Thirteen years ago this month, Gerry Adams rose to address Sinn Fein's national executive following a series of public exchanges between himself and John Hume, leader of Northern Ireland's constitutional nationalists. I was a member of the Sinn Fein national executive at the time and I remember clearly what Adams said: "We may have nothing to say to John Hume but northern nationalists will not forgive us if we refuse to talk."
As we move closer to a referendum on the future of Northern Ireland-possibly in May-one important question remains unanswered: after 13 years of negotiations between Hume and Adams, what is the position of Northern Irish constitutional nationalism? Have the years of contact between the two leaders undermined the capacity of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) to deliver a fair and sustainable deal for Northern Ireland's nationalists? Or has Hume's courage and skill succeeded in drawing the militant republicans into the democratic fold? One thing is clear: if John Hume is afraid to reach a sensible compromise with David Trimble and his Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) for fear of Sinn Fein, we are in deep trouble.
i watched adams carefully at executive meetings in 1985, in the period just before the signing of the Anglo-Irish agreement. Adams learnt two lessons at that time: John Hume was a much bigger player than the combined Sinn Fein leadership; and a British government, even one led by Margaret Thatcher, would ignore the wishes of unionists if it suited it.
The IRA/Sinn Fein was opposed to the Anglo-Irish agreement, which it rightly saw as an attempt to bolster the SDLP and stem the electoral rise of Sinn Fein following the 1981 hunger strikes. Why then, from late 1988, did the army council of the IRA, with Adams and Martin McGuiness as its dominant figures, begin to formulate a "peace strategy"? Why, less than four years after insisting that every Sinn Fein election candidate had to sign a pledge of "unequivocal support for the armed struggle," was the same leadership now proposing something different? The answer is partly to be found in those two lessons learnt by Adams; but above all it lies in the IRA's weakness. Despite a generous supply of weapons from Libya, the IRA was unable to escalate its campaign to the point where the British government wanted to withdraw and unionist will to resist was undermined.
This weakness manifested itself in several ways. On terrorism, the IRA's campaign had been largely contained by the security forces: with the exception of South Armagh there was no part of Northern Ireland where the RUC did not patrol. The IRA could and did kill people, but every indicator of republican violence-with the exception of so-called punishment beatings and shootings-showed an organisation in decline.
American support was on the wane, too. The core leadership of Noraid, the republican fundraising group, was men in their 70s and 80s. They had no access to nor even an understanding of how to use political influence in Washington. Respectable Irish America, Hume's power base, was embarrassed by the IRA and wanted no contact. The IRA's supply of money and guns from the US was dwindling.
Meanwhile, in the Irish Republic, attempts to make political progress had ended in farce. The goal of the Adams/McGuinness axis from 1979-80 had been to make Sinn Fein a real political force there. In 1986 Sinn Fein abandoned its abstentionist policy of refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the Irish parliament; it announced that its candidates would in future, if elected, take their seats. But its candidates usually succeeded only in losing their deposits: the southern electorate wanted nothing to do with an organisation whose only policy was "Brits out."
In Northern Ireland itself the SDLP had halted and then reversed the electoral rise of Sinn Fein which had reached its peak a couple of years after the 1981 hunger strikes. Thanks to the Anglo-Irish agreement-and the failure of the unionist opposition to persuade Margaret Thatcher to change her mind-the SDLP became the dominant voice of northern nationalism and John Hume its patron saint.
This was the bleak situation which the republican leadership faced in the late 1980s. At a senior IRA meeting in 1989, Kevin McKenna, then IRA chief of staff, said: "If they get an assembly in place in Northern Ireland with SDLP involvement, we're finished." The IRA's peace strategy was a rational response. The deal offered to constitutional nationalism was the possible end of IRA violence in return for a nationalist consensus which agreed that there could be no internal British settlement.
One short-term effect of this "offer" appears to have been to undermine the Peter Brooke/Patrick Mayhew-led talks, between 1989 and 1992, which were coming close to an agreement between the constitutional parties. It is hard to say whether that agreement would have stuck, but John Hume was evidently distracted by the prospect of militant republicanism (without guns) united with constitutional nationalism in opposition to the union and unionism. Gerry Fitt, Hume's predecessor as SDLP leader, said: "John Hume can talk to anyone in Dublin, Washington and London. The only people he can't talk to are unionists." The failure of the Brooke/Mayhew talks certainly left the unionist leaders who believed they had a deal-especially the liberal unionists-feeling doubly distrustful.
As Adams and Hume began to meet regularly and representatives of the Irish government held meetings with the republican leadership, the British government, too, re-opened a "line of communication." Slowly, perception of Adams and McGuinness within the nationalist family was changing. Adams was becoming respectable. If Hume thought it was worth trying, nationalist Ireland in the main held its breath and trusted him.
When Albert Reynolds became Taoiseach in 1992 the process was stepped up. Reynolds was a dealer-the kind of businessman who split the difference and shook hands. And like many southern nationalists, he was painfully na?ve in his dealings with the IRA. Contrary to the assumptions of some southern nationalists, the IRA bears no meaningful relationship to the historic organisation founded in 1919 to fight the British, which then rejected partition in 1921. It is essentially a Northern Irish organisation hardened by 25 years of armed struggle and sustained by sectarianism.
