At the weekend Sinn Fein announced a renewal of its efforts to expand its base into the Republic. But it’s a much hard uphill struggle that it seems prepared to admit. As Ahern dropped a massive 7% his party’s rate in the last Irish Times poll, Fine Gael and Labour seem to be the beneficiaries. It seems to have lost the ear of the electorate in the south, with few obvious means to get it back into listening mode. More over the Guardian:
Which reminds me…. Platform for Change’s driving force Robin Wilson has produced a corrective to the notion that the lessons of the NI conflict are easily exportable. Like myself, Robin is associated with the Constitution Unit. He introduced his new book in a CU blog which I here reproduce. The water crisis in Northern Ireland [...] read our review »
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
The nod and wink politics of Ireland’s last two or three decades as practised par excellence by Bertie, Albert and Charlie is ultimately what has the Republic in the stew it’s in. Don’t get me wrong, the effective monitoring of those exercising of power does not demand full disclosure of everything all the time. But [...] read our review »
i agree with you Lech.
the party often said that their goal was to republicanise people and communities. rather they have did the opposite.
they have de-republicanised themselves and now mean nothing to most people.
instead of having confidence in what they stood for, they abandoned those principles and policies that sustained them for 40 years.
where can they go?
Chris Gaskin speaks of streamlining the party.
what does this mean??, in a business context it would mean losing or firing ineffective, or surplus, labour.
but i suspose in sf terms it means ridding themselves of older IRA men.
the problem is, that those guys that are coming in to replace them in the party, are inacapable of seeing the structural weaknesses in the party.
that lack of internal reflection mixed with the almost hero worship of the old leadership by the young guys has meant they have left their critical faculties at the door.
i would have severe doubt in the party’s ability to gain many more seats in the south. perhaps one or two, but it is more likely that they will remain as they are now.
if they couldnt bounce on the back of the deal here, i cannot not forsee much more favourable circumstance for them.
are they going to depend on the economy in the south to go ass over tit, to get a radical protest vote??
and i would not be surprised if their vote in the north starts to dip in coming elections.
whilst we see high profile resignations in the media, i would be very interested to see the strength of the cumann on the ground.
after all, their election workers are unpaid volunteers. why would anybody willingly volunteer for the shitload of work that SF can dish out.
not now that the constitutional question has been parked.
when we see a sf hosted gala night for the irish langauge in stormont, with 200 people on the list, how many unpaid workers were up at that little shindig??
with our stormont mla on handsome wages and expenses accounts i would be less interested in going to an “Irish Night” in whereever or buying loads of raffle tickets.
Dubliner wrote: ‘There is no such thing as a collective conscience.’
Reminds me of Thatcher’s ‘There is no such thing as society’. Presumably you’re a fan.
TO The Dubliner
Your electd.
To Sinn Fein i would be classed a nationalist. Im afraid that the problem you have with me and many others is the mental picture of the chisel sticking out of that poor mans eye socket and young Quinn begging for mercy you can deny all you want but i dont belive you and i dont believe the ruc were not involved in colusion with loyalists either.So in con clusion may you all rot in hell.
”the party often said that their goal was to republicanise people and communities.”
Posted by Harry.
I agree and thought this may be of interest to readers.
« Back
Debutante-turned-IRA-member in documentary
By Staff Reporter
A FORMER debutante who rebelled against her upper-class up-bringing and joined the IRA is to feature in a new Channel 4 documentary tonight.
Rose Dugdale, pictured, was part of an IRA unit which hijacked a helicopter and attempted to drop bombs in milk churns on Strabane police station in 1974 – the first helicopter bombing in Ireland or Britain.
Born into a rich English family in Devon, she was one of the last debutantes to be presented to the Queen in 1958 but she became politically radicalised in the 1960s
and joined the IRA in the early 1970s.
In 1974 she and three other IRA members took part in a burglary at Russborough House in Co Wicklow.
