Now that Sinn Féin believes it is on the verge of being part of government in Dublin it is adjusting many of its more radical policy positions. Is it unreasonable to require the party to address the fundamental matter of its connection with violence?
A continuing feature of the Troubles in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s was the terror and violence and the major role played in it by the republican movement made up of Sinn Féin and the IRA. The two organisations have been linked by labyrinthine administrative structures. During the Troubles, Sinn Féin identified itself as supporting in principle “the legitimate struggles being waged by the IRA”. The late Martin McGuinness put it succinctly when he said: “The IRA freedom fighters and the Sinn Féin freedom fighters are one and the same thing.” Gerry Adams also put it simply when as president of Sinn Féin he said: “We support the IRA.”
The scale of the violence during the Troubles is put in context by comparing it with other events in our history which involved violence. There were 3,636 fatalities during the Troubles compared with 504 during the Easter Rising, 2,346 during the War of Independence and about 2,000 during the Civil War. Of the fatalities during the Troubles, 1,771 are directly attributed to the IRA and at least 636 of these were innocent, uninvolved citizens. The IRA killed five times more people than the British army, the UDR and the RUC combined.
It is difficult to justify the IRA campaign. The 1960s had seen the beginning of what might be described as the winds of change in Northern Ireland. Terence O’Neill and Seán Lemass met twice in 1965, at the initiative of O’Neill. The Dungannon-based Campaign for Social Justice began to document and publicise at home and abroad the antinationalist discrimination in housing, employment and electoral boundaries. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was set up in 1967. John Hume’s seminal articles in The Irish Times setting out a new nationalist agenda appeared in 1964. Central to his approach was a complete rejection of violence.
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By the end of the 1960s, the optimism of the earlier part of the decade had been replaced by street rioting and fatalities. In 1969 British troops were sent in and a programme of reform was initiated. It was, however, too little too late. Security policy began to dominate and events such as the one-sided introduction of internment in August 1971 and Bloody Sunday in Derry a few months later eventually led to the abolition of Stormont and the introduction of direct rule from London. In London, the view that Dublin had nothing to do with Northern Ireland began to change and it was generally accepted that there was an all-Ireland dimension.
At a conference in Sunningdale in December 1973, the Irish and British governments, the Faulkner unionists, Hume’s SDLP and the Alliance Party reached agreement on a powersharing government for Northern Ireland and a Council of Ireland to cater for the all-Ireland dimension. Within a matter of months, however, these arrangements were brought down by a combination of unionist opposition, an escalation of IRA violence and the failure of a new British government led by Harold Wilson to back what Heath’s government had agreed at Sunningdale.
There was no moral justification for the use of violence. A committee set up by the major Christian churches on the island of Ireland in 1994 concluded that “there is no justification in the present situation in Ireland for the existence of any paramilitary organisations” and “no justification for the use of violence to achieve political objectives”. Sufficient progress was being made to deal with grievances through constitutional political channels to eliminate the need for violence either by unionist or nationalist groups.
In almost every decade since the foundation of the State a century ago the republican movement has, to a greater or lesser extent, resorted to violence. It is time definitively to clarify for ourselves and for the world that violence has no place in our democracy
The IRA did not accept this view, and any time there was political progress or the prospect of progress, it stepped up its campaign of violence. It washed out in a sea of blood the effective work being done by constitutional political parties. It also did much to wipe out the desire of many nationalists for a united Ireland. As the late Seamus Mallon put it: “The violent republicanism of the IRA has inflicted more lethal damage on the concept of Irish unity than many decades of unionism ever could.” It has left a darkened stain on our nationalist history.
In recent times Sinn Féin has sought to discontinue its association with violence and has joined with the other parties to the Belfast Agreement in affirming its “total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences on political issues”. However, we don’t know whether the structures linking Sinn Féin and the IRA remain in place. And there have been questions about Sinn Féin’s historic links with major international terrorist organisations and dubious governments.
As Sinn Féin aspires to be in government it would be helpful if the party clarified its position on the use of violence and its connections with organisations associated with violence. Specifically has it broken all links with the IRA and will members use their influence to disband it? Will they also end their continuing glorification of violence by their commemoration of some of the bloody events of the Troubles in which they were involved? In almost every decade since the foundation of the State a century ago the republican movement has, to a greater or lesser extent, resorted to violence. It is time definitively to clarify for ourselves and for the world that violence has no place in our democracy.
A possible way of achieving this would be for the new Electoral Commission, which is now responsible for registering political parties, to require as a condition of registration that parties reject violence, declare loyalty to the State and undertake faithfully to observe its laws and respect its democratic values. Alternatively or additionally members of the Dáil and Seanad might, before taking their seats, be required to take an oath or make an affirmation with similar wording.
Seán Donlon is a retired diplomat who was former secretary general secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs. A version of this oped was last month delivered as a speech at a conference in Navan entitled 50 Years of the Northern Ireland Peace Process