TPQ 🧠 Towards the end of last year and into the current one, a series of exchanges took place in The Pensive Quill's Quillversation slot.
 
The former full time republican activist The Fenian Way and erstwhile republican prisoner Anthony McIntyre participated in the exchange, with valuable and enlightened input from a range of commenters at each stage.  

The eight part series followed on from the publication of John Crawley's book, The Yank, and a subsequent review of it by The Fenian Way which like the book asked serious questions about how the republican struggle against the British in the North was prosecuted and led. 

As the republican response to the country's British problem, including the London government's use of state terrorism, was a unified political project incorporating diplomatic and armed spheres, the Quillversation series sought to explore overarching issues rather than focus solely on the diplomatic or military aspects of the one symbiotic political project. The impact on diplomatic politics resulting from the way in which armed politics were prosecuted was a central feature of that eight part exchange. 

As an exercise in seeking to understand how republicanism had come off the tracks to such an extent that the outcome amounted to a catastrophic shortfall in terms of securing the republican objectives that the project had promised to achieve, the discussion generated a lot of interest, producing quite a bit of feedback both on and offline. 

For all of that, the series was more about reflection on the past rather than contemplating the future. As a result it has been suggested that there might be merit in opening up the pages of TPQ to allow some exploration of the possible future for any republican project.

TPQ is not a republican blog. The core theme driving it is the principal of free inquiry. In that spirit those not hailing from the republican tradition, including the unionist community, are most welcome. 

In terms of practical application, it is envisaged that the Where Now For Irish Republicanism? project should be done not as a Quillversation but as a series of opinion pieces of around 800 words, but no more than 1000. Pieces will feature on a weekly basis, beginning next Saturday with a contribution from the veteran republican activist Francie Mackey. A number of other contributors have been lined up. 

TPQ will encourage a flourishing of ideas. The spirit aims at creating a discussion which will be as ideationally wide and ideologically promiscuous as possible. Against that there are four criteria that TPQ requires its contributors to observe. 

♜ Contributions will be forward looking and avoid reviewing the past
♟Writers will be asked not to promote a preferred group
♞A premium should be attached to specific and grounded proposals and not generalities
♚All contributions must be plausible with a healthy aversion to the fanciful.

The above criteria might be considered a white line preventing the writers meandering out of the project lane. A review of the past has already been carried out in the series of Quillversations. There is little to be gained from going over the same old, same old. Promoting the writer’s preferred group is partisan at a time when a rich diversity of ideas is sought. Likewise, bashing Sinn Fein for the sake of tub thumping can take a walk.  Contributors are encouraged to be strategic, not cheerleaders. Any article should be grounded in specific methodology rather than broad strokes like mobilise the masses or Brits out. Radical proposals, not revolutionary ranting, should be the ethos guiding those who wish to write in the context of structural societal change at an economic level. The waffle and sloganising that has all too easily found its way into republican political discourse can on this occasion stay at home. Any proposals must fall within the realms of plausibility. Light is preferable to heat.

There are many different views out there in the diverse world of republicanism and beyond. Several contributors have already been lined up. While the project will be selective in who it asks to write, there is an open welcome to anyone concerned enough to have made a comment to the Quillversation.  Pieces will also be solicited from a range of figures whom it is felt have something worthwhile and relevant to say. As stated above, consistent with the freedom of inquiry principle, there is no binding necessity for a contributor to hail from the republican constituency. 

While there are people like Anthony McIntyre who feels republicanism has no future, certainly not in terms of becoming a force for change, a wider social protest movement, or capable of mounting a serious hegemonic challenge to the existing power structure in Irish society north and south, many others do not share that view, feeling that it is too bleak, too narrow. The Fenian Way would be one such person. 

To paraphrase an old slogan, may ideas bloom and contend. 

Where Now For Irish Republicanism?

TPQ 🧠 Towards the end of last year and into the current one, a series of exchanges took place in The Pensive Quill's Quillversation slot.
 
The former full time republican activist The Fenian Way and erstwhile republican prisoner Anthony McIntyre participated in the exchange, with valuable and enlightened input from a range of commenters at each stage.  

The eight part series followed on from the publication of John Crawley's book, The Yank, and a subsequent review of it by The Fenian Way which like the book asked serious questions about how the republican struggle against the British in the North was prosecuted and led. 

