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The Birth of the Very Secret Republican Party
Gearoid Fitt drew on his Woodbine then passed it over to Sandy Attwood. The two young men ducked at the crack of rifle fire and the British bombardment of the GPO from the Liffey. This is what they had been secretly awaiting for years – the chance to strike a blow for freedom and to declare the Republic.
They had ignored MacNeill’s countermanding order and met up in Downpatrick with their packed lunches, as prearranged, with Volunteers Eoghan McGrady and Durkey. From there the four had made their way to the capital. They were members of a secret army and their orders had been to maintain secrecy and remain undercover which is why nobody in the GPO saw them.
But as each barricade fell in turn and the flames licked the Corinthian columns of the besieged rebel headquarters the four young dreamers were forced to retreat. Resting upon the Hill of Tara and eating their ham and cheese sandwiches with mustard, they made a solemn pledge: they would pass on the knowledge of their secret republicanism to their children and their children’s children.
And so it came to be that fifty years later the revolutionary Social Democratic and Labour Party was founded in the occupied North to re-establish the Republic as declared at Easter 1916. It lulled the British into a false sense of security by adopting an anti-republican stance and reversing the abstentionist policy adopted after the Rising. Its MPs went into Westminster, swore an oath of allegiance to the Queen and were studiously ignored – except when they condemned the IRA.
The comrades had their allies in the South, among who was MacNeill’s own grandson, Michael McDowell, a proud, fierce republican in the 1916 tradition, who promised to uphold the Proclamation, including cherishing all the children of the nation equally – except some Nigerians.
Yes, aren’t some folks funny?
Only four years ago the SDLP had declared that we were living in a post-nationalist world and that the desire for Irish unity was no longer a realistic goal. That was when the People’s Champion, Brid Rogers, led by that brilliant strategist General Alex Attwood, fought the battle of Stalingrad in West Tyrone against Sinn Fein’s Pat Doherty – and lost. Came third, if you must know.
Four years later the SDLP have declared themselves not just nationalists but republicans! Just a month after the publication by Sinn Fein of a green paper on Irish unity the SDLP published its own proposals with party leader Mark Durkan even quoting the 1916 Proclamation! Furthermore, up in Stalingrad the party is strongly considering stepping aside in favour of independent candidate Kieran Deeney in May’s expected general election. You see, if the SDLP doesn’t stand, it can’t be said to lose and that in itself has to be a fantastic victory over Sinn Fein!
Daily Ireland interviewed Mark Durkan last Saturday about what motivated him and about the challenges ahead. He spoke about being moved by the hunger strike of 1981: “All of us felt the emotions that the hunger strike brought out, and I was not above it.”
However, he decided to join the SDLP because, he said, it used ‘reason’ rather than ‘rage’. Clearly, Mark mustn’t have heard what happened to Tommy Murray. For signing Bobby Sands’ election papers – a fairly reasonable act in the circumstances - Fermanagh SDLP Councillor Tommy Murray was expelled by an enraged party leadership. And after the death of Bobby Sands a senior figure in the SDLP, Austin Currie, threatened to stand against the anti-H-Blocks candidate in the by-election held in August 1981.
The blanket protest began in 1976. It was one of a long litany of situations that the SDLP misread, presumably on the basis that the prisoners would be defeated. The SDLP, particularly by its stance in Westminster, encouraged the intransigence of the British government.
In 1979 SDLP leader Gerry Fitt, shortly after Thatcher came to power, spoke in the House of Commons and offered her his support against the prisoners. He later urged her not to give into the hunger strikers’ five demands. Of course, he went on to become Lord Fitt of Bell’s Hill and his colleague Austin Currie later moved South to join Fine Gael.
In last Saturday’s interview Mark Durkan denied that the SDLP broke the nationalist consensus by joining the Policing Board. To be fair, the SDLP was not alone and had the backing of the Irish establishment, including the Catholic hierarchy. Again, all that it achieved was to slow down the pace of change and encourage securocrats in their thinking that the old Special Branch apparatus could be sustained under a new guise.
The SDLP’s impotence was again evident last week when it was unable to prevent the Policing Board voting to adopt a new type of plastic bullet, one allegedly less lethal than those that left 17 dead and hundreds severely injured in the past.
It has been increasingly out of touch with the mood of the nationalist community and is poised to see its vote drop even more in the next election. If Mark Durkan cannot defend John Hume’s seat in Foyle against Mitchell McLaughlin then the party itself could be in terminal decline.
One day it is post-nationalist, the next day it is Irish nationalist. One day it is inclusive, the next day two of its leading lights advocate exclusion. Eddie McGrady, backed up by deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell, called upon the party to examine the possibility of entering a coalition with the DUP without Sinn Fein, though Mark Durkan claimed they were misconstrued.
Currently, David Trimble is putting proposals to the DUP. He wants the main unionist parties to help the SDLP in an attempt to prevent Sinn Féin gains in four Westminster constituencies. What a proud position for the SDLP to be in after all these years – to be viewed as so safe, as the soft underbelly of the nationalist community, to be portrayed as so pathetic that even the DUP might patronise it with a vote.
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© 2007 Irish Author and Journalist - Danny Morrison