Republicans and Loyalists Hide Behind Rising Myths

Tonight The Pensive Quill features an article by Newton Emerson that addresses issues raised by Dominic Og McGlinchey. It originally featured in the Sunday Times on 27 April 2014 and is reprinted here with permission.

Republicans and Loyalists Hide Behind Rising Myths
Newton Emerson
Sunday Times
27 April 2014

Dissident republicans must “start a conversation on removing the gun from Irish politics”, leading dissident Dominic Og McGlinchey has told The Irish Times. McGlinchey, who left Sinn Fein in 2006 to join the anti-agreement party Eirigi, has been making this argument in public for several months.

In January, the Irish News and The Guardian published identical statements from McGlinchey, backed by Gerard Hodgins, another prominent dissident and a former IRA hunger striker. Their claim that a serious debate is taking place within Ireland’s ever-changing alphabet soup of dissident groups is credible and significant.

McGlinchey’s analysis of why violence should stop is that the Provisional IRA campaign achieved nothing and was actively counterproductive to republican goals. He has never claimed the IRA’s violence was illegitimate but he is unambiguous about its failure as a strategy, with Britain infiltrating, compromising and outgunning the Provisionals until Sinn Fein was manoeuvred into a “partitionist” political settlement.

For dissident paramilitaries, the conclusion has been to carry on fighting, if only to preserve the sacred flame of the “physical force tradition”. For McGlinchey, the more rational conclusion is that violence has always been hopeless, and to continue fighting when your critique of the peace process implicitly recognises this is “mindless” and “dishonourable”.

Sinn Fein’s public position, repeated at Easter rallies, was that the Provisional campaign smashed the “Orange state”, delivered “equality”, and provided a political path to Irish unity. Party speakers were unequivocal in condemning dissidents but only on the basis that past violence has been so successful there is no need for any more.

This is an audacious rewrite of recent history but it appears to have been accepted wholesale by a new generation. When Sinn Fein’s support rose after the 1994 IRA ceasefire, it was seen as a reward for peace. How much of its support now is a retrospective endorsement of war? If violence “worked” in the past, why not turn to it today?

Republican rallies take place at Easter to draw on the legitimacy of the Rising. Once again this year, Sinn Fein speakers linked the Provisional IRA’s “patriot dead” to 1916, while republican commentators sneered at a “Dublin establishment” that stands in tribute at the GPO but recoils in horror from Gerry Adams.

Ultimately, official Ireland’s response to Sinn Fein is also that violence was so successful in the past there was no need for any more. The fact Sinn Fein makes the same argument to the dissidents does not stop all sides pointing it back at each other. In the accidental religiosity of republican Easter, Dublin, Sinn Fein and the dissidents are like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, where one faith is mainly divided over who was the last true prophet. Republicans have never had a Buddha, and Dublin and Sinn Fein are now in the absurd position where McGlinchey is on a higher plane of enlightenment.

Watching from the sidelines are the unionists of Northern Ireland, who have been allowed to think of themselves as blameless by republican self-absorption. A century ago, it was understood that the original sin of violence in modern Ireland was the threatened unionist revolt in Ulster, with the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1913 and the importation of German guns the year after. Almost all nationalist contemporaries saw the Easter Rising as a reaction to this treasonous “Orange card”.

When the south rewrote the Rising as a heroic creation myth, it sought to do so without implying the unionist violence was equally successful. However, the task proved intellectually impossible without invoking the dreaded “two nations” theory, so republicans blanked it out — and respectable unionists have gratefully done the same ever since.

Dublin and Sinn Fein now apparently see royal participation as a way to build unionist outreach into the 1916 centenary. Unease goes beyond the usual suspects to include University College Dublin historian Diarmaid Ferriter. He is right to be worried. The Ulster revolt professed loyalty to the crown to mask its disloyalty to Britain while the Rising leaders railed against monarchism to mask their ethnic chauvinism. If the Queen arrives in 2016 with these historical denials still largely unquestioned, she may only serve to endorse them.

