Politics
When Seán Mac Stiofáin and his supporters walked out of the Irish Republican Army convention in 1969 and formed the Provisional Army Council, the path that Sinn Féin would follow seemed already mapped out: the divisions that were tearing the army apart were inevitably reflected within the party. Abstentionism was the means of identification of Republicans to their ideology. It became the depository of a number of aspirations, the catalyst of discontent for those who decided to remain faithful to principles and refused any attempted change. The issue of abstentionism revealed a flaw in the party's ideological and strategic make-up: that of its composite nature. Against all odds, whether favourable or unfavourable, Sinn Féin continues to demand the end of partition, disregarding the circumstances and the desirability of such a demand.
Among the many battles that Sinn Féin had to face in order to ensure its own survival, possibly one of the toughest was fought on the financial front. What became known as the Sinn Féin Funds Case thus started during the Second World War and spanned over several years, as the court hearings started in April 1948. The Sinn Féin Funds Bill provoked a heated debate within the Dáil, and the arguments put forward by those who opposed it suggested just how sensitive that chapter of Irish history continued to be. The objective was to establish whether there was continuity between the two pre- and post-Civil War Sinn Féin parties and consequently, whether 1948 Sinn Féin was entitled to the funds. The outcome of the Funds Case was a psychological setback for Sinn Féin, a test of its faith in its own legitimacy and legacy.
To date, only two studies deal with Sinn Féin's history from 1905 to 2005: Brian Feeney's Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years (2002) and Kevin Rafter's Sinn Féin 1905–2005: In the Shadow of Gunmen (2005). However, they only dedicate small sections to the era of the fourth Sinn Féin. Nevertheless, Sinn Féin did not disappear altogether from the political scene after 1926. It was undoubtedly overshadowed by more powerful political forces, but although it operated in very restricted circumstances over long periods of time, its final objectives, the end of partition and the establishment of the Republic proclaimed in 1916, always found sufficiently passionate advocates to keep it alive throughout those years. In 1948, during the first convention held since the Second World War, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) decided to resurrect the moribund Sinn Féin, with a limited role, that of assisting the IRA. Sinn Féin therefore became the 'political wing' of the movement. Parallel to these developments, Sinn Féin kept an active role in Northern Ireland, mainly through the Republican Clubs, created in order to circumvent the ban on the party. Sinn Féin's involvement in the Civil Rights movement remains a source of speculation. The history of the fourth Sinn Féin came to an end with the 1970 split between Officials and Provisionals, opening a new page in the fortunes of a party which had substantially morphed during its forty-five years of existence.
Sinn Féin from 1926 becomes a footnote in most history books, which mention its rapid decline from 1926 onwards and its revival in the early 1950s, being eclipsed first and foremost by Fianna Fáil, but also, by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Sinn Féin did not disappear altogether from the political scene after 1926. It was undoubtedly overshadowed by more powerful political forces, but although it operated in very restricted circumstances over long periods of time, its final objectives, the end of partition and the establishment of the Republic proclaimed in 1916, always found sufficiently passionate advocates to keep it alive throughout those years. In 1948, during the first convention held since the Second World War, the IRA decided to resurrect the moribund Sinn Féin, with a limited role, that of assisting the IRA.
The 1930s were characterised among Republicans by the tensions that dominated the relationships between the different groups. Sinn Féin's role and visibility were increasingly limited, and its rigid stance and principles made it a difficult organisation with which to cooperate. The visit of the Prince of Wales for the inauguration of the Northern Ireland parliament buildings in Stormont, on 16 November 1932, provided Sinn Féin with an opportunity to engage more actively with political activism and embark on a campaign that would, for a time, give the party a level of visibility. The competition for the Republican constituency was taking on a new dimension, with Fianna Fáil determined to occupy the front stage and have its legitimacy as the Republican party recognised once and for all. The Second World War was undoubtedly the darkest period ever experienced by the Republican movement.
