Political commentator Dr John Coulter uses his Fearless Flying Column today to explore the notion that Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald’s ‘tricky sell’ to Unionism is really an admission that the republican movement has lost the unity battle.

Sinn Fein’s latest so-called political ‘charm offensive’ towards the pro-Union community about embracing a new Ireland reeks of an admission that the republican movement’s concept of a 32-county democratic socialist republic as envisaged in the 1916 Proclamation is now a dead duck realistically.

Speaking to the Basically with Stefanie Preissner podcast, Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said the issue of convincing Unionists that embracing a new Ireland was a way forward was “a tricky one”.

The Sinn Fein boss is quoted as saying: “I think that we can have not just an united Ireland, but an equal Ireland, an entire society of people getting the chance to turn the page.”

These are fine words which differ radically from the Shinners’ usual ‘Brits Out’ rhetoric.

Has the Sinn Fein leadership reached the same conclusion as former Stormont deputy First Minister and former Derry IRA commander, the late Martin McGuinness, when he realised the British Government could not be bombed or shot out of Northern Ireland and some sort of peace settlement was the only way forward.

Has Sinn Fein now realised, too, that the British will never agree to a united Ireland on the republican movement’s terms and that dreams of a Proclamation-style solution are firmly in the political dustbin?

Perhaps in realising this ‘solution’, Sinn Fein is returning to the founding political roots of 1905 and its founder Arthur Griffith. When he set up the Shinners, Griffith did not envisage a full-blown republic as the final option.

He was a separatist who was more akin to the Dominion Status solution for Ireland. Sinn Fein only opted for the full-blown republic route when British commander General ‘Bloody’ Maxwell decided to have many of the failed 1916 Easter Rising leaders executed by firing squad.

It should not be forgotten that after the Dublin Rising was crushed militarily, many of the rebels were spat upon by Dublin residents as they were marched into captivity.

Maxwell’s insistence that James Connolly and his co-rebels be shot swung Irish opinion against the British and fuelled considerable sympathy for the republican cause.

Whilst it can only be speculative, but if Maxwell had cooled his hot head and just jailed the leaders for a few years, the course of Irish history could have been much different.

Supporters of Maxwell’s military decision to have some of the rebel leaders executed is based on the fact that in 1916 the British Empire was involved in the equally bloody Great War in Europe and beyond, so this rebellion had to be crushed with equal venom.

Although the outbreak of Great War in 1914 had averted a Home Rule-style civil war between the pro-Union Ulster Volunteers and the nationalist Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizens Army, the outcome of that civil war could have seen the island of Ireland split in two, with a Northern Unionist-controlled half of around 16 counties and a nationalist-dominated Southern Ireland of only 16 counties.

Instead, because of Maxwell’s dogmatic decision to execute the main Rising leadership, it laid the foundation for a new more militant republican movement which sparked the War of Independence in 1919 only a matter of months after the 1918 Armistice which ended World War One.

That War of Independence, which republicans like to brand as the ‘Tan War’ because of the activities of the British Army’s Black and Tans units, ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which saw a partition of the island and republicans gaining 26 counties.

Subsequent IRA campaigns have failed to dislodge the British from Northern Ireland. Even the electoral reality that Unionism is no longer the dominant political ideology in Northern Ireland does not mean that a 32-county democratic socialist republic is on the cards in the near future.

Sinn Fein may have won massive electoral gains in last December’s Dail General Election, but Fianna Fail and Fine Gael agreed an historic pact to keep the Shinners out of any Leinster House coalition government. So much for the Southern nationalist acceptance of Sinn Fein’s vision of a ‘new Ireland’!

On paper, it reads like great public relations spin trying to ‘persuade’ the pro-Union community to politically buy into some kind of Irish unity. But Sinn Fein faces two problems with that strategy. Firstly, the republican movement’s military faction, the Provisional IRA, slaughtered and maimed thousands of people across the island with its terror campaign known as The Troubles.

There are many survivors and victims of IRA terror who still recall the loss of loved ones or suffer the pain of injuries both mental and physical.

Is Sinn Fein really saying? - okay, for around three decades we tried to bomb and shoot you into a united Ireland; that tactic didn’t work, so now we will try the political softly, softly tactic!

Secondly, if the historic Fianna Fail/Fine Gael Dail pact for coalition government is taken as a benchmark, the bitter reality is that there is no room for the Shinner vision in any ‘new Ireland’.

Sinn Fein has still to cope with the equally bitter legacy of the centenary of the Irish Civil War in which republican butchered republican in a manner not witnessed even in the brutality of the War of Independence against the British.

The Free State forces supporting the Treaty pulled no punches militarily in dealing with the anti-Treaty IRA. A visit to the Ballyseedy Massacre monument marking the blowing up of eight anti-Treaty prisoners by Free State troops in Ballyseedy, County Kerry, in 1923 is proof of the civil war’s brutality.

