January

LEGACY OF THE HUNGER STRIKES

Lessons Learned, Lessons Forgotten

LEGACY OF THE HUNGER STRIKES, CONWAY MILL, 31ST JANUARY 2001

SPEECH BY MARIAN PRICE

Dia daoibh go leir, A Chairde

It is vitally important that we affirm the role of the physical force Republican tradition and Movement in Irish society over the past two centuries before we can analyse the impact and the legacy of the hunger strikers’ sacrifice on the Ireland of today. We are mindful of the insidious activities of revisionist historians and the damage they have done and continue to do with their biased and distorted presentation of Irish history to school children and third level students. Their activities were designed to facilitate the counter insurgency strategies of the British and Dublin governments rather than record history in an accurate fashion.

Likewise it is imperative that we do not allow ourselves to fall into the trap, being laid by a certain political party, of being brainwashed into believing that the sole objective of the hunger strikers’ struggle and sacrifice, like that of all the Republican volunteers over the past thirty years and more, was to create a set of political circumstances which amounted to a surrender of the cherished principles which they so dearly held and afford it the vague title of the ‘Peace Process.’ Nor should we be so foolish as to try to convince ourselves that the ten men who died in the H-Blocks along with Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg were the Irish disciples of Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King. They most certainly were not. All were members of either the Provisional IRA or the INLA, two organisations with very specific and definite political objectives and which engaged in ruthless and widespread violence to achieve those political ends, and let us be quite blunt and honest about that fact. Neither should we believe that the overriding objective of the H-Block martyrs was to build a popular political base to enable Sinn Fein to participate in the 26 County Administration or the British political system at Stormont. Bobby Sands was adamant in his assertion that he allowed his name to go forward for nomination in the Fermanagh/South Tyrone by-election merely as a tactic to create a public platform to publicise and highlight the plight and suffering of the Republican prisoners in Long Kesh. That particular struggle was undertaken to thwart the British Government’s attempts to criminalize those men and thus deny the ideological raison d’etre of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army.

The victory of Billy McKee and his comrades in winning the recognition of political status from the British Government in 1972 was proof positive that those men were the rightful inheritors and standard bearers of the physical force separatist Republican tradition and were recognised as such by the British. The heroic defence of that status by the 1980/81 hunger strikers confirmed that they were in the same mould and tradition and regarded the prison struggle as an extension of the war of national liberation. It should be remembered that the Society of United Irishmen began their political struggle as radical liberal reformers and only became physical force Republican revolutionaries after a split in their Organisation in the face of the British Government’s stubborn refusal to implement a policy of reform and repeal the remaining Penal Laws. In contrast, from its inception in the mid 19^th Century, the Fenian Movement which was the brainchild of the Clan na Gael in the United States and the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland, was a secret, conspiratorial, physical force Republican separatist organisation, which spurned constitutional politics and some of its members looked upon constitutional nationalism with disdain, In the present day political climate it has become fashionable in certain political circles to curtail the expression of the view that our Republican forefathers, whose noble path the hunger strikers trod, never relied upon a popular mandate to pursue their political aims and campaigns of violence. The men and women of Easter week 1916 had little popular support for their actions. Although the people voted for a Republic in 1918, they did not vote for the launching of the War of Independence. In a secret circular to the Volunteers issued by Cathal Brugha in January 1919 the order went out to commence hostilities but at least half of the TDs in the First Dail Eireann were totally unaware of this development as were the bulk of the people in Ireland. The majority of the electorate of the 26 Counties voted for the acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. This did not deter the IRA however from waging a bloody civil war against former comrades in their attempt to destroy that process. There were no popular electoral mandates for the IRA campaigns of the 40s and 50s, nor the sustained and prolonged war waged by the Provisional IRA for 25 years. All these historical events were the product of a mindset which believes in the inalienable right of the Irish nation to self determination and sovereignty and the right of the people of Ireland to use violence if need be to achieve their political ends, without being subject to the dictates of an external political power. The hunger strikers were strict adherents to that belief, as are those today whom the British and Free State establishments and media have dubbed the ‘dissident Republicans.’ The so-called dissidents follow the traditional road of physical force Republicanism and embrace the Fenian mindset. They do not seek electoral mandates.

