On New Year’s Eve, I was resolute that 2025 would be the year when I would get fitter, lose weight, read more about the world and write less about Ireland, revolutions and politics. And so, I found myself at 3pm on a cold afternoon on the first day of 2025, eating chocolate, drinking Guinness, reading the recently released state papers and setting out the issues for consideration for an article that I felt I needed to write.
There was a glimmer of hope, for me though, I had started the day well, with great intentions, completing 10 miserable press-ups and assuring myself that once the chocolate and the beer in the house had been consumed, I would eventually abstain. Similarly, I spent the next few days, in advance of a foreboding return to work, trying to convince myself that the therapeutic benefits gained from writing for TPQ might be better traded for corporate gym membership.
"Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works."
January 1st, 2025 has become the benchmark for my personal development over the next four seasons. With the year now being a few weeks old, I have, already, renegotiated an agreement with myself that has replaced my drunken, vehement and absolutist position of New Year’s Eve. With the exigent encouragement of my better half, I have a adopted a stepping stone strategy whereby I have agreed, with myself, to gradually curb my excesses and become a better person, one day at a time.
“Benchmark- A standard point of reference against which things can be compared”. - The Oxford Dictionary
Akin the person dependent upon alcohol, who always finds an excuse for one more drink, it was my read-through of the state papers that was the catalyst for me, to indulge myself by writing one final article for TPQ.
Every action taken by Dublin and London had been designed to bring the IRA’s actions to an end: The Adams/McGuinness leadership is the only one that can bring that about.
The significance of this explicit briefing by Irish Government officials (BAC), in advance of their meeting with the British Government (BG) in 2003, remarkably appears to have passed under the radar of the political commentariat across Ireland.
Perhaps the official confirmation, in writing, of what many already knew and others had speculated upon no longer merits analysis and has long since faded from the public’s interest. The briefing substantiates that the benchmark by which (both) BAC and the BG measured their success in the “peace process” was the extent to which they could neuter the operational capacity of the IRA.
In a further briefing, directly to Ahern, before a meeting with Blair in 2003 to discuss the fallout from Stormontgate and Freddie Scap's outing as a tout, BAC again were at pains to point out:
The corrosive effects on the whole Adams/McGuinness leadership are obvious not only to them personally but to the project that they have constructed.
The BAC briefing, continued:
Unless we stabilise the situation, and give this leadership some traction, the corrosive effects will continue.
The moral bankruptcy that has accompanied the peace process is clearly illustrated by BAC in their briefing to Ahern. The fact that the IRA's torturer and murder in chief was a foreign (double) agent who committed his heinous crimes on Irish soil is regarded as nothing more than a hiccup.
- As a side note, the BAC briefing also blows the assertion that the IRA knew that Scap was a tout from 1991 clean out of the water. How could the movements leadership be “under pressure” about the Scap revelations in 2003 when they now say (via the rat in the hat) they knew he was a tout for over a decade before then.
The truth that Scap could not have harmed a single person without directive from the very Army Council, they (BAC and BG) needed to “stabilise”, did not even enter the equation and exposed a juntaesque level of ethical sordidness beyond belief. Further proof, if needed, that to BAC and BG everything else, including human life, was of secondary importance, to their primary objective of decommissioning the IRA. The briefing and the subsequent actions of both Governments underscore the importance of the Adams/McGuinness leadership to BAC/BG in reaching that shared objective.
It is unclear, what private measures were offered to the movement to “stabilise” and give “traction” to the then leadership, and to speculate would be nothing more than conspiratorial conjecture.
What was known then and what is now, in the public domain, is that the northern institutions had been in free fall since 2002, when it was “discovered” that the IRA was doing what the IRA did (ably assisted by the British Security Services). The northern institutions were to remain in cold storage until their Lazarus like resurrection in 2007.
It is clear from the state papers that the timing of the 2003 Assembly election was choreographed to suit SF, giving them an electoral advantage over the SDLP for the first time. Placing the Shinners in pole position to ascend to the role of Deputy First Minister, if and when, Stormont was restored. The SF gains over the SDLP were further consolidated when, historically they won the sole European seat available to Nationalists (in the north), one that the SDLP had held for decades.
The DUP also gained primacy within the Unionist community, with the UUP having exhausted the patience of their electorate and destroyed the physical and mental health of Trimble.
There followed a period of prolonged and negotiated foreplay. The DUP, led by Paisley, met the Irish Government overtly in Dublin for the first time. SF continued to meet with the BG and also covertly with the DUP, the UVF and the UDA. The mutual Governmental objective of this “phase of negotiation”, was to ensure that SF and the DUP, would eventually consummate what was to become their de-facto arranged marriage.
A series of scandals rocked the Shinners throughout the negotiations. An urgency was brought to their courtship with the DUP, by republican actions, that included the late 2004 robbery of the Northern Bank and the early 2005 slaying of Robert McCartney by IRA members. The Northern Bank Robbery, (which like the Castlereagh “break in” should now be filed as a false flag operation) allowed BAC and BG to exert considerable pressure on the “leadership” of the movement.
The era of “stabilising the leadership” was hastily drawn to a close, and the murder of Robert McCartney, brough a wrath from the US, that the movement had not experienced post ceasefire. As one political hack at the time noted “it was now time for SF to piss or get off the pot”.
2005, was the inflection point in a cold war that had been fought since 1997. A succession of incidents, by design or default, ensured that BAC, the BG and the USA were to reach their primary objective: the full decommissioning of the IRA, which included the IRA putting the weapons, under the control of GHQ, beyond use.
The IRA, in their statement of acquiescence later that year, unequivocally accepted that the north was to remain a British colony for the foreseeable future and that, in their assessment, the Good Friday Agreement represented a benchmark in a stepping stone approach to achieving the Republic a la Collins in 1921, the freedom to achieve freedom.
Cack handed negotiations at St Andrews, the outing of the IRA's man in Stormont as a long-term British Agent and the special Ard Fheis to rubber stamp the acceptance of policing and MI5s primacy paved the way for a Sinn Fein return to Stormont.
This is not intended to be a history lesson, merely the reflections of someone who was on the inside at that time looking out, now deliberating on the touchpoint issues of that time and trying to make sense of them 20 years later. I have no doubt that there was more tradecraft at play and ancillary negotiations behind the scenes, to which the rank and file were not privy, but it was these machinations that shaped the SF response to these incidents as they unfolded.
During this timeframe, meetings were held with the “Republican family” the length and breadth of the country and dubious Declan preached ad nauseum on the imperative of the membership “drilling down” into the strategy, benchmarks and wallpaper.
The only briefing that resonated with me was delivered by Duckser, not someone that I held in high esteem, but a straight talker. His approach was different, in that he gave an honest assessment of the movement’s strengths and weaknesses and how things could be moved forward. There was no sugar coating of the situation, but neither was a recognition that the process had been successfully engineered by BAC, LG and the USA to close down all available options to the movement with only one possible outcome: a return to Stormont.
At no point during this period of intense consultation with the Republican base was it suggested that a border poll would be the benchmark by which the success of the Sinn Fein project would be measured. To have suggested, at that time, that a border poll was the only way to achieve reunification, would have been met with the incredulity and ridicule it deserved then and still deserves. In truth, none of the contemporaneous public Sinn Fein documents or private internal briefings even made a mention of a border poll never mind bestowed it with the unwarranted importance it now holds in the hearts and minds of the Shinners.
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. - Orwell 1984
20 years have passed since the IRA dispensed its final verdict on the peace process, incongruously delivered from a pub in West Belfast. I envisage, that plans are already in place to celebrate its anniversary, and that the congratulatory merriments will include a re-enactment for the millionaire socialists from the USA who now frequent the James Connolly Centre (Ltd).
The Andytout News will print a two-page special edition (subject to approval) and Robin will deliver the inaugural Freddie Scap memorial lecture extolling Scap's prophet-like foresight by working for the police ahead of the curve by at least 20 years.
What will not happen, is a public or private debate on the movement's downwards renegotiation of every benchmark, they set themselves since 1998. As asserted in previous articles, many of those downward negotiations made sound strategic and political sense at the time. Yet many were made on the cusp, as a reaction to events manipulated by London and Dublin, and a succession of strategic blunders by the IRA.
2024 provided a multitude of reference points against which the progress towards the achievement of the benchmark might be measured. That SF benchmark is now of course, the well-mannered request for a border poll by 2030, and not a 32-county socialist republic.
That SF has chosen to adopt Trump style “big lie politics” is no longer remarkable, however, what is ominous is that now, they can get away with it without any detrimental political consequence. The clearest example of big lie politics that has infected the political discourse in Ireland is the mania like mantra being spouted about a border poll. A border poll was available in 1973, the mechanism for calling and the criteria for calling, that border poll remains unchanged in 51 years, in effect the '73 legislation was cut and pasted into the GFA.
There is nothing that boils my piss more than the diminution of the republicanism of Tone, Connolly and O’Donnell down to calls for a border poll. That frustration is almost replicated by the sense of dismay I experience when I read and hear people saying that the border poll was a central tenant of the GFA, that the British legally must call one, and that the outcome of said poll is inevitable.
