Opinion

Patrick Murphy: The failure of our politics creates opportunities for violence

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

Patrick Murphy
Patrick Murphy Patrick Murphy

The problem with those chanting, “Ooh, ah, up the Ra” is that they never tell us which “Ra” they mean. These days they have a choice of IRAs: Old, New, Provisional, Continuity, Real and God knows what else. (Republicans will presumably keep on inventing IRAs until they run out of adjectives.)

The reason for the current proliferation of IRAs is not just Brendan Behan’s observation on republicans’ propensity to split, it is also their religious-style passion to claim paramilitary purity dating back to 1916 and beyond.

Like the Free Presbyterian minister who once explained to me that his church began with Christ (rather than with Ian Paisley in Crossgar in 1951), all republican factions claim to have been founded by Wolfe Tone.

This would form an interesting academic discussion if the New IRA had not shot and seriously wounded a senior PSNI officer last month. At a human level the shooting was a tragedy. In republican paramilitary terms it was an expression of historical legitimacy.

The attempted murder of DCI John Caldwell last month by the New IRA was an unjustifiable tragedy
The attempted murder of DCI John Caldwell last month by the New IRA was an unjustifiable tragedy The attempted murder of DCI John Caldwell last month by the New IRA was an unjustifiable tragedy

Welcome to republican world, which is now a competition to prove which faction Wolfe Tone would support. (The answer is none of the above.)

This concept of historical legitimacy is best illustrated by Thomas Maguire, one of seven surviving members of the Second Dáil, thereby claiming to be the true inheritors of the Irish Republic.

In 1938 they “handed over” (seriously) the Republic to the IRA. Its leader, Sean Russell, then sought arms from Nazi Germany and launched an anti-civilian bombing campaign in England. In 2003 Mary Lou McDonald spoke at a commemoration for Russell.

When the Provisional IRA was established in 1969 (with Wolfe Tone’s approval) its founders asked Maguire (the sole survivor of the seven) to bequeath them the Republic. (He must have retrieved it from the 1938 IRA, presumably keeping it in a glass case on the mantlepiece to impress the neighbours.)

Maguire agreed, making the Provisional IRA the real IRA (but not the later Real IRA). With this apparent legitimacy, the PIRA’s 1994 ceasefire statement claimed there could be no more IRAs. 'Dissidents' are those who dissent from that PIRA claim of republican authenticity.

While this tragic comedy provides the backdrop for the shooting of DCI John Caldwell, there are three additional explanatory factors: tradition, policing and political failure.

Republican tradition is perhaps best illustrated by Dominic (brother of Brendan) Behan’s song, The Patriot Game, about Fergal O’Hanlon’s death in the 1957 IRA raid on Brookeborough RUC station.

It is supposedly a ballad about the inevitability of republican violence (“I’ve been told all my life cruel England’s to blame”). However, since Dominic and I wrote for the same magazine in the 1970s, I hopefully have enough insight to suggest that his song reflects the futility of that violence and also casts a wary eye on a republicanism which had no social or economic intent.

Republicans attack the PSNI because they are perceived as armed defenders of the state. The police in all societies play that role, but here much of the population opposes the state’s existence. Until the PSNI’s perceived political role is re-allocated to another organisation, normal civilian policing will remain elusive.

Finally, the failure of politics here creates opportunities for violence. On the day the five main parties united to condemn John Caldwell’s attackers, a west Belfast food bank ran out of food. The politicians said that the paramilitaries have nothing to offer. Good point. What do the parties have to offer, apart from empty food banks?

This is particularly relevant since Stormont’s largest party, Sinn Féin, maintains that the PIRA’s violence was justified and indeed inevitable. It appears reasonable to conclude that they do not disagree with paramilitaries on the morality of violence, just its timing.

All this may help to explain why DCI Caldwell was shot, but it in no way justifies his shooting. It might also explain why some chant, “Ooh, ah, up the Ra”, and why so many try to justify it.