Contrary to what John Hume and the Dublin Government might say the 1998 Stormont Agreement is a blatant denial of that right of sovereign political autonomy. Under the terms of the Framework Document, the 6 County referendum had the power of veto over that in the rest of the country. In addition, we had to accept as an exercise in the so-called expression of self-determination a political package, which had to be ratified by the British Government before it, was presented to the Irish people for their judgement. From a Republican perspective the most painful aspect of the 1998 Agreement is the fact that it offers us even less than what was on offer in 1974 after the Sunningdale talks. Sunningdale offered a package which did not involve the abandonment of Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Southern Constitution, and a Council of Ireland with far greater powers than the present North/South bodies, which are subordinate to the Stormont Assembly and the Unionist veto. Ponder on the sacrifices made from 1974 to 1998, including the 12 men who died on hunger strike and reflect on how the Stormont deal was presented to us as a major political advance, when in fact, it was a clear-cut setback.

For the hunger strikers whose political aims envisaged a radical restructuring of the social and economic system in a future Irish Socialist Republic the sight of Sinn Fein members administering British rule under the mantle of British Crown Ministers is particularly galling. Let there be no doubt about it, the Stormont Administration is merely a rubber stamp for Westminster legislation. All major political and policy decisions are made by the British Government. The Executive at Stormont is allocated a specific budget within which it must conduct its affairs, and it does not have the power to initiate radical, alternative social and economic policies.

Following the recent mortar attack on Ebrington Barracks in Derry, the mayor of that city, Cathal Crumley, claimed that there was no rationale for an armed struggle in Ireland in the wake of the 1998 Stormont Deal. If he truly believes in that assertion then how could he possibly have supported a campaign of violence for a period of 20 years, which included the death of 12 men on hunger strike, in the wake of the much superior offer contained in the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973? The Provisionals cannot have it both ways. They cannot, on the one hand, pursue their present day strategy which, with the exception of the absence of the emphasis on socialism and the development of class politics, is the old N.L.F. broad based approach, advocated by the Gardiner Place leadership of the Republican Movement in the 1960s, which the Provos rejected in 1969/70, and on the other, in the present political climate laud it as a major political innovation and success on the part of the Provisional leadership.

We must also be firm in countering the argument that the hunger strikers sought equality and justice under the British political system. The present day ‘equality agenda’ is merely a pseudonym for a civil rights strategy. Those who advocate and support this approach should be honest with their followers and supporters, a large percentage of whom are too young to remember the political events of the 1968/1970 period. Along with the National Liberation Front concept the then leadership of the Republican Movement, individuals such as Cathal Goulding, Tomas Mac Giolla and Sean Garland, advocated the launching of a civil rights campaign in the North in order to destabilise the 6 County State and fragment unionism. The people who formed the Provisional IRA totally rejected this strategy. More than 30 years later, after decades of untold suffering, hardship and sacrifice, the Provisionals are implementing a strategy previously cast aside and have gone much further down the Workers’ Party road, and, in the words of Francie Molloy, “are prepared to administer British rule for the foreseeable future.” Was it for this charade that 12 men starved themselves to death?

I have stated on several occasions that the sacrifices of the past 30 years and more were not made to facilitate the personal ambitions of political opportunists. At present we are faced with the ludicrous situation whereby a handful of British Army watchtowers in South Armagh are being hyped up as representing the sum total of the British presence in Ireland. Should one be so gullible as to be conned by the ongoing negotiations, we are being as to believe that the removal of the aforementioned installations, which could be replaced within 48 hours, is tantamount to the complete and total withdrawal of the British political and economic system and military machine from this country. What do Republicans achieve from such a scenario? Conditional upon the decommissioning of the Provisional IRA weapons to the satisfaction of the Unionists and the British we will have eradicated Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Constitution, which De Valera forged against all the machinations of the British Imperial and Commonwealth network; a recognition of the legitimacy of partition by the nationalist people of Ireland, north and south of the British imposed border; a legal endorsement of the Unionist veto; an extension of British influence in the 26 Counties via the mechanism of the British/Irish Council, which the West Briton mindset in that region sees as the passport to the re-admission of the South to the British Commonwealth. In addition, the elevation of the so called principle of consent as the paramount foundation for the entire political process may sow the seeds of re-partition in the event of a future nationalist majority in the 6 Counties.

In conclusion, the horrendous conditions endured by the Republican prisoners in the H-Blocks during the blanket protest are in stark contrast to the affluent lifestyles of some of the present leadership of Sinn Fein. It is the ultimate irony that a major point of principle of the hunger strikers was their refusal to don a British convicts uniform while today former comrades sit quite comfortable in the mantle of British ministerial office.

 

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