Suzanne Breenspeaks with four shades of republican opinion about the Good Friday Agreement. 


Cait Trainor doesn’t fit the stereotype of an anti-Good Friday Agreement republican.

A confident young professional woman, she could be MLA material if she was so minded — but Stormont is the last place she wants to be.

Her opposition to the 1998 peace deal began when she was a 13-year-old pupil at a Catholic grammar school in Armagh.

“A special assembly was called where we were asked to pray for the politicians trying to reach an agreement at Stormont that the people could support. I walked out,” she recalls.

“My parents were Republican Sinn Fein members, and I knew that the approaching deal wouldn’t be a republican one leading to an independent Ireland.

“By staying in that hall, I’d have been endorsing what was being said.

“My year head followed me into the corridor. I was later brought to the principal’s office and quizzed for being disobedient.

“I wasn’t happy so I left the school. My parents were called. My mother was more supportive. My father less so. ‘Keep your head down at school’, he said. But given their own politics, neither could really object too strongly.”

Continue reading @ Belfast Telegraph.

Republicans Opposed To GFA

Suzanne Breenspeaks with four shades of republican opinion about the Good Friday Agreement. 


Cait Trainor doesn’t fit the stereotype of an anti-Good Friday Agreement republican.

A confident young professional woman, she could be MLA material if she was so minded — but Stormont is the last place she wants to be.

Her opposition to the 1998 peace deal began when she was a 13-year-old pupil at a Catholic grammar school in Armagh.

“A special assembly was called where we were asked to pray for the politicians trying to reach an agreement at Stormont that the people could support. I walked out,” she recalls.

“My parents were Republican Sinn Fein members, and I knew that the approaching deal wouldn’t be a republican one leading to an independent Ireland.

“By staying in that hall, I’d have been endorsing what was being said.

“My year head followed me into the corridor. I was later brought to the principal’s office and quizzed for being disobedient.

“I wasn’t happy so I left the school. My parents were called. My mother was more supportive. My father less so. ‘Keep your head down at school’, he said. But given their own politics, neither could really object too strongly.”

Continue reading @ Belfast Telegraph.

2 comments:

  1. Fair play to Cait, while Sinn Fein (Provisional) are making out every republican supports their anti-republican strategy, if that makes any sense, the truth may be there are as many, if not more republicans oppossed to the GFA than endorse it. They are under the impression any republican not a member of their party do not qualify as a republican. While oppossing the GFA it does not automatically mean supporting a return to armed conflict, certainly not immediately, but it does mean reserving the right, as republicans, to opposse the mechanics and policies contained in the GFA. The GFA is not a republican agreement, not what so many sacrificed their lives for, therefore Cait and others like her did the right thing at school by walking out of the assembly. The GFA may be a good deal for the SDLP or the Alliance but neither of these organisations had put troops into the field of conflict fighting for a set of ideas, none of which are contained in the GFA.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
  2. " certainly not immediately "?

    ReplyDelete