When the lame duck President Mary Lou, spoke in December about the demotion of the socialist Minister Conor Murphy to the Senate, she stated that Ireland was on the “cusp of constitutional change”. Telling the big lie about the prospects of a border poll and/or the certainty of its outcome has become the last refuge available to the SF scoundrels, their hangers on and their surrogates such as “Irelands Future”.
Sinn Fein took a beating in the 2024 elections in the south. In any normal party, there would have been a heave against the leadership and Mary Lou, Eoin and Pearse should have performed public seppuku on the steps of the GPO. Those who voted, overwhelmingly rejected the SF analysis on housing, health and the primacy of a border poll.
SF squandered a not inconsiderable “war chest” for 10 years, outspending every other political party (aggregated) in the 26 counties. Sitting TDs were financially buttressed and the “base” expanded by paying full time activists in target seats to work from cash bought constituency offices. The PR machine was operating full time and slick propaganda was churned out online and real life for all candidates.
The results were nothing short of dismal with a 6% drop in the actual vote and a seepage of votes from traditional republican communities. Post-election Mary Lou and the Beard complained that both FF/FG upheld their electoral pledge not to go into Government with SF. The people have spoken: the bastards has become the post-election SF anthem.
It is hard to see how the self-proclaimed “Taoiseach in waiting” and her top team can bounce back from this trouncing. The agenda to “agree Ireland” for at least the next 5 years will be set by FF/FG who both have derided the border poll 2030 notion. There will be no urgency in the south to push the British for a border poll either from the body politic or the electorate. It is as much a non-issue in 2024 as it was in 1924.
Neither will there be an urgency in the North. The UK Westminster elections solidified SFs position as the largest party of the CNR communities. Having successfully proven, that SF are better at being the SDLP than the SDLP themselves, the CNR electorate has voted accordingly.
We are being told that having SF in the driving seat in the NI Executive is a further good omen that the Holy Grail of the border poll will be achieved by 2030. The grandly titled SF “Commission on the Future of Ireland” was launched in Belfast to a crowd conservatively estimated to be three people not paid by SF.
With the exception of a few people who appear to be making lots of money by promulgating the notion of a border poll, it is just not gaining any traction and is not uppermost in the minds of the northern electorate. The standard of living, education, health and housing top a border poll in any surveys carried out in the north.
These are all issues where SF Ministers and a SF Government have singularly failed to make any progress.
I marvelled at the absence of insight flaunted by Chairman Kearney when he stated after the 26 county election results that:
Another five years of more of the same from a coalition wedded to the status quo must not be tolerated.
The fact SF has abandoned any pretence of socialism, and openly designed and embraced a centre right programme for government in the north is being cloaked by border poll fever.
This is the primary purpose of the big lie, to detract from the absolute failure by SF to move things forward either constitutionally or socially since the signing of the GFA. The big lie is all they have left to cling onto.
Swathes of SF friendly academics, commentators and millionaires are continuously wheeled out to resell the big SF lie that demographics are on the side of the CNR communities (if only someone has told me that I could have fcuked for Ireland). But this analysis does not take into consideration. The facts that SF are only the biggest party in the Executive because the PUL vote is fragmented and that the CNR share of vote has not grown by more than 1% since the signing of the GFA.
Neither do the proponents of the big lie grasp that there are many within the CNR community who are content with the way things are and happy for the re-unification of the country to happen generically for a variety of reasons. Many within the CNR community will not risk their newfound wealth and status for a bite at what may well be an economically poisoned apple. There is also a growing number of socialists and republicans that would never board any bus being driven by establishment SF. Finally, there is also a significant cohort of non-Unionist people in the north for the whom the prospect of a SF led Ireland would be more unpalatable than the partition.
Border poll mania, is a bluff, deliberately designed to keep the faithful on board, and to create a tipping point effect within the PUL communities. If it happens it will be lost, and that is the paradox for the Shinners because then their game is up.
Having abstained from alcohol and junk food for a full ten days now, while I contorted my brain trying to make sense of what does not make sense, I have concluded that the republicanism that I knew is dead in the water and without hope of resuscitation.
I despair that Connolly and Tone have been sacrificed at the altar of big lie politics by carpet baggers who have brought us into a cul de sac where there is no viable alternative to managing the status quo. I have accepted that this Sisyphean situation does not merit any more of my thought or my energy.
Tonight, having finished this article, I will drink Guinness, eat an Indian meal and start again tomorrow at the gym.
Slaves who love their chains shall remain in their bondage.
⏩Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fás.
Brilliant piece by Muiris - a must read for anyone interested in the implosion of the republican project. Key line direct from the Dublin government: Every action taken by Dublin and London had been designed to bring the IRA’s actions to an end: The Adams/McGuinness leadership is the only one that can bring that about.
ReplyDeleteExcellent piece Muiris
ReplyDeleteI need a drink after reading that
Thank you, I'm having a drink too
DeleteMuiris - I found this a telling line. It chimes exactly with how I described British state strategy thirty years ago at the Special SF conference in the RDS. Nothing has happened since then to cause me to have a change of mind.
ReplyDelete. Contrary to what some have said here today, the British state have had a very clear and consistent strategy since the early 1970s at least. Different governments may have had different policies and different emphases may have been placed on different things from time to time, but the state has always had one strategic objective. That objective has been to render ineffectual the military capacity of the IRA, and/or, more importantly, to render ineffectual the military capacity of the IRA to effect political change. Foremost, that change that would bring about unity without the consent of the unionists. In my estimation the British have largely succeeded in this objective. This is because the present strategy, if not yet having capitulated to the unionist veto, has come dangerously close to doing so.
Excellent article. 'A fish rots from the head' - old Indian proverb.
ReplyDeleteHave you published your entire speech from the Special Ard Fheis? I remember that day well and had a polar opposite view. I think by the time we were discussing this in 96 that the IRA had already lost the the capacity to effect any change. The paradox for me is that there probably little else the leadership could do but sue for peace, but the fact that they wrapped it up in the flag of victory rather that the shroud of defeat or the truth of pragmatism grinds most. I felt at the time that the GFA presented an opportunity that HAD to be fully explored...by design or default the leadership spaffed away whatever potential it had for the High Chair at Stormont and glowing epitaphs.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that by '96 the IRA had already lost the capacity to effect any change. In fact, the IRA had unprecedented capacity as a result of the massive Libyan arms shipments and the wide array of improvised weaponry and almost unlimited tonnage of explosives its Engineering Department could produce. What it had lost was the motivation of a core group of leadership figures to pursue the struggle to a speedy and successful conclusion. A conclusion that could not guarantee, and would almost certainly preclude, a successful career progression. Precisely why they were promoted to the protected species list.
ReplyDeleteThey may have had a significant amount of material but why wasn't it used save for a few DShK's? How was the morale among the rank and file around 95? And why the buy in for the Adams project?
DeleteSteve - during a conversation I had with a wily Tyrone volunteer in the blocks I commented that the war would be stepped up now that the heavy gear seemed to be in. He said to me that it would never be used to fight or win a war but as leverage. I met him at John's book launch in Monaghan two years back and it would have been beneficial to have asked him about that prison conversation. It wasn't on my mind at that point.
DeleteJohn, we have chewed the fat over this on a few occasions and have arrived at different conclusions.
DeleteI don't think the capacity to effect limited constitutional change was lost. I do think the capacity to coerce the Brits out of the country did not exist. A volunteer visiting me in the Blocks in 88 made the point to me that the IRA could not win the war as they would only be capable of stepping it up to a certain level beyond which targeted internment north and south would have destroyed the organisation. The sad thing for him was that he carried on and ended up serving a hefty stretch for a war that he felt could not be won. I have never been able to come up with an argument to overcome his. In my view no matter what the IRA had in its arsenal, the organisation could have been taken apart by that strategy of targeted internment.
We will both probably agree that not everyone in leadership would have been interned but some strategically left free to deliver the type of outcome we now have. You feel that obstacle could have been overcome whereas I feel it could not.
The reason neither government went for targeted internment lies in that crucial line Muiris identified from the state papers. Both governments knew that if they create the conditions where a career cartel can take control of a revolutionary movement , then it is game over. So they persisted in their strategy of including republicans but excluding republicanism. It was a war of attrition which the Brits ultimately won.
Imagine the first statement of the Provisional IRA after it emerged was a demand for a declaration of a border poll in 2030. The Brits would have given it the following week. In fact they did give it in 1973.
In any event war to me is a scourge, a plague to be avoided, a last resort rather than a first one. Somebody once said a bad peace is preferable to a good war. Sort of where I have ended up in journey of curiosity.
capacity versus capability, poor choice of words by me, by 96 the IRA may well have had the capacity to effect change through its vast unused arsenal, but it did not have the capability to use that arsenal to effect change. The breakdown in 96, demonstrated that outside of Belfast ( occasionally) and South Armagh ( Including England), the army was ineffectual. The rest we can agree on !
ReplyDeleteMuiris - I don't think there is a useful distinction between capacity and capability. A better distinction I feel is between capacity/capability and will/intention.
DeleteI agree with your point that the IRA was not going to win. John throws something else into the equation by asking why they were not going to win.