The house’s owner, Sir Alfred Beit, was tied up along with his wife before the gang stole 19 paintings including works by Vermeer, Rubens and Goya valued at IR£18 million.
She was sentenced to nine years in prison in June 1974 for the art theft and the helicopter attack.
Dugdale is one of the interviewees in tonight’s programme, Last Party at the Palace, which looks at how the lives of the last debutantes have changed since 1958.
Harry
“Chris Gaskin speaks of streamlining the party”
I didn’t say that actually, I sugguest you read my posts before you comment on them in future.
I said
“It’s about creating a streamlined and professional party structure”
Structure, not party!
“inacapable of seeing the structural weaknesses in the party.”
Now if you had bothered to read my post there would have been no need for that comment.
It’s about utilising the Republican base smarter, not harder. It’s about using the resources that we have open to us and it’s about becoming professional in terms of policy and policy development.
There are a great many things that have to be looked at, that is being done at the moment.
To: Sinn Fein
From: Ard Chormaile
Date: Thu Dec 13 06:02:28 2007
Subject: Socialist Republic
Professional scalable shared memory multiprocessor sets out an action item for an alliance, notwithstanding that the based disintermediation strategy sets out an action item for the functionality freeze. This leaves the feature-rich empowerment uniquely poised to provide a committee. Thanks to the recent reorganization, the parameters red flag. Why do you think the catalysts for change telecommute ? Because the alliances grow (according to the latest memo) workgroups.
Given current realities, the objectives step up to the challenge of a next generation system. Can we indeed say that a cutting edge geography restores ? For us to grow, we absolutely have to develop the based schedules. Due to the next generation and the best systems in the world, what has changed is the pace of change.
I knew there was a machine churning this nonsense out
“It’s about using the resources that we have open to us and it’s about becoming professional in terms of policy and policy development.”
A fine fashion statement from one branch of the (republican) paramilitary mafia, Chris – what might be called better organised crime.
Nevin
What are you on about???
The Provisional Republican Movement, Chris? Are you uncomfortable about discussing its various facets/’resources’(re. #5) in south Armagh and elsewhere, including, apparently, the British Virgin Islands?
I don’t know of any such beast called the “Provisional Republican Movement”. All my points thus far have been in relation to Sinn Féin.
Chris, are you trying to be as coy as Paisley jnr?
GA [Gerry Adams]: Well, that’s part of the black propaganda from the British. There hasn’t been any dissent at all within our [Provisional] Republican movement, whether that is Sinn Fein or the IRA.
ie SF is just one of the facets/’resources’ of the inter-linked PRM.
Nevin
I know the “Republican Movement” which Gerry mentioned however this “Provisional Republican Movement” is a mystery to me.
It’s not like there is more than one Republican Movement after all.
The next part of your post is nonsense!
Chris is just being silly saying the Provisional Republican Movement is a mystery to him. I suggest he look at the early statements of his party after it was founded in 1970, and from the connected military organisation, the Provisional Army Council.
Chris, Adams linked the parts together and I think we can agree, on this occasion, he wasn’t telling porkies.
Are you accusing the DFM of lying when he referred to other republican organisations as micro groups?
And, if you put your mind to it, you can confess that the managing agent of the PRM is the seven member Army Council, a body Mitchel McLaughlin agreed was the ‘legitimate government of Ireland‘.
Chris – surely the concepts of democratic centralism and permanent leadership have had their day?
Chris
Sorry it has taken a while to get back to you but in the real world real people get on with real things!
The Republican Fantasy world that you live in is full of God Fearing catholics with Gerry as the God, Barbie de Brun as the virgin Mary and everything is rosey in between smuggling, exthorsion.
No gettting on to Criminals – This time last year a prominent member of the P/RA & Sinn Fein member in Maghera got 6 years for Deisel smuggling – JUST ANOTHER PROVO CRIMINAL
The party have disowed the guy even though he was doing it to raise funds to keep them all in fancy cars and suits.
