I NOTE that “a major Irish Unity Conference”, organised by the US branch of Friends of Sinn Féin and planned for New York City next month, has now been postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
An online discussion will take place instead on June 4, starting at 7pm Eastern Standard Time – five hours behind this part of the world. Chaired by Professor Christine Kinealy, the speakers are former congressman Joe Crowley and – you’ve guessed it – Gerry Adams. He hasn’t gone away, you know.
I’m no techie but, if you are prepared to imitate Wilson Pickett and wait until the midnight hour, you should check out www.friendsofsinnfein.com regarding access to the proceedings.
The former Sinn Féin president is of course back in the news since the UK Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the British government acted illegally when they interned him without trial in the early 1970s. The judgment is based on the fact that the internment order was not personally authorised by the secretary of state at the time, William Whitelaw. Not only that but, since the internment of Adams was illegal, his two subsequent convictions for trying to escape from Long Kesh were also unlawful.
It has been suggested that a civil case seeking compensation could result in a substantial, even “six-figure”, pay-out. The celebratory drinks will be on you, Gerry! Other former internees – there were almost 2,000 of them between 1971 and ’75 – may also decide to challenge the legality of their imprisonment and seek damages as a result, although they would apparently have to produce the original detention order, which might be difficult: the former Sinn Féin president was assisted by court records related to his escape attempts.
Meanwhile, Adams has an interesting article in the latest issue of An Phoblacht, which used to be the party newspaper but has now been turned into a magazine. Writing about the republican splits of 1969-70, he recalls how unionist and loyalist over-reaction to the civil rights movement brought the situation in the north to the brink of civil war, with 3,500 families (“85 per cent of them were Catholic”) fleeing their homes in Belfast in August and September 1969.
Legend has it that graffiti appeared in West Belfast, stating: “IRA – I Ran Away”. Adams writes: “The IRA leadership had failed to recognise the dangers that existed.” At the same time, he acknowledges that, “Local IRA units did defend communities to the best of their ability”.
Brendan Behan famously said that, for Irish republicans, “The first item on the agenda is the split”. Adams lays much of the blame for this particular rift on the chief of staff at the time, the late Cathal Goulding and his supporters. Not only had they failed to recognised the gravity of the situation, according to Adams, but they also brought forward divisive proposals for a National Liberation Front with the radical left and an end to parliamentary abstentionism.
These had all been floated prior to the August pogroms and he argues that the new situation demanded maximum unity among all shades of opinion, including older republicans of a more traditional outlook. However, Adams also criticises the latter element, arguing that some of them “had one thing in common with the Goulding leadership: both failed to see the need to stay united”.
Although Adams ended up in the same camp as the old-school republicans on that occasion, there was a further split in 1986 when a majority in ‘Provisional’ Sinn Féin voted, under the Adams-McGuinness leadership, for an end to the policy of abstentionism from Leinster House.
Led nowadays by Mary Lou McDonald, the party is doing well, having scored the highest percentage of votes – more than half-a-million – in February’s election to Dáil Éireann. Despite that, it has been rejected by the other main parties as a potential partner in coalition. It looks at present as if Sinn Féin could end up as the main opposition party for the next few years.
Given the harsh measures that an incoming administration will probably have to take, McDonald and her team might even become the lead party of government after the next general election, provided they can maintain and increase their level of support – and of course avoid a split.
Email: Ddebre1@aol.com; Twitter: @DdeBreadun
