There
was something pathetically sad about the circumstances
of Denis Donaldson's burial in West Belfast this
morning. While not as poorly thought of as the UDA's
Jim Gray, who managed only thirteen in his funeral
cortege, less than a hundred mourners for a man
who was well known throughout Ireland and further
afield was a measure of the fall from 'hero to zero'
that Donaldson accomplished. Six months ago, a funeral
for the former Sinn Fein administrator would have
attracted thousands. Today's minimalist event echoed
the numbers that attended IPLO funerals during that
organisation's feud with the INLA in 1987. Public
distaste for the activities of the deceased simply
results in an abstentionist posture toward their
funerals.
Last
night, a number of Donaldson's colleagues from his
Sinn Fein days arrived at the family home in Aitnamona.
Senior IRA figures and elected politicians as well
as some of Donaldson's fellow apparatchiks are said
to have been amongst them. It was hardly to pay
respects to the dead man. They more than most despised
him and, it is claimed, out of media earshot are
expressing personal satisfaction at his passing.
While many genuinely felt sympathy for the family,
a factor in their visible presence must have been
a local PR exercise aimed at firming up the view
that the IRA did not murder Donaldson. Not that
there would be any great community disquiet towards
those responsible for the killing, but it helps
feed into a discourse of deniability from which
Sinn Fein stands to gain in the wider political
arena. By not attending the funeral itself in full
view of the camera, Sinn Fein can mute the derisory
scorn that would inevitably be directed the party's
way from its own supporters for having accompanied
a British spy on his final journey. While Gerry
Adams may have been tempted to carry the coffin
of Denis Donaldson as an act of publicly distancing
himself from the Donegal killers, there was no need
to. The two governments have been quick to step
in as figurative pallbearers on his behalf.
For
the unprepared the funeral came so quick it had
the feel of being a secret burial rather than a
private one. In this morning's dozen or so Irish
News death insertions for the dead man the customary
funeral arrangements were not mentioned. Even the
requiem mass was held in the family home before
Donaldson's remains were whisked across rain and
windswept Belfast streets to his final destination
in a nearby cemetery. In contrast to his wide reaching
public profile, the man as a private citizen was
effectively banished to the narrowest of spheres.
His loved ones, who yesterday described his warm
family side, seemed reluctant to prolong their excruciating
anguish and opted to bring the curtain down on the
prolonged tragedy that has befallen them. Like Orson
Welles, they must be thinking 'it isn't real, but
it's true."
Prior
to last Tuesday's incident in Donegal the family
of Denis Donaldson must still have been in the process
of grieving for the man they thought they knew,
the false god whose temple collapsed leaving them
to scour the rubble and pick up the pieces. Last
December they saw him die a social death once he
appeared in front of the cameras for the second
last time and admitted his role as an agent of the
British crown. After the republican persona of Denis
Donaldson died, the emotional stability of his family
must have been in freefall. Instead of a grave to
visit they had a cottage which housed a shell of
the man they once knew. In such circumstances emotions
oscillate between the poles of blame and grief and
allow little peace of mind.
His
children used to having grown up under the protective
wing of a father whose status as a republican must
have impacted on how they were viewed both by themselves
and others, were suddenly staring into a strange
new world. They were most likely still grieving
the social death of their father when Tuesday's
news of his physical demise reached them. Since
then they have criticised British security services
for causing Donaldson's predicament and the media
for disclosing his whereabouts.
Understandable
as the need to make sense of their dilemma is, there
is a certain gravity here that will always pull
deliberations back to its own centre. Special Branch
or MI5 made hay while the sun was shining. Donaldson
was not an unwilling partner. The Sunday World
by pursuing an interview with him merely delivered
'the most sought-after scoop in years' and which
won the 'admiration and envy' of its media rivals.
The Sunday World no more revealed Donaldson's
location than Christopher Columbus 'revealed' America.
When
the dust settles, the prevailing judgement on Denis
Donaldson is likely to be that he was the author
of his own downfall, and whose chief trait was one
of incorrigible unfaithfulness. He was unfaithful
to his family, his comrades and ultimately to his
handlers when he failed to tell them about the Stormont
spy ring and later spun the Sinn Fein line that
the only espionage in the building was British orchestrated.
Like Albert Camus's Outsider, Denis Donaldson
was tone deaf to the beat of the nearest drum,
preferring instead to march to the staccato of a
foreign one, which in the end became his funeral
dirge.