You talk about “streamlining” – go on tell me what that means?
Can I make suggestions:-
(1). Getting uneducated muppets to spread the
drivel and believe it.
(2). Further copperfasten partition.
(3). More Robbing stealing & extorting.
The Sinn Fein leadership are criminals lets make no mistake.
Now can you give me your version of Streamlining.
Perhaps the only mystery Chris is why anyone ever voted for SF in the first place.
Having entered the NI political fray, their initially derisory vote was reportedly bolstered by a charming mix of personation and intimidation.
In the 80s they became particularly adept at exploiting the suffering of others (eg hunger strikers) to get some real people into the polling booths. The problem was that all SF were generating was a big protest vote — none of those elected took their seats at Westminster and they weren’t allowed into the dail, so what was the point?
Furthermore, the ongoing and entirely pointless provo murder campaign was putting potential SF voters off. Sights such as our Gerry on TV declaring that the Teebane massacre was ‘another horrific reminder of the failure of British policy in Ireland’ (somewhat akin to a teenager shooting his sister and blaming bad parenting skills) put a lot of right-thinking people off both their dinner and their vote.
So the provos, being riddled with informers anyway, jacked it in and the NI SF vote romped ahead, an apparent sign that the murder campaign hadn’t actually been that popular after all.
So after a procession of hubristic election triumphs, the lads and lasses marched into Stormont and encamped with the DUP, having decommissioned the provos weaponry and signed up to both consent and the PSNI.
The next step was to take the south. Should have been a doddle. With a decent foothold of five seats and the glittering peace process under the belt, how could they fail?
Well fail they did, not so much a disappointment as a fecking great disaster, and that despite Gerry’s bake all over the southern lamp posts and Mary-Lou all dolled up for govt.
So why did just 6.9% vote for SF? Wake-up call — SF have an image problem — they are often perceived (and not just by Unionists) as a bunch of thugs, control freaks, chancers, criminals, economic dunderheads and serial liars. Their version of Republicanism is completely out of step with 21st century Ireland, their lefty politics are as useful to the ROI economy as an ashtray on a motorbike and the continual reminders of past form such as Colombia, McCartney, Quinn and Donaldson don’t exactly help either.
The Unionist voters gave their verdict to the UDP/PUP et al many years ago. The southern voters gave their verdict to SF earlier this year. That leaves SFs natural constituency as the ‘six counties.’ Gifted with a moribund SDLP opposition and a constituency who would elect a ‘donkey in a tricolour’, they may just be able to tread water as long as they can maintain partition.
Seems like SF and the DUP can agree on a hell of a lot these days.
Mark – “For many Republicans” would you care to put a percentage figure on that, on an all-island basis? As for the Connolly quote, you really think that resonates with a significant proprtion of today’s Irish people, north or south? It’s all very well knowing where you came from, knowing when it’s time to move on is more important (if you want to be electable).
“But I’m just a starry-eyed dreamer, what would I know…” you said it.. your words not mine..
They’ve a lot of growin up to do GLC but with all their lies and own goals no-one will care by the time they reach maturity….
‘Their version of Republicanism is completely out of step with 21st century Ireland, their lefty politics are as useful to the ROI economy as an ashtray on a motorbike…The southern voters gave their verdict to SF earlier this year.
Be careful of this smug veneration of the ‘economic prowess’ of the southern Irish economy. I rather thought people had got over this fatuous notion ‘eveything’s great now’ and ‘we’re all so rich’ in the Republic, though clearly there’s some silliness remaining. When a real recession arrives one of the few positives will be the ‘Celtic Tiger’ rhetoric will be well and truly shelved, and the lazy dismissal of left wing politics will not be so casual.
“As for the Connolly quote, you really think that resonates with a significant proprtion of today’s Irish people, north or south?”
