Sinn Féin ardfheis listless despite Rising centenary buzz

The Sinn Féin battery seemed a bit flat at the ardfheis. It was hard to tell why. Maybe it’s just a passing phase. The party did well in the general election if not as well as expected. Nonetheless, electing 23 TDs and gaining nine seats should have been a reason for cheer.

The Northern Assembly election is taking place on May 5th, so members had cause to be motivated for that battle. And there were big events pending yesterday to mark the calendar centenary of the Easter Rising.

It was a weekend to commemorate the past, celebrate the Dáil successes, prime people for the Assembly elections, plan for further growth and sharpen people should the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil talks collapse. Surely there would be a buzz.

But for some reason the ardfheis was a listless affair. Perhaps there is a lingering deflation over Sinn Féin not winning more seats in the election. Perhaps Dublin’s Convention Centre was just too palatial and futuristic for a party which normally likes its gatherings and settings to have edge and energy.

Maybe Sinn Féin is becoming too establishment?

Or perhaps it’s because people like the Sinn Féin president and the Deputy First Minister have been around for too long and telling the same old stories that had people experiencing an uncustomary feeling of inertia?

But if the delegates were tired of Gerry and Martin, the vast majority disguised it well. The time has to be coming when 67-year-old Adams and 65-year-old McGuinness will decide to hand over to new talent but, at the moment, it will be their call for when they decide to quit.

It was interesting – but perhaps no more than that – that McGuinness in his keynote speech on Friday night three times referred to the need for an “agreed Ireland”, a phrase he repeated when speaking again on Saturday. It’s a term coined by John Hume that one does not hear from Sinn Féiners. Is SF trying to steal SDLP clothes?

Majority

As Hume envisaged, the 1998 Belfast Agreement created an “agreed Ireland” in that the majority of the people on both sides of the Border endorsed that accord. They determined for this generation politically what Ireland should be. Still, it’s a long way from a united Ireland as perceived by Sinn Féin and the IRA.

In case there was any doubt about the party’s declared central mission, other speakers such as MEPs Matt Carthy and Martina Anderson spoke of the need to step up the campaign for unity. Anderson, a convicted IRA bomber, told delegates about the “incredible war against the British occupation of the six counties” that was waged by republicans. That was about the only militaristic comment heard over the weekend.

McGuinness, in a softer key, said republicans had a “responsibility and a duty to reach out to the unionist community in a spirit of generosity” even if “others don’t always reciprocate”.

Sinn Féin chairman Declan Kearney pursued the theme of reconciliation, generously referring to last year’s “deeply historic” and symbolic meeting between the leadership of Sinn Féin and Prince Charles.

All in all, a curious and unexciting ardfheis at such an historic time for republicans. Yet if there is a loss of vigour, it shouldn’t be difficult to restoke the embers. Who knows when the next general election is to take place.

Any word of such a contest would reignite the old flame.