Weather: Hi 4°C / Lo 2°C
Did Sinn Fein leaders betray party faithful?
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
enlarge
Print
Email
In a weekend interview Cherie Blair revealed how during a visit to 10 Downing Street, Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness had shown off their skateboarding skills to her sons Euan and Nicholas.
Cherie says she’d looked out of the window towards the Number 10 garden where, she recalls: “There, to my astonishment, were Gerry and Martin on the skateboards showing the boys a few tricks.”
This cosy scene of the two Shinner Sk8ter Boyz showing the sons of the British Prime Minister how to perfect their kickflips, heelflips and ollies might well have |astonished a few within the republican community as well.
Surely this wasn’t happening back at that time when Jonathan Powell and Tony Blair were famously redrafting P O’Neill’s statements for him?
Among the republican faithful the revelation in Powell’s recent memoirs about the Brits somersaulting over P O’Neill’s head hit home with all the force of a concrete bollard in the skateboarding groin.
One poster on a republican website summed up the sense of alarm.
“At long last the elusive P O'Neill has been tracked to his secret lair ... 10 flipping Downing Street.
“When P O'Neill finally called on the party militia to stand down I'm surprised it didn't say: ‘Cherie and I would like to express y'know ... our appreciation ... y' know ... to you guys.’”
If anything that sense of cynicism has been growing of late, as two new tomes about the peace process and the Sinn Fein role in particular highlight.
Good Friday: The death of republicanism is the new book from former IRA man Anthony McIntyre, a critic of the Adams’ leadership. As it says on the tin, it’s a scathing attack by the author on what he believes were the moves that led to the defeat of republicanism.
Perhaps even more crushing is the brilliant new publication from Henry McDonald, the highly regarded Irish correspondent of the Guardian.
Again the title pulls no punches: Gunsmoke and Mirrors: How Sinn Fein Dressed Up Defeat as Victory.
For a man who is fond of quoting the line that it’s the victors who write history, Adams must currently feel that the writing isn’t so much on the wall as on the bookshelves.
McDonald’s book (it’s published by Gill & Macmillan) is a forensic analysis of the path that led directly from Sinn Fein vowing to smash Stormont to chuckling as they settled in to help run it.
McDonald says his aim is “to pull back the curtain at the side of the stage and reveal the true nature of the political outcome in Ireland today”.
He says that the Provisionals campaign “was meant for us, ie, those of us in this island from a Catholic or nationalist tradition/background ?
“They carried it out on our behalf because they somehow knew better than we did. And yet now we are being asked to be grateful for all the wasted years and broken lives, as if the Ireland of today, at peace and enjoying unprecedented prosperity north and south, was somehow down to those who wreaked so much havoc in the name of the nation ? ”
His book documents the twists and turns that the Sinn Fein leadership executed in their efforts to stay on board the peace process.
And it features interviews with disillusioned members of the republican movement now questioning what it was all about. All that killing. All that misery. The years spent behind bars.
For what? That tale this week of Adams and McGuinness teaching the sons of a British Prime Minister how to keep their footing on the skateboard seems oddly apt.
For a pair of politicians, who many of their own former supporters now believe, performed the ultimate back flip.
Post a comment
Limit: 500 characters
View all comments that have been posted about this article
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP address logged and may be used to prevent further submissions. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by BelfastTelegraph.co.uk's Terms of Use.
Posts submitted in UPPERCASE letters will be rejected.
Comments
29 Comments
Go on - tell me I'm wrong. Refuse to face the truth. Here's my prediction for the next generation- a very large and expanding foreign population, with Catholic/ Protestant problems becoming increasingly irrelevant, since no ethnic group will have majority status on our island. Irish culture of all kinds diluted or gone. The Irish language dead and buried - will the foreigners allow their children to be taught it?
So who's buying in all the Polski Sklep shops, Jim? Who's using Afro hairdressers? "Natives?"
