The Fenian Way ✒ continues his exchange with Anthony McIntyre on the inferences to be drawn from John Crawley's book which detailed systemic shortcomings within the IRA.

AM: We concluded our last exchange on how easily key members of the army allowed themselves to be persuaded by the type of dodgy product snake oil vendors would hawk. Yet there were people on the army council who were not political careerists, who had given huge swathes of their time to the armed struggle but who still bought into the downgrading of the project.

TFW: They did indeed contribute huge swathes of time; it was the nature of full-time involvement. And I have nothing but the greatest respect for that contribution. But there was also a naiveite on behalf of certain Army Council members who believed that this entire process was still determined by how that seven person Army Council chose to vote. The Chief of Staff assured me that no ceasefires were in the offing despite the world’s media speculating on the imminence of one being called a couple of months later. The Army Council was not in control of their involvement in this process as some of its members would have liked to think.

AM: Much like how the hunger strike was managed, detailed so well by Richard O'Rawe. I would like to pick up on this concept of not being in control of their involvement later in the exchange. But on the C/S’s  undertaking of no ceasefire on the horizon, in my own response to a comment from Professor Peter Trumbore in an earlier exchange I referred to this type of commitment being given to volunteers prior to an operation. The ceasefire was called about six months after a number of them were captured on a substantial and prestigious armed mission.  I was in court for their sentencing and thought what a waste, lied to and then set up (not saying by the same people). Did the leadership figures giving these assurances actually believe what they were saying or were they being deceitful? It is not as if the writing was not on the wall. It was emblazoned in neon lights.

TFW: Let me put it to you this way, no person who could attend Army Council meetings at that time, its seven members plus the AG and the QMG, could in all conscience give any such assurances. Voting against a ceasefire was merely postponing a ceasefire. A ceasefire was coming and a resumption of war was not on the far side of it.

When Peter Brooke stated that the British government had no selfish strategic or economic interests in remaining in Ireland, that was checkmate against the IRA leadership. Knowing a ceasefire offer was about to be made the British manoeuvred themselves into a neutral position which meant that their presence in Ireland could not be construed as a cause of conflict and that the terms of any ceasefire could not be predicated on a British declaration of getting out. And more importantly the ceasefire couldn’t break down on that issue because the ceasefire wasn’t calling for it. The IRA leadership was using the Volunteers of the IRA to fight for an internal settlement. 

AM: They were telling the volunteers it was a tactical ceasefire. I told Keenan they would not be going back to war and he sternly stated that they would go back, vociferously asserting that he didn’t give a fuck what Albert Reynolds had been assured to the contrary or who told him. But crucially, the intention to opt for an internal settlement was never made known to the volunteers. Two volunteers died on active service in England in 1996 thinking they were fighting for an entirely different objective. There were other volunteers being sent out, in all probability without the requisite training or weaponry. I am thinking in particular of Volunteer Joe MacManus in February 1992 who lost his life in an exchange of fire with a member of the British security services in circumstances where the IRA clearly should have had the upper hand. This was at a time when the leadership understood what Joe MacManus did not understand - because it was never told to him – where the terminus for its strategy actually was. And the sign above it was Internal Solution, not Sovereignty.

You have consistently insisted there was a collective responsibility and that the excuse of I didn’t know should not cut the mustard. Yet Martin McGuinness, whom John Crawley found a major disappointment, was crucial to the messaging. He was actually proclaiming publicly in 1994 that the movement would consider something like a seven year time period for a transition to a united Ireland. More than 27 years after the first ceasefire, there is no united Ireland, no policy moves towards one, no sign of any border poll that might breathe some life into the consent principle, nor any inclination of either London or Dublin becoming persuaders for unity. Whatever glimmer of hope of a united Ireland might be on the horizon, it is the byproduct of the British woeful management of Brexit, a historical accident and Sweet FA to do with Sinn Fein strategizing. Even then some republican observers like Sean Bresnahan have been pointing out just how limiting in terms of a Republic any post-Border Poll united Ireland will be.

TFW: I have stated previously that there was corporate responsibility on behalf of the leadership whether individuals agreed with the strategy or not. And that includes sending Volunteers on active service knowing full well that a ceasefire was inevitable in the short term and that an internal settlement was the only option on the agenda. But I’m inclined to mention Martin McGuinness in his role as Sinn Fein chief negotiator for a particular instance which I remember as being most telling because it established a pattern of British attitudes towards him.

AM: It often looked as if he was carried away on a wave of self-delusion. Clearly, there were activists daring to think that he actually believed the nonsense he was asking others to buy into. He had to know it was all guff. He had been shouting shame, shame, shame at the earlier leadership for calling a truce. He had urged people not to leave the movement as the leadership of which he was apart would lead it to the Republic. Yet he agreed to negotiate on British terms which cleared the table of any vestige of a Republic before they even sat down at it. 