As the republican response to the country's British problem, including the London government's use of state terrorism, was a unified political project incorporating diplomatic and armed spheres, the Quillversation series sought to explore overarching issues rather than focus solely on the diplomatic or military aspects of the one symbiotic political project. The impact on diplomatic politics resulting from the way in which armed politics were prosecuted was a central feature of that eight part exchange. 

As an exercise in seeking to understand how republicanism had come off the tracks to such an extent that the outcome amounted to a catastrophic shortfall in terms of securing the republican objectives that the project had promised to achieve, the discussion generated a lot of interest, producing quite a bit of feedback both on and offline. 

For all of that, the series was more about reflection on the past rather than contemplating the future. As a result it has been suggested that there might be merit in opening up the pages of TPQ to allow some exploration of the possible future for any republican project.

TPQ is not a republican blog. The core theme driving it is the principal of free inquiry. In that spirit those not hailing from the republican tradition, including the unionist community, are most welcome. 

In terms of practical application, it is envisaged that the Where Now For Irish Republicanism? project should be done not as a Quillversation but as a series of opinion pieces of around 800 words, but no more than 1000. Pieces will feature on a weekly basis, beginning next Saturday with a contribution from the veteran republican activist Francie Mackey. A number of other contributors have been lined up. 

TPQ will encourage a flourishing of ideas. The spirit aims at creating a discussion which will be as ideationally wide and ideologically promiscuous as possible. Against that there are four criteria that TPQ requires its contributors to observe. 

♜ Contributions will be forward looking and avoid reviewing the past
♟Writers will be asked not to promote a preferred group
♞A premium should be attached to specific and grounded proposals and not generalities
♚All contributions must be plausible with a healthy aversion to the fanciful.

The above criteria might be considered a white line preventing the writers meandering out of the project lane. A review of the past has already been carried out in the series of Quillversations. There is little to be gained from going over the same old, same old. Promoting the writer’s preferred group is partisan at a time when a rich diversity of ideas is sought. Likewise, bashing Sinn Fein for the sake of tub thumping can take a walk.  Contributors are encouraged to be strategic, not cheerleaders. Any article should be grounded in specific methodology rather than broad strokes like mobilise the masses or Brits out. Radical proposals, not revolutionary ranting, should be the ethos guiding those who wish to write in the context of structural societal change at an economic level. The waffle and sloganising that has all too easily found its way into republican political discourse can on this occasion stay at home. Any proposals must fall within the realms of plausibility. Light is preferable to heat.

There are many different views out there in the diverse world of republicanism and beyond. Several contributors have already been lined up. While the project will be selective in who it asks to write, there is an open welcome to anyone concerned enough to have made a comment to the Quillversation.  Pieces will also be solicited from a range of figures whom it is felt have something worthwhile and relevant to say. As stated above, consistent with the freedom of inquiry principle, there is no binding necessity for a contributor to hail from the republican constituency. 

While there are people like Anthony McIntyre who feels republicanism has no future, certainly not in terms of becoming a force for change, a wider social protest movement, or capable of mounting a serious hegemonic challenge to the existing power structure in Irish society north and south, many others do not share that view, feeling that it is too bleak, too narrow. The Fenian Way would be one such person. 

To paraphrase an old slogan, may ideas bloom and contend. 

32 comments:

  1. And what could be the pole star for this new phase of Irish Republicanism?

    Through the plebiscites that led up to the GFA the people accepted the partition of the island. I'll be interested in seeing if any realistic or viable alternatives, separate from those already mooted by existing constitutional parties, emerge.

    (I won't be holding my breath though).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It has been a fading star for quite some time now. The Omagh attack underscoring how moribund it is. I can't see the space for it to become a hegemonic project. Maybe its best opportunity will lie in the degree to which it can become a pressure group. But I doubt that will satisfy any of its fundamentalist adherents who feel, like evangelical Christians, that their political belief system should have top seat at the table regardless of what anybody else might think. How wider than fundamentalism can republicanism be? That I imagine is what needs reflection.
      I hope you consider writing a piece.

