Republican News · Thursday 10 April 2003

Ireland, republicanism and Sinn Féin

---

Institiúid na hÉireann/the Ireland Institute, has organised a series of talks on Ireland, Republicanism and the Political Parties (see Imeachtaí column for details). Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD recently spoke on behalf of the party. The lecture was given in the historic home of Pádraig MacPiarais in Pearse Street, Dublin, now restored and under the care of Institiúid na hÉireann. We carry here an edited version of the address.

---

Sinn Féin does not claim a monopoly on Irish republicanism - far from it. But we do believe that we have woven together the strands of Irish republicanism in a unique tapestry and that we have made that political tradition vital and relevant to today's Ireland.

Few people have expressed the essence of Irish republican thought better than Pádraig MacPiarais. Pearse summed up the meaning of Irish freedom in his pamphlet 'The Sovereign People' in which he set out ideas that are as relevant now as they were when he wrote them in 1915. He reduced the concept of national independence to what he called four propositions:

1. The end [meaning the objective] of freedom is human happiness.

2. The end of national freedom is individual freedom; therefore, individual happiness.

3. National freedom implies national sovereignty.

4. National sovereignty implies control of all the moral and material resources of the nation.

Pearse thus developed the separatist idea into the demand for complete national sovereignty. He deepened the Irish republican definition of democracy. Separation from Britain was not enough - we must have real democracy and as he said elsewhere in that pamphlet:

"Let no man be mistaken as to who will be lord and master in Ireland when Ireland is free. The people will be lord and master."

Pearse also developed the definition of the Nation as against the Empire when he wrote:

"I assert the sovereignty and sanctity of nations, which are the people embodied and organised. The nation is a natural division, as natural as the family and as inevitable... A nation is knit together by natural ties, ties mystic and spiritual, and ties human and kindly; an empire is at best held together by mutual interest, and at worst by brute force..."

Then and now there were and are people who claimed to be Irish nationalists but who supported imperialism. They may be nationalists of a chauvinist kind but they are certainly not Irish republicans

Then and now there were and are people who claimed to be Irish nationalists but who supported imperialism. They may be nationalists of a chauvinist kind but they are certainly not Irish republicans.

To complete that passage from Pearse we find a quote that is strikingly relevant in this era of globalisation, where multinational companies are more powerful than sovereign states. Pearse wrote:

"The nation is the family in large; the empire is a commercial corporation in large."

Sinn Féin today stands by that definition of Irish sovereignty and the separatist, anti-imperialist strand of Irish republicanism is fundamental to who and what we are. Our primary aim remains the complete independence of Ireland as a sovereign Republic, free to determine our relations with other nations.

Pearse also developed the idea of the sovereignty of the people, pointing out that it was internal as well as external. He saw sovereignty as operating for the common good and to ensure the social benefit of all. He said:

"The nation's sovereignty extends not only to all the men and women of the nation but to all the material possessions of the nation, the nation's soil and all its resources, all wealth and wealth-producing processes within the nation."

No wonder we never hear the PDs claiming the mantle of Pearse!

Pearse's definition of the sovereign people leads naturally to another strand of republicanism and that is the socialist strand. Pearse was influenced by James Connolly and vice versa. In the same year that Pearse wrote his pamphlet from which I have quoted, James Connolly wrote:

"In the long run the freedom of a nation is measured by the freedom of its lowest class; every upward step of that class to the possibility of possessing higher things raises the standard of the nation in the scale of civilisation; every time that class is beaten back into the mire the whole moral tone of the nation suffers."

Both Pearse and Connolly were early champions of the rights of women and thus they bring us to a third strand of republicanism - the feminist strand. Pioneers of the women's movement in Ireland like Constance Markievicz, the first woman TD, and Hannah Sheehy Skeffington were also active republicans.

Pearse was one of the foremost thinkers, writers and activists in the Irish language movement. The recognition that the Irish language and Irish culture are indispensable characteristics of the Irish nation is another central strand in the weave of Irish republicanism.

