Why I will vote ‘No’

Le Deasún Breatnach

What Mr Blair and his helpers seem to be aiming at is a rehash of the 1920 Act of the British Parliament, an Act “for the better government of Ireland”: a quare joke, God help us.

This Act was the British government’s reply to the impudence of voters in all 32 counties of Ireland in the 1918 general election of Ireland and Britain giving a majority to Sinn Féin.

That party immediately went ahead with its election promises, to set up an Irish parliament in Ireland, instead of sending MPs to Westminster. Thus, Dáil Éireann was born.

But there was no British Fairy Godmother at the birth. Instead we have the Tan War (or the War of Independence): take your choice). Or the War in Defence of the Republic and Democracy?

Eventually, after the usual imperial way of dealing with sulky natives, the burning of Cork and Balbriggan, and the uniformed death squads, there came a Truce. Irish delegates went to London where the British Prime Minister of the time, Lloyd George, gave them a chance of peace by putting their names to a document. If they refused to do so he’s blow their so-and-so heads off! Those were not the words but certainly the very clear message of the Black-and-Tans.

The horrified Irish delegates, although not authorised to do so by Dáil Éireann, signed what was later to be known as the “Treaty”.

This “Treaty” gave us partition, Stormont, a murderous Royal Ulster Constabulary and its B-Specials, the barbarous Garda Síochána. A civil war, the persecution of the Irish-minded people in the Six Counties for more than 70 years, the laming of the entire Irish economy for about the same period, unemployment, emigration, and many other ills. Likely as not, it was the most chastening example of a neo-colonial state in the twentieth century. Ironically, it followed the declaration of the British war aim to be the defence of small nations and democracy.

The first Dáil Éireann remained faithful to the Republic it had declared in support of the 1916 Proclamation and legislated for the entire country, fairly and democratically. It arranged for the setting up of the various institutions necessary for the realisation of legislation.

It was a dangerous and difficult task, for the Dáil was outlawed by the British, and its institutions attacked by deaths quads, known to history as the Black-and-Tans and the Auxiliaries, who worked in close co-operation with the Royal Irish Constabulary and units of the British army.

But despite all it worked, and for the first time in some 800 years Irish courts operated under Irish law. For those who want the details, read The Irish Republic by Dorothy Macardle, or An Phoblacht by Séamus Ó Duibhir.

The second Dáil, with the British gun to its head, agreed to the “Treaty”, but only by a mere handful of votes. A puppet government took over for the implementation of the “Treaty” and the Republic was dismantled piece by piece. In the Dáil, the split seemed to be on class lines. Outside, this was certainly the reality, the better-off classes, backed by press and clergy, clamouring for the “Treaty”.

In a general election, confined in its application to the new partition boundaries, thus excluding representatives from the Six Counties, a majority was achieved for the “Treaty”, and the British supplied the guns and ex-British soldiers for the armed birth of the Irish Free State.

Partition, dominion status, civil war, economic war, armed insurrection, emigration, military courts, special courts, killing of political prisoners, deaths on hunger strike, literary censorship, religious bigotry, exiling – such was the likely order of any day thereafter.

Under the Special Powers Act in the Six Counties and the Offences Against the State Act (and the coercion acts before that) anything could happen to virtually anybody and often did, as the history of Ireland’s records, during the civil war, and after, under de Valera, in many of its undemocratic practices, its contempt for human rights, its cruel treatment of the unemployed, the homeless, the weak and the sick: all is well documented.

One name shines out like a beacon of hope, that of Noel Browne, the politically and clerically disgraced Minister for Health, the man who made it possible to end the tuberculosis scourge. Equally well documented are the conspiracies in the Free State army and the Garda Síochána, a tradition which may be traced back to that terrible headquarters of torture in Dublin, Oriel House, the atrocities of which have never been fully documented.

A conspiracy to subvert the course of justice in a police force surely is the greatest evil of which any alleged democracy can be accused. Yet, this has been a fact of life in Ireland, north and south, under the 1920 Act for almost 80 years, again well documented (in the seventies, particularly by the Irish Times and Magill).

Although they pretend otherwise, most of the political parties in Ireland do not want an end to Partition. Were that lethal device to go most of them would be in grave political trouble. They would be wandering in the unknown, uncertain of their identity, scrambling around for any port in a storm, any alliance which might give them a chance of power.

Newcomers would see a chance to break the old political moulds in favour of political realism. We might even see a return to idealism, to a genuine interest in doing something in the interests of all the children of the nation, even the return of the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil, thrown out by the Irish Free State.

At present, however, deep in their souls, the politicians of the day, north and south, in their majority, favour the status quo. Any why not? Doesn’t it give them and their children a living, a family business?

If Partition were to end with the inevitable British withdrawal, sooner or later those most likely to benefit politically might be some of today’s small (and smaller) parties.

