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Having
studied the "Eire Nua" policy adopted in
the early 1970's by the Provisionals under Daithi
O Conaill and Ruari O Bradaigh, with the same policy
belittled as "a sop to the unionists" by
later Provisional northerners who would rise to dominance
on this issue to weaken those Dublin-based leaders
over the next decade, I'd like to ask Ciaran
Irvine how he sees his proposals as distinctive
from this previously publicised federalist model.
"Eire
Nua" (still propounded by Sinn Fein Phoblachtach
today), in its lengthy booklet form first published
circa 1972-3, devotes considerable attention to details
about how Ireland could recognise Unionist representation
within a greater island nation. The point that Ciaran
Irvine makes about cantons being able to negotiate
their own treaties seems particularly intriguing here;
I'm unsure if the "Eire Nua" planners considered
this in their platform. The cantonal approach was
first suggested by Alfred O'Rahilly back around 1923
when the Dail was sorting out possible ways to reunite
the nation.
What
causes me to seek clarification upon the differences.
as well as more apparent similarities, between the
past "Eire Nua" and presently mooted model
is this: the failure of "Eire Nua" and related
policies drawn up by O Conaill, O Bradaigh, and others
like Desmond Fennell in the early 1970's has conventionally
been blamed on its "otherworldly" assumptions
of the workability of such a model. and the corporatist-Christian
socialist thinking that coloured that policy's tone.
Not red enough for the Marxists, certainly green enough
for the left, but too nationalistic for the peaceniks:
who would support such a meticulously planned collection
of electoral districts, fishing and farming issues,
worker-owned businesses, and committed republican
ideals (and idealism)? While the outreach towards
the north in all its diversity appealed to the intellectual,
the practical nay-sayers (John Robb excepted?) rubbished
the efforts of (a few non-Sticky) republicans to present
their vision to enemies and skeptics of how truces
and withdrawals could lead to a truly socialist, land-based,
employee-run, democratically-controlled, locally-centred
nation. "Small iis Beautiful" indeed: E.F.
Schumacher meets Pearse and Connolly and WIlliam Thompson,
perhaps, Ireland's first socialist thinker (see the
chapter in Fennell's "Heresy" collection
of essays, or Fintan Lane's book).
Fennell's
book "Beyond Nationalism" covers this era
in more depth, and ephemeral newsletters at that time
document the efforts of a few activists to assemble
a Dail Uladh and tie together the policies in "Eire
Nua" with public fora and grassroots organising
throughout Ireland in the mid-1970's. After this time,
I have not uncovered in my own research any lasting
legacy of the "Eire Nua" promoters, although
I assume that links would have been made with the
co-operative and land reform campaigns in the West
and Conamara Gaetltacht that Fennell spearheaded during
his residence there.
Not
to mention the unrelenting hostility--or jeering rejection--of
the mainstream media towards the feasiblity of such
a model. Of course, many in the Provisional movement
at the time saw the more pressing need at the moment
to hoist up armalites rather than ballot boxes. So,
I wonder how Ciaran Irvine predicts a better likelihood
of such a model being accepted three decades on? When
federalist models were suggested, and worked out in
no small fashion, thirty years ago, the military domination
of the republican strategy drowned out the calls for
political alternatives in a post-British island-wide
government. Now, as republicans generally admit that
the ballot box has supplanted the armalite, do we
enjoy a better climate in which to promote the federalist,
decentralised approach? I know some among us still
would recoil from working with the Greens on this
issue, but analysis of their treatment of the decentralised,
post-national future would be invaluable for republicans
eager to place our vision within a wider European
and global context.
Richard
Kearney published much over the 1990's about "post-nationalist
Ireland," and while he nearly ignores Fennell's
earlier work, both philosophers at least trace some
common ground ovelapping the "Eire Nua"
sketch of a Celtic-based community within an archipelago
of the North Atlantic--this reminds me of the Council
of the Isles idea that surfaced during GFA palaver.
Within a devolving European structure that simultaneously
unites and unties its smaller nations--Kearney, "Eire
Nua," and Fennell all have variously suggested--lies
the best hope for a future Irish plurality. Mulling
over about the viability of such ideas over three
decades since "Eire Nua," I look forward
to the musings of Ciaran Irvine, readers of the Blanket,
and other thoughtful republicans and unionists alike
as we again try to draft a map of an Ireland where
we all can share power and peace.
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