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First published in the Irish
Independent, December 9, 1970.
WHAT IS IRISH REPUBLICANISM?
By Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President Sinn Féin
To the Republican Movement which maintains direct organisational
continuity from Fenian times, through the Irish Republican Brotherhood,
past 1916 and the First Dáil to the present day, Republicanism in
Ireland has a very strict, yet extremely comprehensive meaning.
In the strict sense, an Irish Republican was one who
gave allegiance to the 32-County Republic of Easter 1916 and who denied
the right of the British Government to rule here. With the establishment
of the first Dáil Éireann in 1919 as the Government of that Republic
its supporters were Republicans, just as were those who opposed the
setting up here of two partition States -- Six County and 26 County --
in 1921 and 1922.
The "Treaty" States, both North and South
subservient economically to Britain, suppressed the All-Ireland Dáil
which was the embodiment of the Republic. For the Republican Movement
then, a Republican today is one who rejects the Partition Statelets in
Ireland and gives his allegiance to and seeks to restore the 32-County
Republic of Easter Week.
But what happened in 1922 is deserving of a deeper
analysis. North of the Border life went on just as it had for hundreds
of years, except that now the local Ascendancy class had a private
powerbloc called Stormont, a private army named the B-Special
Constabulary and the full backing both militarily and financially of the
British Government. This power they have used unashamedly to divide
Protestant and Catholic working people to their mutual disadvantage,
exploiting them both.
In the 26 Counties all the symbols and trappings of
freedom were gradually won, but despite limited efforts in the 1930s and
1940s, the new State remains a new colony, an example of unfinished and
interrupted revolution, territorially, economically, culturally -- a
model of "Neo-colonialism".
So then a Republican in 1970 is one who seeks a great
deal more than just physical control of the 32 counties for the Irish
people. He stands in a line of succession going back beyond Wolfe Tone
to the Gaelic leaders of resistance to the Norman invasion. But it was
Tone "the father of Irish Republicanism" who articulated
clearly the objective:
"The rights of man in Ireland. The greatest
happiness of the greatest number. The rights of man are the rights of
God and to vindicate one is to maintain the other. We must be free in
order to serve Him whose service is perfect freedom."
Fintan Lalor likewise sought something more than mere
political freedom. He spoke of "constitutions and characters and
enactments of freedom," saying "these things are only paper
and parchment . . . Let laws and customs say what they will, these
truths are stronger than any law; those who control your lands will make
your laws and control your liberties and laws." The restoration to
the Irish people of their social, cultural and economic heritage was his
aim.
James Connolly maintained that "the whole
age-long fight of the Irish people against their oppressors resolves
itself in the last analysis into a fight for the mastery of the means of
life, the sources of production in Ireland."
To give depth and meaning to Republicanism -- beyond
just the right to fly the Irish Tricolour or to paint letter boxes greed
-- is to see the Republican objective as one with political, social,
economic and cultural dimensions. The Democratic Programme of the First
Dáil in 1919 which fulfilled this role has since been carefully left to
one side in certain quarters.
There are many calling themselves Republicans
who would be perfectly satisfied with the name of a Republic for all 32
Counties while leaving the present social, economic and cultural system
unchanged -- or worse still, integrating it with the rampant capitalism
of the EEC. They are deluding themselves and deluding others.
For the Republican Movement only a struggle on many
fronts will achieve the Republican objective of restoring the
"ownership of Ireland to the people of Ireland" (1916
Proclamation). Such a struggle inevitably gets bogged down in
parliament, be it Westminster, Stormont or Leinster House, and those
attempting it get absorbed into the Imperial system.
Have we not see the alienation of large sections of
the Labour party from some of its parliamentary representatives
recently, while the "Civil Rights" MPs in the Six Counties
were at loggerheads with the Fermanagh Civil Rights Association over the
Enniskillen march?
All necessary means must be used to restore Ireland
and her resources to the Irish people, not precluding as a last resort
the use of physical force against the British Army of Occupation. The
means are, of course, only secondary -- the objective and its
interpretation are paramount. For the Republican Movement the definition
of Republicanism rests mainly on the nature of the ultimate goal and the
condition of allegiance to the Republic of Easter Week.
We have outlined clearly in policy statements and
through our official monthly, An Phoblacht, the nature of
the social and economic system -- based on the right of worker ownership
and the native Irish tradition of Comhar na gComharsan -- which we seek
to establish in a free Ireland.
Republican
SINN FÉIN |