      Delete
  2. I doubt such a disparate bunch has the potential to become even an effective pressure group. Sure something might emerge to bolster the identity & social needs of a dwindling cohort of disaffected former combatants, activists, and supporters. Though my hunch is all that'll evolve from the effort is a loose alliance, a loose alliance of the largely disgruntled who'll console each other, snap and bark alright but won't have teeth enough to bite. Something like the Irish National Foresters social clubs of old.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It will be a huge challenge for them. If it is down to 'a dwindling cohort of disaffected former combatants, activists, and supporters', then it is doomed. It could only succeed if there was a mushrooming in receptivity towards republican ideas. Thus far I have not seen that happening. The attack on Omagh is almost certain to create a dim view of anybody associated with an attempted revival who happen to be former volunteers. There will be the suspicion that republican projects will end up being hitched to the homicidal ideology of the physical force tradition.
      I think in the spirit of free inquiry a discussion should be facilitated where views like your own (while no more welcome in some republican quarters than my own) would be aired. When myself and The Fenian Way discussed the proposal he was of the view that the last thing republicans need to be doing is forming a self referential clique incapable of listening to critiques of its own position. His view was that if cold water gets poured over any suggestions for a future republicanism, then at least something will have been learned. I agree with him.

      Delete
  3. Sure, the idea is worth discussing and, it's worthwhile that that discussion is facilitated. However, I'm of an opinion that even the most cursory SWOT analysis will reveal many more weaknesses and threats, than strengths and opportunities.
    On my last walk and chat with 'our mutual friend' I remarked to him that Republicanism, as we once practiced it, had lost all purchase, and the over-arching context of the struggle had become lost to the now well-embedded constitutional nationalist narrative. I also proffered the idea that any esteem still held for those Republicans who participated in the struggle would only diminish further with time.

    To me, it looks like any nascent grouping emerging will have a bastard of a PR mountain to climb.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You are I are probably singing from the same page. I think our mutual friend will have agreed with you.
    Would you consider doing a piece on it for the blog?
    The careerist rush in SF has already had that effect of lowering the esteem of former volunteers. SF even agree to them being prosecuted by the British in a no jury court where there is evidence.
    Voices like that of Leo Green (an astute and compassionate jail leader no longer within the party) that prosecutions should end are marginalised.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It'll boil down to "What can modern Irish Republicanism bring to the table that isn't already there, won't alienate sections of their own people, and remain viable in the event of inevitable careerism as per Mary Lou MacDonald?" That's one hell of a big hurdle to hump.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is the sort of thing any republican project is likely to face. Summed up, how does it become relevant?

      Delete
  6. @ AM, Steve R

    I think what any of the dormant and active political actors can bring to any table is subject to an intricate web of interdependencies.

    At the moment, disillusionment seems the dominant political trait. Irish republicanism seems quiet at the moment - and why wouldn't they be? Unionism is staggering from one self-inflicted catastrophe to another.

    If loyalists start killing Catholics, republicanism would be significantly emboldened. The reverse is true, also.

    I think the security forces on both sides of the British border in Ireland have a significant degree of latitude to come down hard on top of paramilitaries.

    For all the bluster on both sides, nobody wants the boat rocked too much, and almost nobody wants a return to violence.

    So, what is left? Apathy, I'm-alright-Jackism, and a slow walk to nowhere in particular. And that suits most people just fine.

    I'd prefer a UI, but only an outbreak of loyalist or UKG violence would make it an urgent issue for me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brandon - hopefully both you and Steve will contribute to the discussion.

      Delete
  7. Something I have found fascinating in republicanism is "who owns the past"? After the GFA SF moved quickly to own the republican legacy, even wrestling Bobby Sands' from his family. Now there are competing remembrances, but this throws up a problem for SF as they are lauding dead cop killers one day and condemning live cop killers the next. Can they keep doing this if they want real power? Is there an internal tussle between the old guard and the young who would like to see the remembering toned down?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We would need to be on the inside track to know. SF is really behaving no differently to other politicians who try to knit together competing and diverse strands within the constituency fabric that they want to hold together. Societies tolerate a lot of double standards and turn a blind eye about past issues if by doing so their present interests are served. The careerist element within SF which like in all political parties makes its way to the top. It would see commemorations as a weak spot in the career structure defences but don't feel sufficiently sure of their footing to take the wobble if the events are abandoned. Do the careerists identify with Bobby Sands? Only insofar as he is useful to furthering their political careers. If it makes the difference between office and no office, career advancement and career derailment, in my view they would be prepared to call him a criminal.

      Delete
  8. @ AM & Peter

    This discussion makes me think of The Good Old IRA, written by Danny Morrison in response to Southern Establishment criticism of the Provos (I have a PDF if anyone wants a read).

    Or Adams' comments about the IRA attacking newspapers in the war of independence: https://thebrokenelbow.com/2016/10/21/what-does-a-printing-press-destroyed-by-the-ira-look-like/

    The act (shooting, bombing, confession via torture) can be defended/excused/diplomatically-ignored so long as the actor (IRA, RUC, British Army) retains some prestige/affection/respect.

