N. Ireland - IRA's lefty roots still showing

Irish Echo ^ | 7 September 2001 | Jack Holland

[Norn Iron]

IRA's lefty roots are still showing

 

Copyright 2001 Irish Echo Newspaper

    September 5 - 11By Jack Holland

     In times of political revisionism it is always easy to find something to snigger at. Take, for example, Massachusetts Rep. William Delahunt's remark last week that if Sinn Fein is proven to be linked to revolutionaries "it could prove devastating" to its standing here in the U.S.
     Those reporters (like myself) who over the years have stood on usually rain-soaked Belfast pavements listening to the Provisionals representatives read solidarity greetings from every revolutionary group from the ANC to the Sandinistas can be forgiven for muttering some platitude such as, "My, how things have changed."
     There was a time, that is, when it was taken for granted that Sinn Fein was identified with revolutionary groups. Now, it is taken for granted that it is not -- at less in the U.S.
     The occasion for the congressman's warning was the arrest of three Irishmen -- said to be prominent republicans -- in Colombia two weeks ago, charged with training the Marxist guerrilla group FARC, which has been conducting a mostly rural campaign against the U.S.-backed regime and its right-wing paramilitary allies.
     Of course, even before they became politically respectable, in the U.S. the Provisionals have always had to tailor their message to suit their audience. They trimmed away the overtly left-wing rhetoric from The Irish People reports (taken and edited from the much more radical Republican News); they did not talk about their support (in the 1970s and '80s) for communist insurgents in Central and South America nor dwell on the generous handouts from Colonel Gaddafi which kept the "armed campaign" going for a decade longer than it might otherwise might have lasted. The face of the Provisionals in the U.S. was always that of traditional Irish-Catholic nationalism, Joe Cahill rather than the self-proclaimed revolutionary Brian Keenan, who still (when allowed) gives vent to some pre-peace process outpourings. In the U.S., that is, the mood the Provisionals wanted to conjure up was always like that of a Wolf Tones concert. "The International" was not sung.
     In Europe, it was a different matter. There, extreme nationalism was suspect and identified with reactionaries and Nazism. So the Provisionals flaunted their left-wing links and could condemn U.S. and British imperialism with equal ferocity. However, they now move in different circles, where merely to utter the words "revolution" and "revolutionary" would be enough to make their new backers choke on their smoked salmon.
     While some would see Sinn Fein's attempts to distance itself from the Colombian connection as proof that the Provisionals have become respectable, Unionists see the arrests as proof of the opposite. The fact that three Provisionals have been linked to FARC is to them yet one more piece of evidence that the IRA is still active and up to its old tricks. They are not alone is this. Former Irish Taoiseach John Bruton, writing in last week's Washington Post, accused Sinn Fein of continuing to support violence through its connections to the IRA. He dismissed with contempt Gerry Adams's claim that the IRA guns remain silent.
     Reporters who have been covering this propaganda war have compiled a list of eight murders in the last 18 months that have been blamed on the Provisionals. The Irish Times listed the IRA victims as Joseph Foran, Thomas Byrne, Ed McCoy, Nicky O'Hare, Ciaran Smyth, Bobby McGuigan, Christopher O'Kane, and Paul Daly. They were shot because, according to reports, they were drug dealers. The Irish Times did not mention Joe O'Connor, a member of the Real IRA, who the Provisionals shot dead last October, bringing the estimated total to nine. That is, roughly one murder every two months since the beginning of 2000. If true, it means that the Provisional IRA, supposedly on cease-fire, has killed more people than dissident republicans, who are not on cease-fire. (In fact, fortunately, neither the Real IRA nor the Continuity IRA have not succeeded in killing anybody since 1998, though not from want of trying.)
     The Provisional IRA has also in the last two years been engaged in a major arms-smuggling attempt in Florida, and just two months ago a major robbery in Belfast. It has also been accused of continuing to carry out "punishment" beatings and knee-cappings in working-class Catholic areas. A week ago, a leading member of the Republican movement in Belfast, Eddie Copeland, was charged with assault and attempted kidnapping of a suspected drug dealer. Skeptics then ask how it is that Sinn Fein spokesmen can proclaim, in the U.S. and elsewhere, that the IRA's guns are silent, and keep a straight face?
     It would be more accurate -- and more honest -- if republican spokesmen said that the IRA's guns are "comparatively silent." In Provo-talk, silence is relative, as are cease-fires. It all depends on how you define them. But even if it is true that the IRA has been involved in all of the above actions, the organization could still maintain that it has not broken its cease-fire. Robberies, punishment shootings, the murder of petty criminals, are not part of the armed campaign, in IRA-think. The armed campaign was aimed at the army, police, and the Northern Ireland state. That war is over, as far as one can judge. But the IRA retains its role as a sort of enforcer.
     Unfortunately, while this may meet the semantic needs of fastidious republican thinkers, it does not equate to the reality of the peace process, as perceived by the Irish and British governments, as well as the Unionists. They point out that the agreement entered into by Sinn Fein (and everybody else) entailed the embracing of nonviolent methods. Any organization linked to a paramilitary group that was still pursuing violence would automatically be disqualified from taking part in that process. The Ulster Democratic Party (linked to the UDA) was kicked out once, as was Sinn Fein. But since the signing of the Good Friday agreement and the entry of Sinn Fein members into government in Belfast, there has been what seems like a tremendous reluctance on the part of the British and Irish governments to confront Sinn Fein as they did before with IRA actions. Even the hated RUC has conspired to keep its mouth shut about IRA attacks, fobbing people off with "We are pursuing all leads" when asked about possible IRA links to killings.
     The aim of this conspiracy is, of course, to keep the peace process on track. It is one of the ironies of the situation that former deadly enemies are now working together to do so