I think they are all interlinked but equally important. The increase in capacity ( which effectively brought in a new leadership) was juxtaposed with a decrease in operational capability brought about by that very same leadership and targeted interventions by the Brits e.g. Loughgall. The question is was this intentional ? The answer is probably Occam's razor. All of these factors combined with a lack of will or intention to ensure that IRA could not win.
ReplyDeleteSteve R asks why the buy in for the Adams project. It wasn't an Adams project. It was a British counter-insurgency project with Dublin government partnership. The Provisionals simply internalised it and their political snake oil salesmen flogged it to their members as the only cure for partition. Little in this is new. Britain has been strategising to reconcile Irish nationalism with British sovereignty since at least 1886. As for why the buy in from the Provisional grass roots it must be remembered that in 1994 republicans were being told that there was a peaceful path to achieve republican objectives. No rational person could dismiss that possibilty out of hand. What could not be foreseen was the Provisionals ending up as regional managers for the UK government, recognising the lawful authority of the Crown constabulary, acknowledging the Unionist veto and re-christening it as the consent principle (a principle Britain never granted Ireland as a whole). Nor could they anticipate the internaling of the two nations narrative and encouraging nationalists to accept and legitimise a British citizenship component as an essential ingredient of a future 32-County state - to inculcate in the Irish people a herd immunity against republican principles and replace it with the concept of an 'Agreed Ireland' where the differences carefully fostered by an alien government are preconditioned into future constitutional arrangements, and the Irish agree to it. As happened in the aftermath of the Anglo-Irish treaty a clientele class of political carreerists and opportunists were nurtured with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Try telling a Sinn Fein TD on over 113,000 a year plus expenses that we lost. See how far that gets you.
ReplyDeleteAnthony - internment would have surely happened and was factored in by serious republicans who believed we could have overcome that. However, that is not a discussion to be held in a public forum. I remember years ago a Belfast IRA volunteer telling me we could never up the ante to a sufficient military level as internment would come in and 'we could lose our leadership'. It was the first time I discovered the concept that retaining that leadership was strategically more important than winning the struggle. Can you imagine the Viet Minh calling off the assault on Dien Bien Phu because something might happen to Giap? The Brits are well aware the no army can rise above the limitations of its leadership. Their project was to nurture an IRA leadership fit for purpose. A leadership whose strategy would converge with the Brit narrative and shift the debate from a struggle for national rights to one of civil rights. A campaign for national rights attacks British sovereignty and threatens the political and territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. A campaign for equality, on the other hand, can be managed within existing state institutions. Factor in to all of this nonsense the elusive Border Poll. In 1910 James Joyce spoke of 'the Home Rule comet, vague, distant, but as punctual as ever'. Tantalising but never delivering. Oh well, if it keeps the natives tranquilised...
John - I think it would be unwise to think it was not factored in right across the board.
DeleteI would seek to flip what the Belfast volunteer said: rather than losing their leadership the Brits would have ensured the longevity of the leadership that was prepared to settle for a border poll. What would have been lost was a possible alternative leadership.
The article and accompanying comments are valuable contributions to a key inflection point in recent Irish history. As I have said before, such TPQ hosted debates will prove to be valuable resources for future scholars and researchers
ReplyDeleteBarry - I hope you are right. It is a most valuable piece of writing and the comments from both John and Muiris have been most valuable.
DeleteAnthony - you say 'the Brits would have ensured the longevity of the leadership that was prepared to settle for a border poll'... They already did that. Factors in the past that allowed some of them to occupy the protected species list without suspicion would not apply in an internment situation brought about by the high tempo and unprecedented intensity of military operations some hoped to achieve with the Libyan arsenal. Anybody escaping the roundup and continuing to live at home while supposedly leading the resistance would have come under intense suspicion. One cannot defeat the UK state from a position of safety within a UK jurisdiction. Anyone who attempts to do so is being allowed to do so by the enemy and that would rapidly become clear.
ReplyDeleteJohn - that's right, the Brits already ensured such longevity. They would have continued to ensure it in the event of targeted internment.
DeleteRemember that neither Adams nor McGuinness were scooped during the supergrass era. Few if any questions were raised then. In my view it would have been the same had internment been introduced.
Some cover reason would have been given (waffle about elected politicians etc) and given the willingness of so many in the rank and file to believe the unbelievable, they would have emerged unscathed.
A base that was not suspicious of them at the GFA was unlikely to be suspicious of them at any time.
If it is true that the UK state could not be defeated by people living at home in under UK rule, it is unlikely that it could have been defeated any more easily by people living in the South if Dublin introduced internment at the same time.
Its worth remembering in December 1971, the then Home Secretary asserted that the Conflict could be maintained at an acceptable level of violence. And not that they would bring the Conflict to an end at that time. Rather than a statement of intentional longevity I think they knew then they could not defeat the populism of the IRA among Nationalists after internement and the Ballymurphy Massacre AND certainly not after Bloody Sunday.
DeleteThe Fenian Way comments
ReplyDeleteThe apocryphal quote "The war is over but we need your help to bring it to an end" stubbornly refuses to go away, and as each layer is peeled back it becomes its own benchmark as to which direction the narrative should take. If it is ever to reach a credible and informative terminus British layers need peeling back also.
John, I don't think a Tet like offensive was ever on the cards unless there was a secret army of unknown volunteers behind the not so secret army that I knew. I can only base this view on my Belfast experience. BTW the Tet offensive was a military failure as the USA had the capacity and capability to up the ante- as required. TFW, We will never be privy to the layers nor to the tradecraft that accompanied them, as I said in the article, some decisions made sense, some were forced upon us and others were blunders. Occam's
ReplyDeleteRazor probably best explains it all
Anthony - when the defecation hit the oscillation no known operators would have been living openly North or South. Intense preparations were being made for that anticipated scenario by highly motivated units prepared to walk the walk. This was where a courageous and competent local leadership would come into its own and prove its worth. An organisation that produced 12 men willing to die on hunger strike would have had no shortage of volunteers willing to eschew the comforts of hearth and home to fight for the full freedom of Ireland if properly trained, resourced, and led. The bluffers and barflies wouldn't have been too happy though.
ReplyDeleteJohn - I doubt that could be sustained for the length of time necessary to make a qualitative difference. The state's intelligence has always been much stronger than the IRA's security. In that situation when the rubber hits the road there is one probable outcome.
DeleteFor a guerilla war in the West to stand the remotest chance of success it has to be won very quickly otherwise it becomes a war of attrition, once described by a US general as not a strategy but a loss of initiative to the other side.
My own view is that the only way the IRA stood a chance of winning was for it to reproduce the Vietnamese situation. A Tet Offensive in the South not supported by the North would have been halted in its tracks pretty quickly. While the career cartel had no intention of creating such a circumstance, it seems highly improbable that it would have occurred.
I think we have to look at the source of the failure elsewhere other than solely within the career cartel. They managed and compounded the failure, even benefiting from it while others died and went to jail. That is plain enough but I don't believe we can locate the primary reason for the failure there.
If winning was guaranteed by the sheer force of will the IRA would have been victorious. But there are structural factors beyond the best will in the world that put some things beyond the best efforts of the most committed.
I know some people take the view that the IRA was not defeated but the leadership was. That to me is an abdication of responsibility. The type of people you feel operating beneath the radar were there when this debacle occurred. It was on their watch and they let it happen. That is not to apportion blame - things have moved well beyond the blame game. It is more an observation on what I think are hard nosed realities.
At the heel of the hunt, the Zeitgeist has so changed that we are left with a situation where establishment Sinn Fein is virtually unassailable within Northern nationalism. The Brits won the war and the cartel settled for an outcome that defined the problem as an internal conflict. That was the GFA. It was so woeful that Gerry Kelly tried to explain it away as not a stepping stone but a stepping stone to a stepping stone. Turtles all the way down with that one.
Anthony - I simply don't share your inevitable defeat narrative. My experiences and perceptions led me to different conclusions. What none of us knew about at the time was the full spectrum penetration of the IRA by British intelligence up to Army Council level. That could have been avoided but it wasn't and so here we are. That's what happens when a self-perpetuating clique is elevated to god-like status and never questioned until far too late. In fairness to some of our best men on the ground who you believe bear some responsibility for this as it happened on their watch it should be borne in mind few had the big picture the Brits had and I don't blame a volunteer for trusting his leadership when they had shown no overt evidence of being untrustworthy up to that point. A lot of us were fooled - including me.
ReplyDeleteMuiris - The efforts being made to fight an enhanced war of national liberation (that I know about) were in rural and border areas (although not all of them). I know nothing of what was going on in Belfast except Irish republicanism was born there in 1791 and died there in 1998. Yes, the Tet Offensive was a massive defeat for the Viet Cong who were decimated. Many of their best areas never recovered necessitating a much more active role for North Vietnamese forces after 1968. However, the psychic shock to the American public of being told one day 'there is light at the end of the tunnel' and the next day watching Viet Cong sappers shooting up the American embassy in Saigon led to the loss of political support that spelled the beginning of the end for American involvement.
