Historian Robert White has contributed to the excellent Writing the ‘Troubles’ blog which is a hugely valuable asset I’ve only just discovered. His contribution shows a remarkable level of self discipline in winnowing out the facts on who’s idea it was to have hunger striker Bobby Sands stand as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.
The answer he comes up with is very different to the publicly accepted version, ie that it was member of Gerry Adams’ kitchen cabinet Jim Gibney who first thought of it:
…while conducting interviews for a biography of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, I interviewed Cathleen Knowles (later, Cathleen Knowles McGuirk), who was the joint-General Secretary of Sinn Féin in 1981. According to Knowles, it was Daithí O’Connell who suggested putting Sands forward. The competing accounts were noted in the biography.[i]
Around the time the biography was published, my approach to “Writing the Troubles” was broadened to include visual sociology, because “the world that is seen, photographed, drawn or otherwise represented visually is different than the world that is represented through words and numbers”.[ii] I began complementing oral history with photographs and video of individuals and events. One product of this new approach was an open-access documentary titled, Unfinished Business: The Politics of “Dissident” Irish Republicans.[iii] Another product, in order to get her account on record, was a video-recorded interview with Cathleen Knowles. A partial transcription of this interview appears in my oral history of the Provisionals.[iv] Because the written word does not do justice to Knowles’ emphatic account that putting Sands forward was not Jim Gibney’s idea, the video remained interesting but unused.
In 2018, Líta Ní Chathmhaoil was interviewed for another documentary, Cumann na mBan: The Women’s Army(2019).[v] Ní Chathmhaoil, a member of Cumann na mBan, had also been a member of the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle (National Executive Committee). After confirming that she attended the 1981 meeting during which the Sands candidacy was discussed, and without commenting on the Knowles interview, I recorded a Zoom-interview with her in the Spring of 2020. The Knowles and Ní Chathmhaoil interviews are now publicly available in the short, open-access documentary, Bobby Sands: Whose Idea Was It?
Now, as Robert notes, Sinn Féin are not the only political actors to put a post hoc gloss on past decisions, although I think he does put out a none too subtle appeal to fellow historians not to take evidence for uncontested decisions at face value.
But what the revelations in the video interview with two women, recorded on separate occasions and unbeknownst to each other, who tell a remarkably detailed and consistent story which completely contradicts the official line is revealing.
From a political point of view it reveals that Adams talent lies less as the strategic genius he is sometimes projected as and more of an opportunist tactician. [And someone whose memory of things past is not the most reliable? – Ed]
The short, open source documentary is well worth watching…
“Belfast – “Reason for being an athiest #6420”” by Effervescing Elephant is licensed under CC BY-SA
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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