    This may be one of the reasons why intolerance for anything other than damning criticism of the RUC/UDR is so extreme within some republican circles.

    I don't think any Irish republican could call Bobby Sands a criminal and have a successful career afterwards. Some personalities and actions are elevated to such an extent that they become Irish nationalist mainstream. As difficult as it may be to stomach for the vast majority of unionists, outside of the PUL community, support for the killing of 18 Para's was widespread, and Bobby Sands was simply not a criminal.

    Going back to Peter's point, there is of course dissonance in holding the position that it was OK to shoot police officers until 31/08/94, or 19/07/97, but not OK in 2023.

    To give an example, modern day SF would not condemn or possibly even excuse the killing of nine RUC men 38 years ago today in Newry. They could accurately say there was a war situation etc. The two RUC men killed in June 1997 would be trickier - SF may allow that to be a regrettable attack, tie it in with the failure of politics at the time (because British bad faith etc). But McGuinness did the heavy lifting of condemnation with the killing of the two British soldiers, and the PSNI officer in 2009. That was a watershed.

    From my point of view, and I've taken a fair amount of stick on this blog for this, it's important to remember the terrible price paid by the RUC and the UDR, and the fact that neither organisation exist any more. One of the reasons I haven't written much about the UDR is that I do not feel there is enough credible research detailing what good they did for everyone in NI and plenty of condemnatory research.

    As Mick Jagger sang:
    "Just as every cop is a criminal
    And all the sinners saints"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think you will get many takers for something written by Morrison. I only ever read him in the past to see what he was lying about. I don't read him at all now.

      That is a good point about whether a successful career would emerge after calling Bobby Sands a criminal but which does not address the point being made: if there was to be a successful career after it what way would they fall? Now it is purely speculative, but my instinct tells me the career would win by a country mile.

      I think SF having endorsed the physical force tradition can find themselves attacked from within the republican constituency because the same tradition is what current armed republicans use to call SF out.

      In my view best for SF to say the war failed, stop trying to justify it, refrain from condemning it and offer mitigating circumstances as to why it happened.

      The UDR doesn't exist anymore. The RUC got a makeover and was renamed. In my view better than both had faced disbandment and public censure for their role. As part of the British sate repressive apparatus, both paid a heavy price.

      I think until all the constituencies recognise the terrible hurt the other constituencies sustained, then the recrimination will continue.

      I think unionism is much more parsimonious on this front than nationalism.

      You have taken stick for your views about the cops and UDR on this blog but from observing the exchanges, I think you have emerged with your nose in front.

      Delete
    2. AM,

      "I think unionism is much more parsimonious on this front than nationalism"

      Because when you get right down to it the Unionists truly believe they lost the war and anything further given is a step too far. Siege mentality ad infinitum.

      Delete
  9. @ AM

    It would be great to get Billy Leonard writing something on this subject: ex-RUC man who became a Sinn Fein MLA.

    I only knew a few Sinn Finn members, and this perhaps colours my judgement, but they'd point-blank refuse to call Bobby Sands a criminal, irrespective of the impact on their career. I'm sure there are plenty of others who might.

    I sometimes think that the only organisations to emerge from the Troubles unstained are the nurses. A relative of mine was a nurse in the RVH, and told me about IRA men and British squaddies having injured each other in a gunfight shouting abuse at each other across the wards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Is Billy still alive?

      It is just hard to point to examples where they put a principle in front of a career.

      That type seem to have vacated the party. I am thinking of people like Angela Nelson for whom the royalty embrace was a red line.

      When you think of it, they have abandoned so much in order to build this career structure what great leap is there to saying Bobby Sands was a criminal? They are willing to have the volunteers of the Bobby Sands generation prosecuted by British police, tried in a British court without a jury and jailed within the British prison system. Taking a further baby step is all that is required.

      And they will find some excuse for it - 'he/she has to say that to outmaneuver the Brits or unionists but they are only pretending.'

      We have seen it all before.

      I don't think I am being cynical in taking this view of them.

      No institution acquits itself well in war, just better than another institution.

      Delete
    2. AM
      SF have held onto the legacy much longer and with more vigour than I expected. I thought the old volunteers would be quietly done away with pretty quickly. I also thought they would have moved towards taking their Westminster seats, especially when Corbynistas ruled Labour and the SNP had a load of MPs.

      Delete
    3. Peter,

      there is a gradualist move in that direction. I think were the North not such an integral part of the party the IRA would have been gassed by the South by now.

