The dynamic is now much better than that. The massive diminution in income disparities between the 6 and the 32 counties and the increasing secularisation of Eire must over time must reduce the insecurities and grievances of Northern Island Protestants, too.

Despite the last election results the Paisleys and their ilk will fade away. Given demography, economics and the EU I think Sinn Fein correctly calculates that a united Ireland will one day happen and that armed struggle delays, not hastens, that day – a calculation they should have made a few decades earlier. Of course that awful self-pitying romantic version of Irish history – the force that delayed this calculation – is also fading, so Sinn Fein, a party dependent on that national myth, may not be around by then.

This is simply incorrect. Where’s does your disinformation come from?

Say WHAT??

A FALSE and FOUL Aspersion

“A Friggin’ Disgrace” you say? We did what we could, and more! You People did very damn well by us and you Know It!! We’re not all of us millionaires over here, despite what You People might think, if you think at all, which I’m beginning to doubt. And now you’re complaining about “tacit support!!” Duuuhh. Didn’t you get the memo, Omadon? It was SUPPOSED TO BE TACIT!!

You People really know the history in detail. I’m impressed and humbled I must say. I’m in the US, but have been studying the subject for some years now, and I confess I thought myself pretty well versed. But reading your comments, why its like I’ve barely got my feet wet, while you’re all in way over your heads. I’ll just have to bear down. Well, it calls to mind what James Connolly often said, that…but you hardly need instruction about that from me.

“There must have been a time in the 1940s when people thought that McBride’s party, Clann na Poblachta, might sweep to dominance in the same way that people think the Shinners might now. Of course they did get two 1940s-1950s rainbow coalitions out of it, and a career as an international statesman for Sean, but looking back now it’s hard to see much sign of the Clann impact.”

There has always been speculation that John A. Costello was pushed into the declaration of the Republic of Ireland by McBride – which was a pretty important moment in the history of this State.

“Whatever one thinks of the Shinners, organisation is one of their strong points, and they’ve been plugging away on the ground for a long time now, both in the North and in working-class and some rural areas of the South. They’re also a lot more internally coherent and disciplined than Clann na Poblachta ever were.”

In this they’re a lot like Hezbollah in south Lebanon, as I’ve noted before.

The SDLP have a long way to go before they’re in a fit condition to beat them electorally: the first step is an injection of backbone, and getting away from their current stance of being deer caught in the Provo headlights.

“Historical footnote: it’s inaccurate, and silly, to say that the’ Irish Free State Army… is the only military force to have comprehensively defeated the IRA in the field.’ Contemporaneously with the IRA’s defeat in the Irish Civil War, the Northern IRA was equally comprehensively- and viciously- smashed by the RUC, the British Army and various unpleasant local militias”

For the sake of complete historical accuracy, it should be noted that the IRA north of the Border got support from Collins (the pro-Treaty leader) and de Valera both.

Whatever one thinks of the Shinners, organisation is one of their strong points, and they’ve been plugging away on the ground for a long time now, both in the North and in working-class and some rural areas of the South. They’re also a lot more internally coherent and disciplined than Clann na Poblachta ever were.

If they’re not in government after the next election, they can carry on campaigning in opposition – something that they’re very good at.

If they are in government, I couldn’t see them imploding in the way the Clann did, and I could see them managing to sell things to their base, at least initially – managing areas of government spending in the North like Health and Education didn’t seem to do them any damage in terms of public opinion. I suspect they’d market themselves as the left-wing and nationalist conscience of the government, in the same way as the PDs currently market themselves as the watchdog over the shysters of Fianna Fáil.

