THEATRE HISTORY

Divided, still, we Stand

I was born in 1992 in the Connacht region of the Republic of Ireland; the far west, or, on the map, “the teddy bear’s paws”. The final years of the conflict that is known now to British and Irish history as “The Troubles” were fought when I was a boy; with no knowledge of our uncertain relationship with the Northernmost tip of the island. Aside from the occasional jovial rehearsing of Irish rebel songs and the occasional screening of “Michael Collins”, or “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” at family gatherings, I knew nothing of Ireland’s turbulent history with the United Kingdom. Not even at the age of eight, when I was whisked away from my merry homeland to live abroad; in Budapest, Hungary.

Not even a 3-year tenure in England truly enlightened me to the history of my country. Things like the “Good Friday Agreement”, the “Provisional Irish Republican Army” and “Sinn Fein” barely piqued my curiosity. As far as I was concerned, the war of 1919-1921 was over, Ireland was an independant state, and that, as they say, was that.

Don’t get me wrong. I was a patriot. At the age of 15, serving as a cadet in the Royal Air Force, I was well aware of the status of Northern Ireland, that one, pre-dominantly Protestant chunk of Ulster that is still under the Crown’s rule. Nothing got me off more than running amuck with my fellow so-called “IRAF” cadets in training exercises, shouting Republican slogans and declaring ourselves the “IRA” if ever we were selected to act as the ‘terrorists’ in a mock-attack. Oh yes, I made damn sure that my mostly British friends knew that I was 100% behind the IRB, who took part, and ultimately were defeated in, the 1916 Easter Rising. I let them know that I supported Michael Collins and his IRA who led the revolution of 1919, and won 27 of Ireland’s 32 counties from the British.

That legacy, that 1916 Legacy, was something that I, as an Irishman, considered an integral part of my cultural identity. America had George Washington. France had Napolean Bonaparte. Hungary, to an extent, had Dobó István. Ireland had Michael Collins; and Ireland had the IRA.

I finally returned home in the summer of ’08, a decade since the end of the PIRA’s campaign of terror against Northern Ireland and Britain. Whereas I’d been living a life in Britain where Irishness, Republicanism and those elusive three words “Irish”, “Republican” and “Army” were a fact of my life being an Irish boy in England, it shocked me to discover that my peers in Ireland had long since moved on. They’d long since forgotten the Troubles. Well, maybe not forgotten, but they just didn’t care anymore. The age of rebel songs, nationalism, and even the IRA had died out in the world of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. I felt like a foriegner in my own country. Not only did I not speak the language, but I belonged to a forgotten era. I still secretly craved the overthrow of the North of Ireland to bring in the dawn of a United Irish Republic, I still secretly spat at the Union Jack everytime I passed it in the steets of Belfast. Secretly, I still had a place in my heart for the Irish Republican Army.

Then, in March of ’09, came the gunshots heard around the world…the world, being these two islands, maybe, but our world, nonetheless. Two breakaway factions of the now-defunct Provisional IRA, the Continuity IRA and the so-called “Real” IRA, tore open old wounds and murdered three men; two British Army soldiers and one PSNI officer. The papers went ballistic. This newly-organised “Óglaigh na hÉireann” (the Irish for “Ireland’s Army”, a less-than-subtle dig at Ireland’s official Army’s roots in the original IRA, and the anti-Treaty Fianna Fail) was reliving the days of the Troubles, and only just when we’d felt about ready to come to the table and try and sort out the deep psychological and emotional wounds the decades of violence had caused.

While the politicians of the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and Great Britain rallied as one to condemn the killings (we’ll forget about Gerry Adams for the time being), it was put up or shut up time for me.

Wasn’t this what I’d wanted, since returning? Finally, a return to the good ol’ days of the Troubles, a war on the cards between Britain and an Irish Republican Army, whether they call themselves Real, the Continuity, or just Provisional…wasn’t this what I wanted? Another war in Belfast? My friends looked now to me for a responce; forget Brian Cowen, Gordon Brown or even Gerry Adams, in Dublin, among friends, they wanted my comments on the killings. They knew my opinions on this matter, and they wanted to know how I would react.