Perhaps the best ‘new Ireland’ Sinn Fein can hope for is some kind of Dominion Status which Canada enjoyed? Could that be the ‘tricky’ compromise which Sinn Fein seeks? The Shinners abandon their mythical 32-county democratic socialist republic, and Unionists accept all of Ireland as a Dominion of the Commonwealth.

In practice, Sinn Fein returns to its 1905 founding roots, and Unionism revamps the old British Ulster Dominion Party which existed in the 1970s.

Persuading the Irish Republic to become a Commonwealth Dominion; now there’s a ‘new Ireland’ solution, but in the words of one party leader: “It’ll be tricky …”!


 Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

 Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning   around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online   at www.thisissunshine.com

The Final Surrender Of The Republican Movement?

Political commentator Dr John Coulter uses his Fearless Flying Column today to explore the notion that Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald’s ‘tricky sell’ to Unionism is really an admission that the republican movement has lost the unity battle.

Sinn Fein’s latest so-called political ‘charm offensive’ towards the pro-Union community about embracing a new Ireland reeks of an admission that the republican movement’s concept of a 32-county democratic socialist republic as envisaged in the 1916 Proclamation is now a dead duck realistically.

Speaking to the Basically with Stefanie Preissner podcast, Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said the issue of convincing Unionists that embracing a new Ireland was a way forward was “a tricky one”.

The Sinn Fein boss is quoted as saying: “I think that we can have not just an united Ireland, but an equal Ireland, an entire society of people getting the chance to turn the page.”

These are fine words which differ radically from the Shinners’ usual ‘Brits Out’ rhetoric.

Has the Sinn Fein leadership reached the same conclusion as former Stormont deputy First Minister and former Derry IRA commander, the late Martin McGuinness, when he realised the British Government could not be bombed or shot out of Northern Ireland and some sort of peace settlement was the only way forward.

Has Sinn Fein now realised, too, that the British will never agree to a united Ireland on the republican movement’s terms and that dreams of a Proclamation-style solution are firmly in the political dustbin?

Perhaps in realising this ‘solution’, Sinn Fein is returning to the founding political roots of 1905 and its founder Arthur Griffith. When he set up the Shinners, Griffith did not envisage a full-blown republic as the final option.

He was a separatist who was more akin to the Dominion Status solution for Ireland. Sinn Fein only opted for the full-blown republic route when British commander General ‘Bloody’ Maxwell decided to have many of the failed 1916 Easter Rising leaders executed by firing squad.

It should not be forgotten that after the Dublin Rising was crushed militarily, many of the rebels were spat upon by Dublin residents as they were marched into captivity.

Maxwell’s insistence that James Connolly and his co-rebels be shot swung Irish opinion against the British and fuelled considerable sympathy for the republican cause.

Whilst it can only be speculative, but if Maxwell had cooled his hot head and just jailed the leaders for a few years, the course of Irish history could have been much different.

Supporters of Maxwell’s military decision to have some of the rebel leaders executed is based on the fact that in 1916 the British Empire was involved in the equally bloody Great War in Europe and beyond, so this rebellion had to be crushed with equal venom.

Although the outbreak of Great War in 1914 had averted a Home Rule-style civil war between the pro-Union Ulster Volunteers and the nationalist Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizens Army, the outcome of that civil war could have seen the island of Ireland split in two, with a Northern Unionist-controlled half of around 16 counties and a nationalist-dominated Southern Ireland of only 16 counties.

Instead, because of Maxwell’s dogmatic decision to execute the main Rising leadership, it laid the foundation for a new more militant republican movement which sparked the War of Independence in 1919 only a matter of months after the 1918 Armistice which ended World War One.

That War of Independence, which republicans like to brand as the ‘Tan War’ because of the activities of the British Army’s Black and Tans units, ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which saw a partition of the island and republicans gaining 26 counties.

Subsequent IRA campaigns have failed to dislodge the British from Northern Ireland. Even the electoral reality that Unionism is no longer the dominant political ideology in Northern Ireland does not mean that a 32-county democratic socialist republic is on the cards in the near future.

Sinn Fein may have won massive electoral gains in last December’s Dail General Election, but Fianna Fail and Fine Gael agreed an historic pact to keep the Shinners out of any Leinster House coalition government. So much for the Southern nationalist acceptance of Sinn Fein’s vision of a ‘new Ireland’!

On paper, it reads like great public relations spin trying to ‘persuade’ the pro-Union community to politically buy into some kind of Irish unity. But Sinn Fein faces two problems with that strategy. Firstly, the republican movement’s military faction, the Provisional IRA, slaughtered and maimed thousands of people across the island with its terror campaign known as The Troubles.

There are many survivors and victims of IRA terror who still recall the loss of loved ones or suffer the pain of injuries both mental and physical.

Is Sinn Fein really saying? - okay, for around three decades we tried to bomb and shoot you into a united Ireland; that tactic didn’t work, so now we will try the political softly, softly tactic!

Secondly, if the historic Fianna Fail/Fine Gael Dail pact for coalition government is taken as a benchmark, the bitter reality is that there is no room for the Shinner vision in any ‘new Ireland’.

Sinn Fein has still to cope with the equally bitter legacy of the centenary of the Irish Civil War in which republican butchered republican in a manner not witnessed even in the brutality of the War of Independence against the British.

The Free State forces supporting the Treaty pulled no punches militarily in dealing with the anti-Treaty IRA. A visit to the Ballyseedy Massacre monument marking the blowing up of eight anti-Treaty prisoners by Free State troops in Ballyseedy, County Kerry, in 1923 is proof of the civil war’s brutality.

Perhaps the best ‘new Ireland’ Sinn Fein can hope for is some kind of Dominion Status which Canada enjoyed? Could that be the ‘tricky’ compromise which Sinn Fein seeks? The Shinners abandon their mythical 32-county democratic socialist republic, and Unionists accept all of Ireland as a Dominion of the Commonwealth.

In practice, Sinn Fein returns to its 1905 founding roots, and Unionism revamps the old British Ulster Dominion Party which existed in the 1970s.

Persuading the Irish Republic to become a Commonwealth Dominion; now there’s a ‘new Ireland’ solution, but in the words of one party leader: “It’ll be tricky …”!


 Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

 Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning   around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online   at www.thisissunshine.com

6 comments:

  1. The first step on the road to a new Ireland is for Sinn Fein to admit that the "war" fought by its military wing, the IRA, was lost and all those deaths and maimings achieved absolutely nothing. The civil rights issues were resolved twenty years before Sinn Fein IRA stopped its murder campaign.
    After the Belfast agreement Sinn Fein IRA hollowed out the middle ground in Northern politics by it intransigence and it perpetual state of victim-hood. The community is now more divided than ever, with more "peace walls"now than twenty years ago.
    How does Sinn Fein IRA now show its "respect" for the unionist community? By the massive political demonstration of support for the IRA that was the Bobby Storey funeral.
    Sinn Fein IRA is still generations away from admitting its murder and bombing campaign totally failed to achieve its objective. Until Sinn Fein stops glorifying the IRA murder and terror there is not the slightest prospect for a new Ireland.
    To be fair to the unionist community, they have never eulogized the Shankhill Butchers in the way that Sinn Fein has eulogized the Shankhill Bombers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tonyol

    The unionists have eulogized the Shankill Butchers, prominent unionist leaders attended their funerals and have immortalised The Butchers leader, Lenny Murphy in song. If you are like many freestaters and never set foot in foreign places like Belfast you could be forgiven for your ignorance of how Unionists have glorified and immortalised British thugs and murderers by naming streets and buildings after them. In addition, streets and whole districts in Belfast are named after various massacres and atrocities committed by British imperialism and oppression.

    I think you over hype the significance of Bobby Storey's funeral (which AM had accurately, and tactfully, put in context inanimate earlier article).

    Whatever the faults and hypocracies of SF, they pale in comparison to the continuing bigotry and anti-Irish attitudes within the DUP leadership. Unionists continue to disrespect nationalists, the irish language, victims of state terrorism; so much so that SF would have a long way to go to catch up with Unionist bigotry, hatred and discrimination.

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  3. Christy Walsh
    "...prominent unionist leaders...have immortalised...Lenny Murphy in song". I'd love to know more about this. Could you provide some links? Also "The unionists have eulogised the Shankill Butchers" that's a broad brush. I don't know anybody save for a few paramilitary extremists who have eulogised them. Most unionists I know have nothing but contempt for them. Could you provide links showing broad unionist eulogising?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Peter - I think a much stronger case can be made that many have eulogised the war criminals that carried out Bloody Sunday. Even recently, the DUP put on Belfast City Council a man who said they should have been awarded medals.

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  4. AM
    And what short memories they have. The Paras hated us just slightly less than they hated yous. They got barred from R&R in Bangor in the 80s because they used to wreck the place and any male that got in their way. Christy's ballix annoys me because unionists are painted with such a broad brush. We are not all OO/DUPers/UVFers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Peter - hardly short memories - just one eyed memories. They could remember Bloody Sunday and find in it cause to celebrate. I think Christy knows all unionists are not to be painted with a broad brush. At the same time a substantial section of unionism backed British state violence much as significant section of the nationalist community approved IRA violence.

      Delete