TFW: Speaking at an Ard Fheis he declared with self-assured hubris that the British had congratulated himself and his team on their negotiations skills. Alarm bells started ringing. The same British establishment that classed him as Sandhurst Officer material and propagated the hardman image of him throughout the campaign were now praising him as the lead republican negotiator.

AM: That is straight out of the counter insurgency textbook – help mould and then maintain in place a leadership that business that can be done with. However, the British business objective and the IRA’s business objective in terms of stated goals and the means to achieve them were vastly different.

TFW: The IRA was fighting for national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ireland. We didn’t get a blade of grass of the Six Counties and Westminster’s hold on sovereignty is more resolute than ever. A perfect example of the dangers of the myth and cult of personality. 

AM: Despite all the warnings about personality cults and the ability to identify them in other political cultures, when it was shoved in front of their noses in their own stomping ground, they either failed to see it or pretended not to see it. Here they were heading straight into Sunningdale for slow learners yet spinning and spoofing that it was something different, a qualitatively new and radical departure from the Sunningdale model. It was anything but.

TFW: In your own observations you have made much of the comparison between Good Friday and Sunningdale. And from a political and practical standpoint those observations are extremely valid. McGuinness dismissed the comparison by pointing out that the word equality was mentioned X amount of times (I can’t remember the exact number as he obviously counted them) in Good Friday and not at all in Sunningdale. It was truly remarkable that the so called leading republican negotiator had nothing to say on the complete absence of Irish sovereignty in either agreement. 

AM: What he failed to say is that in the IRA discourse rejecting Sunningdale, the absence of equality was never mentioned. If equality not featuring in the Sunningdale Agreement was a red line why didn’t the IRA mention it in its reasons for rejecting that agreement, immediately opting to continue with its prosecution of the armed struggle? Martin McGuinness often looked to me like the soccer player who missed the target with every shot, having blasted it over the bar and then celebrating in a bid to con the supporters that he had really scored a point. For a leader of an organisation that had its origins in a rejection of what it regarded as capitulation, here he was not only capitulating but celebrating it. 

TFW: Because Sunningdale was rejected on republican grounds at the time. In truth, what that man negotiated, and what that leadership endorsed, made murderers of the IRA. 

AM: That’s a take that will confuse or even enrage some. Is that because only as a body representing national sovereignty could the IRA claim the legitimacy of say the men and women of 1916 who nobody other than the Tories, Unionists, and maybe Charlie Flanagan, could label criminal? To me, even without the sovereignty aspect, which is so crucial to your own thought, the IRA as a force fighting British state terrorism, easily sidesteps the accusation of being Murder Incorporated as I think the late RUC Chief Constable, Jack Hermon once described the Army council - which I also believe he accused elements of the Sinn Fein leadership of being organically linked to. State violence produces street violence and the state should never be given a blank cheque to criminalise that violence.

TFW: The difference between Sunningdale and Good Friday, no matter how tortuous or delusional any differences may be contrived, could not in any way justify the taking of life. The SDLP could have delivered Good Friday a lot sooner if the republican leadership had conceded that it was no longer in pursuit of the sovereign goals of Irish republicanism.

AM: Doubtless. Had the IRA accepted Sunningdale, the British would have moved mountains to keep it in place. Just as they did when they got their Sunningdale via the Good Friday Agreement. At the core of both was the consent principle, inherently a fundamental repudiation of the IRA armed struggle and its raison d'etre.

I think the general point you consistently make is that there was a clear precedent for what the British were doing. They were offering nothing substantively new. Their bottom line was pretty much as it had been from the onset of the war. The republican negotiators accepted this, and in our discussions you often argue that the terms they entered negotiations under could produce no other outcome. You follow this up by insisting that the one means of producing something different was a strengthening of the negotiating hand, something the leadership refused to countenance. Ultimately, in your view, they allowed themselves to be drawn into negotiations with a weak hand while ruling out the measures that might have strengthened that hand.
 
TFW: The British stipulation (with the compliance of Dublin) that the principle demands of Irish republicanism be set aside as a pre-condition to negotiations is reminiscent of Thatcher’s infamous ‘Out-Out-Out’ reaction to the findings of the New Ireland Forum which were the options of Irish unity, a confederation of states and joint authority. Now given what was ultimately settled for, Thatcher’s position remained the British position and that is the position which prevailed. Republicans refused to engage with the New Ireland Forum because it supported the principle of consent, but the reality was they returned to that format under the guise of a Pan Nationalist Front but the demands from that so called front were considerably less.
 
