Issue 179, Saoirse: Irish Freedom (March, 2002)

              1916 — 2002 ceremonies • for full list of easter commemorations in ireland england and the us see page 9 inside * tjimh 179 mart a march 2002 http://saoirse.rr.nu 1 70p stg usa 30 p.a picket political status political 0 see page 5 6 bradaigh gives direct answers on rte radio no national arlia on rte radio l's news at one programme on sunday march 3 republican sinn fein president ruairi 6 bradaigh was interviewed by gerald barry on the question of the legitimacy of the 26-county state and its institutions on the same programme i week earlier the provisional gerry adams had accepted the legitimacy of the 26-county army and police what follows is the complete broadcast beginning with gerald barry's introduction in 1986 when ( perry adams and his colleagues made their first mo\e on the mud towards taking their seats in l.);iil i iieann sic with its implicit recognition a defiant ruairi o bradaigh denounced the direction in which his then party was headed a taped excerpt from the 1986 ard-fheis what we are asked to do today is to tip the scales that little bit in favour of parliamentary constitutional and reformist action never that's what i say to you never so this weekend how does ruairi 6 bradaigh view gerry adams's latest pronouncement which had been made in response to a direct challenge from pd candidate michael mcdowell ruairi 6 bradaigh what we have got here is not a position of our making in this generation it is something we have inherited indeed from 80 years and more and when i hear the exchanges of mr adams and mr mcdowell it reminds me of reading the exchanges in the free state parliament in the late 1920s with mr mcdowell now echoing what wt cosgrave had to say he being in power at the time and mr adams sa ing what de valera would have been about of course he were both in the parliament at this stage what was happening was the gradual transition of lianna fail at that time from i revolutionary republican movement out of which they had come into a constitutional party gerry adams and his people are in much the same position so many years later they're gradually changing over and they're almost fully on the constitutional path at this stage cerald barry is it your position and that of republican sinn fein that you don't recognise the irish army or the garcia siochana us legitimate and that they are flawed as dail r.ircann is flawed and is not a national assembu at all rob well the position is to , w ith we don't accept british rule in this country we never have and we don't accept the british government in the six counties . gb but we are talking about the 1 counties here now rob i know that but the 26 county state from its origins has been in collaboration with british rule in the north and while we would say that the 26 county parliament is a partitionist parliament and as you said indeed hawed we would agree that that is the situation now that is not to say that that we want to see war being made on them or conflict or anything like that but we say that this is an unfulfilled situation that there is unfinished business and we would not go along with mr adams and indeed this has been the case for the past 16 years just as cumann na ngaedhea fine gael and later fianna fail and after that clann na poblachta and then the workers party all left the republican movement and became constitutional parties within the system the same thing has happened with mr adams and the provos gb well let me put this in ver clear language is it your position thai you do not recognise the moral legitimacy or the political legitimacy l dail fireann of the garda siochana and of the defence forces rob what we are saying is thai all ofthis is hawed that they are not fulfilled that we do not nave a national parliament we do not have a national army we do not have a national police force - and indeed the s we have all those things the better : nt the are impaired gb does it mean the they cannot these three institutions dail fireann the oireachtas the garda siochana and the defence forces - cannot claim legitimacy as far as you are concerned rob they are not as i said the national parliament the national army and the national police force and as such they are not acceptable gb is there a legitimate authority and is it in the end as far as you are concerned and traditional republicans are concerned in the final analysis the army council of the ira rob well of course we would lake a longer time indeed that we have at our disposal to go into all that kind of thing any arrangements in ireland at the present time are temporary — indeed the 1937 constitution said this up to lour years ago — pending the reintegration of the nal territory and so on that c w ere told were stepping stones that they weren't the ultimate objective that they were only staging posts on the w8 and to pretend that the 26 counties is ireland the irish parliament the irish army and the irish police and so on the 26 counties is not ireland and we have people talking about ireland and northern ireland we object very strongly to that and people rather than saying all ireland are saying all island now as if there were two separate countries or indeed nations god bless the mark we would say it's the all-ireland football final and hurling final not the all island gb you say that we had been assured thai these were stepping stones - and that's almost certainly true - but isn't all history a series of i stones rob that may be and while the stepping mtinueand evolve that is something but what has happened every time seems to be that the people who put their feet on these stepping stones seem to get absorbed into the existing system and the stepping-stones become an end in themselves power seems to be the only thing that matters and the national question and all that type of thing is put on back burner and eventually it isn't mentioned at all cd do you have nothing left in common with people like ierry adams and martin md iuinness rob well no more than we have with the workers parrj fianna fail or fine gael i simple as that wear an lily honour ireland's dead easter lilies now available 32.00 per 1,000 from peig king 29 all saint's park raheny dublin 5