Voters swayed by the complacent belief that Sinn Féin in government will behave like all the other political parties who have held power since the foundation of the State might find some pause for thought in the attitude of a leading party figure to a recent commemorative event in Dublin.
The event in question was the unveiling last month of a plaque to two gardaí, Det Sgt Patrick McKeown and Det Garda Richard Hyland, who were shot dead by the IRA on August 16th, 1940. It was organised by Dublin City Council as part of its programme of commemorative events for the year.
A notable feature of the occasion was that the chair of the city council commemorative committee, Cllr Mícheál MacDonncha of Sinn Féin, did not attend or send another councillor to represent him as is normal on these occasions. While MacDonncha took umbrage at the suggestion of Fine Gael councillor Paddy McCartan that he had boycotted the event, he offered no reason for his failure to attend other than saying he was not scheduled to be there.
The fact that the two IRA men found guilty of the killings by a military tribunal were executed by a firing squad just over two weeks after the murders may have had something to do with the councillor’s absence.
It is significant that a former Sinn Féin lord mayor of Dublin, who is widely tipped to make it to the Dáil at the next general election, apparently could not bring himself to attend the event. It speaks volumes about the attitude of the party to the gardaí and raises disturbing questions about how Sinn Féin in government would handle the force.
Nazi collusion
The event has also put the spotlight on the behaviour of the republican movement during the second World War at the time when the two gardaí were shot. At that stage, the IRA made no apologies about its collusion with the Nazi regime and waged a campaign of bombings and shootings designed to damage the British war effort and undermine Irish neutrality.
The IRA made no apologies about its collusion with the Nazi regime
Sean Russell, the then chief of staff of the IRA, declared war on the United Kingdom in January 1939, claiming to act on behalf of the Irish people. The following year he went to Germany to whip up support for his organisation’s activities. While in Berlin, he was treated as a diplomat, given an official residence and a chauffeur-driven car and he met a number of leading Nazis. Having been trained in sabotage techniques by German intelligence, he was dispatched to Ireland on a U-boat along with fellow republican Frank Ryan.
That mission was aborted when Russell died on the U-boat and was buried at sea 100 miles off the Galway coast. He has remained an icon for the IRA and Sinn Féin ever since. A statue of him was erected in Fairview Park in 1951 and there have been commemorative events to honour him ever since. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald was the speaker at the event in 2003 along with IRA army council member Brian Keenan. That event took place after the statue had been refurbished following damage inflicted by unknown vandals who objected to the honouring of a Nazi collaborator.
Republicans defend Russell’s engagement with the Nazi regime on the basis that he did not sympathise with their philosophy but was simply following the Fenian tradition of seeking aid and succour from Britain’s enemies. The overriding ambition of achieving a united Ireland was justification for working with the Nazis.
Commemorative fetish
Of course that was the same excuse offered by every Nazi collaborator in Europe from Flanders to the Ukraine. Strangely enough Irish republicans appear to get away with an explanation for their behaviour that was not accepted from any other collaborationist movement across the continent. To make matters worse, far from considering the episode to be an embarrassment, the Sinn Féin leadership has found it worthy of commemoration.
The overriding ambition of achieving a united Ireland was justification for working with the Nazis
The republican movement has made a fetish of commemorating its deceased members no matter what atrocities they have committed down the years. That is why the failure of MacDonncha to attend the commemoration for the murdered gardaí is so illuminating.
He provided an insight into his general thinking in a letter to The Irish Times this week in which he described the activities of the Provisional IRA during the most recent Troubles as being "the actions of one side in the armed conflict". This description of the IRA campaign, the vast majority of whose victims were ordinary Irish men, women and children, was rightly described as "nonsense" by Seamus McKenna in a letter to this newspaper.
Sinn Féin’s continuing efforts to give the murderous activities of the IRA the same legitimacy as that of the security forces of the Irish or British state is part of its ongoing propaganda campaign to legitimise its atrocities. Under the Irish Constitution, there is only one Óglaigh na hÉireann and it is not the IRA. Sinn Féin’s contempt for our democratic institutions is there is plain sight for those who wish to see. MacDonncha has done a service by highlighting it.