AM: And had to use sleight of hand lavishly dolloped with smoke and mirrors to bamboozle it past the volunteers who trusted them. They were enabled in this by their willingness and ability to flip the bird at the IRA constitution. I want to return to the point you raised above because it opens a window on the role of the army constitution. If the army council was not in control of their involvement in the process what element of the movement was in control and how was its control exercised?

TFW: When I say the Army Council was not in control of its involvement in this process I mean that the British had the full measure of the intentions of each of its members and could tailor the negotiations to either negate or promote those intentions to ensure British strategic interests prevailed. Remember that the Army Council could no longer object to British proposals if there was an absence of intent to withdraw because the ceasefires never demanded such a stance. The difficulty they had now, which the British fully exploited, was that any Army Council rejection of any proposals were now portrayed as a rejection of peace. The Army Council could no longer say no.

As to the position of the Army Constitution the first thing to understand is the purpose and value of a written constitution particularly as it relates to an organisation like the Irish Republican Army. Because of its secretive and hierarchical command structure, abuse of power and infiltration influence are a very real threat. Inbuilt and clearly defined safeguards are an absolute must and the IRA’s constitution provided these mechanisms.

Equally, a written constitution spells out completely what our fundamental position is in terms of our objectives, the legitimate basis by which we struggle for them and the suitability of strategies and tactics to pursue them. It also represents a discerning recruitment guide to attract those who have empathy and understanding of what it is we are about and deter the unsuitable and the misguided.

It is wrong to view any constitution through the prism of orthodoxy. Its primary function is to facilitate progress but with a guiding hand. The Rules of the Road are not simply a list of speed limits but a code of practice to ensure safe roads.

You asked me previously which parts of the constitution were breached by the leadership and I responded in the main by saying, firstly, the legitimate basis upon which we engaged in war and secondly the role and function of the Army Convention, The Army Executive and the Army Council.

The first is self-evident given the terms they agreed to enter into negotiations. The second is that they completely detached themselves from any constitutional restraint because they felt they were above it due to the irreplaceable mindset.

Let's take them in turn. They abused the first Army convention by breaking the ceasefire for no other reason that they were facing a convention. It’s the height of irony that given the TUAS concept, the only time they tactically used armed struggle was against its own volunteers to dupe them into re-electing that leadership. The volunteers were told the process was over, the Brits aren’t moving etc. but no sooner that they were re-elected the second ceasefire was called. The justification for it was that Blair hand replaced Major but the British position was precisely the same. Johnathon Powell once again!

The Army Executive emerged from that convention with its constitutional role greatly strengthened. This is what the volunteers wanted and for good reason. The Executive was deemed to be the custodians of the constitution but when they exercised that role the leadership ignored it. In short all that leadership wanted, and it’s the capacity in which they acted, was a blank cheque and total compliance.

AM: I am thinking for our next exchange that we might explore the type of tactics and arguments employed for the purposes of leaders evading accountability and ignoring the Army Executive. Also, the very related matter of the specifics of how the controlling element within the Army worked to ensure the Army Council was not in control.  We might also seek to explore some of the very useful questions raised by readers in the comment section. We both agree that the comments have played a very important role in this exchange. They are intelligent observations rather than screams about every leader being a MI5 agent. 

⏩ The Fenian Way was a full time activist during the IRA's war against the British. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

In Quillversation 🎯 IRA Army Council Not In Control

The Fenian Way ✒ continues his exchange with Anthony McIntyre on the inferences to be drawn from John Crawley's book which detailed systemic shortcomings within the IRA.

AM: We concluded our last exchange on how easily key members of the army allowed themselves to be persuaded by the type of dodgy product snake oil vendors would hawk. Yet there were people on the army council who were not political careerists, who had given huge swathes of their time to the armed struggle but who still bought into the downgrading of the project.

TFW: They did indeed contribute huge swathes of time; it was the nature of full-time involvement. And I have nothing but the greatest respect for that contribution. But there was also a naiveite on behalf of certain Army Council members who believed that this entire process was still determined by how that seven person Army Council chose to vote. The Chief of Staff assured me that no ceasefires were in the offing despite the world’s media speculating on the imminence of one being called a couple of months later. The Army Council was not in control of their involvement in this process as some of its members would have liked to think.

AM: Much like how the hunger strike was managed, detailed so well by Richard O'Rawe. I would like to pick up on this concept of not being in control of their involvement later in the exchange. But on the C/S’s  undertaking of no ceasefire on the horizon, in my own response to a comment from Professor Peter Trumbore in an earlier exchange I referred to this type of commitment being given to volunteers prior to an operation. The ceasefire was called about six months after a number of them were captured on a substantial and prestigious armed mission.  I was in court for their sentencing and thought what a waste, lied to and then set up (not saying by the same people). Did the leadership figures giving these assurances actually believe what they were saying or were they being deceitful? It is not as if the writing was not on the wall. It was emblazoned in neon lights.

