Some 100 years ago this month the Irish Free State’s minister for justice, Kevin O’Higgins, addressed the Irish Society at Oxford University. Under the title Three Years’ Hard Labour, his presentation amounted to a robust defence of his pro-Treaty party Cumann na nGaedheal’s transition from Sinn Féin rebels to governors. O’Higgins was adept at conjuring up memorable images, describing himself and his besieged government colleagues during the Civil War as “eight young men...standing amidst the ruins of one administration with the foundations of another not yet laid, and with wild men screaming through the key holes”.
This was also part of the propaganda war of that era; the message he wanted to impart was that opponents of the Treaty had been faced down by responsible and respectable realists. Cumann na nGaedheal’s successor party, Fine Gael, continued over the decades to make much of the idea of providing a bulwark against the “wild men” or cleaning up after their transgressions. Sinn Féin’s current woes allow for an updated version of the barbarians at the gate narrative, also now mirrored by some in Fianna Fáil, a party also once depicted as dangerous.
Sinn Féin strongly disputes the idea it is different in how it handles internal party difficulties, but it is farfetched to suggest the party’s background and evolution have no relevance to its modus operandi today. While all our political parties are strongly centralised Sinn Féin is exceptionally so; that Gerry Adams served as president of the party for 35 years is a reminder of the tightness of control associated with it.
One of the most revealing stories in last year’s book by Aoife Moore, The Long Game: Inside Sinn Féin, concerns a former IRA man turned active Sinn Féin member who wanted to apologise to the widow of a policeman he had murdered. According to Moore’s source, the party figures told him they would not agree to this, the source suggesting Sinn Féin’s attitude to such matters was “it’s not your memory to know”.
Sinn Féin’s defensiveness and fraught relationship with the media and other parties is also a legacy of censorship which prevented the broadcast of interviews with its members or the IRA during the Troubles, the perceived partitionist attitude of the southern establishment and because Sinn Féin dislikes probing of its past, for obvious reasons given what lies there and the significance of its relationship with the IRA. Decades ago the “wild men” of the O’Higgins narrative were able to move to the political mainstream quickly, but they were, unlike Sinn Féin today, facing political opponents with whom they shared a subversive past.
Whether the current difficulties of Sinn Féin and the accusations levelled at it form the crux of the coming general election narrative, however, is another matter. The tone and direction of that campaign could go in a number of directions. Given the difficulties facing Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin is especially vulnerable; the party’s general election campaign in 2020 was built around her personally, and she is unlikely to have the same momentum this time.
But Fine Gael’s determination to build a campaign around Taoiseach Simon Harris might prove tricky too. It can no longer maintain its task is to clean up others’ mistakes and there may be limits to the mileage in depicting Sinn Féin as unfit for office. Fine Gael has been in government for 14 years “hard labour”; 17 of its TDs are standing down, and recent elections have demonstrated that a campaign based on the economy has its limitations. Back in 2016, after the general election that saw its vote fall well below its hopes and expectations, one of its strategists, Mark Mortell, rued that, “we went into this election deciding it was going to be all about the economy”. What was missing was due attention to the social contract.
Harris seems conscious of this, recently asserting in an interview “I am not just running a government, I’m also running a society”. The grandeur of this declaration is striking but there are obvious vulnerabilities relating to his perceived mission. An indication of Harris’s preferred narrative was provided last year when he spoke at the annual Arthur Griffith/Michael Collins commemoration: “a refusal to allow people talk this country down is in no way contradictory to the acknowledgment of the need to do more and the massive challenges and opportunities we face today. In fact, it is complimentary because the successes to date of this country inspire us, encourage us and convince us of our ability to face up to and overcome any challenge of our time.”
But Fine Gael may also have to overcome its penchant for mixed messages: is it primarily a promoter of the “just society”, a barrier against Sinn Féin, or a champion of the early risers? And is it, in O’Higgins’s words a century ago, in command of “Ireland’s actual condition and prospects?”