A Way Out of Ireland’s Dilemma?

It IS not easy for an Irish American to take the long step backward, away from the Telstar-transmitted combat zone in the six occupied counties of Northern Ireland, in order to make a fair evaluation of the current military campaign of the Provisional IRA. For most Irish Americans, the words “Irish Republican Army” summon up memories of almost mythic heroes, deeds, scenes—the Republican tricolor being, raised through the fire and smoke over the General Post Office in Dublin in 1916; the IRA gunmen saying the rosary before going into combat against the Black and Tans; the torchlight processions and rallies with which the Sinn Feiners were greeted after being released from the British prisons in 1917; thousands of Dubliners lining the docks, singing Peadar Kearney’s rebel hymn (now Ireland’s national anthem) “The Soldier’s Song” in the firelight as Eamon de Valera and the Irish Volunteers set foot on Irish soil for the first time since the uprising … It is not easy—but let me make a stab at it.

Because, objectively, the Provisional IRA is getting a raw deal, especially from many Americans of Irish descent who have become so much a part of the American conservative movement. It is ironic that Irish Americans should criticize the IRA Provos so harshly as a result of reading accounts in the Washington Post and the New York Times—the same newspapers American conservatives distrust on so many other matters. Conservatives seem not to have heard that the Provos (Green IRA) have broken with the Marxist Officials (Red IRA), and that the Provos refer disparagingly to the Officials as the “National Liberation Front.” Likewise, everybody seems to know that the Provos’ “atrocities” include the bombing of that bus carrying English soldiers and two children—and everybody seems to have missed the followup story a few days later (buried, it is true, in the back pages of the newspapers) in which an Irish Trotskyite group—definitely not associated with the Provos— admitted that it was responsible.

JF

About the Author

James Fitzpatrick

Featured Tags

It IS not easy for an Irish American to take the long step backward, away from the Telstar-transmitted combat zone in the six occupied counties of Northern Ireland, in order to make a fair evaluation of the current military campaign of the Provisional IRA. For most Irish Americans, the words “Irish Republican Army” summon up memories of almost mythic heroes, deeds, scenes—the Republican tricolor being, raised through the fire and smoke over the General Post Office in Dublin in 1916; the IRA gunmen saying the rosary before going into combat against the Black and Tans; the torchlight processions and rallies with which the Sinn Feiners were greeted after being released from the British prisons in 1917; thousands of Dubliners lining the docks, singing Peadar Kearney’s rebel hymn (now Ireland’s national anthem) “The Soldier’s Song” in the firelight as Eamon de Valera and the Irish Volunteers set foot on Irish soil for the first time since the uprising … It is not easy—but let me make a stab at it.

Because, objectively, the Provisional IRA is getting a raw deal, especially from many Americans of Irish descent who have become so much a part of the American conservative movement. It is ironic that Irish Americans should criticize the IRA Provos so harshly as a result of reading accounts in the Washington Post and the New York Times—the same newspapers American conservatives distrust on so many other matters. Conservatives seem not to have heard that the Provos (Green IRA) have broken with the Marxist Officials (Red IRA), and that the Provos refer disparagingly to the Officials as the “National Liberation Front.” Likewise, everybody seems to know that the Provos’ “atrocities” include the bombing of that bus carrying English soldiers and two children—and everybody seems to have missed the followup story a few days later (buried, it is true, in the back pages of the newspapers) in which an Irish Trotskyite group—definitely not associated with the Provos— admitted that it was responsible.