TFW: Let me put it to you this way, no person who could attend Army Council meetings at that time, its seven members plus the AG and the QMG, could in all conscience give any such assurances. Voting against a ceasefire was merely postponing a ceasefire. A ceasefire was coming and a resumption of war was not on the far side of it.

When Peter Brooke stated that the British government had no selfish strategic or economic interests in remaining in Ireland, that was checkmate against the IRA leadership. Knowing a ceasefire offer was about to be made the British manoeuvred themselves into a neutral position which meant that their presence in Ireland could not be construed as a cause of conflict and that the terms of any ceasefire could not be predicated on a British declaration of getting out. And more importantly the ceasefire couldn’t break down on that issue because the ceasefire wasn’t calling for it. The IRA leadership was using the Volunteers of the IRA to fight for an internal settlement. 

AM: They were telling the volunteers it was a tactical ceasefire. I told Keenan they would not be going back to war and he sternly stated that they would go back, vociferously asserting that he didn’t give a fuck what Albert Reynolds had been assured to the contrary or who told him. But crucially, the intention to opt for an internal settlement was never made known to the volunteers. Two volunteers died on active service in England in 1996 thinking they were fighting for an entirely different objective. There were other volunteers being sent out, in all probability without the requisite training or weaponry. I am thinking in particular of Volunteer Joe MacManus in February 1992 who lost his life in an exchange of fire with a member of the British security services in circumstances where the IRA clearly should have had the upper hand. This was at a time when the leadership understood what Joe MacManus did not understand - because it was never told to him – where the terminus for its strategy actually was. And the sign above it was Internal Solution, not Sovereignty.

You have consistently insisted there was a collective responsibility and that the excuse of I didn’t know should not cut the mustard. Yet Martin McGuinness, whom John Crawley found a major disappointment, was crucial to the messaging. He was actually proclaiming publicly in 1994 that the movement would consider something like a seven year time period for a transition to a united Ireland. More than 27 years after the first ceasefire, there is no united Ireland, no policy moves towards one, no sign of any border poll that might breathe some life into the consent principle, nor any inclination of either London or Dublin becoming persuaders for unity. Whatever glimmer of hope of a united Ireland might be on the horizon, it is the byproduct of the British woeful management of Brexit, a historical accident and Sweet FA to do with Sinn Fein strategizing. Even then some republican observers like Sean Bresnahan have been pointing out just how limiting in terms of a Republic any post-Border Poll united Ireland will be.

TFW: I have stated previously that there was corporate responsibility on behalf of the leadership whether individuals agreed with the strategy or not. And that includes sending Volunteers on active service knowing full well that a ceasefire was inevitable in the short term and that an internal settlement was the only option on the agenda. But I’m inclined to mention Martin McGuinness in his role as Sinn Fein chief negotiator for a particular instance which I remember as being most telling because it established a pattern of British attitudes towards him.

AM: It often looked as if he was carried away on a wave of self-delusion. Clearly, there were activists daring to think that he actually believed the nonsense he was asking others to buy into. He had to know it was all guff. He had been shouting shame, shame, shame at the earlier leadership for calling a truce. He had urged people not to leave the movement as the leadership of which he was apart would lead it to the Republic. Yet he agreed to negotiate on British terms which cleared the table of any vestige of a Republic before they even sat down at it. 

TFW: Speaking at an Ard Fheis he declared with self-assured hubris that the British had congratulated himself and his team on their negotiations skills. Alarm bells started ringing. The same British establishment that classed him as Sandhurst Officer material and propagated the hardman image of him throughout the campaign were now praising him as the lead republican negotiator.

AM: That is straight out of the counter insurgency textbook – help mould and then maintain in place a leadership that business that can be done with. However, the British business objective and the IRA’s business objective in terms of stated goals and the means to achieve them were vastly different.

TFW: The IRA was fighting for national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ireland. We didn’t get a blade of grass of the Six Counties and Westminster’s hold on sovereignty is more resolute than ever. A perfect example of the dangers of the myth and cult of personality. 

AM: Despite all the warnings about personality cults and the ability to identify them in other political cultures, when it was shoved in front of their noses in their own stomping ground, they either failed to see it or pretended not to see it. Here they were heading straight into Sunningdale for slow learners yet spinning and spoofing that it was something different, a qualitatively new and radical departure from the Sunningdale model. It was anything but.

TFW: In your own observations you have made much of the comparison between Good Friday and Sunningdale. And from a political and practical standpoint those observations are extremely valid. McGuinness dismissed the comparison by pointing out that the word equality was mentioned X amount of times (I can’t remember the exact number as he obviously counted them) in Good Friday and not at all in Sunningdale. It was truly remarkable that the so called leading republican negotiator had nothing to say on the complete absence of Irish sovereignty in either agreement. 