The unionists, surely, would come out best, and with them the remainder of the Irish conservatives, with whom they would be able to do great deals, to boss the country for another 20 years until we all awakened. But, at least, it would be a democratic bossing and it would be our own fault. No blaming the British ever again. There would be an end to the make-believe, the lofty slogans, the wink and the nod, the political chancery, and the shameless, illegal feathering of very comfortable nests.

Still, you might argue, it would be all that much better than Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, or what passed for democracy in Ireland up to 1920-21, and later, for some 800 years of murder, genocide, famine, ethnic cleansing.

Well, that’s your problem; and next June, or so, you will have a chance of voting for more or less the same items on a like menu, though with different words. Most of the larger parties will urge you to vote "yes". Likely as not, because of the power of the media, and the purse-strings, even the clergies, it will be fashionable to vote "yes", even when you know that that will change nothing.

It will be the 1920 Act all over again. The Council of Ireland will get a new name, new clothes. A new Stormont will provide the means for the sharing of the spoils. The old 'Butchers' Apron' will still fly in Belfast, perhaps beside that other lie, the Tricolour. Not a chance of a drop of holy water in hell for the Starry Plough!

Because I do not want another botched Anglo-Irish agreement, and because a permanent peace, based on justice, would not, could not, result from a "yes" vote (the 1920 Act will remain, a permanent insult to truth and democracy), and because inevitably the killing and maiming will be given a new lease, I will vote "no" (if still alive; and who knows the day or the hour, these dangerous times?). Deasún Breatnach (76) is not a member of any political party. During the 1939-45 war he served to defend as he thought neutrality in the Free State army. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists, of Amnesty International and the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association. He writes mostly in Irish and has had six books published. He holds the M.Litt degree from the University of Dublin, is married and the father of six.
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Lurgan nationalists targeted by RIR

The 16-year-old said a soldier who had stopped him earlier in the day, had shouted to a colleague to check him out again. Frightened, the youth walked on, where upon an RIR man wearing a helmet, head-butted him. An RUC man accompanying the patrol said he “had seen nothing”.

“I asked the police officer if the RIR men had a gold [identity] card and was refused three times”. The youths were left waiting for 20 minutes after which an RIR soldier alighted from a Land Rover, deliberately bumped into one of the youths, and claimed he had been assaulted.

Both teenagers were then dragged into the Land Rover, where they were “punched and struck with rifles”, to be taken to Lurgan RUC barracks. They were later released on £250 bail. The 16-year-old’s father, a resident of the Kilwilkie Estate, described the RIR as ‘out of control’.

“This is by no means an isolated incident as far as my son is concerned. It has been going on since he was 14. He cannot go out the front door without being stopped,” he said. “The RIR are out of control in this town. Every time they come into Kiliwilkie Estate, six Land Rovers at a time, people are assaulted, physically and verbally”.

A lawyer acting for the families of both youths has confirmed that civil claims are being lodged and a letter of complaint sent to the colonial police chief.
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Easter Statement from the Leadership of the Republican Movement

This Easter of 1998 is highly significant for a number of reasons, the most notable being that the current process in Ireland now nearing completion stands exposed for what it really is. It is admitted on all sides that it will not bring about British withdrawal from Ireland which is what the men and women we honour today so nobly gave their lives to achieve.

Neither is this process a stepping-stone or a transition to Irish national independence. In reality it is the updating and strengthening of English rule here through a New Stormont. This will seek to involve as much of the nationalist population as possible and will be a barrier administration between the Irish people and the imperialist British government. Such a new, reinforced Stormont will be much more difficult to remove than the old corrupt regime which was brought down by the people’s struggle in 1972.

The most dangerous aspect of these proposals is that those who work them will be required to support their implementation on the ground, by actively opposing all who continue the struggle for Irish freedom.

In this regard the bid to have 40% of a new police force under British control staffed by ex-nationalists is the most menacing of all. Not only will this new northern Free State attempt to absorb nationalist energies and divert young people from revolutionary activity, but former prisoners and ex-Volunteers will be channelled into the new Broy Harriers to do England’s work in keeping down the Irish in their own country.

For these and other reasons Republican Sinn Féin has called on Irish people everywhere to campaign energetically for a “No” vote in any referendums on the New Stormont. They should also vote “No” against the Amsterdam Treaty which tightens the grip of the EU and diminishes Irish neutrality in the direction of a new European Army.

We call on active Republicans and their supporters to steel themselves for a new wave of repression which will surely follow such referendums. The price demanded for the new arrangements must be paid in order to hold them in place.

The Irish people are being threatened that the alternative to acceptance of these proposals is an absence of peace. In other words as Liam Mellows said of the Treaty of Surrender in 1922, “this is not the WILL of the people; it is the FEAR of the people”. Permanent peace – the only worthwhile peace – will come only with British disengagement from Ireland; that is the lesson of history.