The best way to mark the centenary is to project McGlinchey’s analysis back, not just to the Troubles but to the Rising and Ulster revolt. It would remind us of Redmondite Ireland, and a political path to unity without violence.


11 comments:

  1. A tenuous attempt to run two revolts along the same rails, implying their beginning and their end destination are one and the same – one had their freedom and never intended to lose it or gamble it away and so played a bluff. After all it was the Establishment revolting against the Establishment!!!! The other didn’t and intended to win it – theirs was no bluff.
    Typical unionist clap-trap of justifying their violence while pointing out the terrorism of others.

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  2. Correct Niall.
    Ethnic chauvinism from the British was the reason the Rising leaders asserted the right of the people of Ireland to govern themselves. This ‘all as bad as eachother’ bullshit makes liberals feel good and non-judgemental, but just isn’t supported in the facts, it cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged or else it will return as an agreed truth in the future.

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  3. A thoughtful piece by Newton. But the Redmondite 'political path to unity without violence' needs detailed examination. Were all peaceful paths explored? Were all possible compromises short of unity explored? Was unity a wise goal anyway?

    Niall rehearses the traditional analysis - Unionist 'bluff' - a key error of Republican thinking. A very dangerous one, for it could have led to a civil war of mass slaughter.

    Partition brought us Catholic State and a Protestant State, not ideal - but much better than it might have been. We have lived to make more mistakes, but also to learn from them. Now we have the opportunity to build an agreed future for ourselves in N.I.

    Have dissident Republicans learned nothing?

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  4. A closed minded analyst that partition was and is a compromise to the 'IRISH' problem. While trying to compare oppressor and oppressed, without the objective analyst the problem is an 'ENGLISH' problem, and that its not republican's who have brought the gun into Irish politics but the British. And that its not the so called dissidents that hold that gun to the head of the Irish people Republican, Unionist and Dissenter but Britain.

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  5. Wolfesbane
    Where have you been a cara? You ask hypothetical questions about how Ireland would have been if unionists were "forced" into a united Ireland which is fair enough, however why do unionist always omit that British imperialism is the ONLY component of Irelands agony. Is it not?

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  6. AM Og said:
    'the problem is an 'ENGLISH' problem'

    And ours too, be we Ulster or Irish. Our conflict hurt all sides.

    But if you mean the problem is CAUSED by the English, then that is simplistic. Ireland and Britain had a relationship that was two-way. Gaelic politics had its share in England's intervention here.

    But old history is not the problem or solution. The relationships between the peoples who live in Ireland is the issue. It is not the British State that keeps Ulster Protestants/Unionists out of a United Ireland, but our own wishes. British guns are not keeping us from a desire to be in a United Ireland - we have no such desire.

    That's the reality Republicans have to face. Persuade us that a UI is for everyone's benefit and the British State will not keep us out of it.

    My fathers reckoned that a UI would be a Catholic Gaelic hegemony - and the Irish State that developed after partition was just that.

    Why should we believe any future UI would be better than what we have? I agree that the RoI has moved some way from its Catholic subservience, but all I hear on offer from Republicans is a Socialist Republic.

    We have seen how 'socialist republics' have worked out world-wide - and I'm sure most Irish and Ulster people have no desire to live in a Cuba, N. Korea, China, or anything like the former Soviet bloc 'socialist republics'.

    Any better offers?

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  7. David Higgins said:
    'why do unionist always omit that British imperialism is the ONLY component of Irelands agony. Is it not?'

    No, it is not. As I said to AM Og, the British State would/could not keep us out of a UI if we were sure such a state was desirable. We are not their lapdogs.

    Ireland's agony (in recent history) has been down to its failure to seek an agreed future between its two peoples.

    That's where al our effort should be applied - not on seeking to force or con the other side into something they detest.