AM: What he failed to say is that in the IRA discourse rejecting Sunningdale, the absence of equality was never mentioned. If equality not featuring in the Sunningdale Agreement was a red line why didn’t the IRA mention it in its reasons for rejecting that agreement, immediately opting to continue with its prosecution of the armed struggle? Martin McGuinness often looked to me like the soccer player who missed the target with every shot, having blasted it over the bar and then celebrating in a bid to con the supporters that he had really scored a point. For a leader of an organisation that had its origins in a rejection of what it regarded as capitulation, here he was not only capitulating but celebrating it. 

TFW: Because Sunningdale was rejected on republican grounds at the time. In truth, what that man negotiated, and what that leadership endorsed, made murderers of the IRA. 

AM: That’s a take that will confuse or even enrage some. Is that because only as a body representing national sovereignty could the IRA claim the legitimacy of say the men and women of 1916 who nobody other than the Tories, Unionists, and maybe Charlie Flanagan, could label criminal? To me, even without the sovereignty aspect, which is so crucial to your own thought, the IRA as a force fighting British state terrorism, easily sidesteps the accusation of being Murder Incorporated as I think the late RUC Chief Constable, Jack Hermon once described the Army council - which I also believe he accused elements of the Sinn Fein leadership of being organically linked to. State violence produces street violence and the state should never be given a blank cheque to criminalise that violence.

TFW: The difference between Sunningdale and Good Friday, no matter how tortuous or delusional any differences may be contrived, could not in any way justify the taking of life. The SDLP could have delivered Good Friday a lot sooner if the republican leadership had conceded that it was no longer in pursuit of the sovereign goals of Irish republicanism.

AM: Doubtless. Had the IRA accepted Sunningdale, the British would have moved mountains to keep it in place. Just as they did when they got their Sunningdale via the Good Friday Agreement. At the core of both was the consent principle, inherently a fundamental repudiation of the IRA armed struggle and its raison d'etre.

I think the general point you consistently make is that there was a clear precedent for what the British were doing. They were offering nothing substantively new. Their bottom line was pretty much as it had been from the onset of the war. The republican negotiators accepted this, and in our discussions you often argue that the terms they entered negotiations under could produce no other outcome. You follow this up by insisting that the one means of producing something different was a strengthening of the negotiating hand, something the leadership refused to countenance. Ultimately, in your view, they allowed themselves to be drawn into negotiations with a weak hand while ruling out the measures that might have strengthened that hand.
 
TFW: The British stipulation (with the compliance of Dublin) that the principle demands of Irish republicanism be set aside as a pre-condition to negotiations is reminiscent of Thatcher’s infamous ‘Out-Out-Out’ reaction to the findings of the New Ireland Forum which were the options of Irish unity, a confederation of states and joint authority. Now given what was ultimately settled for, Thatcher’s position remained the British position and that is the position which prevailed. Republicans refused to engage with the New Ireland Forum because it supported the principle of consent, but the reality was they returned to that format under the guise of a Pan Nationalist Front but the demands from that so called front were considerably less.
 
AM: And had to use sleight of hand lavishly dolloped with smoke and mirrors to bamboozle it past the volunteers who trusted them. They were enabled in this by their willingness and ability to flip the bird at the IRA constitution. I want to return to the point you raised above because it opens a window on the role of the army constitution. If the army council was not in control of their involvement in the process what element of the movement was in control and how was its control exercised?

TFW: When I say the Army Council was not in control of its involvement in this process I mean that the British had the full measure of the intentions of each of its members and could tailor the negotiations to either negate or promote those intentions to ensure British strategic interests prevailed. Remember that the Army Council could no longer object to British proposals if there was an absence of intent to withdraw because the ceasefires never demanded such a stance. The difficulty they had now, which the British fully exploited, was that any Army Council rejection of any proposals were now portrayed as a rejection of peace. The Army Council could no longer say no.

As to the position of the Army Constitution the first thing to understand is the purpose and value of a written constitution particularly as it relates to an organisation like the Irish Republican Army. Because of its secretive and hierarchical command structure, abuse of power and infiltration influence are a very real threat. Inbuilt and clearly defined safeguards are an absolute must and the IRA’s constitution provided these mechanisms.

Equally, a written constitution spells out completely what our fundamental position is in terms of our objectives, the legitimate basis by which we struggle for them and the suitability of strategies and tactics to pursue them. It also represents a discerning recruitment guide to attract those who have empathy and understanding of what it is we are about and deter the unsuitable and the misguided.