We note the continuing campaign of the Continuity Irish Republican Army who by their activities have brought to the notice of the British government and all concerned the fact that English rule in Ireland is being resisted and always will be resisted, no matter how such rule is camouflaged.

We send good wishes and support to Irish political prisoners everywhere who stand for British withdrawal and a totally New Ireland. We urge support in real terms for their dependants and in particular we salute the only woman political prisoner in the 26 Counties, Josephine Hayden, now struggling with severe ill-health in Limerick jail.

In this bicentenary year of the great 1798 Rising we appeal to Irish people everywhere for increased support for the freedom movement in struggle for Ireland’s independence from colonisation and imperialism.

The 1798 Rising which cost 30,000 lives was not sectarian or merely for civil rights. It was highly political and influenced by the most modern democratic and Republican ideas from America and France. The aim of the United Irishmen was, in Wolfe Tone’s immortal words, “to break the connection with England” and to establish Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in Ireland.

In the name of all those honoured dead down the centuries and over the decades, we renew our appeal for support in order that their sacrifices be not in vain. Let us confront reality and not delude ourselves with vain hopes. The British government will depart from our shores when they are compelled to do so and not before.

Willing hands and active minds are needed to complete the task for which such enormous sacrifices have been made, even in our own time. Tiocfaidh ár lá! Our day will come!
— Issued by the Leadership of the Republican Movement, Easter 1998
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DUP addresses Portadown support rally for LVF

The rally was organised by a group campaigning for a public inquiry into the killing of LVF leader King Rat (Billy Wright) gunned down by INLA prisoners on December 27 last.

In his address to the rally, Ian Paisley jnr said, “We come here this evening loyalists to a bombed to a battered to a bloody but unbowed Portadown: We come to a part of Ulster that raised some of Ulster’s finest sons and seen those finest sons slayed”.

A clear reference to Billy Wright and his ilk who have shot, bombed and hacked uninvolved nationalists to death. To loud applause and cheers from the crowd, he added, “The only good IRA man is a dead IRA man” and called for their extermination. Loyalists have a tendency of justifying the killings of innocent nationalists by claiming they were IRA members.

Prior to Paisley, Sammy Wilson whipped the crowd into a frenzy — some of whom wore T-shirts carrying Wrights face with the words ‘some give it all’, by saying “It is a great privilege to speak at a rally in the heartland of Ulster.” Wilson went on to call for a public inquiry into “the murder of Billy Wright”. The crowd roared their approval, and he added ‘a request that should be supported by all decent people.”

Two days later on March 8, Britain’s Sunday Times carried details of an interview with what it called an LVF contact. In it the LVF spokesman stated that the death squad supported the political analysis of the DUP. “In the eyes of the LVF, Paisley has got it right”, he said. He claimed the LVF had obtained a quantity of commercial detonators and threatened attacks on the 26 Counties. March 8 also saw the release of the LVF’s ten-page policy document in which it noted that key Protestant leaders were colluding in a process of surrender to blackmail.

The death squad document demands that before they end their expansionist murder campaign: “All component parts of the pan-nationalist front (Dublin, SDLP, Provos) must:

1. Make a unilateral declaration that each recognises, without equivocation, Ulster as a legitimate political entity and
2. Accept that no deal can include parties whose sole aim is the destruction of Ulster and the Union.”

The death-squad document warned that failure to meet their demands would mean no chance of “creating a peaceful prosperous Ulster”.
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Blank shots fired by Crown Forces at Belfastman

Seán Murray claims he was stopped and held for 15 minutes by the patrol in Slievegallion Drive and says the RUC were “hyper and more aggressive than usual”. According to Murray, a leading Provisional in the area, there were two pairs of vehicles involved. “As I passed a second pair of vehicles another bang rang out. It was quite scary”, he said.

Twenty minutes later a British solider fired shots into the Falls Park, this gave Crown Forces an excuse to fire further shots into the park claiming they had been fired at and had spotted a gunman. An hour later the RUC admitted there had been no gunman and described the incident as a “misunderstanding” by members of the patrol.
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Charles Malone

Malone had been an Irish Republican activist for the better part of five decades. He was tried for smuggling weapons to the Irish Republican Army in the 1970s, when the local press dubbed him the “Golden Gate gun-runner” and in the 1980s did time in Federal Prison again on arms charges. Since 1986 Malone was associated with Republican Sinn Féin, though he is probably best known to activists throughout the United States for his many years heading the American support group for Na Fianna Éireann.

Pádraig Mac Mathúna, a member of the Ard Chomhairle of Republican Sinn Féin, went to San Francisco, where he presented an illuminated scroll to Malone’s son Seán, recognising Malone’s devotion to the cause of Irish freedom.

Charles Malone will be missed by many Irish Republican activists across the United States and in Ireland. He remained throughout his life a good soldier and that is the tribute that he would like to be remembered by.

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