young turks, old scores

2
Fortnight Publications Ltd. Young Turks, Old Scores Author(s): Martin O'Hagan Source: Fortnight, No. 247 (Jan., 1987), p. 6 Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551044 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 07:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:00:28 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Upload: martin-ohagan

Post on 31-Jan-2017

215 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Young Turks, Old Scores

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 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 07:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:00:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Young Turks, Old Scores

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.

^^^^^^H^Hs?w M ̂ ^^^Wili? *^-jral^^^^^^^^^^^H _^_H__9_t ???dl___k - - l^^^^^^^^l _______________H___K_ & __&sS ??? * 3_Hh_!___________________ ^^^^^B^b -^~~~?b. ___ ?- ^___________H ^^^^^^^MW^Hj^^^^flJyJ^m, ^jjll#MH_Miiii^^^^^^^^^B _^_^H _P^~^^^><,^<i_ _?*i^*^MHMnii___ ^__________H

_^_^_BlllHlMMlllfillf^^ i^^^^H * JP"^R"* ^*- % ^^^RnH___piiL: i^^^^^^^^l ______ra_l_W'f__W BP^"?__f i F i <"^w* ^ ? _____^______

pHffiM|i^_^ :-

^^^^^^ft^J'r ^__^_^_H______bH ___fc- ,__^^^B ^^^^^^^^^HfRwt" sjr ^Hmn^* I

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.

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:00:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions