Opinion

Alex Kane: Mary Lou McDonald's offensive IRA comments weren't accidental

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, pictured with her predecessor Gerry Adams, said the IRA's campaign was justified and that there was "every chance" she would have taken up arms. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, pictured with her predecessor Gerry Adams, said the IRA's campaign was justified and that there was "every chance" she would have taken up arms. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, pictured with her predecessor Gerry Adams, said the IRA's campaign was justified and that there was "every chance" she would have taken up arms. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

IN an interview with me in December 2013 Mary Lou McDonald said: "I completely understood and understand why people volunteered for the IRA.

"I support and recognise the right to meet force with force. Do I understand why volunteers came forward; was it necessary to take up arms against the British state in the north?

"I believe it was, even though I take no pleasure in saying that."

READ MORE: Mary Lou McDonald says she would not justify every action taken by IRAOpens in new window ]

Almost seven years later, in an interview in last week's Sunday Independent, she went further. Much further.

After repeating her view that the IRA's terrorism was a "justified campaign" she claimed there was "every chance" she would have taken up arms.

That is an astonishing thing to say. She is well aware of the brutality, torture and numbers of people killed, maimed and traumatised by the IRA between 1970 and 1997 (when it renewed the ceasefire broken in February 1996), yet has no difficulty in suggesting there was "every chance" she would have pulled a trigger, or planted a bomb, or lined up a target, or agreed to leave a trail of grieving families in her wake.

Why say it? She could have stopped where she stopped in December 2013. She could have said something along the lines of, 'Look, we're into the 23rd year of a peace process and the IRA has dumped its weapons and stood down all volunteers. Now is the moment to look forward and build newer, better relations in both parts of Ireland.'

Instead, she chose not only to praise the IRA, but to say she would probably have joined it and become a terrorist. How could she say that and not realise how much hurt and offence it would cause within the pro-Union community?

Alex Kane
Alex Kane Alex Kane

I think it was Abraham Lincoln who noted that what someone says when they don't have to say it is often much more instructive than what you'd expect to hear from them.

It's unlikely, but not impossible, McDonald could be the next Taoiseach: more likely, though, that she will be the formal leader of the opposition in the Dáil in the next few weeks.

I wonder what the reaction would have been if Arlene Foster had said there was 'every chance' she would have taken up arms within a loyalist paramilitary organisation? I'm pretty sure Sinn Féin's propaganda machine would have gone into overdrive.

I wonder if McDonald takes the same "I completely understood and understand why people volunteered..." line when it comes to the UDA, UVF, RHC et al.

Young men and women flocked to those organisations in the early 1970s when they believed the IRA was waging a new war on Northern Ireland and their British identity. They thought it was necessary to join.

Can she understand - indeed, can she justify - that sense of necessity? Can she understand, can she justify, the actions of those young men and women?

What will she say to the young men and women within dissident republicanism who believe that Sinn Féin and the IRA have been 'played' by the British and have betrayed the principles of Irish unity?

It only seems like five minutes ago that it was the 'Provisionals' within the IRA and Sinn Féin who were viewed as dissident republicans.

Can she understand why this new generation of 'armed struggle' republicanism feels it necessary to take up arms and wage their own campaign?

Can she understand why there is "every chance" that a middle class girl from Newry, Dublin, Derry, Belfast, Dundalk, or even a nice area of Dublin, believes she would be justified in taking up arms right now?

Who was McDonald talking to in last week's interview? She had Adams's imprimatur to become Sinn Féin president and doesn't appear to be under any particular pressure from any base within the party machine.

Voters who voted Sinn Féin in February's Irish election (including many who voted for the first time) probably don't care all that much about what the IRA did or didn't do in Northern Ireland.

She must have known her comments would cause enormous offence to unionists - but clearly didn't care about that. I can't think of anything that has been helped or progressed by her comments.

Which brings me back to the why-say-something-when-you-don't-have-to-say-it question.

It wasn't accidental. It doesn't strike me as a potential vote winner. It's like her equivalent of Adams's 'I was never in the IRA' line, something that will be returned to in interview after interview.

So, maybe she was just talking to the army council which, according to reports, still keeps an overarching watching brief on both Sinn Féin and the IRA?