I've been hearing for years that the IRA was planning a 'Tet Offensive' type operation but the capture of the Exsund arms shipment in November 1987 scupperred that. I haven't the remotest notion of what people mean by a Tet Offensive. I heard a few speculative scenarios over the years, all of which were delusional beyond belief. Whether they were anecdotal scenarios or not I cannot say. I was in prison for most of that time and learned much of this after my release. On the other hand, the IRA could have trained tactically to strike strategically and striking strategically is what it would have been all about. Going off half-cocked in an armoured lorry until they ran into the Brits (as I heard suggested) would have been ridiculous not to mention suicidal.
Many of my perceptions are shaped by the great leadership I met on the ground among IRA volunteers at the cutting edge. Unfortunately, none of that leadership was in the leadership.
John - I get that you are as unconvinced by my narrative as I am by yours. But that is healthy in any change of ideas where those engaged are willing to forego positions previously held if new evidence works against them.
DeleteI agree that the IRA was penetrated right up to the top tier but I don't think penetration explains the failure. It expedited it.
I feel that a serious guerilla force has to be suspicious about penetration and should have expected it, maybe even moreso in the case of the IRA with its history of the problem. With the number of alleged informers killed there seems no reason not to believe at the time that penetration was extensive. The problem was that trust was placed in the career cartel that it would tackle the penetration challenge with its own security department.
Nor was it that difficult to work out where things were going by 1993 and the delayed response to the Downing Street Declaration. Everything from that point on was ringfenced in by the partition principle from which could only emerge a partitionist outcome.
Some of the critics of today's SF helped carry policing and decommissioning over the line. The leadership got away with what they did because a trusting base, trusting when there were no grounds for such trust, allowed them to.
If that level of unwarranted trust prevailed throughout the ranks, I fail to see where the alternative strategy for victory would have come from.
I refuse to get into the business of 'I told you so' and can understand those who left later than I did including yourself. I have often wondered should I have stayed and helped them - TC certainly felt I weakened the opposition by leaving as early as I did. But I was never temperamentally inclined to exist within such a structure where dissent was vigorously policed.
At the same time I think people should step up to the plate and own what they did or failed to do. This can be done in private to themselves as a means to a better understanding. It should not be an exercise in publicly shaming people.
Henry Joy comments
ReplyDeleteWell crafted piece Muiris and interesting follow - on commentary from all.
For my own tuppence halfpenny's worth; the Republican Movement, apart from a small, few morphed into the Provisional Movement in '86.
As Ruairí prophesied way back then, BAC & Brit Government would both quickly come to realise "Ah, we have them now".
De facto Partition had become accepted and the Republic abandoned once more.
By the time of Cheyne Walk, and most certainly thereafter, the Brits knew who they'd eventually get to do business with, and also those who couldn't be manipulated.
Mackers, great discussion (although 25 years too late) and worthy of a publication in its own right rather than an addendum to my ramblings.
ReplyDeleteJohn, acerbic comment. "I know nothing of what was going on in Belfast except Irish republicanism was born there in 1791 and died there in 1998" I think/hope you are talking about republicanism as we knew it i.e. the PRM but not republicanism. Different people have different views on when the "movement died" for some it was 69, others 74, 86. 94. 97, 2005, each has its own merit and each is subjective to your personal definition of republicanism but "you can not put a noose around the neck of an ideal" . I knew lots of idealistic people in the movement in Belfast, good volunteers who inspired confidence, but they appeared to be significantly outnumbered by the people who wanted to sell cigarettes and buy stolen goods, people motivated by sectarianism and careerists. The inspirational volunteers have long since disappeared ( metaphorically) as for the others.....just mention the Rafia to anyone from Belfast.
Muiris - it has been a worthwhile discussion. Every comment is thought provoking.
DeleteDefinitions tend to be a sliding scale as there is always nuance. My own definition has been the partition principle. Gerry Adams defined unity by consent as a partitionist fudge. A republican agreeing to unity only by consent is like a Catholic agreeing to the scrapping of Holy Communion. It does not follow that a republican has to believe in armed coercion, merely that they do not sign up to the partitionist fudge.
I think everyone of us who parted ways with the career cartel probably feels we should have left much earlier than we did. But so much gets emotionally invested in these things that the break is not that easy.
The most I expected from those friends who stayed in was not to join the leadership witch hunt against me. Some of them went even further and provided great friendship throughout the trials and tribulations.
The amount of people commenting to me about this piece offsite is an indication of the interest it has drawn. And still nobody hiding behind a pen name to call us all names for not seeing it as they do!!
DeleteI think it is important that we do not conflate the death of republicanism with the death of republicanism as we knew in the PRM. It has taken me a long time to utter the words “I remain a republican” usually followed by “not a SF or dissident republican” but a republican none the less as I no longer will allow either to claim the mantle of republicanism. What they call themselves is a matter for them.
ReplyDeleteThe PRM was just a vehicle that we all thought at one stage, could deliver the republic (not unity), we all stopped believing in this at different stages and for different reasons, but we have reached the same conclusion.
What we appear to be doing now, is carrying out an autopsy on why we now believe the PRM is no longer the vehicle to deliver the republic. Again, we have all identified different causes of death and we are confusing the causation of that death with correlative factors that suit our diagnosis.
The discussion is healthy and respectful, as it always should be, and I am enjoying it, but as I said in my article, I am not sure that as a post exhumation study it merits the attention we are all giving it.
When I gave the book the title Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism, I felt the republican project had reached the end of the road in terms of its ability to effect the type of constitutional change that republicanism required to create a republic. It has never devised a plausible strategy for overcoming the partition principle which has the support of both governments, all establishment parties including SF, the EU and is enshrined in international law. Alternative pressure points have never been seriously considered. There seems to be a binary choice between physical force and the partition principle. The Societies though they had the answer and I used to discuss it quite a bit with Sean Bres. Their objective was sound but they had no way I could see of making it happen. Left republicanism has never moved beyond a niche.
DeleteToday, we have the egos talking about 'the resistance' to inflate their own sense of self importance rather than describe anything that is actually happening on the ground.
What should SF call themselves? The Kings Own, I guess, is as good as anything else. Republicanism no more fits them than Catholicism fitted Ian Paisley.
You are most likely right that the discussion would have been better held 25 years ago than now. Nonetheless, it remains interesting to tease out the different perspectives.
As I used to say it is worthwhile so that posterity can reflect that not everybody believed the bollix or behaved as a sycophant, echoing everything that came down from the rotted head of the fish to borrow from John's proverb. In future times people will be amazed at how people who gave so much came to celebrate so little.
I remember when this was going on, black taxis on the Falls proclaiming victory! If this is victory I shudder to see defeat, let me get it right, the forces of occupation demand republican army and national liberation army weapons be handed over. They even appointed a British Commonwealth General, De Chasterlain, to accept this "decomissioning", a modern word for surrender. Then we see Adams and McGuinness suppossedly going to a meeting with the IRA and they find a bug, the size of a bazooka, something out of a 60s Gerry Anderson puppet show piece, and expect us to believe this rubbish. Fuck me, a reasonably developed ten year old would have known this was not a bug but a not very good bluff. Then again, the entire GFA is one big bluff isn't it?
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
Anthony - we always agree to disagree on the debate between the utility and the futility of armed force. It's an interesting discussion. I agree that more of us should have smelled a rat by the delayed response to the Downing Street Declaration in 1993 (which repeatedly enshrined the Unionist veto and didn't mention the Nationalist community by name). Most of the preparations being carried out to fight an enhanced liberation struggle I referred to earlier pre-dated that. Mid to late eighties until around 1992 I reckon. I was in prison until September 1994 and back in prison in England in July 1996 so was seriously out of the loop on a lot of this stuff. Much of what was going on I picked up from arrested volunteers who briefed me and from some valued and trusted comrades whom I met on the outside after my release. Some of what they were planning was extremely impressive but being surreptiously undermined by certain leadership figures. A lot of this would not become clear until much later when people were more free to talk and connect the dots. Many eyes were opened and jaws dropped. Speaking of smelling a rat, I recall an argument being made we were so infiltrated the leadership had to call it a day and disband the IRA. I wondered why it was necessary to sink the entire ship to drown a few rats, especially when I later realised some of the biggest rats were in charge of the lifeboats! As an excellent former IRA volunteer remarked to me, 'it would give you the scour'.
ReplyDeleteMuiris - My definition of republicanism is that of Tone's - to acheive national unity across the sectarian divide. A civic union of Irish citizens in a 32-County democracy without foreign interference in our internal affairs. By contrast Fine Gael (who declared the Republic of Ireland in 1948), Fianna Fail (the Republican party), and Sinn Fein (the Republican movement) all claim the republican mantle and yet pursue a wholly counter-republican strategy in the Good Friday Agreement which far from being 'oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past' are determined that these differences will be permanently embedded in our national fabric. In place of a united country they promote a 'shared island' where we share in Britain's analysis of the nature of the conflict as a domestic dispute between sectarian factions. Furthermore, we share in the view that Ulster unionists are, and must remain, the civil garrison of an alien state. That our conflicting national allegiances must be conceded and baked into future constitutional arrangements.The British have taken great pains to ensure that ending partition and uniting Ireland is not the same thing. Ending the partition of our country (within the British Commonwealth and NATO) while sustaining the partition of our people, giving it constitutional legitimacy, and imprinting that division with a democratic mandate is a dream come true for the Brits. It makes us willing accomplices in our national discord. It guarantees that the political malignancy through which Britain historically controlled and manipulated Ireland will endure in this 'New' Ireland predicated on all the old divisions. That's as far from Irish republicanism as it is possible to get but internalising that analysis saved a lot of skins and inflated a lot of bank accounts.
