Spies, Subversion and Sinn Féin

Anthony McIntyre is often called a 'dissident republican'.  A former IRA prisoner, he has been at odds with the Adams leadership for some years.  He publishes in the online journal The Blanket and has a PhD.  I have been reading his stuff on and off a few months and find it interesting and often convincing.  The trouble is I don't know enough to know if he's right.  In today's Irish Times he writes, under the headline "More spies may be lurking in Sinn Féin's cupboard", that "agents have for long been central to British state attempts to shape the IRA and in particular nudge it towards a peace process".  He cites the example of Bobby Lean who turned supergrass in 1983 and his evidence convicted several key republicans whose absence in prison smoothed the path of Adam's takeover. 

Maybe it did.  But perhaps McIntyre gives too much credit to the British state's far-sighted anticipation or engineering of the peace process he despises so much.  Short-term opportunism and day-to-day-muddle probably is probably nearer the mark.  McIntyre's thinking is dominated by his hatred for what he sees as Adams's naked ambition as well as the gullibility of the rank-and-file.  There's an awful lot of fact that can be made to fit this premise.  McIntyre is no simple minded 'Continuity' or 'Real' IRA type.  But I'm not all that clear what his alternative perspective actually is.  What strategy should the Republican Movement have adopted instead? 

In any case the spies fiasco won't go away, he contends.  He ends his piece with the following remark:

A particular irony in all of this for the voter in the Republic is that after decades of being free from British involvement in their part of the island, the dilemma they face is that by voting Sinn Féin they increase the likelihood of returning MI5 to the Dáil. Now that truly is an appalling vista.

Note: Via Slugger O'Toole, an article in the November addition of Prospect by Eric Kauffman on "The New Unionism", which is well worth a look. 

Comments

[Robert McEllhinney]

There's an Orange Order march through Dublin on 25th February. They are marching in an attempt to bring awareness of their "culture" to the people of the unoccupied counties. They will be wearing lillies dyed orange (which seems like an insult to Republicans in that the lilly is the commemorative symbol for The Easter rising, this is akin to us dying the poppy green, how would that go down on VE Day?)

I will there to welcome my Orange brothers on 25th Feb, however, this should be made a day to celebrate all cultures and I invite all i nationalities to attend with me on that day in their national costume and to play the music of their particular culture as loud as necessary.

I'll be wearing a green bowler, green sash and playing Sinead O'Connor's "Throw Down Your Arms"