Fenian Notes

In Washington, President Bill Clinton gathers all the leaders from the Six Counties at the White House for a public commitment to a settlement. UUP man, David Trimble, is told that the union is safe, actually even safer since the Provos are going to accept and in faith guarantee partition.

Gerry Adams is met three times and guaranteed north/south institutions giving the aura of a 32-County fiction. Adams tells Clinton that he can guarantee that no one under his control will break the Treaty Mark II.

I began to wonder about all the injustice that is being swept under the table by this sell-out, a word that the Provos do not want to hear, but a word which is becoming their legacy.

The British recently have pointed the finger at many around the world for atrocities and called for the same to be tried as war criminals. What about themselves? They need not worry because of the sell-out, they are protected by the SDLP, the Provos and the Free State.

Do any of the peace-process talkers among nationalists know who the enemy is? It’s still the British. The Irish lobby in the US was started in the early 1970s and it fought a struggle long and hard to make the Irish issue one of concern in the United States. Now the issue has been transferred from the Irish American community to so-called political leaders who envision a process of support for Anglo-Irish efforts to alter, but maintain the status quo —Partition.

The modern Irish lobby was started with a Republican foundation. The only goal was a British withdrawal and an atonement of the national question by abrogating Stormont and Leinster House and structuring a New Ireland.

Pioneering efforts came from the Irish National Caucus which sought to galvanise support in the US Congress for a British withdrawal and an open visa policy for all spokespersons from Ireland. It was daunting and difficult to motivate Congress on the issue which was an afterthought at the time. It was an effort that witnessed small gains as victories.

The Irish lobby was an Irish Republican lobby. Its greatest nemesis was Senator Ted Kennedy and then others he recruited to stop the movement: Kennedy even recruited his political opposite, Senator Orrin Hatch who has close ties to Margaret Thatcher, the Tories, British Intelligence and the British Embassy in Washington.

All groups at the beginning of the political effort supported morally, verbally, and or financially the Republican Movement. There were no decisive issues to fracture the Irish American community (IAC) as all efforts centred on a British withdrawal.

Today, the entire spectacle is different and the victim of change is Irish unity. Lobby groups, ie, The Irish National Caucus, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Political Education Committee, Irish American Unity Conference, Friends of Sinn Féin, etc. have all been bought by the British peace process which is not about Irish unity, but perhaps the unity of the Six Counties, and the “United Kingdom”.

Over the years these groups gradually have been weaned from Irish Republicanism to peace at any price. They have been lured by flirtations with power sources that require the pre condition that they restructure their agenda(s).

Multiple and diversionary issues weakened and drained time and resources that trapped groups in an unsuspecting intrigue. They have not kept the faith that every prior generation of concerned Irish Americans held dear; the only issue was the British must leave Ireland.

Because they have spurned fundamental Republicanism, the only solvent political region worthy of an Irish patriot, the once tenacious groups of the IAC have now been supplanted. Now, a new rival lobby with limitless funds is in place to direct all political activity at the behest of the Free State. This must be a final wake up call to the IAC that they have willed themselves irrelevant and their input is nil.

Unfortunately, the IAC has failed and it is back to 1972 again with Partition still entrenched. Those groups with offices in Washington might as well pack it in unless they are prepared to embrace Republicanism and rise above their sell-out: wake up Irish America, you have allowed yourselves to be led astray.

PRO-FREE STATE

It will be promoting economic investment in Ireland, north and south and funding individuals who support its agenda. It will ensure that Adams, Hume and selected others can buy enough support. The Kennedy lobby is the antithesis of Irish Republicanism. The IAC is backed into a corner with this lobby pushing a US-Ireland alliance. To oppose this organisation will be seen as disruptive to the peace process and render any opponents cut off from access to power, the power that guarantees the status quo. All the work in the US in the early years of this struggle is being decimated in a mode of self destruction. In the ’70s and early ’80s the IAC was a Voice not an Echo.