What was the alternative Caoimhin? An endless unwinnable war of attrition with another thousand dead? Sinn Fein consider themselves the one true heir of Irish Republicanism and in that consideration have positioned themselves as the voices of the CNR community in the 6 counties in quite an unassailable way; they have completely wiped the floor with the SDLP since the GFA.
ReplyDeleteIf the heavy gear from Libya was used in any meaningful way targeted internment would have been the least of it. The British had plenty of hawks that would have howled for a far more ruthless response. While I can see the validity in John's and Anthony's views I do fear the alternative to what transpired would have been a lot worse.
Sorry John, I hope you don't think that I was questioning your understanding of republicanism, I was not. What I was questioning was the assertion that republicanism died in 1998, it did not. What did happen, in and around that time, was the movement that we had all put our faith in abandoned the republic. The whens, whys and the wheres are of historical importance, for posterity and future learning but these things will always be subjective unless the Brits, the Ra and BAC open up their records, they wont. People like, myself still ascribe to the Republican ideals of Tone and Connolly etc, but as I said in my article we are in a cul de sac and I don't see any way out of it. Republicans no longer have a horse in the race for "Irelands Future"
ReplyDeleteMuris - I never thought you were questioning my understanding of republicanism. It does indeed seem like republicanism is in a cul de sac in the Six Counties having been hijacked and distorted by a political machine whose primary function is not to achieve a national republic but to service the private political ambitions of a political elite. Sinn Fein has joined the SDLP as inheritors of the Redmondite legacy which internalises and authorises British constitutional constraints and conditions on the construct of Ireland's political architecture. More than that, they have rewritten and redefined the very concept of unity to mean terriorial unity as opposed to civic unity. In return for an end of partition Sinn Fein are prepared, in fact are actively encouraging, a counter-republican two nations analysis to align with British pre-conditions for 'uniting' Ireland. They want us to internalise the conditions, parameters, and political architecture of the united Ireland demanded by Britain, should it ever come to pass, and proclaim victory by maintaining that’s what we were fighting for all along. That group 'Ireland's Future' should more accurately be called 'Britain's Vision for Ireland's Future". A non-partitioned Ireland rooted in British/Irish identity politics can be neither united nor a genuine republic.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, this is not the end of history. We must not be lured into swallowing the narrative that the British government is patiently awaiting the day that intrinsic character faults in the Irish people can be resolved so that London can benignly hand Ireland back to the Irish when it is safe for the Irish to do so. The day that Sinn Fein can claim 'we' won the war. The UK has deep strategic reasons for maintaining a foothold in Ireland. Not least the North's access to areas of the North Atlantic vital to British defence interests. This has been flagged up in a number of British publications by senior UK defence analysts and politicians. The Shinners recent hype about a Border Poll by 2030 is lifted straight from a book by Brendan O'Leary called 'Making Sense of a United Ireland'. They have no other evidence that that. It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. On the other hand, British politicians such as Alastair Campbell (former Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy) and Rory Stewart (former Tory leadership candidate) were recently talking openly about how serious constitutional change demanded a weighted majority in any future Border Poll and cited cases around the world to lend weight to their argument. Britain's political system rooted in Westminster parliamentary supremacy means they can pass any law they like if they think it is in the national interest. And if they think remaining in the North of Ireland is in their national interest (and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine many certainly do) they will go nowhere, demographics be damned. On the other hand, they could decide a nonpartioned Ireland within NATO and the British Commonwealth is a good fit. Whatever decision is made will be made by the British not the Irish. Under the present political dispensation Sinn Fein endorsed, the future of the Northern state rests securely in a political and legal framework of terms and conditions comprehensively safeguarded within an intricate web of constitutional constraints controlled exclusively by the British government. No Irish citizen, elected or otherwise, can call an Irish unity poll in Ireland. That decision lies firmly in the hands of the North's Secretary of State, an English politician belonging to a political party that doesn't organise in Ireland and who personally hasn't received a single vote in Ireland. There is a lot yet to play for and many a slip between a cup and a lip. The Shinners may have their tails up in the North at the moment but 'events my boy events'.
The fact is, Steve, Sinn Fein (Provisional) are not the sole owners or inheritors of republicanism. There is the IRSP, who incorporate socialism into their republicanism. Then there is Republican Sinn Fein who claim the only inheritors of the Second Dail. Add to these many individuals, like myself and many more who no longer consider Sinn Fein the only or even major voice of republicanism. The HFA lacks clarity and has more contradictiins than that other work of fiction, the Bible. No decent shop steward would have signed such a document withoit much more clarity, even the British side were suprised at how little Sinn Fein would settle for. Did the British negotiators have something over the republican (of sorts) negotiators?
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
No argument there Caoimhin but my question remains, what choice did the Republican movement have apart from the fudge of the GFA? A continuation of an unwinnable military effort or an uneasy peace via politics only?
DeleteNo idea what they had over the Shinner negotiators but do wonder if war weariness was also a large factor for them.
I think in all of this those who live on the island of Ireland have to decide what type of society they wish to live in. And that choice has to be made free from coercion. Ultimately, they may opt for a very different framework to that favoured by republicans. How republicans go about making a serious input to that decision making process has never really been laid out in a way that I have found persuasive. I suspect that Muiris is right about the republican horse. It doesn't seem to be at the races.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting article and subsequent discussion to say the least. So many points of interest it's hard to see the 'right tree' in the woods, but one I'd like to pick up is John's point on UK strategic interests in the North Atlantic having a role to play. It's a point Fred Holroyd - one of the first British MIO's sent to the North at the beginning of the 70s - has made to me many times, his strongly held belief being that the war was 'engineered' by the UK and US governments to convince Ireland to join NATO and therefore help secure the North Atlantic from a Soviet/Russian threat. I have never - and still don't - agree with Fred about the 'engineered' argument, but having seen that Ireland joined NATO's Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP) in 2024 ostensibly to counter potential threats to undersea cables et al, I'm beginning to rethink, slightly.
ReplyDeleteJon - territorial acquisition is no longer the priority it once was for imperialism or neo-imperialism. Britain does not need a physical presence in Ireland to maintain its strategic interests.The Dublin government as part of the Western system does that of its own volition. The safeguarding imperative is as effective under the Western political umbrella.
DeleteI think we find the argument for strategic interests requiring a physical presence situated in niche circles - usually on the outer right of the Tory Party and among some military officers. I think we have to be wary of moving perspectives - that exist on the margins - to the centre of strategic mainstream thinking. In 1949 a memo was sent by a cabinet civil servant to a minister arguing that the North whether it wills it or not must not be allowed to leave the UK. Decades later republicans were still pointing to that as a mainstream British policy when it was anything but. Just as John Biggs Davison argued that the IRA must be defeated because it planned to set up a Castro style regime in Ireland which would be aligned with the USSR and Cuba. Again, we cited this as an example of mainstream British state thinking when it was on the fringe. As for territorial defragmentation of the UK in the event of the North withdrawing from the UK, Thatcher suggested exploring the possibility of ceding South Armagh to the South. I think that argument might have more weight today in the context of the push for Scottish independence - but that too seems to be on the wane.
I think as republicans we never trust the British state and feel the need to speak truth to power when it comes to that state. But truth to power is only effective if truth about power is at the heart of it. And that means identifying the driving force that moves power correctly.
Pleased that you joined in the discussion.
…a 1949 British Cabinet document, which classified Northern Ireland ‘as a matter of first-class strategic importance’. It stated that ‘it seems unlikely that Britain would ever be able to agree to Northern Ireland leaving His Majesty’s jurisdiction…even if the people of Northern Ireland desired it’. (Britain’s Long War by Peter Neumann page 18).
ReplyDelete…a 1951 paper, which originated from the Commonwealth Relations Office, reaffirmed that Ireland was still considered ‘a potential base for attack on the United Kingdom’, and that ‘a part of the island [should therefore] …remain part of the United Kingdom’. (Ditto).
In February 2024, Policy Exchange, the most influential Think-Tank in the United Kingdom, published a document called Closing the Back Door. This document, which is forwarded by two former UK Secretaries of State for Defence, states that:
…the UK quite obviously has a strategic interest in Northern Ireland by territorial definition, and per the contours of geopolitical rivalry…the interests of the island of Great Britain and the territories of Northern Ireland are indissolubly intertwined…Northern Irish and British strategic interests are one and the same…Northern Ireland is therefore the key to addressing the UK's security concerns…preserving the strategic unity of the Union is an inextricable component of British grand strategy. In doing so, the strategic indivisibility of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – which, despite subsequent interpretations, the Downing Street Declaration did enshrine – must be rediscovered.
