Anne Finnegan responds to Justine McCarthy’s revisionism

Is Justine McCarthy serious? She states (Sunday Times 27/2/16) that ‘to express support for the ideal of Irish reunification is, nowadays, regarded as sedition’ and this state of affairs she blames on ‘revisionists.’ The sole custodians of the aspiration to unite Ireland are Sinn Fein, she claims. We should now follow their lead and work to achieve unity through ‘democratic persuasion’ and grow the number count for unity. What kind of country this would be is not raised. Would it be in the lines of Connolly’s workers’ republic or a developer-led rich mans’ state? We are not supposed to be concerned about this. Unity alone, it seems, solves all problems.

The reality is that the organisation that has caused most disunity and postponed Irish unity for the foreseeable future is the Provisional IRA now succeeded by Sinn Féin.  It is they who pursued thirty years of bloody sectarian slaughter in the name of republicanism and the ideals of 1916. Hence the ‘silence’ Ms McCarthy speaks of. We are now living with the result: the deepening of sectarian division and hatred and which will be with us for many generations to come.

People in Ireland in celebrating 1916 in their hundreds of thousands have reclaimed their rightful heritage from the hands of those who dishonoured and defiled it. The assertion of the right to a sovereign independent republic standing equal to any other nation is an ideal many Irish people feel justifiably proud of. To quote the 1916 Proclamation, ‘we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine.’ And in a bid to include the unionist population it seeks to cherish ‘all of the children of the nation equally.’

Furthermore, the 1916 leaders brought the rebellion to an end after a week and a crucial factor in this decision was the deaths of civilians. The contrast with three decades of Provisional violence could not be more complete.

It is important also to remember that 1916 took place in the midst of a war between imperialist powers having no regard for human life least of all their own soldiers. In contrast the world of the 1960s was one of peaceful protest and civil rights. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement was successful but condemned by the then newly formed Provisional IRA as reformist. (This part of history has been revised by Sinn Féin). In place of peaceful people’s protest which was winning worldwide support they resorted to a campaign of violence to get the British out of Ireland setting in motion the sectarian war with both sides trying to outdo each other in atrocity. Ms McCarthy says that the south has amends to make. They do because much of the support for the Provisional violence came from the south and in return any trouble was to be kept north of the border. And now Sinn Féin seeks regular headcounts to try to justify the lost decades and lost lives. And Ms McCarthy feels we should all join in.

Simplistic appeals for unity is a disingenuous ploy by a party desperate for a platform to power. The anti-austerity stance put by Sinn Fein to the southern electorate will be exposed as voters discover that they already implement such a Thatcherite programme in the north along with the DUP. Five homeless deaths on the streets of Belfast in a matter of weeks bear testament to that.

Yours faithfully,

Anne Finnegan,

Chairperson,

Dublin Mid-West Constituency

The Workers’ Party