Nothing necessary about the Provisional IRA campaign

Sinn Féin’s rise as a political force has been facilitated by the wide acceptance of a narrative suggesting that the terrorist campaign of the Provisional IRA was a necessary part of the struggle for justice and equality in Northern Ireland.

This version of events is getting more traction as each year passes and is accepted by many people who do not even vote for Sinn Féin.

It is vital that this warped version of history is challenged at every turn. Not only does it enable republicans to evade responsibility for their past atrocities but it infects the politics of the present and the future.

The proliferation of memorials across Northern Ireland, and in the border counties, to IRA “volunteers” killed during the quarter of a century reign of terror is a visible expression of their claim to historical justification.

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Two recent books about John Hume, who probably did more than anybody else to bring about change in Northern Ireland, provide a valuable corrective to the republican narrative.

John Hume in America by Maurice Fitzpatrick sets out succinctly how, having stood for election at the age of 32 in 1969 on a platform of justice and inclusion, Hume's message resonated with leading Irish Americans like Senator Ted Kennedy and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill.

They saw him as a civil rights leader speaking for the nationalist community in the North. Working with the Irish Government, Hume was able to mobilise the power of successive presidents of the United States to help change the course of Irish history.

Early on Hume developed a framework for his vision of an island that would be united not in terms of territory but in terms of people. His ideas for a new relationship between the two communities in the North based on power-sharing and a new relationship between the two islands became the basis of the policy of successive Irish governments.

He was centrally involved in the creation of the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and the Belfast Agreement of 1998.

Successive Irish governments and senior officials adopted Hume’s framework and put flesh on the bones of his ideas.

Another recently published book John Hume - In his Own Words, edited by his former SDLP colleague Sean Farren, contains extracts from some of his key speeches, articles and interviews, and adds a contextual narrative.

Political impasse

The selected texts chronicle his entire career, covering his entry into public life in the early 1960s through the Credit Union, the Derry Housing Association, the civil rights movement, his first election to the Northern Ireland Parliament, the foundation of the SDLP, his influence over successive Irish governments, and the various initiatives aimed at ending the violence and achieving an acceptable agreement.

The three-strand process involving internal Northern Ireland political arrangements, the North-South institutions and the East-West arrangements between Dublin and London all helped to create a new way of doing politics.

The latest political impasse at Stormont and the Brexit process represent huge challenges to the vision developed by Hume but his approach, based on conciliation and consent, is the only way solutions to both problems will be found.

Taken together the two books act as a valuable counter to the republican narrative which insists that it was simply the violence of the IRA that changed things in the North.

It is vital that the role played by Hume, his deputy leader Séamus Mallon and successive Irish governments is given the appropriate recognition so that people are not now seduced by the notion that violence was the main engine of political change.

The wonderful description coined by Séamus Mallon that the Belfast Agreement was “Sunningdale for slow learners” sums up the futility of the violence that destroyed so many lives between 1974 and 1998.

Yet it is precisely the party’s association with that violence that underpins the philosophy of Sinn Féin and its aggressive approach to politics which now threatens the Belfast Agreement.

The naive politicians in other parties in the Dáil and the many commentators who believe Sinn Féin is simply another political party aiming to get into government are choosing to close their eyes to what the party stands for.

At the recent Sinn Féin ard fheis at the plush Convention Centre in Dublin there was a revealing moment when Elisha McCallion, the Sinn Féin MP for Foyle prompted the biggest cheer of the conference when she described Martin McGuinness as “a proud member of the IRA”.

That thunderous cheer said a lot about Sinn Féin, because it is the only party on this island whose members revel in their association with political violence.

A few facts about the death toll of the Troubles need to be repeated again and again. During the 30 years of the Troubles almost 3,500 people were killed with the IRA accounting for 1,696 deaths and other republican paramilitaries 200. By comparison the British Army killed 299 people and the RUC 56.

The cold statistics show the scale of the terror inflicted by the IRA on both communities in the North. Sinn Féin’s continued justification of that terror is the biggest obstacle to the party’s participation in government in Dublin.