The reality is that Connolly only ever resonated for his patriotism, his nationalism and his sacrifice, not his socialism. The Land Acts had created a country of small farmers who were never going to give it up for Communist utopia.
Some mad, mad stuff on this thread. Being a “conscience” never helped anyone. It never helped Labour stop Thatcher. It never help the Democrats stop Reagan. It won’t help the Irish Left stop the government and business screwing people. Power and influence are required. The reason why anyone argues for a sovereign Republic. Might as well be a conscience in the UK, for all the good it’ll do.
First, Communism and some traditional “Socialism” is dead because it has been proven not to work. Conclusively. And the problems are not due to Totalitarian implementation, but are economic in nature. Social Democracy and Social Markets still have a shot. Second, Ireland is a fundamentally conservative country. There is no escaping that conclusion. It is highly doubtful any Great Leap Forward for the Left will happen except in the event of catastrophe. And third, ABM and small government have been good to a lot of people, while pissing on a lot of others. The Irish Left need a vision that sets out an Ireland closer to Sweden than Texas. It then needs to build policies that don’t scare the horse but move us closer to that goal and build trust. And it should push most heavily the ones it can do if it gets into coalition. Then it should fight tooth and nail to get them implemented because anything else is worthless. Repeat, with bigger or smaller steps depending on the political wind until we get there.
I despair at the wasted effort, wasted time and wasted enthusiasm of people discussing Empire, Socialism, Conscience and overthrowing Global Capitalism. From Ireland, FDI Capital of Europe. People who clearly care that there are people being left behind and being dumped on. If that effort and passion were put to productive use, it might tip the balance and get some good things done! As it is, it’s a complete waste of time.
Yes, Connolly espoused it in 1916. But it wasn’t really on the agenda on 1798, or in the 19th, or in 1969. And nearly every generation of Republicans has hoped for better men than them to come after and build a Republic they couldn’t. I’m not saying we are those men, simply we should aspire to be them. And means having the courage and the wisdom to be able to cast things off.
‘When a real recession arrives one of the few positives will be the ‘Celtic Tiger’ rhetoric will be well and truly shelved, and the lazy dismissal of left wing politics will not be so casual.’
Joey one of the most remarkable and heartening developments of the last decade or so has been the economic, national and spiritual enlightment of the southern electorate.
Realisation has dawned that they don’t have to live under the jackboot of the church, the misery of economic mis-management and the shadow of armed republicanism.
Your notion that a recession will send the populace flocking to the tried and failed politics of the far left, archaic republicanism and presumably the church, merely shows a contempt for the intelligence of the constituency.
Now that SF have been divested of their armed wing, their faults as a 21st century political party are all too obvious. Prancing around with Castro and the FARC may have seemed chic and clever in the heady days of supposed armed revolution, but in the real world, no sane voter seriously thinks that SF can be trusted anywhere near the economy. Gerry’s performance during electoral debate was somewhat akin to watching a small boy in a grown-up world and if their decidedly lacklustre performance in the backwater of Stormont is anything to go by, they’re rapidly becoming an irrelevance.
Sure Connolly et al pushed hard for a socialist Ireland, but we have the benefit of hindsight as regards extreme global left-wing politics, and there is zero mileage for SF electorally on this issue.
Surely better to accept that after 40 years of armed and electoral struggle, they have failed miserably. Partition remains and has effectively been parked for the forseeable future, Stormont is SFs only seat of govt and the ROI electorate has moved on without them. Better to bow out now before they morph into the SDLP?
The Unionist voters gave their verdict to the UDP/PUP et al many years ago. The southern voters gave their verdict to SF earlier this year. That leaves SFs natural constituency as the ‘six counties.’ Gifted with a moribund SDLP opposition and a constituency who would elect a ‘donkey in a tricolour’, they may just be able to tread water as long as they can maintain partition.
Seems like SF and the DUP can agree on a hell of a lot these days.