The Brits see what they have always seen in Ireland. A geographical, material, and human resource to be exploited and one that must never be encouraged to become a cohesive democracy that could conceivably develop policies for the benefit of the Irish people that might potentially conflict with Britain's strategic interests.
As for a Border Poll - don't hold your breath.
Excellent, informative and educational article and comments, from those who may hold different opinions, but all of whom know what they are talking about.
ReplyDeleteAs an observer from Dublin, my over-riding impression brings to mind the remark by Seamus Mallon that "Adams played John Hume like a trout"" (no disrespect to either of these fine men).
By the same token, it seems to me that the Brits played Adams and McGuinness like two prize salmon!
Anthony - the British security establishment sees the North as a major strategic territorial asset. A crucial consideration is that Britain’s nuclear deterrent, consisting of Trident ballistic missiles on Vanguard-class submarines, is based at Faslane in Scotland. They have to pass through the narrow North Channel between Scotland and the North of Ireland when leaving or returning to base. Under no circumstances would a government independent of the United Kingdom be allowed unfettered control of that channel’s western flank if it could be avoided.
ReplyDeleteOver 90% of fibre-optic cables carrying the vast bulk of communications vital to Western defence and economic interests passes through or near Irish territorial waters.
Russian submarines entering the North Atlantic must navigate the GIUK gap. A strategic choke point between Greenland, Iceland and the UK. Trump certainly believes a forward posture in Greenland is vital to American defence interests. Britain requires naval and air assets to have rapid access to areas of the North Atlantic that ports such as Derry provide. In fact, the recent defence paper published by Policy Exchange last February mentions Derry nine times as being crucial to servicing British military operations in the North Atlantic.
These are not the rantings of right-wing Tory crack-pots who still can’t get over the fact they have left India. It makes sound, and I would have thought glaringly obvious, strategic sense from the UK perspective.
John - Policy Exchange is a right wing conservative think tank which does hold to a very traditionalist conservative view of matters, has long been pro-unionist even to the extent of many of those within it being sceptical of the GFA. They are influential but I don't think as mainstream as you might think. That said, I would need the data before taking that any further.
ReplyDeleteI am not au fait enough with cable optics or nuclear subs to be able to rebut your argument. However, imperialism manages quite well across the globe minus territorial acquisition. I am open to persuasion and would like to see more of what the UK mainstream produces.
The three documents you cite above are not mainstream - I cited one of them myself in an earlier comment.
What I would like to see is a contribution from strategic analysts. Believe it or not, you argument resembles a Marxist one to me and you are anything but Marxist!!! But you get the drift.
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ReplyDeleteMuiris - I think that is very true. In a world whether interdependent as the pluralists think or in one of domination and dependence as the Marxist think, states have to be equipped with strategic interests that go beyond their borders. But those strategic interests can be secured - even better from the hegemon's perspective that they do - without territorial acquisition.
DeleteWith or without the North Britain will remain the regional hegemon and Dublin will align with it. We are already on our way into the NATO camp, aided no doubt by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Your point about destabilisation of the UK state if unity were to occur is certainly worthy of consideration although the way the GFA is framed the Brits 'post-withdrawal' will have a role for a very long time to come to ensure minimum instability. Richard Humphreys gets it very well in his book on the matter. The GFA envisages a sort of rolling withdrawal.
Anthony - Policy Exchange is indeed right wing, conservative and pro-unionist as is the bulk of the British intelligence and security community. You won't see mainstream British defence strategy published in the public domain as the bulk of it is top secret. What is not secret is that the GIUK gap exists and the North of Ireland is strategically placed to police it. The data on undersea fibre-optic cables and the location of Britain's strategic nuclear deterrent is no secret either. The Royal Navy's most advanced anti-submarine vessel the Type 23 Frigate won't last a crack in a conventional war as they'll be almost immediately sunk. A land base that can't be sunk will become critical. Helicopters carrying anti-submarine torpedoes will be an important weapon for them. The Merlin MK2 Naval anti-submarine helicopter has a range of 750 nautical miles. Ireland has the sad misfortune to be better placed for that than parts of Scotland.
ReplyDeleteYou say imperialism manages quite well across the globe minus territorial acquisition. The United States has almost 800 bases in 70 countries. The UK has 450 military installations in 42 countries. Territorial acquisition is crucial to establishing a military posture that can shape the strategic enviroment in a global conflict. The Brits will no more willingly leave the North than they will leave the Malvinas or Gibraltar. Their excuse, of course, is protecting pro-British populations they planted in the first place. That is the excuse but that is not the reason.
John - I am not so sure that the bulk of the military and intelligence are pro-unionist. They might be pro-union in a structural sense without being ideologically pro-unionist. No doubt some of them despise the unionists but for the reasons you state remain pro-union.
ReplyDeleteNor do I think your argument is necessarily weakened because Policy Exchange is right wing conservative. I would not dismiss its findings with a casual wave of the hand. Nevertheless, it was from Policy Exchange that we got the perspective that the peace process was all an IRA plot to get a united Ireland. We know that was wrong and never became the dominant strategic policy strain within the decision making centres of the UK state. I think the same might also be postulated as to what drives its strategic view of Ireland.
The US having bases throughout the world along with CIA stations and everything else that goes with it is able to be achieved without territorial acquisition. The UK state could as easily have the same arrangement with Dublin as the US has with all the countries where is has bases but does not occupy.
I think Neo-Marxism came into being to take account of neo-imperialism in a post colonial world which rested on territorial acquisition. Neo-Marxism set itself the task of explaining imperialism in a world that had moved beyond territorial acquisition but remained imperialist.
This is a debate that took place many years ago on TPQ where a US lawyer argued the same points that you did. Unfortunately in his case all he could come up with was some admiral who had written a book about the strategic value to Britain of the North which seemed not to have been reviewed anywhere. That suggested to me how fringe the position was. But the lawyer to reinforce his argument came up with a paper by a 17 year old student who argued that the US was really in Vietnam to seize its oil. After that I gave up listening to him.
What I will try to do is get a strategic analyst to write a piece for the blog on the topic - if I can find one. It is an interesting topic but I don't feel knowledgeable enough on it to make the case either way.
SMALL TYPO which I have corrected and resubmitted my comment. I am working today, and access is limited, but still enjoying this discussion. I think there are a few inalienable truths in all of this. No UK Government has ever ceded that they do not have a strategic interest in the North of Ireland, they may have told us that they do not have a selfish strategic interest but then the conundrum becomes what is selfish, not what is strategic. The GFA does not command a neutral position from the UK Government on re-unification - it commands that it the event of a border poll being called they would not try and influence the outcome. Under the terms of the GFA the UKG do not have to abide by the results of a border poll, in the unlikely event that one is called or the even more unlikely event that there is a yes vote. National Security is paramount in everything the UKG do- calling a border poll would destabilise the north, in a space where the Brits have reached their end game. The re-unification of Ireland could impact upon the National Security of the UK and therefore it is in the strategic interest of the UK to NOT let this happen. Although I agree with Mackers, in the 21st Century, you no longer need to have a military and/or administrative presence to rule/control a country. UK Parliament remains sovereign in the North and there is no treaty anywhere in the world that would be upheld in an international court of law if the two words "National Security" were used. Talk of a border poll is futile and boils my piss, Republicans discussing a border poll turns my piss thermo-nuclear. Where now is the question Mackers asked a few years ago, that got me writing- it remains the key question for me. picking over the carcass of the failed PRM campaign, while necessary, wont peel any spuds
ReplyDeleteMackers in relation to you earlier comment to my repost, the calling of a border poll, while we still have a polarised and divided society, will without doubt bring conflict once again to our streets. Nobody wants that and only a lunatic would consider that in a place where the numpties were celebrating the removal of a bit of peace wall in Portadown as a major step forward in the never ending peace process. That is not granting Unionists a veto over constitutional change that is pragmatism. Secondly I no longer think that the GFA has the capacity to un-partition Ireland, in view of how it has embedded sectarianism and polarised people. If un-partition happens, and I am deliberately using that term, it wont be because of the GFA. Yes it will have to be managed and rolled out over decades probably. Again there a numpties out there who think that the Brits will leave the day after a successful border poll and that the RA will lead a cavalcade from Royal Avenue to Stormont to hoist the green flag. Geo -politics have changed so much even since the signing of the GFA, the Brits and the USA will not allow the un -partition of Ireland unless it suits their national security and economic needs.
ReplyDeleteMuiris - call it what we might, it is giving unionism a veto over constitutional change. It might be for the most pragmatic of reasons but it is a veto nonetheless. And what creates such a pragmatic answer is the question posed by a unionist strategy of threat.
DeleteWhat it amounts to is telling nationalists that they really are second class citizens, that their preference and vote is to be afforded less weight than that of unionists. And that could easily bring nationalists out onto the streets in seething rage with a more powerful democratic argument for violence than anything the unionists could muster. Even a campaign oof civil disobedience by the majority in the North would be seriously destabilising. We could hardly expect them to sit on their hands. If 50+1 is enough to maintain the union it should be enough to end it. What little democracy there is in the North as a result of partition will be doubled down on by giving unionism an outcome not commensurate to their numbers.
