Irish Republican Socialism - My Two Cents

The following in a comment I recently made on the blog The Pensive Quill on the post Dis/topia [sic]ness. It pretty much sums up where my head is at politically. In other words, in flux.

Antony,

This blog is very interesting lately. I am currently ploughing my way through 'The Lost Revolution' by Hanley and Millar. Very educational. I am currently at the stage of the Provo/Official split and it has given me an insight that I think is relevant to the comments on this thread.

Sinn Fein/IRA in the 1960s was the true inheritor of the republican tradition of Wolfe Tone, the Fenians and the IRB, and like them in the 1960s were seen by the majority of Irish Nationalists north and south as being somewhat eccentric, not necessarily bad, or even wrong, but dreamers who would be better off turning their attention to bread and butter issues. Except for rare moments of crisis, this is the way republicans always have been seen (and are seen now).

Anyway in the 1960s, the IRA either out of genuine idealism, or political opportunism starts to move to the left, which causes a lot of internal strife, just as this is coming to a boil the whole civil rights thing explodes. IRA membership mushrooms and the split occurs. Here's my point, the Provos were not only not Republican Socialists, the majority of them were not even Republicans. I've put the word majority in bold for good reason, yes a significant minority were republicans, who either did not buy into the socialism or who ended up on the Provo side because of personal or neighborhood loyalty. But the majority ended up in the provos because they wanted civil rights and to defend their homes and loved ones, not because they were committed republican revolutionaries. Now that they've got their civil rights, they are happy to return to being bourgeois nationalists.

I think Larry's FF in the South SF in the North is totally understandable. Both parties pose at being republican (waving tricolours, attending republican commemorations) while at the same time are quite willing to persecute and imprison (and in the case of FF, execute) former republican comrades. In a way SF are worse because they pretend to be socialists something FF tend to avoid doing (although there was Bertie Aherne's bizarre claim to being a socialist some years back).

As for the Officials/Worker's party, well they are a ghost party, bled white by splits and the fall of the Berlin Wall. I have read their newspaper and seen some blogs, I've even talked to ghostly voices down a telephone, but I've never seen or touched a WP member since the Democratic Left split.

Personally, and I expect to be shot down over this, at this stage of my journey though the weird and wonderful world of the Irish Left, I think the remnants of the old Republican Spirit, if they remain anywhere, are in the INLA/IRSP. That said the recent decommissioning is hard to fathom. But if they exist anywhere I hope they have learned that for a revolution to succeed you need the support of the mass of the people, plus a fair measure of the security forces of the state. Perhaps at some times in the 1970s and 1980s such a situation almost existed in Ireland. Maybe the troubles really were a lost opportunity, but I don't believe the majority of the provos were ever really revolutionary and now they are certainly no different from FF, FG and Labour in the south.

Rory