[driftless]

I basically don't know if we're arguing about trifles or inportant points. Do you agree that for the most part the power in London has favored the Protestants in Northern Ireland? Especially during the Protestant Ascendancy?

[Norn Iron]

'The Ascendency' refers to the Irish landlords who were mainly members of the Episcopalian Church of Ireland. Their power largely evaporated in the early 1900s with land reform, when tenant farmers became owners instead of leaseholders, and with the arrival of the two governments in Belfast (devolved) and Dublin (independent).

London basically lost interest in NI after devolution and left it to the local unionists, the major party, to run the show. Local nationalists largely opted out because they wanted a United Ireland. Until Direct Rule was introduced in 1972, and a few years before that, NI really only featured in London plans during WWII.

During the first 50 years of NI's existence the vast bulk of the power, privilege and discrimination lay with unionists and in the past 30 years nationalists have achieved a position where they now have more say than unionists, especially since the the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985.

The three major religious denominations in NI are roughly, Catholic 40%, Presbyterian 20% and Church of Ireland 15%. CoI have gone from being top dog so far as power was concerned in the late 1800s for the whole island to third place - or less - in NI now.

[Norn Iron]

I basically don't know if we're arguing about trifles or inportant points.Trifles for some may be important ideas for others. We can easily find that the meaning of words has changed through the centuries yet this is easily overlooked. There is a big difference between the position of Protestants in Ardoyne, Belfast, now and the Ascendency in the 1800s.

[wideawake]

First of all, moron, I'm an Irish Catholic.

Second of all, I did post against the despicable stoning of Catholic schoolgirls on threads which were pulled.

Third, I don't see you defending our Church all that often when it's being theologically and historically assailed by Protestant bigots on this forum. You spend far more time defending the cowardly IRA.

If you claim to be an Irish Catholic then you should be aware that:

(A) The IRA is a Marxist ideological group which has no claim on any Catholic's loyalty any more than the Communist Party of North Korea and

(B) That no Catholic worthy of the name would defend the actions of a secret society which blows up children of any denomination - since, in case you hadn't learned, the Church condemns both violence against innocents and membership in secret societies.

Get a life and stop embarassing the Church and the Irish.

[Norn Iron]

the Church condemns both violence against innocents and membership in secret societies.

On the latter point aren't there secretive aspects to Catholic organisations such as the Jesuits and Opus Dei?

[wideawake]

There are no secretive aspects to the Jesuits. They have a peculiar command structure - all Jesuit superiors report to the Superior General of the Society who reports directly to the Pope.

Historically this means that the Jesuits have often failed to notify local bishops of their undertakings and projects - leading to accusations of underhanded dealing and secrecy. In reality, this was more a function of a certain arrogance and lack of tact, not deceit or malice. After the Jesuits were reestablished in the 1800s the Society began to be more collegial and collaborative in their approach with the local hierarchy.

Opus Dei is a more complex phenomenon. The Church has historically placed the interactions of the confessor and the penitent under seal - the same principle as doctor/patient and lawyer/client privilege as I'm sure you are aware.

Opus Dei is peculiarly structured as well - it is composed of both laity and clergy and it is, similar to the Jesuits, directly responsible to the Pope and not to local bishops. Moreover, the relationship between the lay members and clerical members of Opus Dei is preeminently one of penitent to confessor.

Almost all the projects undertaken by Opus Dei are projects undertaken by laymen under the advice of their spiritual directors - the seal of the confessional applies. Members of Opus Dei do not take secret oaths like secular secret societies do, and do not publicly profess one set of beliefs and privately embrace another.