What I think will happen is that the establishment will find a way to press for a weighted majority and Sinn Fein will try to sell that in the interests of reconciliation and goodwill when in fact it is just another ride on the gravy train for the careerists. The rationale will be that the people of Ireland via joint referendums have voted in favour of the weighted majority.
Northern nationalists get ready to spread the buttock to receive that big red, white and blue flagpole right up the jacksy. You can moan in Irish if it helps ease your pain..
Anthony – straying into the realm of semantics here but the bulk of Britain’s intelligence and security establishment are indeed pro-Union as opposed to pro-Unionist. England’s ruling class had a much closer affinity to the landed Anglican elite of Leinster, Munster and Connaught than they ever did to the Presbyterians of the North East whom they oppressed at various times in our history. Still, the planters and their descendants served a purpose and continue to do so.
ReplyDeleteOf course, territorial acquisition is not required for the forward positioning of bases. Simply the permission of the host state. The point is the forward positioning of bases is critical for defence planning. Most conventional weapons, vessels and aircraft have a limited range. As do some radio transmissions such as microwave communications which are line of sight. The rapid development of laser energy weapons to blind and degrade aircraft and drones necessitate line of sight also. This means forward deployment. Hence, Derry.
Britain is not in Ireland for the sake of unionists. England’s conquest of Ireland began centuries before the Ulster plantations. It does not care about unionists beyond their utility as a bulwark against the evolution of a national citizenship based on republican principles. What England does care about is maintaining a significant influence in this substantial landmass on her western flank. A land mass that permits rapid access to areas of the North Atlantic crucial to British defence interests. An island whose territorial waters contain, or are in close proximity to, underwater fibre-optic cables that carry approximately ninety-seven percent of all global communications. The Brits see in Ireland a bread basket and cattle ranch. An unsinkable aircraft carrier and potential ports for their warships and submarines. An island with approximately two million men and women of military age. An island where six of its counties are members of NATO, and the remaining twenty-six must somehow be cajoled or conned into joining. The Brits will form alliances and build the political prestige of the leadership of any community who will help them pacify, normalise and stabilise the status quo so that they can achieve their political and military strategic objectives.
The Brits will not rely on Dublin (as it presently stands) to guard these approaches. Dublin has no fighter aircraft, no proper radar, a handful of patrol vessels with no mine laying or mine sweeping capability. No tanks, no troop transport aircraft, the list is endless. Furthermore, Britain cannot anticipate who will be in government in Dublin in twenty years’ time and the Brits plan half a century ahead. To defend their Western approaches in a peer to peer struggle with Russia and/or China, Britain’s choice is either to enhance their military presence in the North or to end partition but with all of Ireland in NATO and the British Commonwealth. British forces will once again be in Cork and Galway but we’ll be told ‘Don't be silly, those aren’t Crown forces they’re NATO forces’. Making all Irish ports and airfields, of course, nuclear targets. Roll on the Irish Peace Process.
You may disagree with this Anthony but its good we can have these debates. The last thing we need is another echo chamber. Republicanism can only be re-built by republicans with the moral courage to rebuild it. That means arguing the toss and not being afraid to stick one’s head above the parapet. Hopefully the broad republican family can reach an agreed consensus on what Irish Republicanism actually stands for. A consensus that cannot be hijacked or diverted by what Pearse called ‘the voices that ring less true’.
John - the unionists, despite hailing from planter stock, have as much right as the rest of us to contribute to the future shape of the country, something you hold to. While I do not believe in obligatory nationalism I don't believe in giving unionism a veto. I also believe in the right of secession from a state or for states to amalgamate in one state if they have the democratic mandate to do so. Hence, the right of East Pakistan to have become Bangladesh has a stronger pull than the right of Pakistan to territorial reunification. Present societies rather than history or tradition should trump in these matters.
DeleteWith territorial acquisition not required the British state will reach an understanding with whoever is in government in Ireland which will protect its strategic interests.
I have come to the belief that Britain is in Ireland in response to the unionists. Interests change over time and the need to territorially control Ireland Britain is not as strong as it was in bygone years. This does not mean that the British state is benign, merely that it moves in the world of international realpolitik where friends don't count (for long), interests do.
What are the stats to show that Ireland is just a bread basket for the Brits? I can't make that assertion because I don't know. I haven't the data at hand and lack the motivation to hunt it out. At one time, for sure, but to think it is forever and a day seems ahistorical. When Thatcher was in power the North was pejoratively referred to by Whitehall mandarins as the Socialist Republic of Northern Ireland because of the amount of state subvention going into our basket.
I think a strategic analyst is the type of contributor the site would benefit from. It is such a long time since I seriously studied international relations that I am not the best person to tease out and identify what Britain's strategic interests are. It is just that I have seen very little from analysts to support the view that Ireland is so strategically crucial that the Brits cannot risk leaving. I have spoken to many Brit and Irish politicians and academics over the years at conferences and such like and none of them convey the sense that the British remain for strategic reasons. Most see unionism as the problem. Having said that, it is not something I pursued at length with them. When a British minister (maybe Callaghan) was visiting Belfast and saw 'Brits Out' on the wall he is reported to have said, 'yes but how?'
In my view, Ireland will join NATO and fulfill its obligations. Partition will not even have to be ended to make that possible. Thus diluting any worries the Brits might have. They will be able to rely on Dublin regardless of who is in government.
But I am no more an international strategic analyst than I am an economic analyst. And I am wary of people with no economic experience telling us how to run an economy. So, I have no intention of pushing my view as an erudite one.
We all have to be open to ideas and avoid vanity arguing where scoring the point rather than making it becomes the impetus. I take a magpie approach to discussion - if an idea gleams than seize upon it, not fly off in the opposite direction.
I am definitely not a fan of Pearse!! That romantic nationalism and glorification of war rests uneasily with me.
Anthony - I do not believe Britain is in Ireland in response to unionists. Neither do a lot of unionists, hence their paranoia about future British intentions. Pearse was a product of his time. I'm a great believer in leadership by example. He had to balls to sign the Proclamation and to suffer the consequences. He didn't deny he was a member of the IRB. That forgives a lot in my book. How many more British Prime Ministers have to say that Britain has a strategic interest in maintaining the political and territorial integrity of the UK (but that it is not a selfish interest) until we believe them? We'll have to agree to disagree on that.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
DeleteWhat view do you have of the Dail? Do you see it as having any legitimacy? How could a guerilla insurrection have succeeded without the significant apparatus of a State ( the South) behind it, especially going up against a formidable and experienced foe?
I'd be interested in HenryJoy's observations on this discourse as he astutely pointed out that the South has moved beyond it's old political machinations and culturally is in a very different place from a few decades ago. Without widespread local support for Provisionals in the South perhaps it was always doomed?
John - I take the opposite view which is shored up by the fact that the unionists have never trusted Britain and do not believe that Britain is in Ireland because they like the unionists. This is why the unionists have since the formation of the state oscillated between the desire to integrate and an opposite desire to have as much autonomy as possible through devolution. Unionism always had to deploy a strategy of threat against Britain in order to ensure that Britain could not jettison them easily. Muiris in fact flags this up by the unionist threat to destabilise if a border poll is successful.
DeleteThis is Pearse on WW1: the old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefields. Such august homage was never before offered to God as this, the homage of millions of lives given gladly for love of country.
This is Connolly's response: No! We do not believe that war is glorious, inspiring, or regenerating. We believe it to be hateful, damnable, and damning . . . Any person, whether English, German, or Irish, who sings the praises of war is, in our opinion, a blithering idiot.
Both men lived in the same time but opted for different world views existing at that time.
I am not inclined to believe British Prime Ministers anytime soon. They all promise not to stand in the way of Irish unity if a border poll goes for it. But you don't believe them. I would side with the unionists on what the Bris say about being supporters of the territorial unity of the UK . . . something to keep them quiet.
Anyway, it was a productive discussion, wholly free of the rancour that so often poisons this type of discussion.
We used to shout 'up the Ra' in the face of the governors during the blanket protest when they were trying to adjudicate us but not 'Up the Republic!'
Mackers, I fear you may have misinterpreted what on re-read are clumsy comments by me. Your analysis is spot on for those who have bought into the border poll bullshit. What I was trying to convey was a sense of how stupid that would be with the necessary groundwork being carried out. I don't mean the tokenistic engagement, that the likes of "Irelands future" ( great descriptor of them John) partake in. I wrote in my first article on here that first the north must work and I was clear that I didn't mean make Stormont work, the way the Brits want it to work. For factual accuracy record I have let out many a moan as gaeilge and if maintaining the peace required me to take one up the "jacksy" then so be it. John, challenging discourse conducted respectfully, where all views are valid, is the only way to start rebuilding republicanism. I am amazed at the breadth of discussion this article has generated and from such a spectrum of contributors. The last time I was in Palestine, I met with people who shared neither the views of the PA or Hamas, they wanted better, than both had to offer, they spoke of the need to keep the discussion alive to keep the vision alive. Hope springs eternal
ReplyDeleteMuiris - I thought your comment was fine and don't feel I misinterpreted it. It didn't seem clumsy. My issue with it was the view that pragmatism was somehow different from a veto. I don't oppose groundwork being carried out but the democratic principle should still stand. I recall your first article and thought it a fine piece, from which your current views are a follow on. The problem with taking one up the jacksy for peace is that it is a bit like rape: it would be happening as a result of a unionist strategy of threat. I don't think it is healthy for a society to be conducting its business by acquiescing in a threat.