Posted by maggie | 19.11.08, 09:30 GMT
You haven't got a clue, I doubt you've ever been to blanch!
Posted by Jim | 18.11.08, 20:22 GMT
Jim - which point is that? Blanch. is an African colony
Posted by maggie | 17.11.08, 17:07 GMT
I've lived all my life in blanchardstown maggie and your point is totally invalid.
Posted by Jim | 16.11.08, 16:27 GMT
Jim,
Tell me why if the Republic is so good, over the last 80 years, the vast majority of people both protestant and catholic, leaving N.ireland, go east and not South. Tell me how you will replace tens of thousands of public sector jobs, lost when the Brits go. Add to that the large numbers of pro-Union people of both prod and catholic, who may well just take their wealth and jobs and go if we ever voted for a united Ireland - perhaps even leaving a scorched-earth policy. Then there's the paramilitaries who will always be opposed, even to a negotiated setllement - how will you deal with them, let them peddle drugs in your Dublin/Cork housing estates or maybe they'll make life hell for your Gards when they walk into Belfast. Who knows, they may be joined by the unemployed nationalists left behind by the Brits. Wake up.
Posted by Paulo | 15.11.08, 07:38 GMT
Keep on deluding yourself Jim - I'm down here too. I hear that myth all the time - tell me why would any Nigerian, Romanian, Indian, you name it go home?
You know every tiny town has a black population and a Slavic population (been to Blanchardstown recently?)
You know people are included as Irish who aren't "natives" (your word) simply by getting hold of passports through producing a child here.
You know the numbers of babies born to foreign born mothers is a phenomenal proportion of total.
Add these to the 1 million (sorry)Ulster protestants, subtract "native" emigration (heard about the GAA losing players?) and you're looking at a very very different future.
Certainly your idea of 5.2 million nationalists looks like rubbish. Reminds me of General de Gaulle's "100 million French" back in the 1950s - the fool included the Algerians!
Posted by maggie | 14.11.08, 19:13 GMT
Jim "I do not know one person (down South) who considers NI a different country."
Then in their minds, nationalists down South already have what they want and have managed to avoid being saddled with tax hikes and Irish symbol changes!
That's their campaign successfully achieved then. Last one to leave campaign headquarters switch the lights off.
Posted by mickey | 14.11.08, 17:19 GMT
Excellent points made by many on exactly why a UI is but a pipe-dream for IRA/SF and their followers.
All we can do is try to educate and it's not about point-scoring or one-up-manship either, but simple plain truths. Some (more) may be converted into just getting on with it and helping make NI work.
If a Republican utopia is soooo appealing (why is this again?), I'm sure the door to the ROI is open and no one's stopping you. Well, all except yourselves. When push comes to shove you're not really motivated enough to make the move. Why?
Posted by mickey | 14.11.08, 13:16 GMT
Paedar
I'm from the republic (dublin) and yes while there are worries about what would happen under a UI economy (that worry has always been there too) etc, that does not take away from the fact that an over whelming majority in the south consider themselves nationalist, I do not know one person who considers NI a different country.
Maggie - you talk rubbish, alot of foreign nationals are gone or going home, there is not a million foreign nationals in the country not even close to it and it would be a very very long time before it was less than 50% natives.
Posted by Jim | 14.11.08, 12:53 GMT
Jim - intriguing stuff.
One million Ulster Protestants, 5.2 million others. (It's many fewer , but anyway) At least a million of these are Slavic, Baltic, Chinese, Filipino, Urdu, whatever. These new groups are young and of child bearing age, hence grossly over represented in the maternity wards. I'm writing this from cork, where walking from railway station to city centre, I have only heard foreign languages.t
Now emigration of what you refer to as the "natives" has started afresh.
So just how long before the proportion of "natives" in the population drops below 50%, and Irish Catholics become a minority group on this island? Not very long.
