McGuinness Was Not Part Of My Movement

Cáit Trainor did not react to the death of Martin McGuinness because she never identified with him at any time in her life. Cáit Trainor blogs @ Damn Your Concessions.

Since the death of Martin McGuinness on Tuesday my Facebook newsfeed has hardly been without a picture of him for a minute, many of these pictures are intended to be glowing tributes and show him looking like a great statesman or a young radical Republican, many more are pictures of him shaking hands with the British Queen or standing outside the steps of Stormont with Hugh Orde the RUC Chief as McGuinness notoriously proclaimed Republicans to be “Traitors to the Island of Ireland”

It has been a few days now of the same thing repeated ad nauseam about this man, and a few days of high emotions in Republican circles as differing accounts of who and what Martin McGuinness was come to the surface.

How did I react? I didn’t!

I didn’t make a conscious effort to ignore the death of the former British Deputy first minister in Ireland, I just simply felt nothing. As a chatterbox with an opinion on near on everything, my silence led various people to privately contact me to ask what my opinion was, when I simply said “ah it is sad for the family” I think they were a bit deflated.

It got me thinking today as to why I am not really interested, I can only think it is because I never actually identified with McGuinness, I was never a part of his movement, with the Sinn Féin split in 1986 and being born in 1984 I never saw this man as part of my movement. I was not reared believing he was a Republican idol, I grew up my whole life seeing the provisional movement and all their members as “them” and then there was “us”.

I can empathise with Republicans who were a part of his movement and later left PSF, many of them older than me who left in 1986 and others who have left in the intervening years. McGuinness’ death has thrown up all sorts of feelings and mixed emotions. Many Republicans who actually worked alongside him or who previously held him in high esteem quite rightly feel betrayed.

It is worth noting that when Republicans at varying times left PSF they were not simply to be left to their own devices, PSF actively tried to suppress the “dissidents”, this took the form of violence on more than one occasion and these gangs known colloquially as “Dissident hunters” were brutal. Some of the documented attacks by these gangs are that of Michael Donnelly from Derry who was physically assaulted with Iron bars at his home and hospitalised with a broken leg, Michael’s 10 year old daughter was also injured in this attack. Another well-known example is that of Bobby Tohill who was kidnapped from a bar, bundled into the back of a van, severely beaten before being gassed and knocked out, had the van not have been intercepted by the police God knows what would have happened. There are many, many more incidents related to these gangs, too many to go into.

Some “dissident” Republicans have decided that in death McGuinness’ actions can be understood, his character rehabilitated, others have gave scathing accounts of his life and criticised others as hypocrites for giving tributes to him in death while they vilified him in life.

When Ian Paisley died I remember hundreds of vile posts, I have no issue with anyone critiquing someone’s life, however I don’t like vulgar and crass posts glorifying the death of anyone, I made a post at the time of Paisley’s death saying that as Republicans we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and not engage in such things, this was met with some agreement but with a whole lot of hostility also. I believe the same about McGuinness, by all means critique him, I have said many things about him in the past and my views on him have not changed one iota.

What is for sure is that Martin McGuinness is gone; his colleagues have claimed he is irreplaceable, that he was one of a kind, I couldn’t disagree more. Irish History is littered with Martin McGuinnesses, PSF departing from traditional republican principles and taking their seats in Leinster House and Stormont is not a new phenomenon, they are not trail blazers or radical new thinkers, we have seen splitters from the Republican movement pull this same move before from Fianna Fáil in the 20's to the Stickies in the 70’s.

McGuinness may have been thought of as a great Republican once, fighting for the people of the Bogside in his youth, in reality for me what he was just another in a long line of Nationalist politicians, who had moved from a radical youth to a constitutional politician.

What we must do as Republicans is to learn from history, including recent history and not repeat its mistakes, focus on where we are going and not where others have gone wrong.

4 comments:

  1. This member of the Irish republican Diaspora attempts to view the life and death of McGuinness through the lens of those who sacrificed all for the cause of reunification.
    Climbing into bed with the enemy was and has always been a fatal mistake ensuring that the struggle is unending.
    The British Empire is just that, an Empire. It can't be dealt with it must be defeated.
    McGuinness, Adams et al have made the same mistakes that were made at partition perpetuating the conflict.

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  2. It is an interesting point that those born in the 80s (wee spring chickens) don't have the experience of the awe that McGuinness and Adams were held in, mainly due to the media I personally believe. For me the McGuinness Adams trajectory shows the power of the intelligence services in conjunction with the media at putting their favourite people in place and selling the foot-soldiers and public alike 'a pup'. It is also a mark of the power of this intel/media combination that thousands were indoctrinated sufficiently enough to turn up at the funeral of a man who turned out to be the total opposite of everything he professed his entire opportunist life. There are those who are just delighted the troubles are over and had the IRA unilaterally admitted defeat and entered politics there may have been sufficient groundswell of positive reaction votes wise for SF to do well without reverting to the croppy boy performances on steroids for over a decade. I too felt absolutely nothing but bemusement at the latest part of the political charade.

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  3. Cait I am sure those republicans who admired him would pose the rebuttal - What military action did those who split in 86 engage in Did the CIRA rise up against the brits pre 1998 or did they quietly fizzle out?

    McGuinness, like any leader, made some good and bad decisions however who didn't at that level. The wisest move he made was to halt a war that was never going to result in military victory. SF will rise onward and unfortunately other alternatives to halt that march will not take hold due to infighting and dare I say it MI5 intelligence. The brits have infiltrated all republican groups this therefore poses the question, Is it time to quit armed actions when we all know its going nowhere fast or will there cloned mcguinness from other armed groups who make the same military mistakes placing radical socialist republican politics even further backwards.

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  4. Emmet Grogan

    McGuinness and SF forgot what country they were in and supposed to be fighting for. There was never any need to be bitch slapped for a decade by the likes of wee nasty schoolgirl Arlene Foster. The mood of the people forced them off their knees recently otherwise Christ only knows who or what they would have shit all over and sold out in order to be good croppies next. It is a sad era that this shower of hoors is our vehicle to demonstrate the end of hun rule.

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