? Autocracy? Continued British rule? No thanks!

    And if republicanism informs how you think about secularism…

    Then how is that aspect of republicanism not fueled by republicans?

    Isn’t that what you, a republican, are doing here, fueling secularism?

    And if you haven’t the faintest interest in Irish nationalism…

    Does that mean you know longer bother with Irish music, culture, language, sports and literature?

    And who is calling for obligatory Irish Nationalism?

    Someone sticking a gun to your head and saying: “Enjoy the craic at your local pub!”

    There is no more notion in Ireland of obligatory nationalism now than there is obligatory Catholicism.

    And nor should there ever be. These are Unionist straw men.

    So, to borrow a phrase, to the meat of the matter:

    Irish Republicanism hasn’t failed, it just stumbled.

    Since the Irish Republic is already here and it just needs more work.

    And while Partition has survived that’s only because it has relied upon the kindness of strangers.

    But nothing lasts forever and the only constant in the universe is change.

    For instance: Jeremy Corbyn may become the next British PM.

    And if so then watch the 6 counties likely get evicted from the UK via a top-down edict.

    Because no way the Labor Party will hazard right-wing religious Unionists controlling their political destiny again.

    Sure, the Unionist Veto beats the Irish all the time because the Irish are weak and fractured.

    But the Unionist Veto won’t beat the British if the British are done with it.

    And Labor will likely be done with it because what other purpose will it serve for them?

    So, to want and desire a united 32 county independent Irish republic, sans the UK…

    Is no different than a Frenchman wanting a united independent French republic, sans the Germans.

    And if that’s what “the holy grail of republicanism” is then so be it and so what.

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  13. Eoghan - god loves a tryer so keep trying and I won't pray for you!

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  14. Anthony,

    How would you know what God loves?

    Have you seen him on your toast this morning?

    On your knees heathen!

    And remember when the British finally left Palestine in 1948...

    It was by way of their own top down edict that got them out.

    Without giving a damn about any prior promises they made there.

    That's imperialism in a nutshell.

    When they're done with you they're done with you.

    And often times it doesn't matter how hard you try or not.



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  15. Eoghan - I saw it in the book you sent me. He loves you, truly!

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