At the weekend, Sinn Féín leader Mary-Lou McDonald told the party’s Ard Fheis that partition was nothing to be celebrated. That view is shared, according to the polls, by the majority of Irish voters, so McDonald was on safe ground.
The incomprehensible folly of the government parties in firstly seeking to commemorate the RIC, and then being seen to be soft on partition, has no doubt given Sinn Féin an extra couple of points in the polls at a time when they were already rising.
It’s true that the notion that we’d celebrate either the Black and Tans or the division of the country – given the turmoil and sorrow it led to – stirred deep-rooted feelings amongst ordinary people. I remember Gript’s interviews with people on the street in January 2020, and observing that the memory of what happened in North King Street and the burning of Balbriggan and Cork was still alive in people’s memories.
The reaction was visceral – and in my view entirely understandable. I do think the ceremony in Armagh was most likely intended to be a reflective event, but coming after Fine Gael’s faux pas with the RIC/Black and Tans it fed into the same feeling that the government’s view on remembering those who fought for our freedom was at odds with the very natural desire of the Irish people to commemorate and remember our own heroes.
Fine Gael, from the beginning of the centenary of commemorations has made a hames of the issue. Their ham-fisted approach to 1916, which sought to ignore the real events and people who sacrificed, caused widespread anger and was scrapped in favour of local-led celebrations.
Their actions since have only cemented the perception of a party that comes across as being anti-national, wholly devoid of patriotism, and hostile to the memory of the leaders of 1916 and those who fought in the War of Independence. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin have positioned themselves as being the keepers of the flame of freedom.
Now, it’s also true that the memories of many political commentators seem to be short, and they seem to have forgotten that Sinn Féin had disastrous elections both north and south of the border in 2019. It’s also true that the party’s canny understanding of public concerns regarding the retirement age and housing crisis has more to do with their steady rise in the polls than any anger at commemorative issues. Much of Sinn Féin’s success is due to the sheer ineffectiveness of the government parties.
But that doesn’t stop Mary-Lou McDonald from waving the green flag when it suits her. “Partition was catastrophic for Ireland. Our country and our people suffer its consequences to this day,” she tweeted last week.
Now, one of the consequences of partition was the hostile renaming of divided cities – like Derry, for example – which most republicans still see as a contentious issue today.
Yet Mary Lou had no issue in describing the city as “Londonderry” in 2018, after a “bridge-building” exercise. It was a harbinger of things to come.
The truth is, no matter how many of their TDs might be caught shouting ‘up the Ra’, Sinn Féin have abandoned their core principle of a sovereign independent Ireland – and they have done so in the pursuit of woke politics.
It’s a long time since the party has fallen into line with EU federalism, but until recently Sinn Féin at least pretended that a line in the sand they wouldn’t cross was self-rule: the belief that Britain had no right to direct control over any part of Ireland.
Yet, when a grinning Michelle O’Neill and Mary Lou McDonald scribbled a “The North is Next” message at the disgsutingly raccous celebrations for abortion in Dublin Castle, they surely knew that a Rubicon was about to be crossed.
Within months, they were supporting moves to have the British Parliament at Westminster impose abortion on the north, in a move that affirmed the right of British MEPs to dominion over the region. They effectively tore up the call for self-determination that was a rallying point for every Irish political and revolutionary leader from Daniel O’Connell to Patrick Pearse.
At the time Peadar Tóibín, who founded a new political party, Aontú, after being forced out of Sinn Féin on the abortion issue, said that, for Sinn Féin, “the objective of Irish unity and independence has fallen down the priority list. Identity politics, abortion, transgender rights, and other issues have been elevated up the policy priority list.”
So Sinn Féin went cap in hand asking Westminster for direct rule. Given that radical shift in priorities, Sinn Féin’s opposition to partition seems as fake as any other political promise.
Of course, Mary- Lou will still wrap herself in the green flag rather than the rainbow banner when that’s more politically expedient. And there’s less of the Londonderry talk out of the Sinn Féin President lately. There’s more votes to be had these days by Sinn Féin looking like they’re the opposition to the establishment on everything from partition to pensions and housing.
But they’re not. And while they might be fooling voters now, time will tell that you can’t fool all the people all of the time. That day will come.