But the hard men who came through the politicisation of the hunger strikes had learned to be pragmatic. They were not, with some exceptions, addicted to violence. Tom Hartley, one-time general secretary of Sinn Fein, summed up the new thinking: "There is one principle riding above all other principles and that is the principle of winning." That is what Adams and his comrades appeared to be doing as they probed the soft underbelly of Irish nationalism and found little or no resistance.
wolfe tone is regarded as the father of militant Irish republicanism: the annual oration delivered in his name at Bodenstown is an important ritual for republicans. The speaker is chosen by the IRA's army council and the speech is written and approved in committee. In 1992, Jim Gibney, a senior member of Sinn Fein close to Adams, delivered the oration. In a widely reported speech he said: "We know and accept that the British government's departure must be preceded by a sustained period of peace, and will arise out of negotiations." This passage was seen as highly significant-which it was. But it was careful to promise peace only once the British agreed to withdraw from Northern Ireland-something no British government could contemplate in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, on 24th April 1993, Adams and Hume issued a new statement: "We accept that an internal settlement is not a solution. We accept that the Irish people as a whole have a right to self-determination. This is a view shared by a majority of the people on this island, though not by all its people." Both men were looking at the problem and its solution in identical terms-what separated them was violence.
It was to be more than a year before the IRA delivered that first ceasefire. By that time, aspects of the Hume/Adams statement were incorporated into the Downing Street declaration-the 1993 statement in which the British government renounced all "selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland"-but still there was no ceasefire. Then, after the IRA had maximised public attention, raised nationalist expectations, entertained Irish-American delegations in west Belfast and talked up the personal risks that republican leaders were taking for peace, it called a ceasefire in August 1994.
Nationalist west Belfast was euphoric. People believed that a secret deal had been done with the British. Adams, Hume and Reynolds posed for a public handshake in Dublin. The nationalist consensus was alive and well and there would be no internal settlement. Two nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, the Irish government and a powerful section of Irish America had come together to argue the nationalist position. It looked as if Hume and his constitutional nationalism had achieved a historic feat. They had tamed the republican tiger.
Then the IRA ceasefire became bogged down over the failure of the IRA to use the word "permanent" and the refusal, by any terrorist group, to countenance decommissioning of its arsenal. Something unexpected began to happen: Adams, McGuinness and other republican spokesmen began to look aggrieved; and people-particularly young people in Ireland-forgot about the history of terrorism and began to blame the "Brits" and the unionists for their refusal to engage. By now Reynolds and Fianna Fail were no longer in government. John Bruton, leader of Fine Gael (traditionally regarded as anti-republican), had replaced them. He found himself under fire from all members of the nationalist family for failing to stand up to the Brits. When he responded that he thought he had a duty to consider unionists too, he was held up to derision.
When the first IRA ceasefire was blown apart at Canary Wharf in 1996-and even after it was proved that the IRA had moved ten tonnes of explosives to London within days of calling its ceasefire-it was the Brits, the unionists, John Bruton or the "hawks" within the IRA who were blamed. And then, with no IRA ceasefire in place, two by-elections took place, in Donegal and in Dublin. From very small bases, Sinn Fein's vote doubled in Donegal and trebled in Dublin.
These results challenged the accepted wisdom. Until then it had been understood (even by Sinn Fein) that the Sinn Fein vote could not increase in the Republic while the IRA campaign of violence continued. But the "peace process" had begun to stretch the definition of what was and was not acceptable. Although the evidence for this was still thin, it made me nervous. Something was happening which had not happened since the beginning of the IRA campaign in 1970. In these circumstances it seemed likely that Sinn Fein's vote would rise fairly dramatically in Northern Ireland too. That is exactly what happened.
Sinn Fein is now the third largest party in Northern Ireland behind the SDLP and the UUP. At the last Westminster election the party's vote rose in every constituency it contested. The same thing happened in the Irish general election and, for the first time since the 1920s, a bona fide Sinn Fein candidate was elected to and took his seat in Dail Eireann.
sinn fein's position today is far superior to its position in 1989, thanks to its brilliant political finessing of the "peace process."
On the terrorist front, the situation has scarcely changed. But this is relatively unimportant. Everyone knows that a significant IRA terrorist capability remains intact. The IRA reminds us about that now and again-when it needs to. Orange parades, sectarian murders by loyalists and the continuing instability of Northern Ireland make it easy for IRA/Sinn Fein to exploit the "politics of tension" and present itself as defender of an embattled minority.
Sinn Fein 's political influence in the US, its fund-raising capacity and the stature of its leadership are in a different league today-witness the success of the Gerry Adams visa campaign in 1994. Young, educated, sophisticated Irish America adores Adams.
The same is true in the Irish Republic. A respected Irish commentator recently said that Sinn Fein's influence in the south of Ireland is at its highest since the 1920s. The election of Mary McAleese as president shows that it is possible for a northern nationalist, whose emotions and instincts are closer to Sinn Fein than to the SDLP, to achieve popular support in the south.
