The Split
| Date: | 1982 |
|---|---|
| Organisation: | Sinn Féin |
| View: | View Document |
| Discuss: | Comments on this document |
| Subjects: | Sinn Féin Split, 1969 |
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Commentary From The Cedar Lounge Revolution
12th October 2009
A very short document this, produced by Provisional Sinn Féin for internal distribution in the early 1980s around the time that Sinn Féin, The Workers’ Party became the Workers’ Party. This is unusual for the thoughtful treatment of the 1969 split which is almost painstakingly fair in its analysis recognising some of the dynamics at work that played out in the radically different perspectives of that period. Telling, perhaps, that this should come just after the point when the Workers’ Party jettisoned the name Sinn Féin.
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By: splinteredsunrise Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:49:55
It’s surprisingly fair to the other side in the split… although my sense of the style is that it probably wasn’t the work of a PD refugee but rather someone in the Adams kitchen cabinet, which was very ostentatiously leftist at the time (Tom Hartley was going around quoting Fanon, though I never sensed that anyone but Tom took that at all seriously). There are some fairly disingenuous references to certain events in Belfast that fit well with Gerry’s progress. I’m thinking of the reference to criticism of the leadership coming from people who had dropped out years earlier. That might apply to Twomey or Cahill, but they were Adams allies of long standing. It doesn’t apply to his great enemy McKee, who was active throughout the 1960s. Also bear in mind the young Gerry’s closeness to the McMillen-Sullivan leadership in Belfast.
Also interesting in the way that it separates out the juridical and tactical arguments for abstentionism. The traditional argument is made out to be one argument, and not necessarily the most important one.
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By: splinteredsunrise Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:32:48
In reply to WorldbyStorm.
That’s very true. Trad-republicanism has always taken the view that dropping abstentionism is the first step on the road to constitutional nationalism, whether the advocates of same believe it or not. See countless issues of Saoirse for this argument at interminable length.
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By: Garibaldy Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:55:23
Doesn’t TLR quote Adams saying basically this thing about people he had never seen sight nor sign of criticising the leadership after August 1969? Backs up SS’ theory. McKee of course came in for massive criticism for allowing a colour party to go up the road without a tricolour.
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By: splinteredsunrise Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:02:26
He did indeed, though Gerry had other beefs with him. It really wasn’t surprising that he would end up in RSF at the end of the day.
Gerry talks along those lines in Before the Dawn about people he’d never seen nor heard of before. I find this difficult to believe, because Belfast republicanism at the time was based around a handful of extended families, and Cahill and Twomey, who had left years before, were both mates of Gerry’s da. Of the others – Steele, Drumm, McKee, Martin – it’s difficult to imagine that he hadn’t met them or at least known them by reputation, even if they were seriously out of favour with the leadership. Had Gerry just said those people hadn’t been very active in recent years, he might have been convincing.
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By: Worldbystorm Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:37:41
In reply to WorldbyStorm.
It’s the key issue in a way along with armed struggle. Everything else is secondary, don’t you think?
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By: Jim Monaghan Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:15:47
I think membership of the Republican movement can and was not just confined to those active in either SF or the IRA at a specific time. I doubt Uinseann McEoin was a member of a specific cumann but would have regarded himself as an active republican with his membership of say the Wolfe Tone society and his publishing operations.Bizarrely it had something in common with those on the formal left who are not members of specific left parties because of various reasons.
On of the Price sisters referreed to a time when Belfast couild barely fill a bus for Bodenstown.The Price father was an old time republican.
I would guess that many would have regarded willingness to take up arms in say defence of the ghettoes qualified as membership rather than attending meetings.Possible comparison with being an active/militant trade unionist not just a question of attending meeting there either.
One member of Adams kitchen cabinet was an ex member of PD but also from a Republican lineage.
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By: Neues aus den Archiven der radikalen (und nicht so radikalen) Linken « Entdinglichung Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:14:02
[…] Irish Workers Group, 1966-68 * Sinn Féin: The Split […]
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