The rule for any member of Sinn Féin seemed to consist in following, word for word, the ideas and principles which the party had elaborated in its more glorious years, but which evidently had lost currency after 1926. Art O'Connor, who had already stepped down as president of the Second Dáil, was also forced to resign from the party when he announced his intention to practise as a lawyer in the Free State tribunals, in 1927, as such a move was deemed contrary to the principles of the party and represented a betrayal of the Republican tribunals which were still in existence, albeit only virtually. Sinn Féin, cut off from a possible base, refusing any compromise, was fast becoming an elitist organisation which was exclusively concerned with issues of principles and not with the social or economic realities of the country.
1946 was a key year for Republicans. It saw the end of internment without trial, which had been in place throughout the war. The formation of Clann na Poblachta might have prompted the Irish Republican Army into actively seeking to form a political movement. At the end of 1948, the Irish Dáil voted the Republic of Ireland Act, officially granting the twenty-six counties the status of Republic and abolishing the 1936 External Relations Act, which devolved foreign policy to the Irish cabinet, and ending its membership of the Commonwealth. The year 1955 gave Sinn Féin the opportunity to play an active political role. For the Irish Communist Party, the Republican leadership had not sidelined the army, but 'saw its role as defending the gains achieved in the political struggle and in an extreme situation as a role of defence'.
This chapter draws on the example of a collaborative project between the author and National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) on the question of Northern Ireland’s 1968 to propose a potentially fruitful approach to confronting the legacy issue head-on. Starting with an overview of the difficulties of managing the past in Northern Ireland, the chapter then moves to set out the context of the theoretical field of memory studies with a specific focus on defining the notion of agonistic memory. There then follows a discussion of how the antagonistic–cosmopolitan–agonistic paradigm can be applied to the context of the province as it has moved from violence to peace. The example of the civil rights struggle of 1968–69 and the memory politics surrounding this pivotal moment is then used to demonstrate the difficulties and a potential way through them. It will be argued that the expansion and effectiveness of the NMNI collaboration provides potentially applicable lessons beyond the case of Northern Ireland’s 1968.
This chapter examines the dynamics of the Northern Ireland conflict through the broader conceptual lens of ethno-nationalism. In common with the work of Anthony D. Smith, it acknowledges that ethnic forms of nationalism are ‘of varying kinds and degrees, some of them relatively peaceful like the Catalan and Czech movements, others aggressive and exclusive of the kind witnessed in pre-war Germany and Italy or present-day former Yugoslavia’. Both Ulster loyalists and Irish republicans in Northern Ireland represent the more ‘aggressive and exclusive’ fringes of rival ethno-national communities. Not only have they consistently opted to obfuscate or forget the excesses of their violent pasts, but have also actively misremembered these acts in a way that seeks to legitimise present political decisions and positions, through collective rituals backed up by a strong sense of community identity and a political cause. What is intriguing is not necessarily why people in divided societies engage in collective rituals, traditions and culture per se, but how they have sought to employ them in the service of legitimising their claims of ethnic entitlement in ways that are competitive. Historical memories of a troubled past are conjured and marshalled in support of the continuation of a centuries-old struggle in a way that threatens to de-stabilise transition processes. Northern Ireland is no exception. In closing, the chapter advances a normative perspective that sees professional historians as playing an important role in promoting a more objective understanding of the past in a way that can aid the cause of reconciliation.
This chapter examines Irish republican uses of commemoration and will show how, in utilising public memory, mainstream republicans associated with Sinn Féin are engaging in a diligent fostering of political legitimacy and continuity. In a post-conflict setting, this has been of particular importance both in deflecting political attacks and maintaining cohesion within their own political ranks. Through the Troubles, Irish republicans espoused revolutionary, separatist goals and were prepared to sanction the use of force in pursuit of their political aims. But as the Northern Ireland peace process revealed, pragmatic adaptation and political compromise eventually led republicanism down a purely political path. Memory work and remembrance has played an important role in this process of combining sweeping political adaptation on the one hand, with revered symbols and narratives of legitimacy on the other. Republican sites of memory and ritual activity have mushroomed in the last decade, and the sheer number of republican memory sites is formidable. Commemoration is thus a most important public activity for republican activists and elites. This chapter examines how memory work acts to legitimise the mainstream republican project on three fronts of engagement.