DeleteWhether a British withdrawal comes through a border poll or by some other mechanism the instability you refer to would still be a challenge.
For me, the bottom line is I would like to see a united Ireland but not one more life lost in its pursuit.
As a thought experiment I have also said if there was a choice between living in a united Ireland with a third world health system or living under British rule with a state of the art health system I would opt to live under British rule. I am not much of a nationalist.
One thing I have been certain of for the past two decades is that I have as much intention of going to a republican meeting as I have of going to mass!! Occasionally, I have attended both and believed neither.
Anthony, Muiris - Maith sibh. Up the Republic!
ReplyDeleteJohn, Mackers, an enjoyable and challenging exchange that has reached a natural conclusion. Mackers the thoughts of attending another "buster" is more frightening to me than thoughts of a mass. this conversation has comforted me, Republicanism as an ideology is alive and well and will eventually see a rebirth. Of that I am sure
ReplyDeleteMuiris - you kickstarted it with a fine article. I came away with the opposite conclusion. Republicanism as we knew it is the past not the future - not even at the races to paraphrase you.
DeleteAnother thing that needs developed not on this thread but elsewhere is the concept of The Republic. I don't think enough people get what John and Muiris mean when they say a Republic and how it differentiates from what a united Ireland might look like post-border poll. For a while republicans like John and Sean Bres have emphasized that a Republic is very different from what SF offers. But if the difference is not laid out starkly then people might vote SF, thinking they are one and the same thing. It might be worthwhile doing a piece on that alone. It would provide a baseline for people to go back to rather than searching through a lot of articles where the issue has been addressed but because of its spread can appear fragmented. All the component parts then have to be pulled together.
ReplyDeleteFinal word from me. republicanism as we knew it is dead, republicanism as we now understand it, does not have a horse in the race- subtle distinction. it took me years to internalise what Caoimhin said, SF are not the sole owners or inheritors of republicanism, they should not get to define what the future of republicanism might be.
ReplyDeleteThanks Muiris and all the other contributors that have made this a really thoughtprovoking interesting article
ReplyDeleteMuiris- A brilliant can of work and as you say in the comments Occam's razor I share your despair but struggling with your optimism.
Henry Joy- Yes ,Ruairi , was was spot on prescient .
Tonyol Dublin- "Adams played John Hume like a trout"Don't know about Adams' abiliity as a fisherman but think he would make a good waiter judging by the way he handed Tony Blair everything on a plate.
John Crawley- "That's what happens when a self perpetuating clique is elevated to God like status and never questioned till far too late"John, is this certain members of the Army Coucil you are referring to or McGee,Scap et al or both?
John, I enjoy your writing and find it interesting and insightful,and miy heart really wants to agree with your analysis but the head agrees with Anthony but but I know nothing is ever written on stone and for you the patriotic flame will never die.
The British objective was and has always been to strategically keep the status quo and preserve the Unionist veto. The only thing they ever changed was their tactics.Thatcher said that she " was not winning the battle with the IRA" and that sending in troops was "useless". Major said that "the IRA could not be beaten militarily"and many army generals expressed the same view did the Republican leadership recognise that this was not a statement of defeat but a statement of intent.,intent to change tactics and persue their dirty war for Thatcher's desired pre-emptive intelligence and this was to be fed by the army and various other British intelligence agencies' infiltration of the PRM and Sinn Fein. When Joe Mc Donnell and those who came after him were sacrificed on the altar of political expediency it wasn't long before the machiavellian blood of Perfidious Albion was now, like Prufrock's fog,insidiouly creeping through the veins of at least some of the leadership Meanwhile the Brits
policy of Ulsterisation was descending into lower levels of corruption leading to the Nationalist population being mercilessly slaughtered. Kitsonism had truly shed its' cloak..The Brits bad cop persona,Thatcher.was retired and eventually good cop Blair entered the stage. Tony was a great guy, sign on the dotted line and he'll turn a blind eye to anything: like the Northern Bank Robbery,what's £26 million amoungst friends? Soon the die was cast,Sinn Fein stole the coats of the SDLP and the dream of the 32 County Democratic Socialist republic was gone. Well we're all careerists now.
Thanks A.M for allowing me the rant. I extend to you and the Quill an
old Maoist saying "let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend"
The GFA, even allowing for the clarifications on many ambiguos points, offers the working class (proletariat) nothing. It was never suppossed to, it was and is about stabalising not only Irish capitalism and exploitation but making Ireland stabalised for FDI (Foreign Direct Investnent) a fancy way of saying foreign capitalism can come in and exploit Irish labour. No agreement with capitalist governments, or between capitalist governments can or will address the central question which is; 'who owns the means of production, distribution and exchange', why should such a document do this! They represent the interests of the capitalist class and the GFA is no exception.
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
Steve R - My view of the 'Dail' is that Dail Eireann was declared an illegal assembly by the British government in September 1919. They never rescinded that and never permitted it to lawfully exist under British law. London refused to recognise the legitimacy of the state. The 26-County Parliament of Southern Ireland set up under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 hijacked the term Dail Eireann (which means Assembly of Ireland). Leinster House is an assemby of part of Ireland. It is an Irish government but it is not the Governemnt of Ireland. There are two governments in Ireland. Is it a legitimate state? Yes, I beleive so. A legitimate state illegitimately set up but acquiring de facto legitimacy through the recognition by every country of the United Nations that it is a legitimate state and the fact 99%, if not more, of its electorate considers it as legitimate. As do the overwhelming majority of citizens in the North including Unionists. Pretending otherwise may be ideologically comforting but gets us precisely nowhere. I do not concern myself with arguments around the legitimacy of the Southern state but how do we get to a legitimate 32 County national democracy within an All-Ireland Republic? I don't pretend to have the answer to that but I'm all ears. As far as the the IRA succeeding without the backing of a State apparatus the fact is it didn't succeed. The French Resistance, for example, had significant support from state actors as do most successful insurgencies. The Brits had the Dublin government on board as active, and in many cases, enthusiastic collaborators. Libyan support, properly used, could have tipped the balance in favour of republican forces but a core leadership at the heart of the movement had no intention of pursuing anything other than a lucrative career path. Rather than using Libyan resources to support an enhanced war of national liberation they used them as negotiating capital to end it on terms framed by the British.
ReplyDeleteAnthony - the concept of what is 'the Republic' most certainly needs to be defined and propagated to as wide an audience as possible. I hope that will happen.
Muiris - SF are pursuing an actively counter-republican agenda. They have moved (or been moved) from the republican postion of a country demonstrating civic unity across the sectarian divide to 'this island' rooted in British-Irish identity politics. Republicanism as a concept is easy to understand but, unfortunately, just as easy to twist. We have to forget about SF. They are lost to republicanism and, like Fianna Fail and the Sticks, will never find their way back.
JBC - I'm referring to a core group of leadership figures. As to the debate on whether we are right to hope for a republican resurgence at some point or delusional to do so I think it goes back to the old saying 'whether you think you can or think you can't, you're probably right'. Republicanism has been down so many times before and yet resurrected by unforeseen events. If I were the Brits I wouldn't dance on its grave just yet.
Thanks for responding John. The political landscape throughout the island is much different now from our younger days.
DeleteRepublicanism ( not the Sinn Fein lite version) needs to offer something 'better' than the status quo and at present I can't see what that would be, and in particular how that would be attractive to middle and working class in sufficient numbers to have any hope of traction.
The GFA is recognised under so-called 'international law, which supposse it would be. Problem here, apart from the 'agreement' been pro-capitalist, Orange, Green and Red White and Blue, is international law does not in reality exist! Back in 1922 when the "termas of the agreement" were ratified becoming a treaty on 7th January of that year the same 'international law' did not recognise the 'treaty'. This was despite the fact two warring countries had signed up it was not regonised till 1925. This was because the "Border Commission" did not sit until 1924 and only after their findings were concluded was the treaty recognised. Notably to see the same 'international law' has not waited for a 32 county referrendum on unity or even a border poll which contradicts the right of the Irish people 'as a whole' to decide the countries future. International law, on behalf of international capitalism, could not wait to get this onto their albeit flimsy statute book. People should look before they leap, "still waters run deep"!
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
Steve R - You're welcome. The main thing Irish republicanism offers is national liberation, civic unity, and an end to the sectarian dynamic. No republican patriot in history, from Wolfe Tone to James Connolly to Bobby Sands, had a costed programme for government in their back pocket. Their belief, and mine, that we can find it within ourselves to lift all boats if led by genuine patriots ideologically moored to republican values and principles is something worth believing in and striving toward.
ReplyDeleteMuiris - we would have to go back a long way on the blog to find a piece read as often as this one.
ReplyDeleteAgain, well done to you and also those like John who turned it into one of the most productive of discussions.
John Crawley-Thanks for response
ReplyDelete