Posted by maggie | 14.11.08, 12:04 GMT
Jim, this isn't 1921, this is 2008. The fact that Irish Republicanism can't get past 1921 just underlines what a dead-duck issue a UI really is today.
Posted by Steve | 13.11.08, 21:00 GMT
Just a thought Jim, but do you really think that all those nationalists/republicans with jobs in the public sector in N.I are really going to vote themselves out of a job for your United Ireland. And do you really think your nationalists in the south are really going to unite to take on maybe another 1/2million unemployed and disgruntled people from both sides of the community in the north that they don't really care about. Will they accept tax hikes to fund having us or see preferential treatment given to us. And if its a truely negotiated equal state, there'll be a new flag, national anthem and the outlawing of biased legislation that favours the Irish language anywhere. I can see your 5.2m nationalists queuing at the ballot box already - not!
Posted by Paulo | 13.11.08, 20:01 GMT
Lindy, you're obsessed with Sinn Fein. Can't you talk about Strictly Come Dancing or something. Anything ?
Posted by Yip | 13.11.08, 15:50 GMT
I'll ignore the typical arrogance that assumes there are 5.2 million nationalists on the island - a large amount of the population in the republic would not consider themselves nationalist. What is also amiss from you equation (and I realise that this cuts both ways) is the assumption that people who vote nationalist/unionist in local elections would vote that way in a referendum. As for holding the island to ransom - in what respect - over the last 80+ years those living in Northern Ireland, even under the disgraced Unionist regime, had a higher standard of living than those in the Republic - fact. Over the last 20 years there has been some rebalancing. Given the Euro-zone is now heading into financial disarray, it will be interesting to see who comes out the worst - N.I or RoI. But if you determine that an estimated 4/5s of the population makes it united thats up to you.
Posted by paedar | 13.11.08, 15:05 GMT
Paedar, the people will never be united?? Well I'm sure the natives would all be united, that leaves about 900,000 unionists/loyalists and about 5.2 million nationalists on the island. In my humble opinion thats a fairly united people. The 900,000 unionists have now held the island to ransom for nearly a hundred years which is an absolute disgrace. Where was democracy in 1921 when the overwhelming majority of this island wanted to remain as the one island apart from Britain?
Posted by Jim | 13.11.08, 12:51 GMT
Ciaran - don't worry, unification wont happen in our lifetime!!!! There's still too much hatred/division and while you may remove borders, the people will never be united and thats what makes a united country.
Posted by paedar | 13.11.08, 11:32 GMT
What a splendid justification for the dissident movement
Posted by Sorley | 13.11.08, 10:39 GMT
"You do realise it would consign the tricolour and Soldier's Song to the bin? Are you prepared to accept that?"
Maybe not the bin, but one would have to visit them in a museum. Still a new flag and new anthem might not be a problem for this "new Ireland" these people talk about.
However I dare say certain Northern Irish nationalists/republicans and most definitely most folk down South would not want to lose these symbols and emblems which they so cherish.
Perhaps they would be willing to get this "new Ireland" off to a bad start by forcing the republican tricolour and Soldier's Song on the Protestant minority.....who knows...?
Posted by mickey | 13.11.08, 09:25 GMT
Ciaran, the only problem with your theory about the nationalist community outgrowing the unionist community is that people have been eagerly anticipating this outcome ever since the island was partitioned in the Twenties.
Posted by Eddie Wilgar | 13.11.08, 00:56 GMT
Ciaran, your views are held my many from that side of the coin. What you may or may not know is that a hefty amount of people from traditionally Catholic areas in Northern Ireland are fairly happy with the status quo. Go look it up. Educated Catholics want little or nothing to do with the Irish Republic.
And the less said about the Irish Republic wanting unification, the better.
Anyway, why do you personally want a UI? You do realise it would consign the tricolour and Soldier's Song to the bin? Are you prepared to accept that?
Posted by McD | 12.11.08, 23:18 GMT
29 Comments