To these strands I would add a fifth and that is anti-sectarianism. This is fundamental to Irish republicanism and is based on our inheritance from the United Irishmen and women who embraced Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

For Sinn Féin, these elements of Irish republicanism are key and critical to our entire political outlook. These are the starting points from which we approach the political challenges of today. They pose questions for Irish citizens and Irish politicians in 2003. Such questions include:

• Is a partitioned Ireland, still partly under British jurisdiction, the free nation Pearse envisaged?
• Is an Ireland where our natural resources and our public property is sold off to the highest bidder the sovereign republic in which Pearse said the people would be lord and master?
• Are the people lord and master in an Ireland where successive governments have surrendered the sovereignty of the people to undemocratic EU institutions and reduced our capacity to control our own social and economic affairs?
• Is the Nation or the Empire served by a government which, in defiance of the clear will of the Irish people, supports an illegal and immoral war by the British and US governments?
• How free are we when we use Connolly's unit of measurement - the freedom of the lowest class? Only yards away from this building there are people sleeping rough in a city that now, we are told, has more people on our streets without shelter at night than London? The elderly, people with disabilities, those dependent on social welfare - it is the health and welfare of these people that is the measure of our freedom.
• How equal is an Ireland in which women are still hugely under-represented in decision-making in both the public and private sectors and where women and young people do most of the low-paid work?
• And finally, how stands Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in an Ireland where sectarianism is still a bitter reality and a legacy of conflict and division, and where bigotry is a daily experience for Travellers and immigrants?

These are challenging questions. They challenge the status quo North and South and they challenge us as republicans. What are we going to do about it?

Our republican beliefs face us with the challenge of change.

We can be despondent that the Ireland of today does not equate with the aspirations of Pearse and Connolly and with our own aspirations. Or we can recognise the distance we still have to travel to the Republic, face that challenge and work for change

We can be despondent that the Ireland of today does not equate with the aspirations of Pearse and Connolly and with our own aspirations. Or we can recognise the distance we still have to travel to the Republic, face that challenge and work for change.

Sinn Féin has made the latter choice. Coming out of the most intensive period of armed conflict in the entire course of the struggle for Irish freedom, republicans have, over the past decade, been pioneering a new phase of struggle.

In the course of that time we have seen unprecedented advances for Irish republicanism. We have been central to every effort to resolve a conflict that had long been dismissed by others as intractable. The peace process which we jointly initiated has transformed the political landscape of this island. Along the way we have seen the defeat of overt political censorship and the retreat of the so-called revisionist historians who tried so hard to besmirch the names of Pearse and Connolly and so many more who lived and died for Irish freedom.

For the past almost six years I have been a Sinn Féin TD and in my work I have seen the steady rise in support for Irish republicanism throughout the length and breadth of our country and beyond. It is a steadily rising graph that continues to climb. The central role of our party in the peace process is a key factor in that growing support but there is a more fundamental reason.

I believe the message of Irish republicanism, of which we in Sinn Féin are simply the bearers, inspires people with a sense of personal, local and national pride and self-respect. It instils, as it always has done, a strong determination to assert our rights both as a nation and as citizens across the range of human and civil rights. It instils a sense of struggle and all shades of opinion, whatever they think of republicans, recognise that we are people who are prepared to work tirelessly for our goals.

We have brought about change. It is not enough. It is far from the Republic we strive for but we have advanced beyond our own expectations and beyond the expectations of our opponents.

The Good Friday Agreement is by no means a republican document but, as we said at the time of its signing, it is a basis for progress and has the potential to provide many more advances.

I know all republicans do not agree with that analysis and that the Agreement and the constitutional changes in this State were unacceptable for many. I respect that position. But we also need to pose the question as to why the Unionists and the British government have been so determined not to implement the Agreement and, indeed, to row back on what was agreed in 1998.

I believe the answer is that while they too saw the potential for major change contained in the Agreement they also believed it could be contained and that we could be contained. The political establishments on this island wrongly saw the Agreement as a victory for the so-called middle ground and believed that it would enthrone a UUP/SDLP dominated Assembly and Executive in which Sinn Fein could be marginalised.

They meant it to be, in the words of Séamus Mallon, "Sunningdale for slow learners".

What was not in their prepared script was the growth of Sinn Fein to be the largest nationalist party in the North. It was not in the prepared script that Sinn Féin would become a major force in politics in this state. And it was not in the script that we would use our political strength to ensure the full implementation of the Agreement and to fulfil all its potential.

Sinn Féin is the cutting edge of nationalist Ireland.

That is why unionism has resisted the implementation of the Agreement and why they have been facilitated all along in their obstruction by the British government.

That is understandable from a unionist point of view. The unionist people with whom we share this island have many genuine fears and concerns about their future. We have a duty to allay those concerns and meet unionists on common ground.

But there can be no excuse for the failure of the British government to meet its obligations and still less for the Irish government to do so.

The establishment's job is to lower expectations. Ours is to reach those expectations and to exceed them.