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  8. Wolfesbane,
    Of course it is there is a chance you wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for English imperialism. No doubt there would have been other injustices and violence in a parallel universe where the English weren't military superior. Dealing with this universe all Ireland's historical and current grievances are laid at the door of English might is right attitude.
    You say there should be no forcing people into something they detest, that is exactly what British establishment perpetrated on the the nationalist people of the six counties.
    You talk sense in saying we should apply our efforts into a future between the two peoples but how do you even begin such an undertaking? I mean firstly we will have to counter the massive sectarian problem that exists then secondly there would have to be open integration and an end of segregation. Not everybody can talk about these issues never mind act upon them so where does that leave us?
    We,ve spoke before about the two communities highlighting their similarities rather than our differences. However practically it is not so simple. Maybe we should have a bit more courage and start calling people on their sectarian behaviour
    in our own communities when it is easier to laugh such behaviour off. I don't know maybe with a bit more tolerance will come a bit more understanding.

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  9. Wolfsbane said...

    That's where al our effort should be applied - not on seeking to force or con the other side into something they detest.


    Your fathers would certainly know all about that wouldn't they!

    From the barrels of British flintlocks to gerrymandering and every other devious method in between they got their evil way imposing THEIR will on the majority of this country.

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  10. David, thanks for the previous greeting in Irish. I've been busy engaging in theological discussions, but have kept an eye on TPQ for insights and questions that arise.

    'Wolfesbane,
    Of course it is there is a chance you wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for English imperialism.'

    Correct.

    'No doubt there would have been other injustices and violence in a parallel universe where the English weren't military superior. Dealing with this universe all Ireland's historical and current grievances are laid at the door of English might is right attitude.'

    OK, but Irish folk need to understand that they most likely would have occupied Britain and had an Irish empire throughout the world if they had been able. Human nature is the same the world over. So its not good Irish and bad English; its sinful mankind.


    'You say there should be no forcing people into something they detest, that is exactly what British establishment perpetrated on the the nationalist people of the six counties.'

    I agree. But the Republican alternative was just the same in reverse. At least the majority of the Irish got a state of their own.

    'You talk sense in saying we should apply our efforts into a future between the two peoples but how do you even begin such an undertaking? I mean firstly we will have to counter the massive sectarian problem that exists then secondly there would have to be open integration and an end of segregation.'

    Mutual respect does not require integrated education or housing. I've no problem with either - but we can begin where we are by respecting each other's national identity, religious freedom and culture.

    The big step is removing the claim that the other side are rebels to be brought to heel. A recognition that history has brought us both to where we are and that both sides have their guilt in the matter.

    Next step is finding a solution that meets our basic needs of freedom and equality.

    'Not everybody can talk about these issues never mind act upon them so where does that leave us?
    We,ve spoke before about the two communities highlighting their similarities rather than our differences. However practically it is not so simple. Maybe we should have a bit more courage and start calling people on their sectarian behaviour
    in our own communities when it is easier to laugh such behaviour off.'

    Yes, challenging implacable attitudes to the other side is a good place to start in both communities. But we can only argue that if we can show that there are others on the other side willing to truly live in peace and fellowship with our side. Many doubt that, so we have to be able to show it.

    'I don't know maybe with a bit more tolerance will come a bit more understanding.'

    Yes - and vice versa. A fuller understanding of the other side's views and problems should lead us to more tolerance for them.

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  11. Max Headroom said:
    [Wolfsbane said...
    That's where al our effort should be applied - not on seeking to force or con the other side into something they detest.]
    'Your fathers would certainly know all about that wouldn't they!
    From the barrels of British flintlocks to gerrymandering and every other devious method in between they got their evil way imposing THEIR will on the majority of this country.'

    I agree. The British imposed the plantation kept British rule in Ireland until the 1920s. I'm not defending any oppression in history, nor am I going to defend oppression now from the former oppressed. It's all wrong.

    We need to get beyond the selfish thinking that characterises imperialism and nationalism. As much as is in our power, we ought to seek the welfare of all, not just our own.

    Competing nationalisms is not the answer.

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