Posted by Gerry Lvs Castro on Dec 13, 2007 @ 11:40 PM
BRILLIANT!
That is true – Sinn Fein’s Sean Crowe (who I think is a decent bloke) lost his seat in my constituency of Tallaght in Dublin because Sinn Fein were “the Northern Ireland Party†in 2007 rather than the “super-charged Fianna Fail clientelist machine†they were in 2002.
Sinn Fein set the bar way too high for themselves in 2002 & 2004 when they had a well funded slick clientelist machine that was capable of servicing the most deprived big estates in Dublin. In 2007 they were just a normal party that had little to say outside the Northern issue and sapped of the energy that their now lost full time volunteer infrastructure.
One of the most effective pieces of spin used against Crowe in Tallaght was “we elected Sean Crowe to serve Tallaght and he ended up spending more time in Columbiaâ€. It doesn’t matter whether it was true or not – that was the perception. According to their tallies lot of their council estate vote went back to Labour’s Pat Rabbitte (who was in a centrist pact with Fine Gael), while over half their lower middle class vote went back to Fianna Fail.
As with the Irish Labour Party they will discover that if they try to go down the New Labour route on policy (or even just in making their pitch) they will discover that unlike Britain their opponents are not Thatcher’s Tories but the world’s first “New Labour†– Fianna Fail. All that makes them distinctive is the fact they are organised North of the border. While they won’t lose their organisational superiority in the North any time soon they will lose their distinctiveness and be left in Fianna Fail’s shadow in the all Ireland polity they long strove for.
Good post JD.
A year or so ago, a post such as my 11.40pm above would have been attacked vociferously by several Sluggerite SF cheerleaders. Nowadays there’s barely a murmur.
That can only mean one of two things: the SF spinners are more productively engaged elsewhere or the shine and support base of the party has well and truly gone.
I don’t think it’s possible to over-estimate the impact of the ROI election on the SF machine. Suddenly the highway to 2016 has become a cul-de-sac and nobody knows what to do.
Arsing around in Stormont with the 11-plus and the Irish language act isn’t half as glamorous as the ballot box and the armalite, but it’s the only show in town these days.
Thanks Gerry Lvs Castro
The Fianna Fail move into the north is not an attempt to organisationally overtake Sinn Fein there (Sinn Fein would like to set that as the standard so Fianna Fail would fall short) – it is only a ploy to undermine Sinn fein’s distinctiveness.
Fianna Fail is very effective at using smaller parties to deflect their short comings and that is how they will use a moribound SDLP. Unable to stand up to Fianna Fail the SDLP will gratefully accept the strategic partner role for all Ireland Fianna Fail. This allows Fianna Fail the face saving formula of letting the SDLP another series of defeats until Fianna Fail calculates that FF/SDLP has a solid enough base to retain one seat on the Northern Executive thereby putting Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein in coalition with one another.
Once SF & FF are in coalition with one another in the Northern Exective Sinn Fein will be as distinct from Fianna Fail as Democratic Left was from Labour when they were in government together in the 1990s.
Like you said “they may just be able to tread water as long as they can maintain partition”
The Provisional Alliance back in full flow then JD. I suspect you’re right.
Gaskin as smacht
I don’t attend meetings with dissidents and hypocrites.
And Conor Murphy wasn’t even there!!
What are you on about? A large number of those present were Republicans and Sinn Féin members in particular.
hmmmm
Why wouldn’t you, your posts on Balrog reveal you to be nothing more than an anti-Sinn Féin nut job!
Ha Ha Ha
The fact that the IRA weren’t involved might have something to do with it.
They’re behind you …
You can speak on whatever you want, you’re still talking out of your arse!
..
You have all the class of a 3 dollar hooker!
Was he on tour with the Chuckle Bros?
Lay off the parsley smoking!
Dromintee dope?