And the fact of the matter was, I just didn’t know how I felt. I’d been alerted to the state of Republican affairs in the North just one week prior to the killings, when a chilling account in the Irish Times revealed that the UK was pulling personnel out of Afghanistan to monitor the situation in Northern Ireland. At the time, this sickened me, and I put out a call all over my MSN screen name for the IRA to stand up to this continued military garrisoning of the North by Britain. There’s a saying; it goes be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

Little did I know that one week from my pro-Republican rant, I would get my wish. And then some.

The reality of a war, I’m talking about a real-life war, in my own backyard, caused me to look into it. I love the history of warfare, I love learning about wars in far-off places like Afghanistan or Palestine, or wars so long ago nobody can remember them (can anyone tell me who fought in the Pyrrhic War, for instance?)…but a war, happening now, up the road from Dublin County? Of course, I dove headlong into personal research, to try and make some sense of the conflicting emotions wracking my heart.

…And it was then I realised something.

There is something very, very wrong about the idea of a Continuity Irish Republican Army…that is, an Irish Republican Army continuing on from where the Provisional Irish Republican Army left off. And I’ll try to explain why.

The Easter Rising, and the proclomation of the Provisional Irish Republic from which the IRA draws its lineage, was initiated to bring about a Democratic Socialist Republic of Ireland. Long before Che Guevara, we had Padraig Pearse, James Connelly, Eamon de Valera, and of course Michael Collins as our own revolutionary icons. And one of the fundamental objectives of their revolution was that we would have a Democratic Republic.

Remember that one scene, from The Wind that Shakes the Barley? Teddy O’Donovan’s brigade of the IRA is lifted and brought to an English prison, where a World War One veteran interrogates Damien O’Donovan. To the soldier’s questioning, Damien just replies, “I am a member of the Irish Republican Army…I am a patriot, and a democrat.” A democrat. During the 1919-1921 war, the IRA considered itself democratic.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 came, also, with a weapon that brought Irish unity closer to reality than any amount of explosives or ammunition or bloodshed ever could: while the Provisional IRA was declaring an end to its thiry year campaign of violence, a referendum was held in the North to decide on the proposed Belfast Agreement–a proposal that, if accepted, would abolish the Irish Republic’s territorial claim on Northern Ireland. In effect, it would end technical British occupation of Ireland which had in theory been underway since 1921.

An astonishing majority, 71.1%, voted yes. The war between Britain and Ireland, after 800 years, had ended.

And the final act was not an act of violence; it was an act of diplomacy and, most importantly, of democracy. The very idea on which the Irish Republic was founded.

That there is still, as I write, an “Irish Republican Army”, passing itself off as a “Continuity” or the “Real”, not only goes against the Republic of today but the Republic founded in 1916 by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. In spits in the faces of Pearse, Connolly, de Valera and Collins who fought tooth and nail to forge the 27-county State we now know as the Republic of Ireland. No, Ireland is not United, by any stretch of the imagination, and no, true Republicans, representing Dáil Éireann, will never stop working to maybe one day see us unified, but the people have already spoken.

And the people have voted for a two-state Ireland; a Republic; the independant 27-county Celtic Tiger, and the North; under a coalition of Unionists and Republicans, loyal still to the British Crown but still forever a part of Ireland. Whether we like to admit this or not, our flag is Green, White, and Orange. We can never forget that part of this island’s identity will, rightly or wrongly, forever have roots Protestant, and yes, Unionist, in origin.

If you stand against the people, you stand against democracy. And so in actuality, you, the RIRA and the CIRA, stand against the TRUE Irish Republican Army.

It’s true that Ireland is not yet United, but regardless…

…Divided, still, we Stand.

Tiocfaidh ár Lá (“Our Day Will Come”)

And it’ll be at the expense of these terrorist hypocrites posing as Irish Republicans.

[FROM: http://onceuponatimehappilyeverafter.blogspot.com/]

About the Author

1918 – “The War to End All Wars” Ends.

1939 – Someone doesn’t get the message. World War 2 Begins.

1945 – Hiroshima + Nagasaki are nuked. WW2 Ends.

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis; Nuclear war is narrowly averted.
1989 – The Berlin Wall Comes down.

1991 – The USSR dissolves, and the Cold War ends. We’re assured that we can now all live happily ever after…

1992 – …And so once upon a time happily ever after, I’m born.

http://onceuponatimehappilyeverafter.blogspot.com/

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