In the interests of full disclosure I should point out that while I am not and have never been a member of Opus Dei I have worked in several of their inner-city tutoring programs and received spiritual direction at the hands of their priests in the past. The discipline and approach of Opus Dei is not for me, which is why I am not a member, but I appreciate their sincerity and their dedication. When I worked with them I found members to be intensely private people who "kept their own counsel" but never found them to be secretive or deceitful.

I would not describe Opus Dei as a "secret society" anymore than I would apply the term to the AMA or the ABA.

[glc1173@aol.com]

"As if the IRA factions have never used deadly violence against noncombatants? Omagh street bombing scene, 1998? Real IRA?"

"Deadly violence against noncombatants?" Ever heard of the firebombing of Dresden? Hiroshima? Or even how many Serb civilians Klinton's bombers killed?

Sinn Fein!

[Norn Iron]

Any thoughts on why Clinton used USIA funds to promote a political development programme for Northern Ireland post-Agreement using Boston College?

Anyone who knows anything about the problems of NI would have used a neutral institution not a Jesuit university!!

[wideawake]

Boston College is so secularized that it is no longer recognizable as a Catholic, let alone a Jesuit, institution.

One of its professors is a practicing witch who promotes paganism and lesbianism on campus. The small number of actual Jesuits on the faculty are among the most leftist dissident clerics who draw a salary in the US.

I'm a devout Catholic who holds up the traditional Ignatian Jesuits as an educational ideal - but I would never let any child of mine near that school.

Clinton's choice of BC was stupid not because BC has any pro-Catholic bias (in fact it has a self-hating antiCatholic one) but because it has a clear association with Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and is a hotbed of the (papally-condemned) school of "liberation theology" espoused by renegade Communist priests.

The BCers would support any terrorist revolutionary organization regardless of their denominational affiliation.

[Norn Iron]

Interesting. And Georgetown?

[Norn Iron]

Here is the link to the Irish Institute at Boston College which Clinton channelled USIA money through. Just to show you what a waste of money it was 17 of the 108 Assembly Members from Belfast participated in one of the programmes. You can also see that the strong all-Ireland bias would have gone down like a lead balooon with unionists!

[Norn Iron]

Do you think there might be a liberation theology link then into the peace process in NI? Redemptorist priests have been closely associated with the peace process.

That might partly explain the connections to FARC in Colombia. Does Cuba feature in the liberation theology scenario?

[wideawake]

I'm not sure if Georgetown is really Catholic any more either. For example, it allows homosexual advocates to speak on campus.

The real test, as far as I'm concerned, is the adherence of a university's faculty to the Mandatum. Simply described, it's a public oath by a Catholic teacher in which he promises to teach orthodox Catholic doctrine. Almost the entire faculty of Georgetown refused to so promise. I find it hard to describe a university as Catholic if its faculty refuses to teach Catholicism to Catholics.

The more honest administration at Fordham University (New York's historic Jesuit university) formally decided to become "a secular university in the Jesuit tradition" rather than continuing the farce of describing itself as a Catholic, let alone a Jesuit, university.

The liberationist movement began among Marxists in South America during the 1950s. They had a hard time convincing the masses to become Communists because of the devout traditional Christianity of so many of the working people of SA. The answer was to create a Marxist version of Christianity known as "liberation theology". The movement was suspect as a Trojan horse from the very beginning - and when Castro banned the Church in 1962 the mask was ripped off. The "liberation theologians" were instrumental among the Sandinista movement, and liberationist priests were the most aggressive enemies of the Church when Ortega came to power.

There is a liberationist streak among some Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits as well as the Redemptorists - but the Maryknoll priests are the most compromised. There may be liberationists among the Redemptorists in Ireland - but most Catholic priests in Ireland truly want peace.

One of the reasons why socialism made such headway in the republican movement from the beginning is because the Church was perceived as not being sufficiently nationalistic (which, thank God, it wasn't then and isn't now), while the Left masqueraded in an exaggerated patriotism calculated to deceive Irishmen.

The simple fact is that while the Protestant Ulstermen are fighting the IRA in reality, in their minds they're fighting a far different foe. They imagine that if the Six Counties are integrated into the Republic they'll become oppressed second-class citizens of an Ireland ruled by devious Jesuitical agents of the diabolical Pope of Rome.

In reality there are tens of thousands of Protestants living in the Republic who are quite happy, prosperous and unmolested. If the 900,000 Protestants of NI became citizens of Eire they would automatically become, at ~30% of the population, the second-largest voting block in NI - and would be in greater control of their political future in the Republic than they are now as a tiny splinter of the UK vote.

If they joined the Republic they would deprive the IRA of every last reason for it to exist. The worst blow they could ever strike against Sinn Fein would be to unite Ireland and make Sinn Fein completely irrelevant.

