Alex McCrory ✒ As is the case this time of year, I am bemused by the plethora of statements emanating from smaller Republican groupings which are invariably optimistic about the year ahead. 

Claims of activism within working class communities are loudly regurgitated. However, I fail to see any real evidence of this on the ground. No doubt there is a trickle of clientelism in the many hubs, centers and political offices that litter the landscape. But, in legal parlance, none of this amounts to a hill of beans.

Truthfully, the footprint left by 'dissident' Republicanism is negligible in real terms. Optimistic statements about future intentions may help to encourage a dwindling membership, in overall terms, but, to the more objective observer, the King is without attire. 

Another common theme running through many of these self-interested statements is the usual appeal for some form of republican unity. I find this totally frustrating because it is never defined in any tangible form. Oppositional Republicanism is characterised by disunity and factionalism rooted in objective and subjective conditions. It is accused of lacking an alternative to challenge the status quo.

Certainly, Sinn Fein does not feel remotely threatened by anything the 'micro-groups' have to offer at the present time. And why should it? Outworking of the Good Friday Agreement completely altered the political framework of the struggle for national independence. It has transformed the revolutionary nature of the Republican project to one of incremental constitutional reform. All attempts to oppose it have failed thus far. Anti-Good Friday Republicanism, in wherever guise, has run out of steam. 

Politics is unpredictable. In 1998 few could have predicted Brexit on the distant horizon. The United Kingdom is facing a constitutional crisis with each of its parts existing in a state of dynamic tension. National interests are diverging at an increasing rate. The process is fraught with uncertainty as the British state grapples with the internal and external contradictions of leaving the European Union. The impact of Brexit is being felt across the island of Ireland. A material conflict of interests between north and south threatens to destabilise the political consensus that underpinned the Good Friday Agreement. This is grist for the mill for Irish Republicans. Brexit is a British constitutional issue with potential beneficial outcomes for Irish national interests. Are Republicans capable of grasping the nettle? Or will we be left behind once again, watching from the sidelines of history.

Alec McCrory 
is a former blanketman.

Watching From The Sidelines Of History

Alex McCrory ✒ As is the case this time of year, I am bemused by the plethora of statements emanating from smaller Republican groupings which are invariably optimistic about the year ahead. 

Claims of activism within working class communities are loudly regurgitated. However, I fail to see any real evidence of this on the ground. No doubt there is a trickle of clientelism in the many hubs, centers and political offices that litter the landscape. But, in legal parlance, none of this amounts to a hill of beans.

Truthfully, the footprint left by 'dissident' Republicanism is negligible in real terms. Optimistic statements about future intentions may help to encourage a dwindling membership, in overall terms, but, to the more objective observer, the King is without attire. 

Another common theme running through many of these self-interested statements is the usual appeal for some form of republican unity. I find this totally frustrating because it is never defined in any tangible form. Oppositional Republicanism is characterised by disunity and factionalism rooted in objective and subjective conditions. It is accused of lacking an alternative to challenge the status quo.

Certainly, Sinn Fein does not feel remotely threatened by anything the 'micro-groups' have to offer at the present time. And why should it? Outworking of the Good Friday Agreement completely altered the political framework of the struggle for national independence. It has transformed the revolutionary nature of the Republican project to one of incremental constitutional reform. All attempts to oppose it have failed thus far. Anti-Good Friday Republicanism, in wherever guise, has run out of steam. 

Politics is unpredictable. In 1998 few could have predicted Brexit on the distant horizon. The United Kingdom is facing a constitutional crisis with each of its parts existing in a state of dynamic tension. National interests are diverging at an increasing rate. The process is fraught with uncertainty as the British state grapples with the internal and external contradictions of leaving the European Union. The impact of Brexit is being felt across the island of Ireland. A material conflict of interests between north and south threatens to destabilise the political consensus that underpinned the Good Friday Agreement. This is grist for the mill for Irish Republicans. Brexit is a British constitutional issue with potential beneficial outcomes for Irish national interests. Are Republicans capable of grasping the nettle? Or will we be left behind once again, watching from the sidelines of history.

Alec McCrory 
is a former blanketman.

6 comments:

  1. I would cautiously welcome the opinions expressed by Alex. He now expresses what other have expressed for the last 20 years. The Alphabet Soup Factions were/are incompetent in their own right, but worse; they ensured any effective or rational opposition was completely incapable of confronting SF hypocrisy.

    My hesitance in believing that Alex may have had a real epiphany comes from the following sentence "Sinn Fein does not feel remotely threatened by anything the 'micro-groups' have to offer at the present time." I am unsure if that is a call for the Alphabet Soup Factions to unite as a single physical force group or does he now realise that non-violence is the only way for the factions to make any progress --his reference to Brexit suggests that that is what he means, but I am not sure which he means?


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  2. Christy,

    I welcome it without the caution.

    I think it is a statement of fact that SF is not in the remotest concerned about the republican groups.

    I don't see it as advocating a return to armed campaigning. That ship has long since sailed.

    I thought the following line was on the money: Outworking of the Good Friday Agreement completely altered the political framework of the struggle for national independence. It has transformed the revolutionary nature of the Republican project to one of incremental constitutional reform. That is down to the Zeitgeist having changed substantially.

    An important question for republicanism is whether it wants to make progress or make noise.

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  3. I will allow readers to draw their own conclusions as to the meaning my humble offering. For my part, it was intended as food for thought arising from the plethora of New Year statements emanating from oppositional Republican groups. As I said in a comment posted below the opinion piece,I do not have the answers to any questions raised. Knock yourselves out.

    Alex.

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  4. AM

    You are probably more right than I am. I am too sensitive to the insertion of subtle caveats such as terms like 'present times.

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  5. Henry Joy Comments

    I'm pleased to read that Alec seems to have come to realise that the game is up.

    Though it's not how the ideologues would like to have us view it, the revolutionary nature of Republicanism was never a consistent and homogeneous whole.

    Yes, republicans have on occasion inserted themselves with some limited success into movements for national emancipation, however in the final analysis, the revolutionaries have invariably been trumped by the evolutionists.

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  6. Was there ever a "homogeneous republican whole"? There is an official (title afforded by the media) republican movement, a provisional republican movement, a republican socialist movement and latterly a group of smaller republican groups, often termed "dissidents". Is it more a case of three different eggs laid by the same hen rather than one egg with three different yolks? Apart from Brits out and a united Ireland, quite correct, there appears little if any political ideology which is shared by all three - or four - let alone political dialogue! As a former member of the Republican Socialist Movement I cannot recall much discourse with other republican organisations, chiefly the provisionals or so-called officials.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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