POLITICS:Sinn Féin and the Politics of Left Republicanism By Eoin Ó Broin, Pluto Press, 343 pp, £18.99 - THIS IMPRESSIVE and provocative book has at its heart one central question: "Why is the history of left republicanism characterised by failure?" For the left has produced some of Irish republicanism's most talented figures, from the fabulously impressive James Connolly to the mischievously brilliant Peadar O'Donnell – not to mention key members of the Provisional IRA's intellectual wing.
So why has the history of this tradition been so lacking in success?
It is a question in which long-time Sinn Féin activist Eoin Ó Broin has a very practical interest. His aim here is to learn from the long history of the republican left, with a view to producing a much more successful left republican politics in the future.
So the book critically examines the history of Irish republicanism, drawing on a wide reading of scholarly sources and engaging fruitfully with those people with whom its author disagrees. Indeed, this is one of the book’s many strengths.
Ó Broin – “an Irish republican socialist” himself – recognises both the difficulty and the necessity of learning from the criticism offered by opponents, if one is to produce a sharper politics oneself. So he frequently draws on the work of scholars who have been seen as hostile to Sinn Féin politics, and he is prepared to concede those points at which such scholars’ criticisms are valid. But – quite rightly – he holds to his own political ground too, and it seems to me that his case is strengthened rather than weakened by his preparedness to accept some of his opponents’ arguments.
In places, this leads him into unusual territory for a committed republican. He openly acknowledges that republicans long misread the role and intention of the British state in Northern Ireland. And he criticises some notable aspects of republican thinking, as in the left republican tendency towards a “reduction of Irish history to an unbroken, continuous, essentialist tradition of opposition to British rule in Ireland”.
But the key to Ó Broin’s book is that he wants an honest assessment of the past to facilitate a more successful future for his kind of radical Irish politics. And this involves self-criticism: “We cannot properly understand why republicanism has repeatedly failed to achieve its objectives if we do not also critically assess the contribution of republicans themselves to that failure.”
So the book is stark in some of its judgments: “the United Irish rebellion failed”; “the rebellion of 1848 was an abject failure”; “the insurrectionary activities of the Fenians were a miserable failure”. And Ó Broin bravely faces up to one of the republican left’s main difficulties in the past: its interpretation of unionism. Like other sharp-sighted republicans in recent years, he acknowledges that much republican politics regarding unionism has been merely rhetorical. And he concedes that, for most of the 20th century, left republicanism was “an inhospitable place” for unionists to live.
But he goes further, towards a much more fruitful foundation on which to build serious republican progress in future: namely, a recognition of what it is that unionism actually involves. He stresses the autonomous and independent nature of unionist opposition to Home Rule, rather than presenting this as a mobilisation of the merely manipulated or duped. And of the late-20th century, he observes that it was “both rational and logical” for the unionist working class to strive to protect the Northern state.
WHAT ABOUT THE future? The book rightly sets out how far Sinn Féin politics have changed over recent decades, and emphasises that such adaptation to changing circumstances is essential. And Ó Broin points out that “Sinn Féin clearly believes that its political and electoral growth has not yet peaked”.
In order to continue to grow, Ó Broin argues that Sinn Féin needs “a more decentralised and horizontal party structure” than it possesses at present; that it should not prioritise national reunification over social and economic change; that economic deterioration in the Republic opens up space for Sinn Féin growth, as long as the party develops sharper policies regarding wealth generation and distribution; and that “securing state power” must be central to its politics.
“For the party’s broader reunification strategy to work”, Ó Broin writes, it must, “be in government in the North but also in the South”.
Irish left republicanism has historically been weakened by its crude economic arguments, its naivety about state power, its profound misreadings of unionism and of Britain, and its frequent attachment to violent strategies. If the tradition is to flourish in the future, then intelligent reflection on such failings – and their implications for current strategy – will be essential.
For this and for its capacity to provoke valuable disagreement, Eoin Ó Broin’s compelling, lucid and intelligent book deserves to be widely read.
The shocking recent violence in the North reminds us of the need for peaceful republican politics to flourish. If Ó Broin’s book furthers that process through the stimulation of productive debate, then we will all be in his debt.
Richard English is professor of politics at Queen's University, Belfast. His book, Terrorism: How to Respond, will be published in July by Oxford University Press