Sinn Féin, the Past and Political Strategy: The Provisional Irish Republican Movement and the Politics of ‘Reconciliation’

Abstract

This article examines a critical aspect of the contemporary political debate in Northern Ireland regarding ‘the past’, and how to deal with the legacies of violent conflict. The article will specifically analyse the Provisional republican movement's developing policy in this area. It outlines Sinn Féin's (SF's) policy evolution with regard to ideas of ‘truth and reconciliation’ in the context of the post-Belfast Agreement era of ‘peace’. It proceeds to critically assess the Republican movement's demands for an independent and international process of ‘truth recovery’, and subsequently engages in a detailed critique of SF's recent promotion of a ‘reconciliation strategy’, designed to enhance the movement's strategic agenda, and usher in a new phase in the ‘peace process’. The article concludes by arguing that SF's approach to ‘truth and reconciliation’ has been characterised by an emphasis upon the movement's efforts to legitimise its version of the historical narrative of the Troubles, rather than by any authentic attempt to address self-critically the previous commitment to ‘armed struggle’, or to seek genuine compromise with unionists, loyalists and the broader Protestant population. This approach has also been formulated for an internal audience, with the goal of convincing republicans that progress towards a united Ireland has not stalled.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the helpful comments of the two anonymous reviewers, and thanks Prof. Henry Patterson, Dr Cillian McGrattan, Dr Brian Hanley, Dr Máire Braniff, Dr Paul Dixon and Patrick Gillan for comments on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

1 See, for example, Wilson (2010).

2 For a recent exchange regarding the ethics of a ‘truth and reconciliation’ process in Northern Ireland, and unionist objections to republican efforts to shape this agenda, see Lawther (2011, 2012) and Edwards (2012).

3 The leadership of SF has continued to proclaim its pride at the heroic ‘resistance’ of the IRA during the Troubles era. This may well represent a genuine expression of sentiment, but it also serves to undermine the efforts of alternative Irish republican organisations (or ‘dissidents’) to lay claim to this inheritance. See Frampton (2011) and Hopkins (2014) for further analysis of intra-republican division over the legacies of the violent campaign.

4 As it transpired, the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace in Warrington did become engaged in significant work on bringing together ex-paramilitaries and victims/survivors of violence in ‘storytelling’ encounters, including some of those affected by violence from the security forces; see Dover et al. (2012). It is also interesting to note that Colin and Wendy Parry invited Martin McGuinness to deliver the annual peace lecture at the centre in Warrington in September 2013.

5 It is also reminiscent of the communist approach to social-democratic parties during the Popular Front era: there was an inherent contradiction in ostensibly seeking co-operation with organisations which they were ‘in due course pledged to destroy and replace with their own leadership’. As the British Communist strategist, Tommy Jackson, stated, he would be happy to take the Labour party leadership by the hand, as a preliminary to taking them by the throat (Thompson, 1992: 39).

6 Cox used the phrase in relation to the British and Irish governments' efforts to bring the Northern Irish parties to the formal negotiating table in the early 1990s (1993: 32).

7 Although it was reported that 84 per cent of SF delegates at the 2012 Ard fheis were supportive of the party's public expression of regret for all those injured or bereaved as a result of the IRA's campaign (Belfast Telegraph, 29 May 2012), nevertheless it may be speculated that at least some republicans had quiet misgivings about the idea of a generalised apology for the effects of the IRA's violence, even if some specific apologies, such as those offered for Bloody Friday, the 1972 Claudy bombing, or the 1993 Shankill bomb, might be acceptable. One erstwhile Provisional put it thus: ‘If republicanism alone apologises, republicanism alone will be blamed’ (McIntyre, 2013a).

8 Aside from the causes célèbres of Bloody Sunday and the killing of Patrick Finucane, SF has also invested a good deal of effort in support of the families bereaved by a series of killings in Ballymurphy during August 1971 (see An Phoblacht, July 2010).

9 For a recent example of an important exchange regarding the character of the IRA's campaign, and the extent of sectarian effects and/or motivation associated with it, see the debate between Patterson (2010) and White (2011) in Terrorism and Political Violence. Patterson (2013) extended his critique of the IRA's campaign in border regions, arguing that there was an element of ‘ethnic cleansing’ involved in the systematic targeting of part-time and retired Protestant members of the Ulster Defence Regiment.

10 The quotation is taken from Bradley, from a speech at the Innovation Centre, Titanic quarter, Belfast, at the launch of the preliminary report of the Consultative Group on the Past (29 May 2008). Available at the CAIN website (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/) (accessed 5 November 2013).

11 The phrase is taken from John-Paul McCarthy's critical assessment of Martin McGuinness' campaign for the Presidency of the Irish Republic (Irish Independent, 29 September 2011), citing a 1985 essay by former SF director of publicity, Danny Morrison. In this essay, Morrison sought to show the futility of efforts to distinguish clearly between the violence of the ‘old IRA’ during the war of independence in 1919–1921 (and during the subsequent civil war), and that employed by the Provisionals in their attempt to complete the ‘national revolution’. See Hanley (2013) for a detailed discussion of attitudes in the Irish Republic to Provisional republican violence since 1970.

12 For a fuller discussion of the SDLP refusal to be co-opted by SF into this historical narrative, see Hopkins (2013: 98–113).

13 Recent commemorations of high-profile IRA activities (such as the march and rally in Castlederg, Co. Tyrone in summer 2013, or the unveiling of a plaque in Ardoyne to Thomas Begley, an IRA bomber who was killed, along with nine Protestant civilians, when his bomb exploded in a fish shop on the Shankill Road in West Belfast), have been organised or supported by SF, with prominent leaders in attendance. It is difficult to believe that SF supporters of the ‘reconciliation agenda’ do not appreciate the damage caused by such provocative commemorative practice (see Kane, 2013).