It is wrong to view any constitution through the prism of orthodoxy. Its primary function is to facilitate progress but with a guiding hand. The Rules of the Road are not simply a list of speed limits but a code of practice to ensure safe roads.

You asked me previously which parts of the constitution were breached by the leadership and I responded in the main by saying, firstly, the legitimate basis upon which we engaged in war and secondly the role and function of the Army Convention, The Army Executive and the Army Council.

The first is self-evident given the terms they agreed to enter into negotiations. The second is that they completely detached themselves from any constitutional restraint because they felt they were above it due to the irreplaceable mindset.

Let's take them in turn. They abused the first Army convention by breaking the ceasefire for no other reason that they were facing a convention. It’s the height of irony that given the TUAS concept, the only time they tactically used armed struggle was against its own volunteers to dupe them into re-electing that leadership. The volunteers were told the process was over, the Brits aren’t moving etc. but no sooner that they were re-elected the second ceasefire was called. The justification for it was that Blair hand replaced Major but the British position was precisely the same. Johnathon Powell once again!

The Army Executive emerged from that convention with its constitutional role greatly strengthened. This is what the volunteers wanted and for good reason. The Executive was deemed to be the custodians of the constitution but when they exercised that role the leadership ignored it. In short all that leadership wanted, and it’s the capacity in which they acted, was a blank cheque and total compliance.

AM: I am thinking for our next exchange that we might explore the type of tactics and arguments employed for the purposes of leaders evading accountability and ignoring the Army Executive. Also, the very related matter of the specifics of how the controlling element within the Army worked to ensure the Army Council was not in control.  We might also seek to explore some of the very useful questions raised by readers in the comment section. We both agree that the comments have played a very important role in this exchange. They are intelligent observations rather than screams about every leader being a MI5 agent. 

⏩ The Fenian Way was a full time activist during the IRA's war against the British. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

30 comments:

  1. I remember standing on the Lower Ormeau with a group of volunteers one night discussing the possibility of decommissioning. The majority of them voiced the belief that there must be some kind of sleight-of-hand at work in order to confuse the British government, and still leave themselves ready in a military sense (as one stated "to keep plenty of gear, and defend areas like this"). It's interesting to note that, years later, almost all of those present that night have been individually side-lined and cut off in some way).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In those type of top down organisations where the cult of the personality is cultivated and dissent frowned upon, the leadership quickly switch off the oxygen to those not buying the bull. Those that remain having previously foresworn to stand up to what they believed to be detrimental were left floundering for excuses.

      Delete
  2. Would Brownie ever have the gall to suggest he was never in the IRA to anyone in the IRA? LOL!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These days he might even legally gag people if they say he was a member. But unless the courts were part of a Stalinist type society it is unlikely that a judge or jury would face reputational self-immolation by upholding his action.

      Delete
    2. I used to quip that the only people who believed he was never in it were some of those who were in it with him! Such was the extent of sycophancy.

      Delete
    3. Yeah but why does he still persist? Everyone knows it. Must be a bit insulting to the families of volunteers who died?

      Delete
    4. He was cute enough early on to foresee it would be bad for his political career. Volunteers who died and their families are measured in terms of whether or not they are useful to his political career. The problem was that his denials became so ridiculous that it caused what Sean O'Rourke called presentational problems.

      Delete
    5. But those people aren't stupid. Surely in their heart of hearts they know it's disrespectful to their own dead family members?

      Delete
    6. Steve - families are never a monolith. They have their own reasons and agendas. They don't always share the perspective of their dead loved one and many will feel he has good reason to deny his membership. I could live with that were the denial not linked to his political career and was a necessary evasion to avoid prosecution. But a simple "no comment" is sufficient to secure that for him.

      Delete
    7. But he's been untouchable since the late 80's, so I'm not entirely sure why he persisted. On the balance of probability I'd say you are right, but we'd heard from cops from around 1993 (from memory prob earlier) that he wasn't to be stopped nor harassed at VCPs.

      Delete
  3. "When Peter Brooke stated that the British government had no selfish strategic or economic interests in remaining in Ireland, that was checkmate against the IRA leadership. Knowing a ceasefire offer was about to be made the British manoeuvred themselves into a neutral position which meant that their presence in Ireland could not be construed as a cause of conflict and that the terms of any ceasefire could not be predicated on a British declaration of getting out."
    Was it that easy for the British Govt to re invent themselves as the benevolent peacemakers while maintaining the status quo? It's a fairly slick move but surely the Republican leadership was aware what they were at?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. it's a good question Suil eile - I am convinced that the guiding strategic hand in the leadership knew exactly what the Brits were doing and most likely saw in it a managed response to the Brit reading of the smoke signals the guiding hand was sending out. The Brits were not deceiving the leadership. Key leaders were deceiving other leaders and the movement in general. At a conference in the UK once, I said to a senior British official that they had shafted republicans. His response was that they hadn't but that republicans had shafted republicans.

