young turks, old scores
TRANSCRIPT
Fortnight Publications Ltd.
Young Turks, Old ScoresAuthor(s): Martin O'HaganSource: Fortnight, No. 247 (Jan., 1987), p. 6Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551044 .
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6 January Fortnight
YOUNG TURKS, OLD SCORES THE SINN Fein split during the party's Ard Fheis last November in Dublin's Man
sion House was not a clash of northerners
and southerners, nor of hawks and doves.
Despite the publicity given to the con troversial motion 162 calling for an end to the abstentionist principle, the primary contest was for the leadership of the re
publican movement, both politically and
militarily. And the vote in favour of allow
ing elected TDs take their seats in the Dail was for Daithi O'Conaill and Ruairi
O'Bradaigh and their supporters the final straw in their 10-year battle with the
younger and more critical leadership grouped around Sinn Fein president Gerry
Adams.
Although Sinn Fein refuses to recognise that a split has occurred cracks had be
come apparent as early as 1983 when
O'Bradaigh resigned as president. In a
speech at the Ard Fheis that year O'Bradaigh made clear that the dropping of the Eire Nua policy had been a personal blow, that there had been opposition to him on Ard Comharle itself and that and on the Ard Comhairle itself and that this - he implied
- had made his position untenable.
The Eire Nua policy, which had been central to Sinn Fein's outlook, advocated
an assembly for each of the four provinces with an eye to accommodating the
unionists. But the new leadership of Sinn Fein saw this as 'institutionalising partit
ion', allowing unionists to maintain their
hegemony even within a united country. The policy was dropped in 1981 by a
simple majority and in 1982 by a two thirds majority. In each debate the pro abstentionist lobby brought forward a rush of emotion and charges of 'going
sticky' and running down the war.
It was during the 1986 debate on ab stention that such charges prompted
Derry's Martin McGuinness, in perhaps the
most forceful speech of the Ard Fheis, to lash the former leadership of the republ ican movement over its handling of the
1975 ceasefire. McGuinness, who at the time was a
prisoner in Portlaoise, pulled no punches when he told delegates that there were two
issues at stake -
abstentionism and the
leadership of the republican struggle. He said that members of the former
leadership had refused to accept the
present leadership's criticism of their
'disgraceful' attitude during the ceasefire, which he described as 'disastrous'.
Daithi O'Conaill was the chief architect of the truce. He had seen a strategic
advantage in the Provos responding to a
plea from Protestant clergymen for a
Christmas ceasefire at a meeting in Feakle, Co Clare.
Although the first truce broke down, high-level discussions between the IRA and the British government resulted in a
second, which lasted untitthe emf-of 19^ '
But the break in hostilities allowed the
government to recoup the security initiat
ive and by the end of 1976, and particularly 1977, a much demoralised IRA was on the run.
What marked the then leadership's ap proach to the truce was a naive belief that a
British withdrawal was genuinely on the cards. Apart from allowing some IRA leaders to carry their own weapons the
authorities also permitted Sinn Fein to
open incident centres which put the party in direct touch with the Northern Ireland
Office. A few internees were released and
it was even reported that civil servants had
given an undertaking that troops would be removed from the Province.
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O'Bradaigh (left) and O'Conaill take a walk - again
Such was the initial euphoria that the Provo leader in the compounds at the
Maze, where the British had begun to build the 'H' blocks, told his fellow
prisoners that these would be for 'ordinary criminals'. Meanwhile the RUC re-enter
ed nationalist areas, torture began in
Castlereagh and Gough holding centres, army and RUC undercover squads went
into action and the 'criminalisation' of
republican prisoners began. The younger, critical members in and
out of the north's prisons began to quest ion the old guard's leadership. It was this
questioning, coupled with attempts to reverse the security gains by the author
ities in the late 1970s, which led to the rise of the current leadership
- and it is con
fident that it 'will not make mistakes by underestimating the British'.
It was, of course, to be on the electoral -
rather than the military - front that the
young Turks began to make real advances.
And ironically Republican Sinn Fein is now claiming responsibility for the decis ion that set the electoral ball rolling. WHen, during the 1981 hunger strike,
FaTOzmagh/South Tyrone MP Frank -
Maglike suddenly died, a hastily convened
meeting in Sinn Fein's Falls Road office in
Belfast decided to run republican hunger striker Bobby Sands. The result took
many by surprise. Yet, according to
O'Conaill, interviewed in Andersonstown
News, some of the current advocates of
entry into Dail Eireann 'were anything but
supportive of the proposal to put forward
Bobby Sands for election'. But Sinn Fein has made it clear that it
doesn't want to get involved in such 'slang
ing matches' and is refusing to comment
publicly on the split -
if, as one source said
dryly, there is one. SF is confident that in time those individuals it defines as 'real
republicans' will return to the fold.
In Armagh city Councillor Tommy Car roll said there had been no split and no
other group had emerged. In Newry, on
the other hand, Councillor Eamon Larkin has joined RSF and been elected chair of its Ulster regional executive.
Larkin said that while it was early days two cumains in south Armagh had de
clared support for RSF, as had others in
mid-Ulster, Fermanagh had around the
border counties.
Lurgan may became a particularly
strong area for RSF as several Sinn Fein
members who left some years ago because
of the drift towards electoral politics have
joined the dissidents and are distributing their paper, Republican Bulletin.
Larkin claims there is an inherent con
tradiction in Sinn Fein's position between
taking seats in the Dail and launching attacks across the border. He believes that
one or other must suffer and it is the 'war
in the north' he expects will take second
place.
Shortly after RSF was launched it pro claimed its support for the IRA. But it is
widely believed that if it is to survive the months and years ahead it must organise its own military wing. According to Larkin the battle is on for the hearts and minds of the Provos' largest suppliers of money and
guns, the Irish-Americans.
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