The "greening of the south" is belatedly beginning to cause anxiety in political circles in Dublin. When Adams comes to visit drug-savaged, inner-city Dublin, he comes not as a politician but as a rebel hero, a man of integrity back from the war-in contrast to the seedy democratic politicians of whom people have grown tired. Futhermore, with a few honourable exceptions the Irish media have been supine in their approach to Sinn Fein. When section 31 of the Broadcasting Act was relaxed to allow Sinn Fein spokesmen to appear on Irish television and radio for the first time since 1973, the assurance given was that they would be exposed by tough questioning. This has not happened. Radical chic and the whiff of cordite have seduced a significant section of the southern intelligentsia.
In Northern Ireland itself, Sinn Fein's vote has increased dramatically. It now commands 17 per cent of the electorate-43 per cent of the nationalist electorate-and is likely to replace the SDLP as the largest nationalist party at the next general election. John Hume still commands tremendous loyalty, but he is almost a separate entity from his party.
During the last general election Hume said that a vote for Sinn Fein was a vote for murder. Forty-three per cent of the nationalist electorate heard what he said and voted for Sinn Fein regardless. Sinn Fein now occupies the same political space as the SDLP, but it is a party steeped in IRA discipline-young, vibrant and confident, with tough, centralised control and a burning desire to take on the ageing SDLP. Sinn Fein has in fact already replaced the SDLP on the ground in much of nationalist Northern Ireland. In many areas, there is no SDLP organisation worth talking about. On every level, from their MPs downwards, the SDLP looks tired and dispirited.
Sinn Fein's work on the ground in forcing confrontation over Orange Order parades has also helped to radicalise nationalist sentiment in its favour. Adams has admitted privately that the Drumcree confrontation "did not happen by accident" and praised the local Sinn Fein activists who made it happen. None of this was possible when the IRA was engaged in its low-level and ineffectual violence of recent years.
As people in Northern Ireland become better-off and the working class shrinks, demographic factors should be working in favour of the more middle class SDLP and against Sinn Fein, whose power base has always been on the council estates. But Sinn Fein has managed to buck the socio-economic trend. You can, it seems, drive a BMW and vote for Gerry Adams.
How permanent is the shift in Sinn Fein's favour? The indications are ominous. Election results are consistent. Moreover, there is a growing sense of confidence among northern nationalists-the sense that history is on their side. One of "their own" is president of the Republic and she converses on first name terms with Brendan McFarlane-convicted of a sectarian bomb-and-gun attack on a protestant bar in which five men died.
But if it is too late to stop Sinn Fein's march towards leadership of the nationalist community, some people argue that perhaps this is no bad thing: if Sinn Fein displaces the SDLP, it will be trapped in the world of constitutional, democratic politics. The trouble is that, as those recent election results suggest, resuming violence is no longer incompatible with electoral success. And the prospect of achieving electoral dominance over the SDLP is tempting Sinn Fein to escalate its demands.
Many nationalists no longer wish to settle for power-sharing, a bill of rights and a couple of symbolic cross-border bodies. They want police and judicial matters to be dealt with by a Council of Ireland which may not deliver full "unification" now, but holds out the prospect later. This, of course, is just what unionists-even the most pragmatic and enlightened "new" unionists-cannot possibly accept. A cross-border body, with some shared sovereignty, is acceptable to the UUP, but its limited powers must be very clearly drawn and it must not be subject to "sovereignty drift."
Adams appears to believe that most northern nationalists now want more from the peace process than is available. The Sinn Fein activists on the ground-many of them graduates-report back that they can take on Hume and the SDLP in a referendum and earn the support of a majority of nationalists for their rejectionist cause. If a majority of Northern Ireland's nationalists do vote against "Sunningdale 2," together with a substantial minority of unionists, the deal will be worthless.
Some people still believe that it is John Hume who has outmanoeuvred Adams. What happens to the IRA, asks this school of thought, when the British, Irish and US governments line up alongside the SDLP, UUP, Alliance (and one or both of the fringe loyalist parties) and say: "Here is the deal-take it and work on it, or go back into the wilderness."
We must hope that this is what will happen-but there are reasons to doubt it. Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, is a pragmatist. But Ahern leads Fianna Fail -"the Republican party"-and at least a fifth of his backbenchers will be unhappy if Adams is unhappy. Given Ireland's electoral arithmetic, that is a substantial group. In any case Hume, who has a limited record of engagement with unionism, is unlikely to allow a wedge to be driven between himself and Adams. He would prefer both governments to come to a pro-nationalist deal-Anglo-Irish agreement 2-and then impose it. No Irish government has ever faced down John Hume on Northern Ireland. He has always done what he liked in "taking the risk for peace."
Since the foundation of the Irish state there has been a clear dividing line between extreme violent nationalism and constitutional nationalism. But without any debate, and denouncing his critics as "anti-peace," John Hume has blurred that line and given life and energy to extreme nationalism. He has brought the political arsonist into the house without taking the box of matches from his pocket.