      Delete
  4. When the Republican Army split from a one nation army to a northern/southern command structure was that in fact not an admission that they accepted partition.Thou whoever idea it was they dressed it up as good operationial sense but in reality they had split the army in two.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is a good point. The fact that the Provos didn't attack the South made it easier to believe they were all in cahoots.

      Delete
  5. This quillversation constantly refers to Sunningdale and what was gained by the GFA in comparison to. Can I ask again what was the difference between the carrot and stick policy, persued by the British in the 1970s some call "Ulsterisation" and the GFA?. I reffer to Tommy McKearneys book, "From Insurection to Parliament" P139; "The IRA would be invited to end its campaign and acquience with Londons plan for a shared administration in a Northern Ireland firmly embedded within the United Kingdom but in return would gain admittance into the local political establishment".

    I have struggled to see the difference between this carrot of the seventies and GFA of 1998? Any answers either AM or TFW?

    I remember walking down Whiterock Road with a former comrade from a seperate organisation back in 1988 and him saying, 'the provos are talking about a tactical non use of weaponary'. I didn't quite believe what this experienced person was saying, but could not doubt him. This was ten years before the signing of the GFA. So all this, from the provisional side, had been on the cards for at least a decade, possibly two, before 1998. How many lives have been needlessly lost. There is an old saying; but for the grace of God goes me! I'm not a great believer in the God bit, but I get the point very, very clearly.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Caoimhin - in terms of the IRA's stated objective, there was no difference. Sunningdale had a stronger Irish dimension. The SDLP comment that Dublin is just a Sunningdale away is what spooked the unionists in a way that power sharing didn't. The Brit terms for unity in the 70s were the same as they are today - only with a consent of a majority in the North. That is now SF's position. There was no political compromise arising out of a supposed military stalemate. The Brits held their ground and brought the Provisional movement onto it.
      In my view the IRA set itself an impossibilist goal and measured against that it is accurate to say the campaign was a failure. I don't think TFW would agree with the impossibilist argument and has a much more nuanced perspective which he is likely to develop in the course of this exchange. The internal solution that the GFA ushered in was beneficial to nationalists but it was something the IRA had resolutely set its face against. It was achieved in 74 and was a constitutional nationalist objective. Loyalism and republicanism worked to destroy it and loyalism eventually toppled it.
      The issue is the extent to which the IRA campaign was the dynamic that forced Sunningdale. I think it was.

      Delete
  6. Thanks, Anthony, having read the GFA ( its in the Ilac Library) I can find nothing which would fit republicanisms, of any shade, ideals. SDLP, maybe but they are not republicans. Looking back republicans, again of all shades, called the SDLP the: Stoop Down Low Party,! A certain irony?

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
  7. Caoimhin - the GFA might be the most plausible and sustainable outcome give the structural and ideological environment in which the conflict was shaped.

    But it was never a republican outcome. In fact it was the complete political and ethical rejection of the IRA's unity by coercion position and the triumph of the British position of unity only by coercion. The outcome legitimises the British position and delegitimises the republican position.

    The pretence that it was something else is what I have consistently queried over the years. The IRA lost the war - too bad. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that and then seek to find ways to strengthen the republican position.

    If it can't be strengthened or does not correspond to political facts on the ground then do something else. We can't look at it as if it is a religion that we need to hold onto it forever and a day. It will end up a cult and held to only by the screamers. Screaming hurts the ears of who is being screamed at and is filtered out before it makes its way to the brain.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It certainly delegitimises the struggle. It is a long drawn out read, even boring, and for the life of me I cannot uderstand why it was signed. Even the British negotiators were suprised by the lack of clarity sought by the Irish side. In fact negotiations, which were expected, appear, like so much else, to be non-existent.

    Only my view, others may disagree.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
  9. "- the GFA might be the most plausible and sustainable outcome give(n) the structural and ideological environment in which the conflict was shaped."

    What were the events, and who influenced them most, which shaped the structural and ideological environment, that culminated in the complete defeat of the Provisional IRA?

    (Hint: It wasn't lack of fire-power nor a lack of training).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree, it was not a lack of firepower or training.

      Structurally, the balance of political forces on the island was too strong to be toppled by the IRA. Ideologically, there was a far stronger commitment to the unity only by consent principle than there was support for unity by coercion.

      Internally in the North the unionists were much more opposed to Dublin than the nationalists were opposed to London. That push-pull factor alone made it highly unlikely that consent could be overcome by coercion.

      Delete
    2. "Internally in the North the unionists were much more opposed to Dublin than the nationalists were opposed to London. That push-pull factor alone made it highly unlikely that consent could be overcome by coercion"

      Imagine if the IRA attacked the Southern Gov. Unionists wouldn't know what to do!