Hardened political attitudes will never allow this to happen - but the fact is that the Protestants of NI have nothing to fear from a united Ireland and the IRA, amusingly enough, has plenty.

[Norn Iron]

In reality there are tens of thousands of Protestants living in the Republic who are quite happy, prosperous and unmolested.

The percentage of Protestants in the RoI has fallen steadily from 10% to 3%. The percentage of non-Catholics in NI who call themselves Irish has fallen from 20% in the 1960s to 2% now. Unionists have the impression that the other Nationalist parties often seem to bend over backwards to accommodate SF/IRA

You quite right that unionists have little say in the UK but from the data above you can see that they are growing less fond of the RoI.

[driftless]

"power, privilege, and discrimination lay with Unionists"

Well we do agree after all. That is what I've been trying to say.

[Norn Iron]

Do we really agree? Unionists and nationalist politicians both discriminated when they were in positions of power. Unionists had more power so they discriminated more than nationalists. The victims of this were the less well off unionists and nationalists.

Hume addressed the concerns of poor nationalists but showed no interest in poor unionists. There are regular complaints from Derry that public resources in his home town are not fairly allocated and that his approach to power-sharing is simply tokenism.

Unionists are in a minority in Ardoyne, north Belfast. Their gut reaction is a bit like the gut reaction in Derry in the late 60s. They are creating this furore because no one is listening to their pain but sadly they are taking it out on little children.

[wideawake]

The percentage of Protestants in the RoI has fallen steadily from 10% to 3%.

Incorrect. The percentage of Anglicans in Ireland has dropped from 10% to 3%. The number of dissenting Protestants has actually been fairly stable (mostly Presbyterian). Most of the Anglicans left during the economic doldrums of the 70s and 80s. The Irish boom has brought back thousands.

You quite right that unionists have little say in the UK but from the data above you can see that they are growing less fond of the RoI.

Whether they're fond of it is another matter - the rising star of Gerry Adams would enrage me too - but the fact is that Protestants are not at a disadvantage in the RoI. In fact, they are wealthier than the average Catholic.

[Norn Iron]

Breakdown of population in Republic of Ireland according to Religion, 1881-1991

 

Year		Catholic		Church of Ireland		Presbyterian		Methodist		Jewish		Other		No Religion		Not Stated
	Total	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
1881	3870020	3465332	89.54	317576	8.21	56498	1.46	17660	0.46	394	0.01			12560	0.32
1891	3468694	3099003	89.34	286804	8.27	51469	1.48	18513	0.53	1506	0.04			11399	0.33
1901	3221823	2878271	89.34	264264	8.20	46714	1.45	17872	0.55	3006	0.09			11696	0.36
1911	3139688	2812509	89.58	249535	7.95	45486	1.45	16440	0.52	3805	0.12			11913	0.38
1926	2971992	2751269	92.57	164215	5.53	32429	1.09	10663	0.36	3686	0.12			9730	0.33
1936	2968420	2773920	93.45	145030	4.89	28067	0.95	9649	0.33	3749	0.13			8005	0.27
1946	2955107	2786033	94.28	124829	4.22	23870	0.81	8355	0.28	3907	0.13			8113	0.27
1961	2818341	2673473	94.86	104016	3.69	18953	0.67	6676	0.24	3255	0.12	5236	0.19	1107	0.04	5625	0.20
1971	2978248	2795666	93.87	97739	3.28	16052	0.54	5646	0.19	2633	0.09	6248	0.21	7616	0.26	46648	1.57
1981	3443405	3204476	93.06	95366	2.77	14255	0.41	5790	0.17	2127	0.06	10843	0.31	39572	1.15	70976	2.06
1991	3525719	3228327	91.57	82840	2.35	13199	0.37	5037	0.14	1581	0.04	45090	1.28	66270	1.88	83375	2.36

Source: Republic of Ireland Census

[Norn Iron]

I must disagree with your statistics. If you look closely at the table you'll see that there has been a steady decline in the numbers of all of the non-Catholic denominations bearing in mind the dates the statistics were collected.

There was a big drop in Episcopalians c1920 but that was most probably related to the formation of the Irish Free State

When Catholics do less well in NI it is called discrimination. When they do less well in RoI it is because 'Protestants are not at a disadvantage'. Funny old world.

[Norn Iron]

I must disagree with your statistics. If you look closely at the table you'll see that there has been a steady decline in the numbers of all of the non-Catholic denominations bearing in mind the dates the statistics were collected.

There was a big drop in Episcopalians c1920 but that was most probably related to the formation of the Irish Free State

When Catholics do less well in NI it is called discrimination. When they do less well in RoI it is because 'Protestants are not at a disadvantage'. Funny old world.