A couple of weeks ago, Mick Fealty wrote a fine essay on the the wider impacts of the murder of Robert McCartney on the Republican movement and Sinn Fein’s move to wholly democratic politics. McCartney’s murder was one of quite a number committed by former paramilitaries since peace broke out in Northern Ireland 10 years ago. Each of them marked the jagged edge between embracing the newly founded democratic structures in Northern Ireland and the old way of doing things, particularly for republicans (who have embraced the new political process more fully than their loyalist counterparts).
This week marks three anniversaries, all of which, in their own way, have a significance to Ireland today and perhaps offer some hope for the future in the North. Saturday is the 317th anniversary of the Battle of Aughrim¹ – the bloodiest battle in Irish history, and the one that guaranteed Protestant hegemony in Ireland for centuries. Friday (July 11th) marks the 87th anniversary of the truce between the IRA and the British government, and effectively the end of the War of Independence. And tomorrow marks 81 years since Kevin O’Higgins, then Minister for External Affairs, was killed by former anti-Treaty members of the IRA, on his way to Mass in Dublin. Again, his was one of a number of killings that took place even years after the Civil War had ended and political structures in the newly formed Free State had been established. O’Higgins, in his previous job as Justice Minister, had set up an unarmed police force that endures to this day – An GardaSiochana .
Ireland has endured too since that truce 87 years ago – the country has been a stable democracy longer than France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and many other of its European neighbours. And though it might not always seem so, that stability has been in part, thanks to our politicians. [It’s especially hard to believe when a former Taoiseach strolls into a bribery enquiry and tells the judges that oodles of unaccounted for cash that he suddenly remembered having was the result of a good day at the races].
One of the good ones, Séamus Brennan [and a Galway man] passed away this morning.
¹ the calendar has been readjusted since, so now it is remembered on July 22nd
Nicely said John