      I think they calculated long term that even with Corbyn leading Labour there was no real strategic advantage to being in Westminster. I thought years ago that they would have been in it by now and I think they still will. The MPs elected to it still are very much part of the career structure without going there.

      SF look more to Dublin than to London. I think when Adams gave up the Westminster seat for a Dail one, he knew what was best for his political career and Westminster didn't figure in that.

      If the only thing stopping SF getting office is a failure to repudiate the IRA and all its acts, the devil will be exorcised.

      Delete
  10. @BS
    "there is of course dissonance in holding the position that it was OK to shoot police officers until 31/08/94, or 19/07/97, but not OK in 2023."

    Until August '94, at the ideological level and the level of popular sovereignty, many of those who engaged the forces of the Crown could, albeit tenuous to others, claim such an imprimatur.

    After the GFA, and de facto acceptance of partition by a resounding majority of the population of the island as a whole, these groups can no longer invoke such legitimacy. They are defiant to the unambiguously expressed will of the people and obsequiously adhere to a now redundant ideology.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Brandon,

    "I don't think any Irish republican could call Bobby Sands a criminal and have a successful career afterwards."

    Considering the ambivalent attitude that some in Fianna Fail hold towards the Easter Rising, and former Taoiseach John Bruton dismissing it as unjust, it will probably not be long before Bobby Sands is dismissed by some SF councilors, even though he was being used to prop up gay rights a few years ago.

    "Going back to Peter's point, there is of course dissonance in holding the position that it was OK to shoot police officers until 31/08/94, or 19/07/97, but not OK in 2023."

    There isn't, really.

    Republicans considered themselves at war with the British state from 1970 to 1994. Following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and the acceptance of the PSNI, most republicans (of the SF variety) believed that their war was over. The "dissident" ones did not agree and thus carry on. To claim that there is dissonance not only ignores the vast ideological differences listed above but smacks of point scoring.

    John O'Neill writes that "The violence associated with the subsequent insurgency campaign, partition and civil war ended in 1923 with all most those imprisoned on both sides of the border released under general amnesties by the end of 1924. In the subsequent decades the IRA organisation continued to exist but, violent clashes with the governments in the south and north were extraordinarily rare. When and where sustained violence did occur it tended to be for limited periods such as 1939-44 and 1956-62. In reality, for much of the IRA’s existence post-1924 it more typically pursued (and fragmented) over a series of political projects rather than insurgency campaigns. Even after 1969, the IRA was involved in a series of campaigns bracketed by ceasefires (in 1972, 1974, 1975, 1994 and 1997) and linked to, and reacting against, political initiatives. The idea that ongoing violence maintains some sort of legitimacy in perpetuating resistance to British control in Ireland is a myth that isn’t supported by the history of the IRA itself."

    ReplyDelete
  12. @ Christopher Owens, Henry Joy

    The basis for my "dissonance" comment was a conversation I had with an ex-combatant in which I drew a distinction between pre and post GFA attacks on police officers in the North. The locus of the discussion was the continuity of British laws being paid by armed British police in Ireland. That hasn't changed, but of course politics has, as noted by you both.

    I find it hard to accept accusations that Sinn Fein politicians are motivated by careerism alone, but I do find myself doubting the sincerity of some SF-ers when they condemn attacks on the PSNI but not on the RUC.

    Perhaps I was projecting, and the dissonance is what I felt when I drew that distinction between pre and post GFA attacks on the police.

    I'm curious about for whom, or against, I was seeking to score points though?

    ReplyDelete
  13. That should read British laws being enforced by paid armed British police in Ireland.

    Yesterday was a long day...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Brandon,

    I was merely suggesting that the claim of dissonance smacked of point scoring. I wasn't accusing you of it. I have seen some unionist commentators certainly use it to score points against SF.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @BS
      It's generally agreed that hard cases make bad law. An extreme case is a poor basis for general law.

      Likewise, narratives of hurts & injuries experienced by individual RUC & UDR personnel, as you've presented in previous contributions, are but anecdotal evidence, anecdotal evidence that flies in the face of overarching analysis.
      The hard evidence, facts, and statistics point in another direction. The facts & evidence not only suggest but also confirm structural inadequacies in the Northern State itself. They shine a light on flaws that were there since the very off; on shortcomings not just in the state itself, but also in the police & paramilitary forces it spawned.

      None of that is to dispute Pareto distributions, which would allow for 80% of cops & UDR paramilitaries having been 'decent enough blokes'. However, I'm sure you can see how, over time, your positioning may be interpreted, or indeed misinterpreted, as point scoring.