1) The last election showed quite clearly that relative success in a 6 county election for SF does not translate into a comparable success in a 26 county one. Nevertheless there is a sizeable claque which thinks that relative lack of success in a 26 county election is going to translate into comparable lack of success in a 6 county one. Purely wishful thinking, I’m afraid, and quite illogical.
2) All Irish political parties of any size and influence were formed by insurgents. Even smaller parties which were not so formed have accepted ex-insurgents in their ranks. SF may have visible connections with fairly recent insurgents, but it is quite clearly moving on the same path towards smug respectability, with appropriate amnesia towards the revolutionary past, that IRA/FG, IRA/FF and UVF/UUP have already taken. I can’t think of any reason to wish to stop them.
The next stage in this process is, IMHO, the merger. Quite clearly, SF is a fairly one issue party, and this issue is not of overwhelming importance to the 26 county electorate. If it wishes to expand its profile there, then it needs to stand for more than just unification. A merger, rather than a coalition, would facilitate this expansion, as well as assist the process of rehabilitation. As things stand, the most likely candidate seems to me to be Labour, though the emotional stress this would cause is probably still too great, for those who remember the Stickie/Provie feud of the 1970s. Successful political parties arise out of mergers: unsuccessful ones out of splits.
3) The electoral clock continues ticking. The dark eleventh hour draws on and sees you sold. By my calculations, which I made several years ago and can see no reason to revise, January 2008 is the moment of parity, when the Unionist section of the electorate comes to equal the Nationalist section. After that it will be falling below the Nationalist vote. The Union may be safe for a couple more years, relying on casting votes from Centrists and poor organisational skills among Nationalist politicians. Unionists may continue to live in their fool’s paradise until the next election, but the days of the safe Unionist majority are over. Likely events to watch out for in the near future are: Belfast City Council falls to Nationalist control. Martin and Ian swop places after the next assembly election. Loss of Unionist majority in Westminster. UUP need endless counts to gain 3rd European Parliament seat by a whisker (2009); UUP lose 3rd EP seat to SDLP (2014).
Nice if the garden was gonna be that rosy so soon P but the nationalist birth rate has fallen of.
In fairness to you more unionists are headin to UK not to return and their population is older which gives your point some validity- but I’d put the champers on hold for a while yet.
Nationalist birth rate? Babies are not born nationalist you know. I work on the electoral returns, not on baptismal registers. I saw no sign of a fall-off in the 2007 Assembly elections, in fact the fall in the Unionist vote was greater than I predicted, though probably only as a result of Green party voters who used to be Unionist and may, in a referendum, turn out to be still so.
Even if nobody born this century ever votes, the results will be as I predicted.
Nor are babies born unionist either- its the census results refering to their familial religion and the amount of Prods and Taigs who are unionist and nationalist which I go on.
I’d love to think you were right but Paddy Power reckons United Ireland is a 10/1 shot within 20 years and he’s the paddy I regard with more authority in this regard- though those odds could shorten if the I.L.A. ever materialises alongside other goodies for nationalists…
Paddy Power is in the business of making money. His odds on a United Ireland are very conservative, given that he doesn’t wish to pay out unnecessarily.
Paddy Reilly however, is not offering odds on a United Ireland. Note than none of the predictions I made concerned this eventuality. I’m more interested in the size of the Unionist majority, if there is a Unionist majority, in the 2009 European Parliament elections, for example. First things first.
I’m trying to calculate when Unionists become a minority. The interesting fact is that Unionists with a big U (i.e. those who vote for parties which include the word Unionist in their title) are already a minority and have been since 2004. There are also a number of small u Unionists, who vote for Alliance and the Green party as their first preference and give their second preference to the big Us. The big Us and the small Us have hitherto managed to keep their vote over 50% but for how much longer? That is the question.
My assertion is that as of January 2008 the Unionist and Nationalist camps are neck and neck. That obviously will not produce a United Ireland, which will not be possible until the Nationalist camp is substantially greater than the Unionist, but should lead to a greater détente in local politics.