Achh, this definitively discussed back in 1997 in soc.culture.irish:

But don’t ye see it’s terribly important, since in 1938 the faithful
members of the True Da/il gave the Legitimacy – the de jure
governance over All-Ireland, founded by God at the Creation and renewed
in blood in 1916 – to the IRA Army Council. In 1970 the Army Council
bobbled the Legitimacy and dropped it by agreeing to go into the False
Da/il, so they did, so the Legitimacy reverted to the one remaining
faithful member of the True Da/il, Commandant General Tom MacGuire.
The Commandant General then handed the Legitimacy over to the Provie
Army Council, so he did, and wouldn’t ye know it, in 1986 they also
bobbled the Legitimacy and dropped it by agreeing to go into the False
Da/il, so back to Tom it went. Now the O Bradaigh Bunch secretly if
not anachronistically, if ye get me drift, formed the Continuity Army
Council and Tom handed over the Legitimacy to them. Surely O Bradaigh
has hidden somewhere the deed of transfer, bearing the Commandant – General’s signature and wax seal, stamped by the One Ring. (Maybe
that’s what the Free Staters were looking for when they searched his
house the other day.) But since Tom MacGuire has since passed to the
great United Ireland in the sky, should the Conts ever agree to
recognise the False Da/il, the poor Legitimacy will have no place to
go, and Ireland will never have a legitimate government until the end of the world.

“By the by, if you ask me the name “Óglaigh na hÉireann”—this is what the IRA calls itself in Irish—actually refers to The Irish Defence Forces. The IRA has never liked the Irish Army much because, as a descendant of the Irish Free State Army, it is the only military force to have comprehensively defeated the IRA in the field. The Provos don’t like to be reminded of this.”

The Provos are a very different animal to the Irregulars of the 1920’s (who mostly became the backbone of Fianna Fáil).

“On who has the most legitimate historical possession of the title Óglaigh na hÉireann, I think it’s complicated. The name dates back to the pre-Great War Irish Volunteers, out of which evolved the IRA. The Free State army had no such line of descent, being a compound of only a minority of the IRA and a good deal of jetsam and flotsam who had sat out the War of Independence. Even worse, they were effectively armed and equipped by the British (as a consequence of this, the Army was very quickly wound down & the Free state became one of the least militarised states in the world). There’s a good argument to be made for the Official IRA being the most obvious historical descendants of Óglaigh na hÉireann rather than the Provos, however.

Only in the same sort of tenuous reasoning employed to ‘prove’ that they have the authority of the Second Dáil behind them, though. The massive demilitarisation occured because the finances of the new Free State were so precarious.

On democratic, rather than historical legitimacy, there’s no doubt that the Irish Defence forces are the true Óglaigh na hÉireann.”

Very true. (As an aside, the term “Irish Republican Army” was invented by the Fenians (IRB) of course – but during the 19th Century, not the 20th as you might have thought!)

The Arafat analogy is tenuous, as well – as someone else pointed out, Adams (and Sinn Féin in general) have much more in common with Mandela and the ANC.

And ascribing all this to personal ambition on the part of Adams is silly and childish. If he was motivated by personal gain, he could’ve simply joined the SDLP and saved himself decades of ostracisation and risk to his own life. Whatever else one may think of him, it has to be conceded that Adams is committed to his Struggle (which now will take a new form).

Which would seem OK to me, as long as they don’t play brinksmanship or word games with their renunciation of violence. I just thought it was an angle I hadn’t seen discussed here.

As some have argued above, if there is a return to violence, whichever incarnation of the IRA leads it will almost certainly not have the popular strength of PIRA. The grievances and the insecurity of Northern Catholics are never again likely to be comparable to what they were in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and IRA recruiting will reflect this.

As Eirepol says, racketeering is going to be the pension plan for some Provisionals. If they act like the criminal gangs of Britain and most of Western Europe, they will make large amounts of money and protect themselves by suborning witnesses and jurors, spying on the police and employing good lawyers. If they act like the Mafia, or the Columbian cartels, or like their own pre-ceasefire selves, they will deal with problems by threatening or assassinating cops or judges. I think Adams will be able to prevent that, but possibly he can’t or won’t. If a copper really did start to give Slab Murphy problems, what would he do- hire a good brief or dust off the Kalashnikovs? Presumably Irish and British politicians will underfund their organised crime squads, just in case…