HISTORY: The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers PartyBy Brian Hanley and Scott Millar Penguin Ireland, 658pp. £20
THE PLAYWRIGHT Brendan Behan, who had a close knowledge of such matters, famously said that the first item on the agenda for any republican group was the split. This amoeba-like tendency was again in evidence at the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1968-69. Under the leadership of Cathal Goulding, the Irish Republican Army had earlier become involved in social agitation, with the gun taking second place to the leaflet and the placard.
The authors of this highly-detailed study puncture the myth that the slogan, “IRA – I Ran Away” was scrawled on buildings in Belfast when civil strife erupted and the Catholic ghettos came under threat. But they do explain the political background, telling us how the ferocity of loyalist reaction to the civil rights movement (which Goulding, Seán Garland and their friends had a key role in establishing) came as a surprise to the poorly-armed republicans of the day who had, for once, forgotten to keep the traditional “pike in the thatch”.
The leftward trend of the movement in the 1960s had alienated old-style “gun and bullet” adherents but the latter returned in strength to lead the breakaway Provisional wing of the movement, with consequences we are all-too-familiar with today.
We have already had one outstanding history of the republican movement, The Secret Armyby American academic J Bowyer Bell, which brought us as far as 1979. Despite some flaws, this substantial tome is a worthy follow-up to that earlier work and one hopes the authors will, at some future stage, turn their attention to the more recent history of the Provisionals and perhaps even the "dissident" factions that are still on the scene.
The Provisional IRA was founded in late December, 1969, and Sinn Féin, the political wing of the movement, formally split at an ardfheis held at the Intercontinental (later Jury’s) Hotel in Ballsbridge on the weekend of January 11th-12th 1970.
Only half-a-mile away, at Lansdowne Road, a major demonstration was taking place outside a rugby match between Ireland and the all-white South African national team which at the time symbolised the racist apartheid regime. The secretive, conspiratorial culture of republican factions without a popular mandate contrasted with the more open and democratic approach of the anti-apartheid campaigners and the latter went on, of course, to achieve their political aims.
Differences of opinion between the two wings of the republican movement quickly gave way to outright hatred and before very long they were killing one another in an ugly succession of incidents that characterised one of the most unedifying and dispiriting periods in the history of Irish nationalism.
Belfast loves nicknames and the Official IRA soon became known as “The Stickies” because they wore badges with adhesive backing to commemorate the 1916 Rising whereas the “Provies” attached their Easter Lily emblems with an old-style pin.
Initially the “Sticks”, as they were known for short, tried to compete with their erstwhile associates in terms of attacks on the security forces but a number of disasters with severely-negative political fallout led them to call a ceasefire in 1972.
One of the lessons of this book from the viewpoint of democratic politics is that it isnt enough for a paramilitary group to call a ceasefire – the organisation must be stood down as quickly as possible. The “military wing” remained very much in existence and the authors chronicle its subsequent history in explicit and horrifying detail: multiple armed robberies, regular punishment beatings and shootings, counterfeiting, links with the criminal underworld and loyalist terrorism. All of these activities were underpinned by an authoritarian mindset that drew sustenance from totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
The military wing also sought to exercise the maximum level of control over their political associates through instructing members how to vote and whom to support at meetings of the parallel political organisation which was initially known as Sinn Féin, then Sinn Féin the Workers’ Party and finally just the Workers’ Party.
The Official IRA eventually came to be known in those circles as “Group B” and, such was its skill at operating under the radar, that it appears as if a proportion of the purely-political activists may have been only dimly aware, if at all, of its continuing existence. Information about IRA operations would have been kept to a very tight circle indeed.
In their anxiety to differentiate themselves from the Provisionals and their eagerness to espouse “class politics”, the Officials finally ended up with a position on Northern Ireland that was almost indistinguishable from the unionists.
South of the Border, the party made considerable progress, eventually ending up with seven seats in the Dail held by figures such as Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitte and Tomás Mac Gìolla and one in the European Parliament filled by Proinsias De Rossa who was also a TD in those dual-mandate days.
At that stage and amid reports of continuing criminal activity by the paramilitary element, Brendan Behan’s dictum came into operation once more and six of the TDs split away to set up New Agenda, later Democratic Left, which ended up with four seats after the 1992 general election, including the newly elected Liz McManus, in Wicklow. DL formed part of the Rainbow Coalition of 1994-97 and later merged into the Labour Party.
At one stage, the Workers' Party enjoyed considerable influence in RTÉ where members and sympathisers played a major role in current affairs coverage, principally through Today Tonight(predecessor of Prime Time) which was renamed by the wags as "Today Tonight the Workers' Programme". The main ideological and political influence was Eoghan Harris who subsequently resigned and was more recently appointed a Senator after the 2007 general election on the nomination of then-taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
The party had its supporters and sympathisers in this newspaper as well, notably the late Dick Walsh. Well-liked and respected by colleagues, Walsh played a key role in the paper’s political coverage over many years from a left-wing perspective that was sharply-critical of Fianna Fáil and totally dismissive of the political potential of the Provisionals, at least until the Peace Process was well under way. He never concealed his friendly political disposition towards the Workers’ Party: the present writer recalls an occasion where someone observed to then-Editor Douglas Gageby that Walsh had been described as “a secret Sticky”. With typical brusque humour, Gageby responded:
“I didn’t know that was a secret”.
A strong constitutional nationalist, Gageby never allowed the WP brand of neo-unionism or incipient two-nationism to hold sway at the paper but he did believe in a “broad church” and was happy to preside over a wide diversity of opinion among the staff.
The necessity to take the gun out of Irish politics is demonstrated on page after page of this well-researched volume. Despite their organisation’s involvement in violence, personalities such as Goulding come across as well-meaning and sincere in their efforts to wean their followers away from unvarnished militarism towards a more sophisticated political outlook.
In an apparent attempt to render the book more appealing to a non-academic audience, the notes and references are crowded into a few pages at the back. It makes for slightly-cumbersome reading. There are some misspellings and infelicities in the text, such as a reference to the “Offensives [sic] Against the State Act” and too many names are left out of the index.
In spite of all that, academic Brian Hanley and journalist Scott Millar deserve the gratitude of all for shining such a strong light into one of the darkest corners of our recent history. This fine book is also a stark warning of what can happen when legal and democratic methods give way to conspiracy and authoritarianism.
Deaglán de Bréadún is Political Correspondent with The Irish Timesand author of The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland(Collins Press)