      Delete
  10. "Structurally, the balance of political forces on the island was too strong to be toppled by the IRA. Ideologically, there was a far stronger commitment to the unity only by consent principle than there was support for unity by coercion."

    Thanks for clarifying your position AM, one with which I now largely agree. I wonder what TWF makes of your analysis?

    By implication, some might rightly say that Adams, McGuinness and their coterie saved countless lives. They brought sanity and reason to a movement which was essentially unreasonable, unreasonable and perhaps also insane(one pursuing, using some of your words, an impossiblist agenda). Adams, supported by McGuinness and others, elevated a recalcitrant cohort of Irish Nationalism out of the Republican quagmire.

    Surely they deserve acknowledgement and credit for that, don't you think?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Before the series concludes the intention is to have TFW address questions raised in the comments. So this one will be included.

      I don't feel anybody who saves lives should be criticised for having done so. But it seems a legitimate exercise to tease out how those lives were saved and why they were ever so at risk of being lost in the first place that they had to be saved; if more could have been saved much earlier by the simple declaration of a ceasefire rather than the strategic management of a peace process which was often short of being peaceful and into which lives were hurled without their owners ever being told their lives were to be invested in another's project; if with a different strategic approach more could have been achieved without any loss in life.

      If we have along with our opponents been throwing petrol on the fire and then put it out and save lives the question will always arise of why we were ever fanning the flames to begin with.

      In my view Adams and McGuinness are to be credited for ending the war they fought. But any credit should not be the sound of one hand clapping.

      Delete
  11. Indeed, no second hand, no sound of a hand-clap emerges.
    As Bertrand Russell is reported as having once said, an opposition is essential for social cohesion.

    No more than the A/Z's of IRA's and their ineffectual military opposition to the Provisional Movement's current partitionist acceptance, it could be well-argued that insignificant & marginal political or conversational positioning is equally inefficient. Ironically, such marginal & ineffectual opposition affords little, little bar consolidation of the dominant proposition.

    None of that's to decry the right to dissent, merely a question about the efficacy of such dissent. Sometimes, wiser folk are left with little option but to quietly suck it up.

    But as you alluded to earlier, others will scream on, howl & scream and in doing so, unintentionally achieve little. bar consolidation of their nemesis's narrative.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think Russell was right. Better governance is to a large extent determined by the quality of the opposition. Society will always find a government but not good governance. The careerists are not willing to sit in opposition long term as the jaxie develops an itch that only a ministerial seat will cure. And they will abandon everything to get onto it.
      You input might not be to decry the right to dissent but it still does what those in power strive to do - marginalise dissent. Dissent is vital providing it does not turn dissenters into oppositionalists so that whatever it is I'm against it. What would we do without the Marxist wit of Groucho?

      The efficacy of dissent is measured by its objective. Enhancing public understanding is always a worthwhile goal. The above conversation is not going to change the direction of SF - that ship has long since sailed into the port of constitutional nationalism. What it might do is help add to a broader understanding of how that happened.

      Of course for many there is no inclination to understand how the USSR defeated Nazi Germany, being content with it happening. But for others the interest is broader.

      Delete
    2. AM - while your points are well made I reserve the right to take issue. How the ship ended up in the port of constitutional nationalism is hardly the third secret of Fatima! Though it seemed hidden to some t'was sitting there in plain sight for others.
      Why the fire was initially set isn't difficult to comprehend. And once lit, neither is it incomprehensible as to why the flame was kept burning. The ballot box/armalite transition phase helped tend to that, curtailing intensity whilst at the same time maintaining a course for the mutineers' predetermined destination.
      What's so hard to understand about all that?

      Delete
  12. Taking issue is an inalienable right for those who wish to use the blog.

    How the ship ended up in the port of constitutional nationalism is hardly the third secret of Fatima!

    If you drill down a bit into that statement it becomes more multifaceted and fluid than the statement would make you think.

    There is a debate about the how and it has never been settled. There is a number of schools contending"

    Careerist Sell out
    Constitutional nationalist ideology gripped key leaders
    Military odds too great
    Poor training
    Military illiteracy
    Infiltration
    Balance of political forces
    Poor negotiators

    What one of these processes dominated and what was the relationship of each to the others?

    What's so hard to understand about all that?

    Exactly what André Gide observed: Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. "Though it seemed hidden to some t'was sitting there in plain sight for others"

    There's an arrowhead in the FedEx logo. Some will see it, some won't. Those who can't see it will tend to doubt those that can.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. what people claim for themselves is best treated with a healthy degree of scepticism - much like Mencken's man who thinks his wife is the most beautiful woman ever and his children the most intelligent.

      Delete