The IAC voice was a Republican one, but now it is the mere echo parroting the nonsense which emanates from London, Dublin and Washington. The new lobby is the enemy, and should be accorded the utter disdain reserved for the foes of Irish Freedom.

Anyone who has spent time on the Irish issue in Washington knows our constant roadblock has been Senator Kennedy and his advisor, John Hume. To allow that combination to lead, without question, the previously named groups into support for the British solution shows how low those groups have descended. It is surrender; it is a sell-out.

The hidden agenda of the new lobby is to bury the IAC and it appears is headed to do so with its unlimited funds. Corporate executives like Tom Flatley and Dr. Tony O’Reilly who control billions are not the kin of true Republicans, and they are part of this.

The IAC is being led like lambs to the slaughter by the Kennedys with which they all associate because they have chosen to support the “peace process”. They are trapped by their own egos which were drawn to the glitz and the glamour.

Perhaps, and this is a long-shot, they realise they are going out of business, self-preservation will ignite them. Let them be warned that the preserve of survival is to revive amongst themselves, a total commitment to Irish unity and freedom and the true Republican Movement.

There is a leadership crisis in the IAC which is going down like the Titanic. We must look to Ireland for leadership where uncompromising Republicans still maintain the faith.

The Republican Movement is 200 years strong and as we honour Wolfe Tone and his comrades, let us rededicate ourselves to his and our struggle for justice and full freedom. Let us not be queasy and shy if physical force is deemed necessary. That is not an option anyone in the States can dictate.

No one has asked Irish Americans to fight, but in their true conscience they should endorse those who resist the British. Governments cannot tell freedom movements how to carry on.

The Provos have been emasculated by entering a process with the pre-condition of surrender. Adams et al know they have bought partition. Resistance is strength while peace without the justice of unity and freedom is abject weakness.

The Republican covenant was formulated by Tone — Break the Connection with England and those who abandon that should be dissolved and that includes the partitionist parliament in Dublin. It is a clear black and white issue. You support a British withdrawal or you support a British presence, one or the other. If you support the British peace process, you are pro-British.

Realistically, the new Kennedy-inspired lobby is an adjunct of the peace process and will promote US-Irish matters with the direction of Dublin and London. The only reason for another lobby other than Kennedy’s is to support opposition to the “peace process” and serve Irish Republicanism.

If IAC groups persist and support the “peace process” then there must be clear self-interest. The leaders believe they are to receive their bounty for giving up their political souls.

The IAC leaders believe they will be kept in the circle of the powerful and get their social invitations and have access to political leaders for issues other than the national question. That one, they surrendered.

What happened to the vigilance on human rights violations? What happened to demands for an open visa policy for all Irish Republicans ? What happened to unqualified commitment to a United Ireland? There has been a sell-out.

STEP BACKWARD

True Republicans in the States from George Harrison on down must be solicitous of any availing opportunity to strike a political blow. The presently constituted IAC must simply be ignored.

We have hope as long as there is the political leadership of Republican Sinn Féin and the military acumen of the Continuity IRA as separate and distinct.

This shallow, quite temporary, peace process cannot in the long term overcome the solid depths of Republicanism, where once Congressman Mario Biaggi led us with a clear voice, now the Pete Kings are a mere echo.

Certainly it helps the Movement to have assistance from the States, but Irish Freedom can only be defined and won at home, we can continue to agitate over here while the stalwarts fight for all of us against the British where it matters. We must all remember, it only takes a dedicated few to maintain the cause. There are enough and even as hostile media sources suggest, it is ever growing.

The enemies of Irish Freedom have tried to co-opt Wolfe Tone to their purposes, but Wolfe Tone advocated physical force not a surrender to peace. He did not seek the French to come to a peace demonstration; they came to fight. Our true Republican leaders have maintained the continuity from 1798 to 1998.

Will the “peace process” fail? It has! It is all over because the day is over and we still have Partition and a second treaty and a second sell-out.Our day is coming quick.
— Peadar Mac Fhínín