      Delete
  15. @ Christopher Owens

    I see what you mean. You wrote something making an excellent point about point scoring about the deaths of Thomas McElwee & Yvonne Dunlop.

    @ Henry Joy

    The newly created state of Northern Ireland wanted an army, but was refused permission by UKG. So they set up an extremely well-armed "police" force, and the special constabularies. The forces of "law and order" were as flawed as the state itself. That's a simple fact of history, one that I would never dispute.

    There is a lot of fascinating commentary on this website about the IRA winning or losing the war. Armed republicanism targeted the RUC and the UDR with absolutely devastating consequences for both of those organisations. Like I said earlier, the RUC and UDR have been disbanded, having been discredited, and suffered significant losses. It's overly simplistic to say that the IRA defeated the RUC or UDR, but, like the fall of Stormont, the IRA was a highly significant factor in the demise of both.

    It's interesting to me to study what the RUC and UDR did from a more objective point of view, and as I've said before, I think republicans can afford to be magnanimous. But I say this as someone who left Belfast in 1986 as a child, and never experienced the RUC's boot on my neck.

    There are, of course, numerous RUC veterans who are low-life scumbags, and whose Facebook pages are testament to their outright bigotry, bitterness and, in some cases, criminal attitudes and actions.

    On a corporate level, the RUC were guilty of torture, murder, and a wide range of criminality, mainly against nationalists. On a corporate level, the IRA exacted a severe penalty from them.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Brandon, that's somewhat of a scattergun response if I may say so.
    Large parts where we might find agreement Brandon, and yet significant divergences too.

    You may study what the cops and UDR did from an observational point of view however that of itself does not make it objective.

    Your expectation that Republicans might afford greater magnanimity to local members of the Crown forces is naïve in the extreme. Constitutional nationalists, never mind Republicans, couldn't bring themselves to afford much magnanimity to the DMP & RIC, not even a hundred years after their disbanding.

    I suggest you and Charlie Flanagan get together and console each other ... maybe even form a mutual support group!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's witty about Charlie, and Brandon will be able to take it in the spirit it was given. Not much I laugh at on this blog but I'm still chuckling at that.

      Delete
  17. I had to Google Charlie Flanagan!

    I was so busy taking the King's schilling today, I ends up writing the comment in a few installments, coming back to it.





    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I got the sense of what you were trying to say but think you rushed to fit too much in.

      These days I don't much go for black and white, thinking it leaves too much out, leaving the explanatory power with a certain frailty.

      I have long thought and said that there were far too many bastards on our side for them all to have been on the other side.

      There were good cops and there were bad IRA volunteers. What could be more evil that sabotaging an end to the hunger strike? Your enemy never betrays you. Only your friend does that. Minds as nuanced as Henry Joy's would appreciate that. Where he comes down I think - and where I agree with him, and I sense you do too - is on the institutional character of the force. The RUC was a force that targeted the nationalist population. The UDR was worse.

      That said, situational logic leads to institutions behaving in a certain way. Most repressive state apparatuses when confronted with an insurgency will behave like the RUC and British army. If the loyalists were to wage a guerrilla war against the Dublin government I think SF would be to the fore in seeking to crush it and relying on the same type of repression it experienced in the North to do so.

      Best not to allow the situation to develop, out of which emerges the situational logic where repression seems a solution.

      Delete

  18. "The RUC was a force that targeted the nationalist population. The UDR was worse."

    I think this is true. The RUC could also point to an impressive track record of prosecuting loyalist terrorists, not a few of whom were in the ranks of the UDR (and of course the RUC's own rank). The UDR seems not to have been held in high regard by really anyone, outside of their host communities. The RUC seemed wary, the British army seemed contemptuous. I remember Eamon Collins writing that nationalists who were generally not supportive of the IRA would not be unhappy with UDR men being killed.

    I bought a copy of "Conspicuous Gallantry" and started to review it. I should finish that one day. I couldn't help be moved by the stories the members of the UDR told, but at the same time, felt that they were utterly misguided.

    "If the loyalists were to wage a guerrilla war against the Dublin government I think SF would be to the fore in seeking to crush it and relying on the same type of repression it experienced in the North to do so."

    It's an interesting thought experiment. Republicans have historically dealt with their own dissidents with total ruthlessness. If UKG acceded to a UI, I simply don't think loyalism would be able to resist it in any meaningful way.



    ReplyDelete