Presidential collusion in FF electoral strategy?

Unwittingly or otherwise President McAleese's speech last week on 1916 seems to fit in with the Fianna Fáil strategy of reclaiming the legacy of the event for themselves.  As far as the party is concerned raw electoral calculation is uppermost as it seeks to minimise potential seat losses to Sinn Féin.  The president's speech has generally been seen as one-sided and certainly ignores a far more complex situation that existed in Ireland at around the time of the First World War.  A couple of articles here and here make similar points.

Another article yesterday's Irish Independent links the speech to the IMC report released last week and the mixed reaction to it.  There was scornful dismissal of it by Sinn Féin and Bertie Ahern's line is that there is nothing in the report to prevent the go ahead for all party talks.  Indeed both the British and Irish governments are reported to be putting pressure on the DUP.  This contrast to the "consensus of caution" that acknowledges the strategic change by the Provisional IRA from overt terrorism to a new criminal version of terror through money-laundering, extortion, criminal threat, and the maintenance of arms for criminal activities - a view shared by Fine Gael, Labour and, a little more covertly, by the Progressive Democrats.

On the one side there is Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, struggling over who will be the dominant force in the pan-nationalist political family.  They can be seen as both rivals and future coalition partners, though not for a few years yet if criminality doesn't recede into the background.  On the other side there is a consensus of caution that is based on a profoundly sceptical view of the likelihood of this ever happening and so an ideological fissure may open up between those who want to elevate 1916 as a decisive moment of rupture with the past, leading directly to the foundation of the state and those who emphasise a more long term, complex evolution towards independence that emphasises the parliamentary tradition and the contributions of other currents and movements.

Comments

[Pastor of Muppets]

Fianna Fáil are playing an extremely dangerous game with the legacy of the 1916 Rising. They can only claim it as their own in the absence of republican violence in the North, and it's probably no coincidence that it was happened months after the Provos decommissioned their weapons and their desire to used armed struggle as political leverage. But republican violence is still fresh on the minds of many people in Northern Ireland; and many, mostly Unionists at has to be said, see little difference in the means, methods and aims of 1916 and 1969-1997.

This is probably unfair, as it ignores the differing contexts of the times. But in celebrating the Rising as the defining moment of Irish state-building, it bardardises history. Violence is being presented as the only way the Irish could have gained their independence; poor John Redmond's attempts have been soiled once again.

[Gerry]

Indeed. On that last point about Redmond there are a few apposite remarks from Paul Bew in the Suday Times article linked above.

[Pastor of Muppets]

I think Paul has always been spot on with his assessment of nationalism and republicanism during the First World War. But he taught me everything I know, so I better say that!